Soup Sandwich (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Twelve.)

 You see the face on the TV screen?

Coming at you every Sunday
You see the face on the billboard?
That man is me

On the cover of the magazine
There's no question why I'm smiling
Buy a piece of paradise
And you buy a piece of me

I'll get you everything you wanted
I'll get you everything you need
You don't need to believe in hereafter
Just believe in me

'Cause Jesus, he knows me
And he knows I'm right
I've been talking to Jesus all my life
Oh yes, he knows me
And he knows I'm right
And he's been telling me everything is alright

I believe in the family
With my ever-loving wife beside me
She doesn't know about my girlfriend
Or the man I met last night

Do you believe in God?
'Cause that is what I'm selling
And if you wanna go to heaven
Well, I'll see you right.

~Genesis, Jesus He Knows Me.

...

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From Andor, S1 E12 "Rix Road"

I saw this yesterday.

The longer he's in his position, in the public eye vs. having been an unknown before, the more suspicious, and indeed, the worse the new Republican Speaker, this wannabe Preacher Of The House, looks.

It seriously looks like at 25 or so, this supposedly uber-Christian Republican dude had some kind of an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old boy. How the fuck is this acceptable??

Given the amount of goddamned nonsense floating around on social media today, would it even matter??

Current House Republicans, backed by the MAGA grifter-class, appear to have no governing principles, no values at all other than hate and power, along with an utter refusal to even acknowledge anybody outside of their shitty little in-group.

They are starting to be doctrinally closer to Radical Islam than to the Evangelical or "Traditionalist" Catholic beliefs claimed by a lot of their members.

Nothing seems to matter, not even what is being said, as long as the person saying it either is an old White or at least light-skinned dude wearing a suit, or a reasonably attractive woman...and that they say a bunch of nasty shit about the "right" people.

And all of these fucking people seem to just plain hate America. And they all want to do it with Tucker Carlson's smarmy, sneering affect.

On the one hand it's like these fucking people think they're talking to dogs.

On the other hand, emotion and a hateful-enough sounding tone of voice directed at whoever the "approved" target of the moment is really seems to be all that matters to at least some of their fucking followers.

But there's a catch;

You'll notice Sameera Khan doesn't want to give back all her evil American money, or give up her own freedom, or even stop living in Washington D.C. She just wants others to do all that.

Like seriously, most of the Muslims I've ever met in the United States, be they American-born or immigrants, just want to be Americans and live their lives, and most want to contribute to the society of which they are or have become part. For a hell of a lot of them, their claimed home country is this one! In point of fact many of the immigrants and refugees came here to get away from autocracy, Jihad, and wars.

I wonder if Sameera Khan thinks her bit of vapid beauty queen turned right-wing political agitator would even be tolerated in a country like Afghanistan where the kind of radical Islam she espouses purely as an "Own The Libs" act held power, or even in Russia, which she supports for basically the same reason? Russia seems to have fallen all the way back to the lowest ebb of Soviet times, or worse, and Russia cannot even conquer Ukraine.

How the fuck does anybody think Russia is gonna take on the EU, NATO, and the United States of America...unless these fucking people tear us down first??

Which, by the way, seems to be the point. As with both the invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in Israel...all those creepy little sets of tracks seem to lead back to Vladimir Putin, KGB agent, who had to be a Communist's Communist just to get in the door, much less pass his training and get an actual billet.

You'd think that would bother the same fucking people, many of whom spent my youth fearmongering about *Checks Notes* Communism.

But that's not the world we live in anymore. These fucking people want Putin's neo-Communism, and Radical Islam to eat the world, perhaps thinking it'll justify their fascism or make them feel "Special" somehow, or they'll get an easy grift out of it.

The real motherfuckers in your movement don't give a shit who you are on Twitter, lady, and I think this holds true of nearly all these fucking people loudly shouting this crap online or on the street.

"Conservatives" hate America...because it's too "Liberal" or "Woke" whatever that means. So, they cannot figure out why anyone else doesn't, let alone why people would walk across deserts or sail across oceans or even climb aboard a C-17A Globemaster III jet with 800+ other desperate people to try to get here.

Right-wing reactionaries...and at this point they're all either reactionaries or waiting to be kicked out by the reactionaries...and Left-wing Tankies simply cannot comprehend why anyone would want to fight for a (small-L) liberal (small-D) democratic country like the United States. 

I live here, I'm not really a privileged person, I don't have that option...and I have too much skin in the game to simply fuck shit up because I'm mad about stupid shit.

They on the other hand, sure can't understand why anybody would fight for the right simply to be like us, which is what the Ukrainians are doing...or to preserve their society as it is like the Israelis are doing.

These people, many of them pampered elites themselves, want to trash every aspect of America, weaken its military, wreck its economy, Lord only knows what else...because of some BS that only exists in their heads! Fuck that! I need civilization so that I can be alive...and so do most of you.

These fucking people see no value in civilization, it gets in the way of what they think they want to do. They see no value in freedom, unless they're the only ones who have it.

So they don't really want to help either Israelis or Ukrainians, much less their fellow Americans.

These fucking people, for the most part, imagine themselves getting to live it up somewhere nice while the people carrying on the "struggle" for them are suffering. 

It doesn't matter what the struggle is.

And a lot of these motherfuckers simply don't like other people.

At the end of the day, we're either a society or we're not, though.

And remember, if you don't want to be in a society or give a shit about other people...in this nation of, by, and for the People...there are those who'd gladly usurp that mantle from you, along with any say in anything that might go with it.

Think about that for a second.

Because there's people right here in America who'll shit all over every belief, creed, religious doctrine or anything they ever claimed to hold dear...and blatantly ignore the Constitution and every law of God or man that you could possibly imagine, ruining everything to the point where they show the supposedly ultimate conclusion of their "Faith" to be nothing but a damned lie...and they'll do it all with a disingenuous smile on their faces, in the service of nothing more than being slaves of the Caesars, out of some hope that they'll get to be a better class of slave than some of the other slaves are.

In pretty much the one country that was founded on the hope of being something other than that.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

And if you can't be bothered to stand up against them?

Fuck you, too.

It really is that simple. 

You either believe in freedom...for all of us...or you don't.

And it's either that...or some version of these clowns and their shitty right-wing eschaton.

It's "Have some fucked up version of Christianity forced on you by some boy-raping pervert" or stand up and do something the fuck about it.

There's only two options here, apathetically shrugging ain't one of 'em.

The modern Right only wants to have two kinds of people, Lords and Serfs.

And every last one of them thinks they're going to be the king in his castle. They all think they gonna be Vladimir Putin someday.

An intelligent person here would ask, just where the fuck does that leave the rest of us??

The only way Russia ever becomes some world-dominating empire is to manipulate and drag everybody else down to their level and make everything be a goddamn soup sandwich. The thing that pisses me off, is there's so many people willing to volunteer because their petty grudges are more important to them than being free.

If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen. If you want a better world, you have to be a better person. Is that really so hard??

Eleven

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

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.

Republican Jesus (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Eleven.)

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 together 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.

...

In Natal, apartheid is a deadly cancer in our midst, setting house against house, and eating away at the precious ties that bound us together. This strife among ourselves wastes our energy and destroys our unity. My message to those of you involved in this battle of brother against brother is this: take your guns, your knives, and your pangas, and throw them into the sea! Close down the death factories. End this war now! ~Nelson Mandela, speech at a peace rally, February 25th, 1990

I saw this yesterday.

The fucking "Q-Anon Shaman" talking to Benny Johnson, and Benny Johnson compares him to Nelson Mandela and says he should run for President someday.

I've always found it funny that these fucking people so desperately want to be seen as the "Freedom fighters." They want to claim to be the modern "counterculture" the "good guys" and a "liberation movement" all while still being These Fucking People. 

Bitch, you cannot be both oppressed and oppressor, it just doesn't work that way. You're not a peace movement, you're not struggling for freedom. You fuckers have no understanding of who Nelson Mandela was and what Nelson Mandela did. To do either, you'd have to give a shit about other people. 

I was there, nearly everybody outside of the Republican political class and a few old Cold Warriors (who knew that as strategic partners, South Africa wasn't really that important) and racist rednecks was against Apartheid...even most Republicans at the time were. When Reagan vetoed sanctions against South Africa...Congress overrode his veto with a bit over the two-thirds majority needed.

These motherfuckers want to spout the same racist and religious bullshit that P.W. Botha said, while claiming the mantle of Nelson Mandela...and they think they might get away with it because some of them do hippie type of shit, or embrace fake shamanistic woo woo and have tattoos.

Because all they care about is checking the "right" alleged boxes, the form of something, how it looks...and then, that part of their fake Godhead appeased, they'll wander off and do what they want anyway...because that's all they've ever done, but too many people let them get away with this shit for too long because they go to church or something. 

Fuck all that.

These people don't believe in Christ.

They were the ones shouting "Crucify Him!" in the streets.

They believed in Empire, in Rome, not Jesus. Or at least...they couldn't be bothered to do anything about Rome. And the Powerful among them could not wait to be Slaves To The Caesars, especially if it guaranteed their position.

This is America, and we got thugs in suits and glasses waiting for the Ides of March because they can't wait to shank somebody.

These fucking people appoint the Q-Anon Shaman as their face-man, their front to sound like they're something "different" but then they appoint Mike Schlong here as their actual leader, a dude who quite literally still is a hard line Focus On The Family type antigay motherfucker left over from the 1990's and the early aughts, but who, by the way, has embraced all the racism and other shit that's popped back up since on top of that. Yet he himself both acts and looks like a Larry Craig type gay-stuff scandal in waiting. I used to be a conservative. Nobody who's being honest lays it on this thick with right-wing religious bullshit, Nobody.

I've been around, and lived and worked with gay people pretty much my whole life (even in the military.) I can guarantee you that Mike Johnson thinks about gay sex more than actual gay people do.

And now he's spreading the "Great Replacement Theory" racist horseshit, too??

By the way, there's a lot going around on the internet talking about how his adoption of a 14-year-old black kid when he was 25 may be less than on the up-and-up. Given this shit, I tend to agree. My crack about a potential future scandal is, more likely than not, accurate. And while I'm at it, Republicans will try and use that to slime democracy, too.

Yes, we're bad people, we got elected, therefore democracy itself must be evil, vote for us so we can undo it...is eventually a line they will use, and they will use it joyfully...without any sense of shame regarding how it makes them look.

I remember when these motherfuckers were violently opposed to both Communism and radical Islam...and now they will collude with both if that's what it takes to destroy America and finally stick it to the rest of us...and yes, I literally mean that they're allied with the same people responsible for the wars in both Israel and Ukraine. They don't care. If they can at least break off a piece of our country for their own shitty little banana republic they'll call it a win. These clowns will gladly (in real terms) live in a prison (because that's what a walled-off bunker-state, a Right-Wing North Korea for White Folks, would be) while the rest of us pick up the pieces and move forward, if they think they're somehow sticking it to people they hate by living that way. And they don't care how many die to get them there. 

Not even if it's their own people.

And they won't even care that their own rulers are fucking them over.

And this is what so much of American Christianity has come to, indeed, embraces like a lover??

Indeed, I'd be willing to call it, straight up: The Q-Anon Shaman is now officially Republican Jesus.

But he wants you to die for his sins, not the other way around.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

You've lost the plot, conservatives.

You missed the point.

You've gone well off your own concept of a "Straight and narrow way" and you did it for Donald Trump, racism and Vladimir Putin.

And then you got so wrapped up in relative status and zero-sum bullshit you forgot the world don't have to work like that. But you want it to...

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And if you don't, you deserve what you're going to get.

Because you can stop this, but you won't.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, we'll stand up and do what has to be done, fuck you.

We know it's going to come down to a fight, and some of us are prepared. Are you?

Слава Україна!

You were just babies then!" she said.
"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war— like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I — I don't know," I said.
"Well I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade." She was my friend after that.

~From the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 

Last Post

You were just babies then!" she said.
"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war— like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I — I don't know," I said.
"Well I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade." She was my friend after that.

~From the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 

...

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

Also This

Ghosts, Part III.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; 

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps.
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

~The Battle Hymn Of The Republic, by Julia Ward Howe.

...

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

I saw this earlier.

The infamous statue of Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville, Virginia, was secretly melted down recently.

Good. 

These fucking statues should have never gone up in the first damn place, and they've helped perpetuate Christian Nationalism and racism and a host of other evils that've done more damage to our country than long-dead Confederates ever did, simply because they existed for a hell of a lot longer.

And of course, all any of that shit was, in the end, was still yet another damn excuse for the punk-ass Nazis and the violent idiot-mob to kill somebody who had no damned good reason whatever to end up dead. Which was, of course, exactly the goddamn point as far as the motherfuckers who put the statues up in the first place were concerned. It wasn't a bug, it was a feature. All those shitty old Klan motherfuckers wanted their bullshit racist ideology to keep killing people basically forever.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal";
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

~The Battle Hymn Of The Republic, by Julia Ward Howe.

And they were all in bed with the Calvinist Christian Nationalists, the initial tranche of End Times nuts, and so on and so forth because all this bullshit, all this fuck fuck nonsense, each bit reinforced the next and they all shored up Southern US White Supremacy. 

There's a goddamn reason Afrikaners and American Southerners got along so damned well. There's a goddamn reason Congress had to override Reagan's veto of sanctions against Apartheid South Africa.

And it mostly comes down to "Not one damned bit of any of this shit has anything to do with Jesus Christ, unless these fucking people could be convinced that Jesus was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed White Dude" It's is a straight-up lie...but it's what these assholes want to believe.

And any talk about anything else, the economy, what have you...is nothing more than a whole bunch of bovine exhaust. These motherfuckers don't give a good goddamn about economics or money, except that they think rich people should have more of it. They don't give a shit about America, or Society, unless they get to be Superior (at a minimum) to People of Color.

And they'll weaponize every damn thing they can reach to do it. More to the point, Christianity historically tends to beg to be used for this shit...if only for the proximity to Power.

All "Christian Nationalism" is...is White Supremacy, dressed up as Christianity to fool the feeble-minded into going along with it, and it's all bad-faith, in the same way that more than one literal massacre of Native Americans back in the Wild West was led by a "Christian" preacher.

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" could not be reached for comment.

If you don't think these same fucking people won't find a way to use the Tankie Left's recent embrace of rabid Antisemitism and Red Army Faction style "Radical Chic" to their advantage, or more likely try to get all these little shits to vote Republican...you have another thing coming. The far-right lately calling all type of people "Warmongers" struck me as utterly dishonest from the moment I first started seeing it last year.

It's a lie and they'll shank the Tankies right in the back, too.

These motherfuckers don't want to defend or support Israel, they don't want to help Ukraine defend itself. They really don't care if Radical Islam eats the Middle East and the Soviet Union 2.0 swallows up the whole damn world. (Including them. The day will come when they pretend "Not America" but they'll still be taking Russian money and doing what Russia wants, and when the time comes to undermine our defenses against invasion and to submit themselves to Russification, they'll do it. These people want to be slaves, if only so they can be a "better" class of slaves than somebody else.) 

They also want a Race War with Mexico, because something something Gazpacho, but somehow that's not "Warmongering??"

How do even these fucking people not see the obvious bullshit, here?

Fuck these motherfuckers.

These fucking people long for a world where only the ghosts of the Dead know freedom.

There's a reason the "Alt-Right" effectively ceased to be a thing, at least openly, and it's not actually that it stopped doing anything. The Nazis simply ate the Republican Party and took that shit over.

And now they've got a toehold in the hard-Left, too, because of Antisemitism. Think about that for a second.

If you don't want to live in that world, it's going to come down to a fight.

Слава Україна!

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

~The Battle Hymn Of The Republic, by Julia Ward Howe.

Part One

Part Two

Last Post

The Greater Damnation (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Ten.)

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

So, Republicans elected Christian Nationalist-nobody Mike Johnson to be Speaker Of The House. Okay, I'd just like to point out that while Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy were varying degrees of human garbage...I'd at least heard of them before they got elected Speaker. Somehow, in a constantly-changing world and a less-religious America, I really doubt that picking some kind of hard-core Christian Nationalist who basically wants women to do nothing but breed more Americans to be Republicans' slaves is the great fucking idea these assholes think it is.

(I'll never understand why these motherfuckers always think we need more people in a world of Climate Change and grocery-store self-checkouts where there's an app for pretty much everything. Also, White People--which is always the kind they want more of--don't want to do the manual labor jobs anyway. I live in Northern Michigan and our construction workforce around here is 80% Latino--and half of that doesn't speak English--with African-Americans as its second-largest group.)

Oh, and while we're at it, this motherfucker has already basically promised the Moon, on a platter and freshly made out of a nice stinky green cheese, to the Republican base.

In pretty much the same way Kevin McCarthy promised all that and more to the Freedom Caucus, with his ass as literal collateral on a deal he had to know he couldn't keep.

Yeah, that'll work out.

The Republican Base, you know, the people who literally, willfully refuse to understand that there's a lot more than just hard-right Republicans in Congress and you have to work with other people to get shit done.

Anybody want to bet on whether or not he makes it for a whole Liz Truss?? Or is the Scaramucci a better measuring system??

And all the Republicans voted for this Bible-thumping piece of shit. Let that sink in. You want to understand why Left Behind is a Lie?? Look at these fucking people who talk about all that shit!!!

But it's less likely to be Matt Gaetz shitcanning his ass this time, it's more likely to be the mob when he fails to work whatever Unga Bunga magic mojo he told them he could do...because he can't.

We really need to start teaching people civics and government classes again, and find a way to break the spell that conspiracy theorists have over these fucking people. 

This shit is ridiculous.

The conspiracy theories, the extremism, the hate and the raging addictions to religiosity (with things like Q-Anon and Trump actively supplanting Christianity or anything else) and unreality...are going to wreck our shit if we don't do something about it. All this crazy shit is going to barf up a new religious movement one of these days. One that'll be based on these fucking people's hate.

People are already starting to "sort" themselves out based on this garbage, and Texas is already putting up barbed wire on the New Mexico border. Do you really need me to tell you where this bullshit is going?? These fucking people are fairly open about wanting a civil war. And they've gone from thinking they had the military on their side to thinking they're Billy Badass and can outfight the United States Armed Forces despite the vast majority of these people not even being able to pass a doctor's office physical.

It's all utter nonsense if you ask me.

It's a civil war they'll lose, but it's the "Slaughtering innocent people in the process" part that they want. And, don't think these same fucking people won't then turn around and claim they've been "Colonized" by liberalism, society, whatever the talking point of the day is, and go begging to the United Nations and their allies in Russia to bail them out.

Also, expect the Tankie horseshoe theory far-leftists to (honestly or not) buy into all this crap and demand "Peace." And to do it while threatening Jews and anybody else they can.

Peace isn't what these fucking people (on either side) want, and it's apparently "fashionable" to hate both America and any of our allies that anything happens to.

The truth is, all a lot of these jackoffs want is some kind of excuse for and license to engage in mob behavior and hurt people. And whatever their claimed political affiliations, it's the Right that wants to give that shit out.

Simply because they figure if they cause enough chaos, they can break themselves off a Banana Republic somewhere. And they don't care if nobody can afford no bananas either. In fact, the more desperate the conditions, the cheaper the labor costs for the corporations and the wealthy. That's the calculus of the situation, for them, and they'll pay whatever costs they have to and set up whatever shell-game they need to in order to work both sides of the line and take advantage. 

It's not actually about the money, it's about the cruelty. It's about Dis Pater and Mammon demanding blood sacrifices.

It's about motherfuckers needing to feel like they got one over on somebody somehow, so they can feel like they are men.

And don't think seasoning that with a shitload of Christian Nationalist religiosity and various creepy patriarchal beliefs will make that shit any better. In fact, it'll make it a lot worse.

These motherfuckers don't want a more moral society, they want one where they're free to wrap their bullshit in religious platitudes and sin to their black heart's content...but everybody else has to pretend they're righteous, or get shot.

I mean, seriously, what the fuck do you really think Sidney Powell's utterly dishonest crocodile tears yesterday were all about? She's only sad because she's facing consequences.

You want this shit to stop? Sooner or later it's going to come down to a fight. The only way these motherfuckers ever understand anything is when bad shit happens to them or when they are told "No" and that refusal is backed by force and the threat of death.

Because all of these fucking people, ALL of them, are utterly terrified of going to hell. They've all been taught that there's so many strings-attached to going to Heaven that none of them really think they're going there. They all think maybe their preacher, or somebody like Donald Trump is going to heaven...but not them. And that's just the "True Believers."

Sooner or later, that shows in their character.

Don't get me started on the connivers, the fakes, the frauds, the grifters, and the wannabe killers.

Let alone the real killers that are out there.

All the decent people who happened to be Republicans? the ones you can reason with? They're already not Republicans anymore.

The Republicans? They'd gladly shut the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven to anybody but themselves, if only they could be sure it existed, and find a way.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You either stand up against the fall of night, or you don't.

Last Post

Слава Україна!

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 pretense 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

...

Read that again, Christian nationalists. And tell me, who receives the greater damnation??

Crocodile Tears (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Jenna Ellis Edition)

[Tough-Six and Galactica-Cavil drunkenly lament on the failure of the Cylons to destroy the Fleet]

Number Six: You want a progress report? I'll give you a frakkin' progress report.

Galactica-Cavil: Oh, no. Please don't. Please don't.

Number Six: Oh, come on, it is spectacular. Doral blew himself up, causing minor damage to a minor hallway. And Boomer jettisoned the water, and then, she personally found loads more water. [Laughs] And then she shot Adama, but not very accurately, since she loved him. And then, Leoben, he got obsessed with Kara Thrace, and then was captured and airlocked. And my sister Six utterly failed to discredit Baltar and his dreamy hair and destroyed our frakkin' cover in the process. And now Simon...Simon killed himself, really killed himself, out of resurrection range, without blowing up the ship that he lived on because he couldn't imagine life without his little human wife and his little human daughter because he loves them...

Galactica-Cavil: Stop, stop, stop.

Number Six: Guess I'd better.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes. They're all letting me down.

Number Six: Why are they letting you down, One? What's the x-factor? [She takes the bottle] You can't declare war on love. [She leaves]

Galactica-Cavil: I think I already did. Hey, where'd the bottle go?

~From Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

So, Jenna Ellis took that plea deal, and she's all penitent and remorseful now. 

Fucking Bullshit...the only reason any of these MAGA's...these "Republicans" that are still "Republicans" are remorseful or sorry or any damn thing is it didn't work out how they thought it would and they got caught!

Fuck these motherfuckers, and if you're dumb enough to believe any of them, fuck you too!

I saw this yesterday.

Greg Abbott and a party of twenty went out to eat and not only did they not tip their server...they told their server that she should be "Honored" to serve them!

I worked in food service for a combined total of 25 years and while I never waited tables, I spent that former career around those who did...and I'm here to tell you, honor don't feed one's kids or pay one's bills and anybody with a goddamn soul knows that. More to the point even a fair number of relatively good waitstaff people who have decent jobs still have an EBT card in they wallet because...especially if they have kids...a slow day can wreck your shit. 

Most servers incomes reflect this. That's not a judgment against them or the industry, it's just a hard fact. It's a hard job and too goddamn many of the fucking customers treat their servers like shit because they're high on the smell of their own bullshit. And they'll do whatever bullshit they can, out of simple cruelty, until the law says they can't and that their waitress has to be paid and treated fairly.

And the oh-so-"Christian" governor of Texas didn't tip, at all. Party of Twenty, She should be honored? 

Fuck that shit. 

And more to the point, this kind of arrogant asshole bullshit is what Evangelical Christians and Republicans do. It's what they do when they have the power. It's what they do when they don't have the power but they're the ones craving it. It's what they're still doing when they're not sitting in the dock facing charges. Tables turn, though, and suddenly they're all penitent and remorseful and sobbing. 

Forgive me if I'm unmoved by you motherfuckers and your crocodile tears. 

Or don't, I really don't give a shit.

I'm here to tell you, at this point, all those Republicans that are left? The ones that are still Republicans? 

They hate America. They hate America because we're not all "Honored" to be their slaves, to work for enjoyment or their profits with little or no compensation and then say "Thank you, Sir, may I have another?" They want to burn America down because their relative status vs. everybody else doesn't involve somebody having to lick their boots as a default setting.

They hate America because they haven't been able to abuse the rest of us and game the goddamn system enough. Think about that shit for a second.

They even hate that a US Navy destroyer would shoot down a bunch of drones and missiles launched by actual terrorists. They'd rather we, as a people, just stand by and let others get mass murdered.

So they can watch.

And, These Fucking People still control half of Congress, and have prevented the whole from even functioning...and they're a majority of Corporate America and Law Enforcement and hell, the last President was a Republican (who even redefined, or perhaps simply revealed, what Republicans were) and so on and so forth and these assholes still bitch that the "Left" (whatever that is) "Controls" the government. 

I suppose I'm "Left?" By default, if nothing else?

I used to be a Republican, not much has really changed except for my views on a few social issues and the fact that I made the choice to retain basic humanity...towards all people, not just the ones I like...and to live in a society all the time, not just when the full power of the State, the full weight of the law is pointed at my head like a Beretta M9.

Republicans love to use that power against Other people, they hate it when they are subject to it. It really is a childish, puerile worldview and I'm here to tell you that some of these people have always been like this. And they ran all those of us who could or would function like adults out of their Party.

^^^^^^ And this is what they want to replace America with.

Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine getting drunk and using drugs at the front. A society of thieves, without discipline or morality, where laws and orders are enforced at the muzzle of the rifle, if at all. 

And where "Civilization" itself is one of the privileges and trappings of the very powerful.

And they want to burn it down for *Checks Notes* Donald Trump.

Because they think he'll magically make them all rich, or something something Gazpacho. He'll make it so they get what they think they want...and somehow prevent the rest of us from ever overthrowing them or building Guillotines.

And because Trump likes Putin and Trump thinks Hamas is "Smart" so will Republicans because they're nothing but a bunch of craven, cowardly, boot-licking shits who are high on the smell of their own piss when they think they're the ones who have the Power and they can't wait to use that power to use and abuse the people who bring them their food...among others.

And then sell Civilization to Vladimir Putin and Gulf Oil Sheiks for their pocket change and get rid of all social programs and turn the troops into a drug-addled mob and do it while forcing everybody to pretend they're so religious and righteous and have to pretend to follow their alleged "faith." Yeah, I can keep going if you want.

Merely saying "The Cruelty Is The Point" really understates the whole damn thing, if you ask me.

Remember that, when you vote.

Freedom isn't free, but if we all do our part it doesn't cost us that much to keep it.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. 

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke. 

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; 

I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran  

Nine

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Let The Bodies Hit The Floor (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Nine.)

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 together 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.

...

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Earlier today when I logged into Threads, I saw this.

In Franklin, TN an open White nationalist is running for Mayor, with the support of assorted violent rednecks and various White Supremacist thugs. Some idiot put a campaign sign for her on the statue of a Black United States Army soldier that commemorates the Battle of Franklin during the US Civil War...a Confederate defeat in which Black regiments were heavily involved.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

Then, not five minutes later I saw this. Some privileged white idiot who has a non-zero chance of being an alleged "Progressive" taking down posters of Israelis who were kidnapped by Hamas.

And here in Michigan, apparently last night the president of a Detroit synagogue was murdered, stabbed to death by a thus-far unknown attacker.

Note that there's people, not necessarily affiliated with or supporting either party in this conflict, who've attacked both Arab Americans and Jews lately...for no better reason, I think, than feeling like they have some kind of excuse because of the war in Israel.

I can't stress it enough that blame, denial, and purity-testing only serve to enable bad actors.

After how things went from 2016 to 2020, and considering the current clusterfuck in the House GOP, does anybody with a brain in their head really think the United States of America would somehow survive a second Trump term intact??

Let alone, that enabling people like Hamas, these rogue Republicans, the Russians, the Tankie far-left or US White Supremacists to do the kind of shit they wanna do...would somehow make the world a better place??

What kind of narcissist thinks that in such a world as all these absolute motherfuckers want to create, such a large and amorphous group as Democrats is going to somehow "Miss" your vote, much less feel any "pain" over it?? They're not going to notice you didn't vote for them, because we'd all be too busy fighting for things like basic survival.

Or haven't you noticed that the Republican plan at this point basically is to break America up, and sell as much of whatever they get to the absolute lowest bidder who they think is on "their" side, for nothing but the Lulz and pocket change, and thinking they "Triggered" somebody.

What if one of those bidders is, ya know, somebody like Hamas or Islamic Jihad?? Or for that matter, the Russians?? Ya know, I'm gonna go out on not-much-of a limb here and suggest that the same people who spent my childhood fearmongering about Soviet Communism or who were, eight or ten years ago, obsessed with imaginary "Terrorist training camps" in the United States would be just fine with that, so long as some alleged liberal or merely mainstream conservative somewhere opposed the idea.

Here's the thing, it's already started.

You know where all those people whose agenda was so shitty they couldn't discuss it openly even as recently as three years ago during the "Let The Bodies Hit The Floor" phase of COVID-19 are starting to finally land...and, very often, doing so without making any effort at hiding their intent??

Christian Nationalism and White Supremacy, that's where.

I could have told you this would happen. Oh, wait, I did.

People like Don Huffines are exactly why I believe Left Behind Is A Lie.

And I'm here to tell you, they know most people won't go along.

Oh yes, they do. Why do you think they hate most of us so much??

So their next step...as exemplified by the current condition of the US House of Representatives and fully in-the-clear efforts in the Senate to undermine the United States Armed Forces...is going to be to balkanize and degrade America to try and help themselves.

If they can't collapse or destroy "Blue" states and the Federal government or completely purge "Red" states of people they don't like...they'll do whatever they can (up to and including trying to fight a civil war, which they'd likely lose) to weaken the whole until they can arrange for some level of Red State secessionism and American collapse.

I use the examples of places like Afghanistan, Algeria and Vietnam for a damn reason. One can, in fact, lose the war but get the other side to give up.

And then once that succeeds, they'll start the process of Culture War "Purification" all over again, and work from that bloody new "Normal." 

You think it'll ever stop?? No, it'll be lather-rinse-repeat, let the bodies hit the floor (and drown any regions bordering theirs under a tide of refugees) until they finally get to whatever fucked up shit they think they want...and don't be surprised if they view any help given to people fleeing their bullshit as a Casus Belli all by itself.

They  only want "No strings" anything for themselves.

And mind you, many of the exiled "impure" will themselves be violent white Christian Nationalists who simply weren't violent white Christian Nationalist enough.

This is what happens when you enable conflict-obsessed fucking people. This is what happens when you let people who love chaos, drama and war (whether literal or otherwise) run your shit.

They can't even work with each other, they're already attempting to coerce conformity and even threatening violence against each other.

What the fuck do you think these "Conservatives" would do to the rest of us, if that's what they do to their own??

For fuck's sake David French was a high-powered Evangelical lawyer, an activist and later veteran who literally worked for a lot of those Christian Nationalist organizations back in the day and enabled and furthered...and so far as I know, really believed in...these fucking people's agenda.

He literally believed in this stuff enough to go fight for it.

Speaking as a veteran myself I'm not saying that's right or wrong I'm simply saying that's what is.

And for all that, Evangelicals and Republicans, then coalescing into the MAGA movement, violently threw him out when Trump came along because he, like many of the rest of us, was like "WTF??" 

To this day, David French and his idea of actually living in accordance with the values he preached are regarded as an ideological punching bag by MAGA. Same is going to happen to any Republican Congress-Critter that didn't vote for Jim Jordan...and so on ad infinitum.

These people don't believe in anything but power, and that only when they have it. Their main "value" such as it is, is wanting to kill people. Worse, they're going to drag the Tankies and the TERF's and anybody else they can right along with them down the moral bottomless pit.

And doing it with all the moralizing coercion one might expect of Radical Islam.

Why?

Because they don't want to live in civilization. Governance is for suckers, to them. 

The kind of violence going on in places like Israel and Ukraine right now, is the world they want to live in...where if you want to be against them, or even live a normal life that doesn't oscillate between craven submission and violent acting-out...you're going to have to fight for it...or at least live in a world where just going to work means you might get blown up.

Meanwhile, Russian soldiers can get hard drugs delivered right to the front, with the full connivance of their commanders. Try that in the United States Air Force, and a whole bunch of people go to prison.

So no, none of this shit is about Christianity or conservatism or morality.

And the sooner we face that, the better off we're going to be.

Слава Україна!

Osman Ali Atto: I see not catching Aidid is becoming routine.

General William Garrison: We're not leaving Somalia until we find him. And we will find him.

Atto: (scoffing) You've been here, what, six weeks? Six weeks, you tried to catch the General. You put up reward posters. $25,000. What's this, gunfight at K.O. Corral?

Garrison: It's O.K. Corral.

Atto: Don't make the mistake of thinking because I grew up without running water I am simple, General. I do know something about history. See all this? It's simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white-boys' ideas in it.

Garrison: Well, I wouldn't know about that. I'm from Texas.

Atto: Mr. Garrison, I think you should not have come here. This is civil war. This is our war, not yours.

Garrison: Three hundred thousand dead and counting. That's not a war, Mr. Atto. That's genocide. ~From The Film Black Hawk Down.

Eight

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. 

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke. 

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; 

I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran