Breaking Point (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Six)

 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.

"Nonstop Tragedy, Terror."

That was the headline in my state's paper of record this morning.

I'd just like to point out that maybe, if that's not the world we all want to live in, maybe we should stop allowing the worst people possible to bamboozle the mob, get voted into, or simply usurp the reigns of Power, and then stay there.

And that's true whether it's Gaza, Israel, or the United States of America.

For the love of God, there's a non-zero chance that the intelligence that allowed Hamas to launch such a savage attack on Israel...and for which Israel is currently retaliating...came from *Checks Notes* Donald Trump. Trump apparently likes to blab Top Secret shit to everybody from Australian Rich Guys to Neo-Soviet ambassadors, just to make himself feel important. And nobody had the balls to say "Hey, don't do that, that's wrong" or "You can't do that, Sir."

And the government is taking it's own sweet goddamned time with the consequences. Fuck all that, get it over with already.

Mind you, if I, having been a Security Forces Airman for a few years a few decades back...did 0.1% of what Trump has done I'd have been locked up in a Federal Prison years ago and there wouldn't have been any question of that, and nobody would know who I was 'cause I'd still be in there.

Like, seriously, what the fuck is even wrong with people at this point??

Real people, who had nothing to do with the assholes on either side, have been hurt and killed in the fighting in Israel and Gaza.

Why does this motherfucker get to do that shit??

More to the point, why does Trump...simply by acting the fool and saying racist shit on TV a few times...get to unwind like literally 80 years of progress, just because he felt like being an asshole would help him politically?

And yes, one hell of a lot of this shit started with Trump. Putin may be the spider at the center of a lot of these webs, but you notice he isn't the one everybody expects is going to publicly drop the N-word one of these days.

And perhaps more to the point, what the fuck are the rest of us if we just take the bait and do this shit??

Why is it, that so many supposedly-civilized fucking people are just waiting for permission to be their absolute worst possible selves these days, almost regardless of location, politics, race, or religion??

And yes, Trump has talked shit about Israel and Jews...and he did it this week.

And then this kind of shit happens.

If you don't think every despot, dictator, terrorist and various angry wannabes isn't looking for the next cue for something to pop off about or someone else to hurt, and keep the rest of us playing bigotry whack-a-mole, you have another thing coming.

Wut?

Oh, fuck off, Vlad. If it wasn't for you...very likely with a big damn assist from Trump...the Hamas terrorists would still be hiding in their bunkers and all these damn people wouldn't be dead.

Putin has had just as much of a part in deliberately trying to undo the small-L, small-D liberal democratic world order as Trump has...knowing that he sits atop an authoritarian dictatorship where his every whim and word is "Law" or what passes for such in a nation of criminals, murderers and thieves, anyway.

More to the point Putin and his Wagner proxies seem to be the reason for so many of these atrocities being committed by Hamas. I mean, it wasn't much but I can remember when even the most fanatical, strident terrorists wouldn't do things like decapitate children.

Fuck these people.

And yet again, if those Hamas terrorists have done such horrible shit to Israeli civilians...what have they done to their own people that we haven't even found out about yet??

It takes a lot of balls, man, to stand there and expect the rest of us to play by some kind of rules when you observe none, when absolutely nobody has any rights that you, your stank-ass Commie self, feel the need to respect. Fuck you, Vlad.

You know, I'm old enough to remember when if somebody kept doing bad shit, kept saying racist shit, lied constantly or wouldn't stop fucking with other people, somebody eventually got tired of it and got up and punched that fucker right in the mouth.

Usually, with a general attitude of "Did somebody order a knuckle sandwich?" or "Yeah, go ahead and call the cops, see what they says when they hear what you done."

You want to stop this bullshit? It's going to come down to a fight...over here just as much as it is over there. If you are unwilling to stand up when that time comes, it won't just be tragedy and terror in Israel and Palestine, or Ukraine or some other far-away place. It'll be everywhere.

And you'll have to fight just to have a normal goddamned day.

While chucklefucks, conspiracy theorists, and those who manipulate them for ideology and profit hurt and kill people and steal everything that uncounted generations of people who built Civilization ever worked to do.

You know how I know Left Behind was a Lie? Because these same motherfuckers keep calling Trump, literally the most impotent, low-rent, trash-can ass Antichrist possible "God's Anointed One."

Honestly, it's quite enough to make one think that all religion is bullshit.

Freedom isn't free. Remember that because it's going to be on the test.

When's enough going to be enough? Where's the breaking point?

Either you believe in civilization or you don't.

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.

Five

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press