Reading Romans Among The War Criminals (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Three.)

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. ~Romans 1:28-32

...

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

I saw this yesterday on Threads.

Israeli body recovery teams found decapitated babies at a slaughtered Kibbutz in southern Israel that had been hit by Hamas terrorists.

Look, I don't give a damn what "Side" you're on. If you support that type of shit, Fuck You.

This isn't "Decolonization" it's a WAR CRIME. This isn't some opportunity to cut Ukraine aid and screw over the Democrats. It's a WAR CRIME. If you cannot see that, you have no business in government or public life, get the fuck out.

This isn't "Liberation" or "Resistance." It's mass murder and terrorism.

There is such a thing as evil, as right and wrong. Morality is not situational or subjective. If you, whether you be MAGA "Conservative" or Tankie Leftist, think this shit is funny, well as far as I'm concerned you can go straight to hell and it really is that simple.

More to the point, not only from their tactics, but from evidence that's been reported, and in the words of their spokesmen...these Hamas terrorists are Russian-backed and Wagner-trained.

These are enemies of America, attacking a US ally at the command of other enemies of America, period.

Thankfully, we have a President that seems to understand what's going on and most of our government (such of it as is functional, anyway) is reacting intelligently.

For whatever that's worth.

And remember two things: #1 Putin is waiting for us to get too engrossed in our own political fuck fuck games so that he can attack, whether directly or by using local hostiles like he did in Israel. #2 When he does, there's Republicans and Far-Left Tankies who'll gladly help the Russians or their proxies.

Whether you like or agree with the current Israeli government or not, the Israeli people need our help. This is America, we always say we are "Exceptional" and say things like that we are a country that has a government, rather than a government that dominates a country. For fuck's sake, why don't we extend that sort of courtesy of assumption to somebody else??

Quite likely, when the dust settles, Israel's government is going to change...again. The Israeli Right, just like the Right virtually everywhere else, was obsessed with "Culture War" bullshit and staying in power and they dropped the ball, extremely badly, concerning actual threats. Hamas Spokesmen are saying live on the air that this operation has been two years in the making.

And that they expect concessions, such as prisoner releases, from the EU and the United States, too.

But Israel isn't America, and generally over there when a person in power fucks up, they face consequences. In a lot of the rest of the world you don't have entire classes of elites try and softball the issue, lest something that they did be found and they too, be held to account. 

The Israeli Right tried to do that with Bibi and then this happened, there's going to be hell to pay.

And for good or ill, the Israelis don't have our short attention span. In a real crisis they're not going to get bored and start throwing tantrums when things don't go back to "normal" after two weeks.

This is a war, for some people, "normal" will never be a thing ever again. Remember that. "Normal" is not a privilege everybody has.

Both the Iranians and the Russians, who supported this monstrous terrorist assault, should've probably thought of that.

And, as with Ukraine...there's a non-zero chance that we get sucked into this mess as well. Russia wants a shooting war with the West and its allies in general, and with America in particular. Why? Because they see the depravity and political weakness of Republicans in particular. They figure if they can drag it out long enough, Americans will get mad and start doing stupid shit like a lot of us did during the worst of COVID-19. Quite honestly there's Russians who think all they have to do is give the West one good swift kick and whatever rotten edifice they think they see will just collapse. That's wrong, of course. The whole Ukraine thing should've shown that by now, but here we are.

More to the point, the Russians long to replace the Joe Biden Left with the "Protester screaming about 'Decolonization while babies get slaughtered and women and girls get raped'" Left, and not just because Tankies have trouble mouthing all their revolutionary slogans with Vladimir Putin's nuts in their mouths.

They want that shit because whether it's Republicans or Russians "Everyone's Bad, let us rule over you. We will let you do whatever evils you desire, so long as you show a decorous face to Authority and do not do them to us" is some kind of catch-all rationalization for whatever evil they want to perpetrate, or some shit.

And it amazes me, both how many people and who the people are, who are all too willing to line up and say "Hey, let me have a piece of that cruelty action."

You'd think a Black Lives Matter chapter, of all fucking people, would know better than this bullshit. Because I'm here to tell you "Black Lives Matter" [But Other Lives Don't] is exactly what the "Conservatives" have been accusing y'all of from the get-go. In most cases, it's a wrong accusation.

But it only takes a few war criminals hiding among the "Left." Conservatives, especially the far-right, don't care. They'll plaster this meme all to hell and gone for all of eternity. Dishonestly so, of course, thinking it rationalizes them being their worst selves.

They've only been equating Tankies with all of "The Left" for my whole life. That's wrong, but they do it anyway.

The longer this goes on, the more it becomes obvious; These people don't want to win anything, they just want to destroy whatever they can reach. I think a lot of these people, deep down, know they've already lost...that manipulation and political cheating have gotten them as far as those things can go.

A third of the population (and an aging, mostly-declining third at that!) is still only a third of the population (and aging and declining) no matter how amped up you make it. Throw in addictions, Antivaxxer BS, bad health, depression and high suicide rates along with often-encouraged shitty life choices...and you have to wonder how these fuckers ever thought they were going to stay in power forever?

If you teach people that this world is shit, and then profit off addiction and escapism, why would you even expect people would be alive to keep voting you into office forever??

And fascism won't solve any of these problems.

What might work in Russia, won't work here (and vice versa, which means if we want the information warfare and various other fuckery to stop we might have to actually hit these fucks at some point. If somebody won't stop fucking with you, sometimes you have to punch them right in the mouth.) Want to take a guess who wants to make education worse and promote bullshit and conspiracy theories...and they know it also helps their lying Russian butt-buddies? 

Yep, Republicans.

And it's still only gained them the power they want over a certain type of person...most likely, people who were already Republicans anyway. Therefore, nothing much else works in a democratic country because they can't or won't attract new people...and in fact, they seem determined to keep people like conservative Salvadoran or Venezuelan Latinos, who might be a natural fit for a less-racist Republican Party...out.

A good friend of mine, 20+ years ago, said Republicans would never lose an election ever again, if they decided to just let anybody who "Accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior" come here and made it easy for them to become a citizen. He also said that because most of those people are Black or Brown, it'd never happen...because for far too many White Americans, it's not about (small-c) conservatism or Jesus. It's about petty hatreds and racism.

And it's not just our government that's democratic, for good or ill. It's our culture. In many ways, almost too-much so. Most civilized countries don't allow you to "Vote somebody else off the island" so to speak. The thing is, American hyper-democracy served these people's ends for awhile. It apparently no longer does.

So, their new goal, such as it is, is simply to see if they can pick and choose who they get to take to hell with them.

Thing that gets me is, they're obviously getting people who be like "Hey, sign me up for that shit!"

These people don't actually want an election. They don't really want to win. They want a civil war, secession, and permanent Hamas style warfare against the rest of America and the West. They want cruelty and destruction for it's own sake.

And, like Hamas, one way or another they're going to lose.

If they'll abandon core beliefs at the drop of a hat...what the hell are these fucking people doing anything for?? I've known Left Behind is a Lie for almost 24 years now. I never actually expected to see so many American "Christians" flat out abandon support for Israel as soon as something serious happened over there.

Nihilism ain't a cause, yo.

The only question is, do you believe in civilization and freedom enough to stand up and fight this bullshit before it gets to that point, when it still might be hard and require things of you? Or are you only going to become anti-scumbag after they lose??

Freedom isn't free. It demands things of us.

Remember this, because there will be a test.

Слава Україна!

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

Two

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