"Smart" (Left Behind Is A Lie IV, Four.)

 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

...

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

I saw this shit last night at work.

Again, and I'm going to keep saying this until far-left idiots understand me; What Hamas isn't doing isn't "Decolonization" or "Liberation" it's terrorism and war crimes.

Seriously, the fucking terrorists decapitated babies and raided an outdoor concert that was pretty much the Israeli equivalent of a hippie nature festival in the desert. The fuck makes you think they're on your "side" let alone share any of your values??

I mean, shit, what makes you think Hamas isn't cruel and miserable to its own people?? Because, I'm here to tell you, Islamist groups (not to mention other religious fanatics) like that pretty much are just as evil to their own people as they would be to anyone else.

This isn't...or shouldn't be...all that hard. 

I'm starting to wonder just how many of these Tankies would've been hijacking airliners and shit back in the 1970's when that was a big thing? Or how many of them would've been pretend radicals wearing Che Guevara T-shirts and hanging a Soviet flag in their dorm room in a (reactionary in its own way) "rebellion" against the society they live in and, in fact, are more likely than not privileged members of??

Let's get one thing straight, before we go on, yo.

Israel wasn't and isn't a "Racist settler colonial entity" and in fact, the establishment of the State of Israel was pretty much allowed to happen because a lot of both American and European leaders were looking for somewhere to dump lots of European Jewish refugees because those people's homes and communities had been destroyed...and in Eastern Europe on top of that many such places had fallen under Communist control after being destroyed...and European leaders didn't want the Jews around, either. To our credit, after WWII, America took in one hell of a lot of Jews (and other European refugees) and, interestingly enough, once Israel looked like it was gonna be a thing, we actively tried to keep the Israelis from arming themselves with American weapons. In fact, the Israeli Air Force was so hard-up for armaments that its first fighters were a mix of Avia S-99's and a few donated leftover ex-Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109's (of which the S-99 was a Czech-built variant.) Think about that for a second, take all the time you need.

 

The Israelis had to prove themselves, over and over, and actually lost France and the UK as military supporters (IIRC, over issues concerning the Palestinians) before aligning with the United States in the late 1960's.

And here's the kicker.

Led by Trump...now Republicans are literally throwing Israel under the bus...because Bibi Netanyahu didn't praise Trump enough and Trump thinks the Israelis should be "paying us" (meaning, paying Trump) for American support. Trump also claims they didn't help out with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in 2020, but I'm not sure either if that's even true or what anybody thinks the Israelis could've done that we can't do ourselves. 

I actually looked, and nothing I've found about the assassination suggests that the Israeli military either was involved in any way nor was even asked to help out. So, as usual, I suspect that Trump is just lying.

The truth, most likely, is that Trump is praising Hamas and Hezbollah out of simple cruelty and that because Putin backs Hamas and Wagner trained Hamas...Trump thinks that he should support Hamas, too. Because Trump would rather be a poodle to any dictator that comes along than act like a goddamn American. I'll never understand how so many people support this sack of shit...except as a totem for their hatred.

Fuck, Republicans cannot even agree on a Speaker of the House to replace Kevin McCarthy. Steve Scalise dropped his bid for Speaker today. How the fuck does anybody think these fools are going to concoct a coherent anything...much less foreign policy??

The truth is, in the current war...Democrats supported Israel. And since Republicans are stuck on this puerile idea of a perpetual anti-liberal "Opposite Day" that means in their minds...well, they think they have to do the opposite because something something Gazpacho, or some shit.

And because of this bullshit, American Evangelicals will abandon their duplicitous "Support" for Israel, which as I've said before, is itself based on an eliminationist End Times doctrine that says most Jews will be killed in the Apocalypse and the rest will convert to Christianity. 

Again, What the fuck is supposed to be the upside here?? Except that Israelis have been fleecing gullible Evangelical Christians out of their money for decades?? The truth is that the American right and the Israeli right have not been good even for each other, and that all this bullshit has (obviously) had a corrosive effect on Israeli politics.

So yeah, if US support of Israel switches from Republicans to Democrats, that in and of itself is probably a good thing, especially if it gets Israel out of being a pawn in US Culture War bullshit. And this whole episode, by itself, proves that all that Left Behind bullshit was a lie.

The real truth is probably even worse than that, simply because "Conservatives" are closer at this point to thinking that Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin (Or Lenin, or Mao, or Stalin) is the "Elect of God" than to believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

No, it doesn't make sense. All they want is to hate, and that doesn't make any sense either.

That's why their entire ideology right now basically is...whatever Donald Trump says it is.

If the Center does not hold here, on issues like Israel and Ukraine...we're all fucked.

Seriously, I swear...and I say this as a current big-box store employee...the kind of people who used to try to Evangelize people like me? Now they bring up Republican politics in casual conversation (with neither reason, nor any evidence that I'm one of their people) and for the same reason. These fucking people's real "religion" is right-wing bullshit. 

If we're being honest, I think if the "Left" (whatever that means) were to convert to Christianity en masse, these fucking people would start worshiping the Devil.

Look, I'm a veteran. I was taught you don't abandon your brothers and sisters in time of need. You don't abandon your allies. Hell, when I was a Christian I was taught that God would bless those who blessed Israel and curse those who cursed Israel. Whether we like what they do with it or who they vote for or not, Israel is a democracy.

Hamas couldn't even be bothered with respecting basic human rights before they started murdering children.

I always say, if you want a better country you have to be a better citizen.

Hamas doesn't give Palestinians that option.

And that, my friends, is why Trump thinks they're smart.

Three

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:

Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord.

Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.


Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

Слава Україна!

 

[The Mandalorian brings together the entire Mandalorian covert after Carson Teva makes a surprise visit and asks him to help Greef Karga's situation on Nevarro when the New Republic won't lift a finger]

Mando: Now, many of you don't know Greef Karga. And those that do fought against him when you rescued me from his ambush many cycles ago on the streets of Nevarro. Since then, he's had a change of heart and has risked his life to save mine as well as the Foundling in my charge. [Grogu coos] I stand before you to petition an intervention. To help rescue Nevarro before it's too late. I am in no position to ask any more of you. However... However, the enemy that decimated this very covert were Imperials, not Greef Karga's bounty hunters. Greef Karga is now a High Magistrate and has offered me a tract of land on his independent world. Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

Armorer: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mando: It's up to them now.

Paz Vizsla: I do. I was there on Nevarro that night. I fought against Greef Karga and his hunters. I saw my brothers and sisters fall at the hands of the Imperial butchers that hunted us in the sewers. I saw many die to save the life of [gestures to Grogu] this one, tiny Foundling. And now we are asked to sacrifice yet again. The question we should be asking ourselves is, "Why? Why should we lay our lives down yet again?" Because we are Mandalorians! I have had my disagreements with this man, but he risked his life to save my son. And Bo-Katan Kryze did not give up on my child's life even when the rest of us did. These two are asking us to take up arms in the name of a brighter future, and I for one will take up arms to fight by their side. [Mandalorians agree] This is the Way!

Mandalorians: This is the Way.

Armorer: This is the Way.