"No." (Damn, What's Next?? Four.)

I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards — Purple Heart, Bronze Star — showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way. ~Colin Powell.

...

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.

I saw this last night.

Trump Junior, saying planes are going to start crashing because there aren't as many White male pilots as there used to be. Dude looked like he was higher than anything besides maybe the Space Shuttle could fly when he said it.

Full disclosure here; I'm a White dude. I'm all Scandinavian ancestry, Blue eyes, Blonde hair (going gray) the whole bit. It's impossible to be Whiter than me! In fact, I'm in the early stages of being an Old White Man and any alleged benefits of being the Center Of The Universe (per the mentality of these fucking people) have yet to come rolling in. I must not have the "Correct" political beliefs or something, for the magic to work. Or maybe I just wasn't born already rich. (And yes, that is exactly what these fucking people think is required for you to fit their "White Men as bringers of Civilization and Light" you have to already be rich.) 

Fuck this silly bullshit. The laws of physics, reality, and science don't give a damn what color your skin is or if you have a dick.

Way back in the 1990's when I was an Airman, we all cheered Captain Martha McSally saying that women were every bit as capable of flying combat missions as any man. And yeah, some of us would later end up disgusted as all hell when she turned out to be just another craven Republican when it really mattered.

I'm going to say it again, for those in the back; Modern American "Conservatism" wrecks people, it turns them into far less than the sum of their parts, and it does so in service to the slime of humanity.

I'm sorry, but I grew up with all type of stories of Americans rising to the occasion and delivering sustained, superior performance in the fight against fascism. It didn't matter whether it was Black men or White men, Conservatives or Liberals, and in fact women of all colors did the same wherever they were allowed to.

Just one example: The Red Ball Express, a convoy system used from August to November of 1944 after the breakout from the Normandy bridgehead during WWII in Europe. Staffed mostly by Black soldiers, the Express at its peak carried 12,500 tons of supplies per day until the Belgian or French ports and railways could be repaired and fuel pipelines constructed. These men did the hard, unglamorous work of military logistics under often shitty conditions and they persevered despite Luftwaffe bombing raids, mud and (towards the end) snow.

Likewise the Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the first Black units of what would later become the United States Air Force never lost a bomber they escorted to enemy air action. I've read their histories, it's utterly impossible to overstate how much of an accomplishment that was at the time. They didn't have all the technology such people would take for granted today, no air-to-air missiles, no air refueling, no AWACS with tactical controllers vectoring them in against oncoming Nazi fighters, no electronic warfare, no Pave Hawks on call for Combat SAR when they got shot down...just a goddamn P-51 Mustang and your own guts and skill...and let's not forget...iron courage.

And they went and did their duty and did it gladly, because it had to be done...and because they knew it was necessary to establish their own reputations for courage in the long fight for their own freedom back home.

Nobody's asking nearly so much of you...only that you listened to these people when they spoke, as I once did.

Being afraid because other people exist and can have jobs that are better than yours...is not courage.

All these other people, Black folks, LGBT people, Muslims, Women, etc. have already done proven themselves and at this point if you can't see that shit, it's because you have your eyes closed on purpose and with malice aforethought.

Three generations of success and soft living later, far too many White American men are represented by drug-addled nepotism-morons like Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk, and that's pretty fucking sad.

What's even worse than that, is that this shit is how they want to be. Let the weak say I am a mighty man, I guess. 

Yeah, bro, if you're one of these racist scum fucks, the Lord's Word had your number a couple thousand years ago, and if you go to hell for your bullshit, I have no sympathy. And that's the key, these fucking people believe in this bullshit more than they believe in God.

There's no civilization, no economic system, no war effort...that's going to succeed or even survive if it's based on your horseshit Purity culture.  Saying "Only one type of person can fight" is how you lose the goddamn war. 

White Men do not have magical powers, "Purity" and "Spirit" be damned. Reality does not work that way. When you say "Do you know who I am" physics, reality, science and the laws of war just laugh.

Those who win, win because they have the tools to get the job done and find the talent to use them and they don't care who that is.

If the rest of us lose to these racist-ass Trump people...it's because enough of us want to or because we don't want to observe reality or because we are just too lazy to get off our asses and fight against these drug-addled racist jackasses. 

It's really that damn simple.

You either believe in freedom or you don't. 

(Because if you don't believe everybody should have it, freedom isn't what you believe in.)

You want a better nation? You have to be a better citizen.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

These Republican motherfuckers hate America because, even as often as we fail to deliver on the promise of that, America is still based on citizenship and not on how rich you are.

And if we let these sons of bitches steal our country out from under us, they'll redefine the banality of evil...again...and do it at our expense.

Either you have the guts to stand up against that, or you don't.

Choose.

Choose wisely.

Because the time to stand against the fall of night, to possibly limit or prevent or reduce the scope of the next "Great" war is now.

We have the right to tell these fucking people "No."

Слава Україна!

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

Last Post

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