Lost (House Of Bondage, One.)

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.

And all the people saw the thundering, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. ~Exodus 20:2-20

...

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

There's something I need you to understand; This comes from both being a former Republican myself, and having dealt with a number of strident Republicans over the years. People who, unlike me, didn't get sick of the bullshit and just leave.

These people truly, madly, emphatically believe that America sucks, that the world sucks, the most fanatical of them...the Evangelical Rapture Fanatics...literally do not want to be here at all.

And this, of course, requires massively drastic action to fix: Burning down America, destroying the entire modern world order (Because it's too "Liberal" or something) and most of all, forcing their fake-ass Evangelical Christianity on everybody they can reach, and sucking up to Vladimir Putin (Of all fucking people) for example. 

Among other things.

You'd think, with such a long to-do list, that These Fucking People would be busy, ya know??

They don't want to make anything better, let alone more conservative, they just want to fundraise off of how terrible they say everything is, because stupid people believe them. Shit, even if they could, why would they have any interest in fixing anything??

But here they are. It's Tuesday, and they're all up in New York City making a big damned deal of being present at Donald Trump's "Hush Money Trial" in Manhattan. One must be seen fellating their One True God, eh??

For fuck's sake they're even all wearing the same goddamned suits as Trump is, and supposedly grown-ass people are making utter fools of themselves in his name. They're basically willing slaves.

And I have to ask, For What??

As Tea Party Joe Walsh (Himself a former Republican and former Freedom Caucus member) points out, Republicans are choosing to do this to themselves.

We're so far past the point of "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you no sense of decency??" That we've come around to "Have you no self-respect, Republicans??"

I absolutely don't get it, and I say that as a former Republican. But then, I didn't like Trump when I was a Republican and he was a Democrat, either.

And these fucking people are choosing to make Trump not only their identity, but effectively their God, as well. And everybody's going to hell, but him.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

Are American "Conservatives" really just that goddamned Lost??

(On a certain level, yes, but I don't think that's all that's going on here.)

Are these fucking people just that desperate for someone or something to believe in that they fell for...this??

Are these motherfuckers just that goddamn needy to have some "Big Daddy" figure that they'll defend the sort of schemes that, if anybody else did it, 90% of people would look at it and look at how it landed the perp in court and pretty much be like "Fuck around and Find Out, yo" and basically demand that the dumbass be locked up and the key melted down and the door welded shut...for the perp's own safety as much as for the good of society.

Honestly??

At this point, I have my doubts.

I mean, it's not that I don't think Republicans, or what's become of or is left of Republicans absolutely lack the level of basic decency or common sense that God gave the average German Brown Cockroach. I'm rather emphatically and loudly on record saying exactly that and I'll stand by it forever.

It's...motherfucker took out a loan to pay Donald Trump's bribe to Stormy Daniels, with the expectation that Trump of all people (who is rather infamous for not paying anybody he doesn't have to) and in the end Trump did reimburse him...out of Campaign funds.

(And apparently, Cohen did all this without telling his wife?? Shit, I don't like having to borrow money to pay for my own shit, and I sure wouldn't pull this kind of crap if I was married.)

The truth is, this trial is probably by itself uncovering even more crimes.

And I absolutely thought I had the lowest opinion of these fucking people that was imaginable, but my estimation was probably an order of magnitude too high.

A former Trump aide recently publicly bragged about passing counterfeit money to homeless people, in the hope that they'd get arrested for using it.

Apparently the Secret Service has been notified.

Have fun with that, Johnny.

And that's it, right there, isn't it??

These fucking people don't like Trump because he's smart. Shit, they don't (really) think he's smart any more than any of the rest of us do.

But between Trump's own behavior and that of the people who surround him directly, Republicans feel like all this crap justifies or legitimizes their own evil, their own shitty beliefs, their own wanting to be an incestuous nobility lording over Peasants instead of acting as citizen legislators on behalf of their fellow Citizens.

There's no "We The People" in MAGA-Land, there's only con artists and marks, inciters and the Mob, liars and people who want to be lied to.

And it fucking disgusts me that there's so many people in America who are fine with all this garbage, as long as it legitimizes their bad behaviors, their false sense of superiority, or their petty bigotries.

Or whatever the fuck.

I mean, Trump could literally just shout "I Like Big Butts And I Cannot Lie" or spout absolute fucking gibberish, and his rally-crowd would go wild. It doesn't even matter what he says.

Only that he says it.

And I used to work with a Trump Supporter...a fellow janitor in the kitchen at the casino...whose entire rationale for supporting Trump was "I like the shit that he says."

(That's literally a direct quote.)

The problem with this is, I've listened to enough of the shit that Trump says to be well aware that a lot of the time, he talks a lot but doesn't actually say anything at all.

And honestly I've listened to enough preachers over the years to recognize a bullshitter's singsong-voice attempt to hypnotize me, and on top of that to me Trump's voice sounds like Chloroform, enunciated.

It's pretty much the dream of "If you're the 'right' kind of White Man (or a lackey thereof) you can do whatever the fuck you want...that's what these assholes see Trump as really giving them.

Not leadership.

Cover.

Never mind that it never scales, this shit isn't a thermonuclear device. It never converts the energy over. The first stage of the bomb...the idiot MAGA's...goes off just fine but the bomb fizzles and all that the Trump Supporters are left with is whatever small explosion they caused and a big radioactive mess to clean up or get blamed for. And then, Trump? LOL, He never helps them. See Also: J6.

It's like how the only people who ever prosper from the Prosperity Gospel are the liars who preach it.

In fact, it's the same exact con, secularized.

The only person who benefits from or even profits in any way from Trumpism...is Trump.

But motherfuckers wanna believe.

And if your starting point is "Anything but America" or "Anything but 'Love Thy Neighbor" I suppose it sounds good.

And when these fucking idiots try to start a civil war or otherwise burn down America in Trump's name, when some of these idiots resort to secessionism and the creation of some shitty Banana Republic in South Florida in some vain attempt to give Trump a kingdom to rule over (and in turn give the wealthy a tax shelter to hide in, and Russian oligarchs a taste of the Western lifestyle) and when the media keeps pushing this shit on America and the world in the name of "Clicks and Likes" and selling advertising and Crazy...and it all comes crashing down in an orgy of blood and fire and HIMARS rockets??

(And then don't forget, then there'll be Vlad with his own bill for services rendered.)

Trump isn't trying to build a country or even a political movement here.

He's trying to convert all this bullshit and all these people into narcissistic fuel so that he can ascend to a state of godhood that only exists in his own twisted mind. 

And nothing is ever good enough.

If it all blows up, he thinks he'll get all that. 

In fact, he's trying to engineer exactly that circumstance.

Trump isn't running for President, he wants to be God.

And these fucking people would give it to him, if they could.

But have you seen the man?? He looks like shit. Every day that he's in court diminishes him. All these sycophants showing up there to mean-mug at the judge and the press just diminishes them too.

I realize this is, for the most part, just bad people investing all their hopes and dreams in a Bad Man.

But come on, even Cartoon Evil is supposed to have standards, or at least some sense of self-preservation. I'll never understand it. 

Or maybe I just don't want to.

But come on, fucking seriously.

When is enough of this shit going to be enough??

Who the fuck is dumb enough...or ever was...to look at the name "Donald Trump" and think "Great Men??"

Who the fuck looks at this pussy-ass bitch wannabe Pharaoh and his House of Bondage and says "Yes, please."

Goddamn, America, get a fucking grip.

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Remember when your High School History teacher said "The course of human events changes because of the deeds of great men"?. Well the bitch was lying. Fuck Caesar, fuck Lincoln, fuck Mahatma Gandhi. The world keeps moving because of you and me: the anonymous. Revolutions get started because people don't have enough bread. Wars start over a game of checkers. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO Series "Oz" S1, E8 "A Game Of Checkers."

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