Tarnishing The Golden Idol (Gravity, Five.)

Nixon: Therefore, there is no place for neutrality or a neutralist sentiment in South Vietnam. As I leave Vietnam today there is no doubt, certainly, in my mind that the Viet Cong will be defeated and this war will be won. Asia does involve, I think, very appropriately as you have suggested, give and take.

Adrian: Well I-- I really didn't make that suggestion, sir, I'm sorry.

Nixon: The United States has no right to give--

Hauk: Why would Cronauer's voice be on this tape?

Abersold: I don't know, Lieutenant.

Nixon: --territory to the communists.

Adrian: Mr. Nixon, thank you for that concise political commentary, but I think I'd like to delve into something slightly more personal for the men in the field. How would you describe your testicles?

[Hauk turns to the radio in horror]

Nixon: That they're soft, and that they're shallow and they have no purpose.

Hauk: Oh, my God.

Adrian: What are you saying, sir?

Hauk: Oh, my God.

Nixon: That they lack the physical strength.

Adrian: How would you describe your sex life with your wife Pat?

Nixon: It is unexciting sometimes.

Adrian: Well, have you considered, possibly, a sex change. There is an operation that can transform you

Hauk: Please don't do this to me. Please don't do this to me.

Adrian: --into a female Great Dane or possibly a very well hung Chihuahua. Mr. Nixon, while you've been in Vietnam, its rumored that you've smoked marijuana. Are you planning to take some of the marijuana home back to the United States? How would you do that?

Nixon: By plane. By helicopter and also by automobile.

Adrian: Can you please do your impersonation of Mister Ed for us?

Hauk: (running into the control room) Cut this thing off! I said cut it off! (Bangs on the tape machine and stops the tape) Where's Cronauer?

Marty: Still eating sir.

Hauk: I want to see him ASAP.

Marty: What's that?

Hauk: As soon as possible!

Marty: VG sir.

Garlick: [into the mic] We interrupt this press conference to bring you this emergency performance of the Benny Goodman Orchestra. 

~From the film Good Morning Vietnam.

I saw this last night while I was getting ready for work.

Some genius thought it would be a good idea for Trump to speak at the Libertarian national convention.

Trump got booed.

By Libertarians.

And so did Utah Senator Mike Lee, who attempted to tell the Libertarians that they should vote for Trump...if not nominate him to be their party's candidate (As if he has anything to worry about from the Republican Party he took over?)

Shit, I thought Mike Lee was a Libertarian? I guess not.

The Libertarians ran Mike Lee right off the stage.

Also, who's next?? Rand Paul?? (Little Baby Jesus, Please.)

Think about that, take all the time you want.

The people who think Taxation Is Theft booed Trump, a Republican who passed a large tax cut for the wealthy in 2017.

I thought that's what Libertarianism was all about. Well, that and Weed, but I guess Trump's Reefer Madness DOJ didn't exactly endear him to Libertarians, come to think of it.

But wait, it gets worse.

(I don't know how this happened, but it does.)

Brigadier General Taylor: I think I see a pattern forming here.

Dreiwitz: Sir, these letters are unequivocal! Uh, e.g., [reads a letter] "Hey, Hauk. Eat a bag of shit. You suck." That's pretty much to the point, sir, not much gray area in this one.

PFC Garlick: We got one positive call from some guy in Wichita, who thought that Hauk's comedy was "visionary and interesting." The other eleven hundred calls say that the man can't do comedy to save his dick! [pause] That's a direct quote, sir.

Phil: I've taken ninety calls this morning-- they just don't like Hauk.

PFC Garlick: From a Marine in Danang: "Captain Hauk sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls." I have no idea what that means, sir, but it seems very negative to me.

Brigadier General Taylor: I think the troops are trying to tell us something, fellas. 

~From the film Good Morning Vietnam.

RFK Jr.'s campaign apparently found out Trump was gonna be there and issued rubber chickens to the Libertarians cuz he says Trump is afraid to debate him.

But, the Secret Service confiscated them, because all these motherfuckers can't stop blowing the goddamned Narcissist, or something.

Seriously? 

You have GOT to be fucking shitting me.

Like, Trump, bro, your ass just got owned by a Democrat with literal brain-worms.

And you got booed by Libertarians, seriously, in even George W. Bush level Republican terms I think that means it's time to hang it up and go home. If you're a Republican and get booed by Libertarians, that's not just political death...it's political death, political resurrecting as a Zombie in three minutes and seven seconds, and then politically getting clubbed in the head.

RFK just adds the rough equivalent of politically getting your Ghost exorcised by a Priest of Xenu after all that.

Hauk: Sir, the man has got an irreverent tendency. He did a very off-color parody of former VP Nixon.

Brigadier General Taylor: I thought it was hilarious.

Hauk: Respectfully, sir, the former VP is a good man and a decent man.

Brigadier General Taylor: Bullshit! I know Nixon personally. He lugs a trainload of shit behind him that would fertilize the Sinai. Why, I wouldn't buy an apple cider from the son of a bitch and I consider him a good, close, personal friend!

~From the film Good Morning Vietnam.

Goddamn, if you keep pitching yourself as a far-right fascist with a plan to basically dismantle the Federal Government and get rid of Social Security, with an affect of "Well, the Constitution doesn't specifically say that racism is bad and that social justice should be a thing..." and Libertarians boo you out of their convention...?

I mean, fuck, what's next?

(Yes, yes, one would think I've learned not to ask that question. One would be wrong.)

Well, since you asked;

"It's a trap against Trump, we must protect the President!"

Wait a minute, aren't these guys the "Trump is God" motherfuckers??

Oh...

Shit.

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; ~Exodus 20:2-5

Just sayin' he ain't much of a God if he needs your ass to protect him.

And protect him from "Libertarian Scum" on top of that??

LOL.

I'm imagining this being said in the vaguely British tones of an Imperial Navy officer from the Star Wars franchise. Because yes, a lot of these idiots really do think they want to live in the Empire. In point of fact Republicans are loudly competing to be the guy who goes around shouting "On Program" at all the other prisoners, apparently forgetting that he's also a prisoner himself.

Seriously, when is enough, enough??

We've had to listen to this deranged, doddering ass-clown for going on nine years now and I'm fucking sick of this bullshit, like come on MAGA's, what the fuck is even wrong with you?? Trump isn't a conservative, he wasn't even a Republican before he figured out he'd never get elected as a Democrat (and mind you that is the same Party that nominated and elected Bill Clinton, enthusiastically, Twice.) So he went Republican. 

And let me tell you, I hated old Slick Willie. By the end of his first year, I was as tired of Bill Clinton as I am of Trump now...and I voted for the man! But goddamn, next to Trump?? 

I miss that motherfucker.

And if I hadn't also hated Donald Trump before, just the fact that he made me have to vote for Hillary Goddamned Clinton should have been enough to secure my personal hatred of anybody named Trump for all of eternity.

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

~Daniel 3:14-18

I'm tired of this bullshit.

I'm tired of Trump's stupid, ugly ass face.

I'm tired of his monotone voice.

I'm tired of his insult-comedian schtick, his narcissism, his racism, and most of all his simpering whiny-ass crying like a bitch anytime he doesn't get everything he wants.

I'm tired of what his bullshit has done to alleged "Conservatives."

I'm tired of the cheating, the cultic worship, the lying, and the massive undiagnosed mental illness that all this implies. I get that all you Republicans have issues, you don't have a right to impose them on the rest of us. 

We need to stop stopping the world for these fucking assholes, every time they get "uncomfortable." Their entire fucking business model at this point is being uncomfortable and demanding to speak to the fucking manager!

Probably most of all, I'm tired of the fact that supposedly grown-ass people looked and said "Ooh, a Narcissist, we better keep indulging his fantasies, in the hope that we'll get something we want." And then treating that motherfucker like he's God.

Bitch, I was married to somebody with a personality disorder. 

That shit never works out that way. They get what they want, and you get stuck with the bill, the consequences, and the having to put your whole damn life back together. And if you're lucky, you learn a thing or two and you don't do it again.

And I, being a veteran and knowing a little of what that could mean, am preemptively tired of the fact that we're probably going to have to fight a war to get these assholes to stop this shit.

Because it's very likely that when we vote them and their bullshit out (again) they're going to come at us and attempt to install their bullshit in Power forever by force. 

I also know that, as bad of shape as I'm in, when that happens I have the skills to fight and survive, or at least to earn my keep by teaching those skills to other people.

But a lot of people don't.

And there's a lot of people out there that are too disabled, or too old, or too young to really be able to contribute much to the sort of fight that the future implies if this bullshit is not checked now. And those are the people I'm worried about. And I mean checked not just at the ballot box or in Congress and the courts, but in the streets, by letting the people at the base level know,  who desire to wage this war...and from whom MAGA political types come...that the cost of trying to impose their fascism on the world will be too high.

Because the cost of not doing so will be higher.

Like I said, it's not gravity that kills you, it's that sudden stop at the bottom. People need to start remembering that there's a hard baseline to reality and start acting accordingly. 

I know exactly what kind of world these motherfuckers tried to use COVID-19 to try and create. I saw it in Bosnia. These fucking people want to live in a world that's basically the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a mall.

We need to stop tolerating this bullshit, and we need to stop tolerating anybody who enables it.

For once, the Libertarians have the right idea about something.

Stop blowing the narcissist, America.

Trump's entire plan is to try and pour the whole damn country down that empty hole where his soul was supposed to be...and I'm here to tell you, if he wins, it won't be enough.

Nothing ever will be. Mental illness just works like that, and Trump is clearly insane. Why people wanna play games with this fucker, I'll never understand.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You either believe in Civilization, and standing against the fall of night, or you don't.

And if the Libertarians can do it, and in so doing tarnish this Golden Idol...even if it's just for once, what the fuck is your excuse??

Слава Україна!

[Cassian and Kino Loy have successfully broken out of their cell block and took over the prison complex's command center]

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! [repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

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