Valley Of Decision (Their Meme-Lord And "Savior," Four.)

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 pruning-hooks 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

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It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity. ~Nelson Mandela

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

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

I saw this the other night on Twitter, it's actually a snip from a video of somebody riding a bike through the ruins of the city of Bakhmut, in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. I'm assuming the video was taken using a Go Pro or helmet-cam of some kind.

It looks like something out of The Walking Dead.

When the Russians say "Russkiy Mir" or when Republicans and Tankies say we need to "Make peace" with Russia...this is what they mean, this right here.

And Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they simply don't give a shit. In fact, they get soggy and hard to light if somebody somewhere isn't getting bombed by some nominally "Christian" theocratic State that's sort of weirdly split between Communism and Russian Orthodox Fundamentalism...but I guess as long as the Commies leave the ultra-wealthy alone they don't really care, do you??

In fact, these same motherfuckers want rather more than that here, in terms of a religious state.

Just so it's their religion...if you could really call it that. None of that "Love Thy Neighbor" shit. They want to obsessively fearmonger about Other People while trying to shove their own Fundamentalist crap down everybody else's throat. And guess what? Most of them couldn't even tell you the first thing about it except how much they believe in it!

And I'm honestly sick and tired of it. I heard this shit for years, from a couple of coworkers when I worked at the casino. 

Never mind that neither one of them could name one single fact about the history of their own alleged religion, or actually define or state any doctrine in any but the most simplistic fashion...except that they really believed in it. Well, at least one of these dudes (Your basic Pentecostal fat guy) would sit there in the break room looking real serious with an open Bible in front of him on the table. Thing is, me and some other co-workers (all of whom were also Christians) figured out that all he was ever doing was rereading the same stuff over and over again. (Also, for the record, most of his family wasn't even religious, it was just him.) 

I knew this guy long before the "Meal Team Six" jokes became a thing but that was pretty much the exact type of person that this dude was...right down to the fact that he had a bunch of guns he didn't know how to use worth a damn, and I wasn't going to waste time trying to teach him.

The other one? (A fake biker and Stolen Valor asshole) never even bothered to try and look religious. He pretty much talked a lot of shit, and that was all there was to it. More than enough for me to ask, more than once...that if he could do all that, why was he working there?? Oh, don't get me wrong, he was pretty hell-bent on how much he hated Islam...except he apparently didn't know one damn thing about that, either. (And I did, in fact, ask.) 

Funny thing is, I found out later that the bikers he claimed so vehemently to be a part of didn't like him much either, tolerated him for some time because reasons and "He didn't have nobody" and they eventually threw his ass out because all he did was smoke up all their weed and talk stupid. 

As I had long suspected and the dude I spoke with confirmed, Fake Biker wasn't even a veteran (He'd been a contract civilian security guard at an Air National Guard base down South before he got popped for drug stuff of some kind and lost his 2nd Amendment rights, CPL and that job and then went to prison for a couple years) much less some kind of redneck Bruce Lee type of shit. He came and worked at the Casino where I met him because he had some percentage of Native American ancestry and it was an automatic job he could get hired at because of it.

And the truth is, about all these two idiots ever actually agreed on between themselves was conspiracy theories and whatever talking points they got off FOX News. 

Once they left the casino, at around the same time...all either one did was post occasional Ancient Aliens conspiracy theory BS and stupid vulgar jokes on Facebook.

It ain't about America and it ain't about Jesus, at least not now...if it ever really was.

Pretty much all that any of these ass clowns can agree on is that somebody, somewhere, must be out to "Get" them because "Vibes" and/or random Something Something Gazpacho.

Well, that and that they have to burn down America, Democracy, Freedom and the whole damn rest of the world and enslave pretty much everybody but them so they can feel "Safe." I don't know, man, it seems like just getting therapy or maybe minding your own fucking business would be cheaper and a lot less risky.

And no, I don't know the MAGA Mike Johnson types, the rich people who are all-in for Trump, blah blah blah. I mean, obviously they're out there but I don't know or see those people. MAGA to me scans as an ideology of absolute loser freaks who stare zombie-eyed at FOX News and can't or won't even tell you why they like Trump.

People used to crack wise about Homo Sovieticus, the "New Soviet Man" back during the Cold War, but that shit ain't got a damn thing on its 20th Century equivalent, Homo Republicanus, which is even dumber.

But sooner or later these jokers are going to try and fight a Civil War...or at least, the rich guys are going to get the losers to try and do it for them.

And it's going to end badly, for them.

But people will still die, I strongly suspect as much or more due to these fucking people's incompetence than their actual violence.

But the truth is that until we, as a country...hell, as a species, deal with the fact that some of us will always be fine with grossly uneducated citizens, ruined cities, oppressed peoples and scumbag politicians if it gets them a lower tax rate and a little bit of power.

I'm tired of this garbage. The question is, why aren't you??

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen.

And this ain't it, yo.

But remember, this is America and we get a choice.

Civilization, the Future, reality.

Or Conspiracy Theories, Wars, and plunder by people who think it's funny to watch the world burn.

That's our Valley Of Decision.

You decide.

You know if you let the people who believed figuratively throwing a virgin into the volcano would appease the Volcano Gods and they'd make the virus go away make these decisions, at the minimum they're going to throw somebody into the volcano.

Because that's all they believe in. I mean, shit, if nobody else volunteers they might just throw themselves into the volcano to appease their own zero-sum shitty social beliefs.

But we don't have to let these fucking people train-wreck our entire society.

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test.

Слава Україна!

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

Three

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