Republican "Gods" (Wine Of The Wrath Of God, Five.)

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

...

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

I saw this yesterday, while I was out getting my groceries and running payday errands.

The first Russian IVF babies using sperm from dead Russian soldiers that were killed in Ukraine have now been born.

I mean this seriously, and I have a wide-ranging background of gaming and reading science fiction, so know that before I say this: That sound creepy as fuck to me.

Now, apparently the Southern Baptists have decided they're rabidly against IVF, which is interesting to me because as I wrote about awhile back, for a very long time literally the only couple I knew that had used IVF were an Assistant Pastor and his wife, at the time Fundamentalist Baptists very much in the mold of the Southern Baptist Convention...although the church was just your basic Fundamentalist Baptist church of the sort that defined itself as Baptist primarily theologically, rather than specifically denominationally and had no particular ties to any other. They got ran out by the nuts, although they simply went to a different church, so far as I know.

Same church, different problem, for a perhaps longer period of time the only woman I'd known who'd had an abortion was a Baptist conservative Republican. 

Think about that, for a second.

By the time the nuts got done with her, she was none of the above (although we were both in the same Community College biology class later) and within a few years her husband had also left both the Church and Christianity, and even being a Christian, I did not blame them because they'd both been treated so badly. (I left that church around the same time, myself.)

In both cases, the procedures were required because of medical problems of one sort or another, and in the latter case it was a choice of "Have an Abortion" or "Die" and that lady didn't want to die for some other person's beliefs, and would in fact go on to have at least one more kid that I know of.

Now Southern Baptists apparently hate IVF and want to ban it, at least, for Americans. It's Okay for Russians because these fucking people hate America, not Russia.

No word on their opinion of the Russian use of the procedure, which is probably literally geared at growing replacement soldiers who the Russians hope to use against America at a future date. Nor is there any change in these fucking people's belief that Russia is a "Christian" nation.

Of course, what these idiots consider to be "Christian" seems to run absolutely counter to anything that Jesus Christ ever said, about anything at all.

In fact, "Hate Gay People" apparently means more to them than "Love Thy Neighbor." And I'll note that Jesus only commanded the latter of those who follow Him. Jesus never said a damn thing about LGBT people, or hating anybody.

Of course, we already know these motherfuckers think that Donald Trump is Jesus Christ, and the Father and the Holy Ghost, too, apparently. These fucking people literally think Trump is God and I have no fucking idea why.

Also, Anything they ever said they believed in or anything that they said before could not be reached for comment. It seems to me as if pretty much all of Christianity before about June of 2015 has gone down the memory hole, so far as these assholes are concerned.

So what's all this for, really?? What's even the goddamned point??

I mean, these fucking people go around constantly saying they "Love God" but have you ever noticed nobody asks of them "What Is God??" let alone "Which God??"

Christ-less Christianity is not Christianity at all.

I mean, weren't these the "Jesus Plus Nothing" people??

How does one get from that to worshiping Donald Trump??

And the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is abundantly clear that there is, or was at one time, no shortage of Demons, False Gods, False Prophets, Impersonators, Imposters, Man-made Cults, Powers, Principalities and wannabes out there.

And somehow nobody ever even bothered to check the Word against Trump or anything he ever said, and I say that as a guy who stood there in my living room and watched Trump say, live on CNN, that he didn't think he needed God's forgiveness.

And me and my Roommate (who is African American and since we parted ways, he's become a Pastor) were both basically yelling at the TV, we were so shocked. And I wasn't a Born-Again anything at the time, and I'm still not. 

The fact that we both had Church backgrounds might've mattered there, but if you think about it, it should not have.

Any decent person should've been repulsed, most were.

For all the good that it did.

How the whole Trump Thing didn't end right there, I'll never know, but that was just the first of an endless list of such things.

Coincidentally, the rise of Trump in 2015 seemed to correlate to a drop-off in the amount of Jesus-talk from Evangelicals. It's almost like they thought they'd found a New Savior.

Never mind what the Lord's Word says about people who do exactly that.

In other words, if that's you, you should expect a warm afterlife.

Evangelicals and Republicans sold their souls for political Power...and so far as I can tell they really haven't gotten all that much for it.

Unless the entire damned point of all this garbage was simply to hurt people, and everything else was a lie.

And by now? This fresco from the Main Cathedral Of The Russian Armed Forces...featuring Soviet soldiers, seems more what the American Christians want for themselves. Never mind that you cannot have both the Cross of Christ and the Hammer and Sickle. One of these things is simply not like the other one. 

Jesus said His Kingdom is Not of This World, something must lose.

Republicans seem fine with some version of Soviet totalitarianism, so long as they think it's "theirs" and it makes occasional noises about "Christianity" or at least about aiding and abetting their greed, hate, and right-wing politics...which is basically what these assholes somehow think Christianity is, too.

But ya know, back in the day I read the Bible, and it doesn't say that.

What it said to me, was that people should try reading books instead of burning them.

What it said to me was that people should try caring for the kids we already have, instead of dictating how (or if) they could be born.

Because if they can ban books, or get away with wanting to ban Pride, or any other damn thing...the day will come when they will try to ban the Bible...or at least ban you from reading it. The day will come, if they can ban abortion or IVF or anything like that, that with the precedent already said they'll tell you that you must have this computer chip in your head, or your right hand.

And they'll tell you "It's not the Mark Of The Beast when they do it."

And if you don't know what the Truth is because you can't read it anymore or you didn't read it when it was freely available, what can you even say??

And that, my friends, is these fucking people's real objective.

Total power, or at least the imagining that they have it...including over whether you go to Heaven or Hell...with you having no recourse or say in the matter.

Without Truth, there is no freedom. Without Truth, we have no floor to stand on to push back against Power.

And no, they don't believe that there is a God or any other higher Power than themselves and the Power of the State...which they wish to seize for themselves. They don't really believe there's a God that'd hold them to account for their hate and lies and mistreatment of women and all the rest of it, or, going by all that they said before...they wouldn't be acting like this.

And they don't seem to care that they might be wrong or go to hell. It's all about getting their kicks in while they can, nothing else matters. They wanna be gods, so they can hurt people they don't like.

That's all there is to it.

Republicans have drunk the Wine of the Wrath of God, and they wanna make you drink it too, so you go to hell with them.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Either you stand up and fight against this shit now, or you condemn yourself to an eternity of submission later.

And this is America, we have the right to say "No."

Remember that, because it'll be on the test.

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And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb.

And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

And the smoke of their torment ascends for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receives the mark of his name.

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, said the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.

And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. ~Revelation 14:1-15

Four

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