Quisling (When's Enough, Enough? Three.)

Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.
For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. 

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

~Amos 5:1-8

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I'm tired of this bullshit.

Donald Trump (and Republicans in general nowadays) never seem to miss an opportunity to gargle Vladimir Putin's balls live on TV.

Putin is a goddamn Chekist, a KGB Agent, whether he's a practicing Communist now or not, he had to be a Communist's Communist just to be considered for the position back in the 1980's.

Ukraine is still there, Ukraine is still fighting. Hell, the Russian Army has itself been exposed as the flimsiest of paper tigers.

Like if we actually fight these motherfuckers we'll be able to install Vladimir Lenin's taxidermed corpse in the Wax Museum at Knott's Berry Farm before it's over. If we came at them the Russian Army would shit itself and run away screaming.

I'm serious.

And Republicans cannot wait to get on their knees and blow Vladimir Putin, and then mash their faces, still dripping with KGB-agent-spunk into the goddamn floor in their utter, shameless haste to prostrate themselves before the fucking Hammer and Sickle and then give away the store to the goddamn Commies in terms of US Power and world affairs.

And there's absolutely no reason to do this unless they've been compromised by Russian oligarch money and are on the same team with those motherfuckers.

I mean, actually, there's literally no reason for Republicans to keep their word and not betray these sons of bitches and defeat them anyway...unless they actually want to.

They seem to not even want to turn the tables and win for themselves, so long as other Americans lose.

"Reagan Wept" does not even begin to cover it.

Seriously, how many of these motherfuckers would've just rolled over during the Cold War and made the most far-left Berkeley professor or San Francisco hippie look like Winston Churchill...if the Soviets had just pretended to be "Conservative" or said they hated the same people that these so-called Republicans hate??

Of course, Republicans were, love 'em or hate 'em, a different Party at the time.

I remember back in 2002, I happened to be getting gas at the corner store by my Mom's house and I still had the car radio on when I heard that Republicans had shit-canned Trent Lott for singing the praises of Strom Thurmond at some event or other.

Nowadays you got Clay Higgins talking a bunch of racist shit against Haitians on Twitter and apparently, it's all good 'cause he deleted the Tweet.

And I think that's the key right there, to this whole goddamned thing.

In America and most other Western countries the idea of the Russian Apparatchik, Commissar or more recently, conventional politician as a greedy, ill-mannered, unserious pig of a man (and there not being a whole lot of daylight between those guys and the KGB itself) was cemented in our imagination by three generations of bad movies.

I mean, we gave these fucking people a hell of a chance back in the 1990s (And Boris Yeltsin himself didn't really help Russia's image much) and Russian nationalists with Communist leanings were still staple US movie villains. So now it's 30 years later and the Russian "Nationalists" have re-Sovietized Russia and brought Communism back in literally all but name.

There's even been efforts to bring back the Hammer and Sickle as Russia's national flag, although it didn't go much of anywhere.

Republicans be like "I'm gonna get me some of that."

And they're going after it with a level of cravenness that would make WWII Norwegian Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling blush.

And I think UK foreign secretary David Lammy about nailed why.

He called Russia a Mafia state, with pretensions of becoming a Mafia empire...and likened Putin to a slave-owner.

Personally, I think Republicans see the same shit, but think it's a compliment.

I said back in 2015 when Trump started talking about building a wall, that "Republicans are basically Communists now."

But the actual truth is that Russia is and always was (more or less) a vast criminal conspiracy with the trappings of a monarchy or, later, a Communist totalitarian state laid over the top of it.

But more than that, it's that this bullshit simply shambles on and lets people be the worst version of themselves that they can fucking manage. There's apparently no aspect of Russian society that isn't riddled with corruption and run by thieves. The Russian armed forces is a soup sandwich for this exact reason...and no one cares.

Oh, sure, they'll execute you if you get caught, now that they started a war a couple years back. But the thing is, right up until then, the assholes have absolute free reign on levels that there's just no reason for. I mean, when the Ukrainian counter-invasion of the Kursk region started, Russian soldiers were routinely filmed abusing and pillaging their own people.

Think about that, for a second.

The Russians don't pay or even feed their own soldiers worth a crap, so I kind of get it, but Russian military discipline is supposedly brutal. I kind of figured that would keep things in check. Being a former US Air Force security forces Sergeant myself, I wondered where the NCO's, let alone the officers were in controlling their men. I mean, that is literally a Sergeant's job, to (very often) babysit a bunch of window-licking morons and keep them on task and pointed in the same direction (Some time I'll tell you how damned lucky I was to have both a good LT and a good squad) and the truth is they were right at the head of the pack, stealing the best stuff for themselves. I'm serious when I say that viscerally disgusted me.

But that, right there, is what MAGA thinks they're gonna get.

These fucking people would rather be the foot soldiers of a criminal empire that robs and steals from its own people than be Americans.

And Trump thinks he'll get to be the biggest thief of all, while still getting the mob to cheer for him..

It's like this, people.

Either you can work it up to stand up against that kind of shit, or you get what you get.

You either believe in freedom...and in being a better citizen...or you don't.

Republicans have decided that they want to be a better class of slaves to a worldwide criminal Empire.

As for the rest of us?

We either believe in freedom or we don't, at this point it's really that damned simple.

So get after it.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

Two

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"