771 Days (American Judgment Day, Five.)

Yuri Orlov: [At Andrei's presidential compound showing the Liberian president a silver revolver pistol] The Glock is interesting. It is made of a polymer composite. Many of my clients feel that they can go through airport security without seeing a lot of bells and whistles. Personally, I do not recommend that. [Andrei chuckles glancing over at a guard flirting with a female staffer] On the other hand, if you are looking for traditional wheel gun, there is no substitute for six inches of muzzle energy of 357 mag I mean, of course, it will never jam. [Andrei shoots the guard flirting with the female staffer] WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: [Aims gun at Yuri] WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

Yuri Orlov: Now, you gonna have to buy it! IT IS A USED GUN! How can I sell a used gun? [Takes pistol from Andrei with his son and bodyguards all aiming rifles at an entirely still business-focused Yuri]

Andrei Baptiste Sr.: A "used gun"? A "used gun"?! [Chuckles] That's a good one. You know? There is no discipline with the youth today. I tried to set an example, but it is difficult huh? Personally, I blame MTV. [Smiles and Yuri nods in acknowledgment] A "used gun"? [Chuckles heartily, gets up and extends hand for handshake] I think you and I, we can do business. ~From the film Lord Of War.

...

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

...

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

Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

That's the kind of people Trump is nominating to fill his Cabinet.

Look, I'm just gonna say it. 

There were 771 days between the Fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989 and the Fall of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day of 1991. 

Yeah, I just fucking went there. Remember that, 771 Days.

We're next of a lot of fucking people don't get their head out of their ass. That's Putin's goal and the goal of a whole bunch of these idiot billionaires like Elon and Pete, because America is about the only country that could restrain their behavior by itself. The EU could do it...locally, but not globally, and all those countries are...been...under the threat of a Russian invasion.

And we will certainly half-ass helping them out, just like we've half-assed the whole Ukraine thing most of the time.

If it comes to that, which it likely will.

Because far more often than not, America, doing the minimum necessary is simply what we do.

Don't argue with me, I have a job, I'm aware.

I believe that These Fucking People's goal is to break up the United States of America, and it may come to that, simply because These Fucking People are so goddamned incompetent and toxic, and hell...so is their entire goddamned movement. I'm tired of this shit, aren't you??

And it may well come to that, I know from my own experience of dealing with somebody that has a Personality Disorder that sometimes there's no saving the situation and all you can do is get yourself away.

But a lot of people...especially a lot of liberals...would go for it simply because it'd be the path of least resistance.

We're in this mess because too goddamned many Democratic voters sat this one out because they didn't get a blowjob and a free beer for showing up, and too many more had some priggish "statement" they wanted to make. We all knew the stakes, we were warned again and again by people who knew what the fuck they were talking about.

And too many people didn't care.

Liberals tend to get lazy when they feel safe, and they expect somebody else to do the work.

And not enough people did.

Or worse...and yes, I do think this badly of a lot of motherfuckers...I think it comes down to Joe Biden wasn't "entertaining" (whatever that means) and cosplay "fighting" against Trump made a lot of idiots (*Cough* Resistance Twitter *Cough*) feel important and special and more importantly made them a lot of money. 

Hell...there's whole industries of Anti-Trump and Pro-Trump shit out there.

I mean I literally just saw a pro-Trump ad right before a Lincoln Project video on fucking YouTube.

And all those people lose money if and when he goes away, and he's old and not in good shape so that'll happen.

Just like I said I fully expect there to be some violent outburst within Two Weeks of the day after the election (and there's arguably been that on a small scale) I will say that I think we have about two years to pull this thing out of the damn fire and save our own asses. 

Whether we can do that as a unified country or not, I cannot say, whether it comes down to peaceful resistance or armed conflict, I simply don't know.

I do know MAGA wants some kind of a civil war, oh yes, they do.

They've said so, ad nauseum.

But, given the election results despite the known gravity of the situation, I think it's just as likely that America simply...dies of disinterest? I don't know. The ideal of America right now certainly seems about as forlorn and lonely as an old gray rescue ferret sleeping in a cage at some old guy's ferret rescue, huddled up with all the other cast-off Dooks and waiting for the food bowl to get filled and playtime to start, knowing it might as well just go back to bed because outside of the few people keeping it going, nobody outside of that little space gives a fuck.

I saw something last night, someone...I think it was Ken White/Popehat via Bluesky or maybe even on Threads...brought up the example of the Global War On Terror...and did it ever really end? And then they brought up the Cold War and compared how America just counted its blessings when the Wall fell and it was over, and moved on...and compared that to how Rome just built and rebuilt itself over time.

And eventually, Rome became two empires, then it became many empires, and cultures and several languages...affecting everything from the Islamic Golden Age to the Age of Exploration to the character of Europe and Latin America and the US and Canada today...hell, there's even video games! Likewise France and Spain and the UK inflected a good bit of the world with their own cultural imprints. Will we?

Well the truth is, the cultures and systems that built the Roman Empire outlived it by a goddamn fair bit, fuck, you could argue we still live within them.

If we're lucky, that'll be us, too. All empires fall. But for fuck's sake let's at least try and go out on a good note and at a time of our own choosing, shall we??

Because when it comes right down to it, all these "Christian Nationalists" (who are, in reality, neither) really want to do is kill people. I'm sick of these goddamned barbarians.

But the sad fact for a hell of a lot of people is even with our current situation being as fucked up as it is, Russia is a hell of a lot closer to being in The Handmaid's Tale than we are.

And if we do fall like the Soviet Union did, when the dust settles, somebody's gonna have to be like the Ukrainians, somebody always steps up, it always comes down to a fight eventually. So, even then it ain't over.

There's no excuse for this shit.

Maybe we ought to stop with this whole "American Experiment" bit, admit the Experiment came out with mixed results, if it didn't fail outright and just start with the goddamn American Project.

It's a fixer-upper.

We've got, by my reckoning, maybe two years to get the fucking job done...with the tools we've got, after work, on a budget, and we've got to persuade people to get off they ass and help out.

So get to work, because if we don't, things only get worse.

You can't win if you don't fight.

Слава Україна!

Sure, we were unprepared, our tools, our training, everything I just talked about, all one class-A, gold-standard clusterfuck, but the weapon that really failed wasn’t something that rolled off an assembly line. It’s as old as…I don’t know, I guess as old as war. It’s fear, dude, just fear and you don’t have to be Sun freaking Tzu to know that real fighting isn’t about killing or even hurting the other guy, it’s about scaring him enough to call it a day... “Shock and Awe”? Perfect name, “Shock and Awe”! But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid! ~Todd Waino, World War Z (Novel by Max Brooks)

Four

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.