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.
...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984. ...
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 saw this last week, but I've kept seeing it.
Mike Lindell is down to using racist dog-whistles (in reality, it's a goddamn Air Raid siren to anybody that knows what the numbers mean) to sell his shitty-ass fucking pillows.
And today, backed by the US Supreme Court, the state of Missouri went out of its way to execute a Black man in spite of the fact that the people who'd fucking prosecuted him in the first place said they should not do it.
I mean this seriously, all Republicans even have...all they want to have...is hate and racism. It's their only unifying factor, and this is by choice.
As far as I'm concerned, we don't need to just get rid of the Death Penalty.
Why??
Because Republicans are literally acting like they think they ain't gonna be able to kill Black dudes tomorrow, so they're trying to get their kicks in now.
There need to start being consequences for this bullshit in general.
We, as a nation, are eventually going to have to have Nuremburg trials against the Republican Party for shit like racist murder by the States, and probably against a certain segment of the wealthy for backing them...the question, I guess, is do we have that shit before or after they try and start a civil war?
And the thing is...the way Republicans are acting right now tells me that's exactly what they're afraid of. They're afraid that there's going to be consequences for their behavior, and I mean literal physical consequences and punishments.
Deep down, those are the
only things they even understand...or
want to.
And on some level that appears to be what they think is going to happen. They're afraid they're gonna be treated how they treat other people.
More to the point, they're willing to burn down America, anything they ever said they believed before, their own Party, and each other to (individually) escape that sort of fate.
But even they won't escape their own self-destructive rage and stupidity.
The entire point of this exercise appears to be coming down to figuring out who they can take down with them when they go.
Why do I say that? In the face of People Being Sick Of This Shit...the only thing they can agree on is Donald Trump.
Yes, Donald Trump is these fucking people's Great White Hope...think about that for a second. Or, as some idiot kid at some rally somewhere put it, Trump is "His Daddy."
I don't even want to think about what kind of a dumbass fucking useless piece of shit reject you'd have to be as a person to form that thought in your own brain-pan knowing that you actually have a father and it isn't Trump.(Let alone the idea that such a statement might well have...sexual connotations.)
It's a particularly creepy
cult, and these fucking people are
perilously close to poisoning themselves in some remote jungle hideout.
And they think they'll beat the rest of us somehow by destroying themselves.
So, I'm gonna ask again, When is enough...enough??
When in the fuck are we going to hit the point where there's been enough of this balls-on-fire donkey-show bullshit??
I mean, for fuck's sake Mark Robinson's own campaign staff quit on him, but the Republican Party as a whole is doubling down.
I mean, like what's even the damned point??
What's worse is these idiots don't even seem to understand the idea that other people could reject being self-destructive, selfish, sociopathic morons, or would want to.
If this is what "Conservatism" comes down to in the end than I'm angry that I ever was a part of it. I mean, come on, what's wrong with you??
It's not that these fucking people don't give a shit about right and wrong...although obviously, they don't.
It's that they don't even recognize the concept if they're not the only ones who can define the terms, and that's all they care about...having the power to define the terms...even though increasingly lately they've done nothing to deserve or earn such power.
They're rationalization is, well, they
had it once upon a time...therefore they should get it back and always have it forever and it should be illegal and some kind of religious heresy to even consider challenging them.
Bitch, you ain't those people from back in the day who at least managed to look like they could or should have a say in defining what was what, in fact you spit on the legacy of people like that every chance you get. Not only that, but you fuckers think it's funny.
There was a time when Conservatives and Republicans gladly worked together with Liberals and Leftists to defeat the Nazis.
Now Trump talks Nazi shit all the time...and that's not a deal-breaker for 20% of America.
Yeah I'm a use that number on purpose, among other things Republicans For Harris is a thing.
I don't need the media to tell me that. There's houses here that I drive by every day that had Trump signs in 2022 and have Harris/Walz signs now.
Not many...but probably enough to matter, in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, fuck, Joe Rogan (of all people) came out and said he thinks Kamala Harris is "killing it" RE: How well she's campaigning.
And Republicans have flat-out gone from "Make America Great Again" to openly
hating America...for no better reason than because they see Trump doing it.
At this point, they only really seem to want to "Build The Wall" if they're building it to keep other Americans out...and/or their own chosen victim-classes in.
And when Trump loses because all he's got as an ideal is "Hate For Sale" they're going to try and have some kind of bullshit Civil War and at least some of these motherfuckers will die for the "right" to oppress other people.
And they're gonna lose that, too.
I mean, what a fucking thing to have on your tombstone, eh??
But evil and hate and murder and oppression isn't just all these fucking people have...It's all they even fucking want to have. Hell, that kind of shit is how they want to define and order civilization. It's all they want or understand.
But as for you, reader??
You either believe in freedom or you don't.
You're either willing to stand up against this bullshit or you aren't.
Think on that.
But the time to act is going to be soon.
Слава Україна!You were just babies then!" she said.
"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war— like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I — I don't know," I said.
"Well I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade." She was my friend after that.
~From the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
One
Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on a race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength of the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan
Bonus Content
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"
