Telling On Themselves (Reason For The Season, Four.)

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

...

[Supervisor Heert updates Major Partagaz and Director Krennic on his hospital investigation of Kleya Marki]

Director Orson Krennic: [referring to closeup hologram of Kleya] Supervisor Heert, you will put this image out as wide and deep and far as it takes until we find her. You'll search every comms and transit point. There will be no horizon to the scope of your inquiry, nor will there be any limit to your effort. Failure will earn you a place in the ever-lengthening ISB death march, are we clear?

Supervisor Heert: [stammering nervously] The warrant. To be clear, what's the charge? Sedition? Or murder? All of the above?

Major Lio Partagaz: She's diseased. She escaped the hospital with an infectious condition that threatens everyone with whom she may come in contact. She must be found before thousands die!

Krennic: [sarcastically in Heert's ear] There it is. What are you still doing here? [Heert scurries from the room, leaving Partagaz and Krennic alone. Partagaz chuckles to himself]

Partagaz: [scoffs] "Death Star". What a prescient turn of phrase.

Krennic: I can't protect you, Lio.

Partagaz: You were supposed to be ready by now.

Krennic: You sound like Tarkin.

Partagaz: It's a miracle we've kept it quiet this long!

Krennic: We're moments away! Days! A few more tests, we're there.

Partagaz: [rolls his eyes] Save the sermon for Palpatine.

Krennic: Indeed. You have a 'plague' to stop, and I was due at Scarif two hours ago. [moves to leave, but stops at the door and glances back at Partagaz]

Partagaz: Best of luck to us both. [Krennic nods and leaves]

~From the Star Wars series Andor S2.E11 "Who Else Knows?"

...

Don't change the white man's mind—you can't change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America—America's conscience is bankrupt. She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience. They don't know what morals are. They don't try and eliminate an evil because it's evil, or because it's illegal, or because it's immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you're wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he'd straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man's mind. ~Malcolm X.

I saw this last night.

Pete Keg-breath, hawking some "Children's book" featuring a turtle shooting a Russian/Soviet RPG-7 at some kind of cargo boats, insinuated, I suppose, to be drug boats from aboard an old UH-1H helicopter.

First, go ahead and try that, see how it works?

Rambo: First Blood Part II ain't real life, exhaust gases and heat go somewhere. 

You want to burn or choke out your pilots and crash your chopper? 

Try that, seriously.

Second, and not for the first time on this blog; What the fuck is it with these people and Cold War-era Soviet battle gear and weapons?

(Aside from the fact that these fucking people can't help telling on themselves, that is??)

I also saw that it looks like the reason Trump pardoned that Honduran drug dealer ex-President was so he could run in that country's election this year in an attempt to save yet another failing crypto "Freedom City" project in Central America.

(By the way, Libertarians and rich people have been trying this kind of crap forever, and it always comes to nothing. Look up "Sea steading" sometime if you want to have a good laugh. That was their big plan in the 1990's, they even got Fundamentalist Christians hawking that shit back then, as they assumed these Bioshock franchise precursors would somehow be "Christian.")

Makes you wonder what kind of world that Keg-breath thinks he's leaving for all those kids, huh??

Do you suppose, in a barbaric former-US Successor State that one of his daughters might have to wear literal medieval-style plate armor to avoid getting groped while walking down the street??

Like we're, ya know, Afghanistan or some shit??

Some lady actually did that years ago, I guess.

The way I see a lot of dudes act nowadays, nobody should be surprised if something like that is the case in 20 years.

And the worst part is the only thing Keg-breath would likely see as wrong with illiterate handsy nasty Pashtun Chuds is that they're Muslim.

Who would Jesus grope??

There's a lot of dudes out there that could use being neutered if you ask me.

Again, I think the rot from all this Epstein files type shit spreads deeper and further out than basically anybody is prepared to deal with at this point.

But somehow that seems to be Okay for politicians and rich white guys, while the world reserves its scorn for bearded illiterate thugs in Afghanistan.

What's it gonna take, a global color revolution for women's bodily autonomy and rights to be respected??

Maybe we should, in fact, have exactly that, then?

You bet some media billionaire-ball-gargling hack would immediately tag such a thing the Pink Revolution or Utero-Maidan or some shit like that.

Okay, let's have it anyway.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

And yes, I'm a Man and I've done things worthy of judgment, too.

A lot more shit than that is happening now, and it's not right. You shouldn't need me to tell you that.

I'm tired of this crap.

At the rate we're going it's gonna take decades to unspool and sort out the swirling morass of crazy sexual abuse stories I keep seeing and that's probably just the barest hint of all that's really going on.

Political authoritarianism of all kinds is (and always has been) wrapped up in Patriarchy.

And they wanna make it worse.

More to the point I'm tired of this A Republican Is A Russian Is A Transphobe Is An LGBT Hater is a Misogynist is Anti-Islam Is a Christian Nationalist is an Antisemite because somehow all this Russian-Nesting-Doll hatred bullshit and somehow Communism is "Conservative" now.

It never stops. Nobody says "Okay, I'll just take a little racism." Nobody ever doesn't just turn around and adopt all the other hatreds as they go along. 

Worse, and I'm serious, all this garbage always ends up in the same goddamned place, every fucking time; Some variant of White Christian Nationalism where nobody but rich, White, supposedly-Christian uber-Capitalist MEN has any rights.

Even when it makes no sense for the person to back Christian Nationalism: Think Stephen Miller.

It's all the same shit: Petty Hatred as a control mechanism.

And it's ALL bullshit.

And the heirs of US Cold War Victory seem perfectly fine with bashing the victors and their memory, and then with installing the grandsons of literal Stalinists as some kind of global ruling class. America's fine with being our literal enemy's bitch if we get to hate.

I can't make that bullshit make any sense.

These motherfuckers would put the Berlin Wall right back up to "Own The Libs" except it wasn't the "Libs" who won the Cold War.

Sure, they helped plenty, but it was the Center-Right that was in charge at the time.

Every once in awhile, the far-right suckers some black dude or white woman into co-signing on this shit, usually starting them off by bashing any memory of what conservatism or Republicanism once was or at least of when they kept all the bullshit out of sight.

Because apparently just saying that shit in the cigar-smoke-filled back room with your bros ain't a big enough dopamine hit anymore?

Reagan Wept.

And somehow These Fucking People always miss the point of basically everything.

Worse, because they're stupid, they want to burn the modern world down to the Earth's Mantle for narcissistic fuel because they think they're gonna have some kind of bullshit modern "Crusade."

Do I really need to remind people just how badly that shit worked out back in the day??

Did we learn nothing from Afghanistan and Iraq??

The West isn't "Christian." It's secular, it always has been. Governments historically just use religion to manipulate the people, and at the end of the day the religions end up wrecking themselves because they get wrapped up in a whole bunch of disgusting, wrong shit, and it turns out that way every time you run the experiment.

But all these narcissists and shit somehow think that won't happen to them.

Worse, they don't wanna go back to Iraq and try that bullshit again. That would be too much work.

Baghdad, Florida or Cairo, Illinois or Damascus, Maryland will suffice.

Or Detroit, or Minneapolis or New York City, for that matter.

These Fucking People don't care who dies, they just want to kill.

They're not interested in Civilization, Western or otherwise, and they could give a fuck about Christianity.

They think they're gonna get some mutant combination of the Mad Max movies and Neil Blomkamp's Elysium out of this, but it'll somehow be "White" and they think they can bullshit that into being "Christian." 

They don't care if they get to live on the shiny space station or not.

They also don't care if they go to Hell.

Just so they can take other people with them.

Jesus wasn't White and probably doesn't give a rat's ass if you are or not, especially considering those classifications didn't exist in His time.

He was born in a Pagan polytheistic Empire that rejected almost all the things modern people, much less modern Christians take for granted as morality, where I'm sure lots of men honored the Gods and loved women and lived productive, virtuous lives and where lots of women were opinionated and smart, also, but those ain't the ones that the histories tell us about and if you don't believe me go right ahead and look up homosexuality in the Roman Empire.

Weirdly, there's not much discussion of women at all in Roman sexuality.

(And that is the kind of world These Fucking People seem to aspire to.)

None of this shit that These Fucking People want is based on love or virtue, let alone Jesus.

They want that complex hierarchy of who can do what to whom, and damned little else.

But for all its might, that sort of system was greatly threatened and ultimately undone by a religion started by a homeless itinerant Rabbi that was born in a stable. Yes, centuries of Roman decadence and clerical intrigues replacing Imperial discipline helped that shit along, the point stands.

Remember that, this holiday season.

And I'd suggest we look at that history to see just where we might be going.

In the meantime, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

You can either believe in bullshit or you can believe in Truth.

One of these is not like the other one.

Light has no fellowship with darkness, remember this.

Слава Україна!

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

Three

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.

Killing The Witnesses (Reason For The Season 2025, Three.)

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

And if any man will hurt them, fire proceeds out of their mouth, and devours their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.

And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. ~Revelation 11:3-13

...

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

...

Don't change the white man's mind—you can't change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America—America's conscience is bankrupt. She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience. They don't know what morals are. They don't try and eliminate an evil because it's evil, or because it's illegal, or because it's immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you're wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he'd straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man's mind. ~Malcolm X.

I saw this last night.

Joel W. Berry, one of the Babylon Bee idiots, trying to say it's government's "Telos" to "Take up the sword against "evildoers." Sorry, bro, but governments (and hell, laws while I'm at it) don't work that way. You can't really legislate morality...least of all not with immoral people like today's "Conservatives" in government. Law is about giving society a recourse against antisocial behavior.

(And I've been to Saudi Arabia, bro. Getting alcohol or whatever you damned well please is just a matter of who you know, or of simply going somewhere else for a couple days.)

If it's a Power game, like it is in a place like Saudi Arabia rather than rule of law like it's supposed to be an a modern Western nation...the whole thing is inherently fucked and needs to be replaced, lest your whole nation be lawless.

And I'm already on record saying These Fucking People are going to bring God's judgment on America, not the atheists, the LGBT folks or the Muslims.

No, the "Conservative" Christians will do it all by themselves.

Because they think they can have the sexual morality of goats and then somehow erase that with a bunch of religious-sounding talk

Funny how these fucking people never think God might actually have an opinion about what they do vs. what they say?

Ya know, maybe it's just me but I'd consider the source on somebody saying the State should "wield the sword against evildoers." These are the same fucking people who thought it would be funny to depict Vivek Ramaswamy as running a 7-11 after he quit running for President.

Likewise the fact that these fucking people can't wrap their heads around the simple fact that there's plenty of white Muslims (from places like Russia) or that they can't just blame all crime on non-white folks.

You have to look in the mirror at some point, yo.

More to the point, without acknowledging the fact of people and that nobody else has to fit your bullshit classifications, even if what these dipshits are saying was true (it isn't, but let's say it was.) How do you even know you've got the sword of "Justice" aimed at the right people??

Seriously!?

Yeah, I get it, they don't care, they just want to kill and intimidate and be cruel.

That's not much of a way to have a functional society, the Greeks and Romans knew this, come on.

Then I saw some idiot in Oklahoma is trying to sue the University of Oklahoma because they got a bad grade for basically saying "Demons did it" on a psychology paper. 

They did that, instead of, ya know, giving a proper response to the assignment grounded in medicine and science. There's usually such a thing as a right answer and a wrong answer.

Nobody should understand that better than religious people.

But here we are.

Look, bitch, if you believe in demons and think "Jesus Did It!" is a valid answer, what the fuck are you doing in college (other than maybe a Bible college) let alone taking a psychology class??

I was a Conservative Christian when I took a bunch of psychology classes and the thought of blaming Demons or saying that Jesus did it never entered into my brain-pan because I was taking a psych class and such would be massively inappropriate in addition to actually being wrong.

Letting people write "Jesus Did It!" on their homework is how you end up with an Idiocracy.

And then I want you to factor in that Mike Johnson and his wife were "interviewed" by Katie Miller and the whole time Little Johnson looked like he couldn't wait to get as far away from his wife as fucking possible.

I really want to believe there's a happy alternate universe where my partner and I have been happily married for 20 years and have money and a bunch of pets, and also where Mike Johnson is a skeevy Southern ambulance-chaser who's a "Committed Bachelor" and has an office in a strip mall next to a storefront church but nightly visits his favorite bar or whatever and nobody who didn't already want to ever had to know who the fuck he was.

Like, dude, if you don't wanna be around your wife...why'd you get married in the first place?? It's 2025, no one cares if you're gay.

Like what's even the damned point??

Help me here.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

There's literally no way I could even imagine being somebody like Mike Johnson, because #1 I absolutely desire to be with the woman that I love and #2 I'm not gonna fake anything less in pursuit of some bullshit political or social status. This isn't even that hard.

I have a confession to make.

Until roughly the last year or so, I seriously doubted that the world as described by Revelation chapter 11 where people as a whole literally celebrated the open murder of God's holy prophets could ever exist.

I repent of that unbelief.

Why??

The quote about the Two Witnesses hit me last night, while I was on break, and now I can't un-see not only the bit about people celebrating their deaths...but that there is a non-zero chance that the people doing the celebrating and giving gifts to each other to commemorate murder could very well be your local Evangelicals down at the Assembly of God or First Baptist.

Why?? Because this shit is a cult of political power and social status at this point, and it has fuck all to do with Jesus Christ or with any of His teachings.

And These Fucking People no longer care who knows it.

Evangelical churches are narcissist factories, and Trump's America wants to ramp that shit up to wartime production levels. It's about the only thing we wanna produce at scale.

Narcissism.

In fact, flouting the Lord's Word while ignoring the teachings and then rubbing somebody else's nose in how "Special" these religious nuts think they are seems to have become the goddamned point of about everything if it wasn't already.

Sorry, but hubris and narcissism won't get you into Heaven and in fact, they seem to generally point in the other direction. They just think they can bullshit God.

And of course they're gonna want to kill off the Witnesses.

Along with anything else, like reason or science, that calls them to the Truth.

Eternal life comes by letting go of Self, not the exaltation of Self, it can only be achieved through compassion, humility and repentance...not by greed, narcissism and selfishness.

What these "Christians" desire so mightily is what they can never achieve...not without actually following the Truth and changing their ways.

And it's not just that they don't want to follow it. The day is gonna come when they actively try to prevent others from following the Truth as well.

Soon.

Truth is the only floor most people will ever have to stand on to push back against Power.

Remember this, especially in this season.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

Слава Україна!

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

Two 

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

Forever War (Reason For The Season 2025, Two.)

 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

...

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

...

[At the Maltheen Divide, Director Krennic convenes an off-the-books conference of Imperial officers and Ghorman government officials]'

Director Orson Krennic: No notes. No records. None of you were ever here. Nobody puts this in their calendar. All service and transport droids will be data-wiped once we're done. Your colleagues, superiors? If they're not in this room, they're not cleared for the project. Colonel Yularen, Governor Tarkin? All senior commanders will be notified by the Emperor at the time of his choosing. Now, the group in this room is, as of this moment, the tightest of closed circles. Any security violation will be brought to the Emperor's personal attention.

[A tourist film about Ghorman has been shown at Director Krennic's secret conference]

Director Orson Krennic: I doubt anyone here is unaware of the difficulties we've had making the Emperor's dream of energy independence [Cover story for the Death Star] a reality. Now, I hear the rumors. I know the stories. Delays. Setbacks. Groveling for Senate funding. I met with the Emperor yesterday. And he suggested, I remind you that the Energy Initiative remains the centerpiece of his agenda. Access to stable, unlimited power will transform the galactic economy and solidify Imperial authority. And it turns out, spiders are not the most unique thing in Ghorman. There's a mineral underground. Doctor?

Imperial Science Officer: Deep substrate foliated Kalkite.

Krennic: Kalkite. Synthetic Kalkite. Kalkite alternatives. Kalkite substitutes. I mean, the amount of time spent pondering this grubby little bit of rock is sadly astonishing. Now, we've promised delivery in three years. That delivery is dependent on some version of Ghorman Kalkite to coat the reactor lenses. Now... should we fail to find any alternatives, we will have to control Ghorman with a hand firm enough... to silence... any resistance, and you've been selected to help plan for that possibility. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E1 "One Year Later."

I kept seeing this type of shit yesterday.

There's a "WAR" (!!!) On Christmas.

It's Thanksgiving, Nobody's Welcome, Fuck You. Get Out.

WHY DOES NOBODY LOVE ME?!?!?! 

Note it was the Same Fucking People saying or implying all three of these things.

Every fucking time.

Well, if nobody likes you or wants to associate with you, have you tried not being an asshole??

Or maybe, you could try welcoming other people, in the hope that there'll be somebody who doesn't mind that you're an asshole, or who is a similar asshole??

Nah, that would be too hard, I guess.

Same old shit.

Basically anything but "Do what Jesus actually said" or "Love Thy Neighbor."

What's even the point of Christmas (or Thanksgiving?) If it's just one more thing to fight about??

And aren't these the "Family Values" people?

I mean I guess?? If you're the drunk uncle at the table whose only "Values" are being an asshole, conflict, and narcissism.

"Conservatives" in America are a total soup sandwich and cannot stop contradicting themselves.

Note I say this as a former conservative.

The only thing that matters to these idiots is bigotry, gatekeeping, and themselves.

These morons basically think of America (and Whiteness and increasingly, Masculinity for that matter) as their HOA.

One in which they do not want any new people.

Like especially with this time of year, which is supposed to be about shared joy, how does that even work??

(And then they wonder why increasingly fewer people want any part of all this??)

They're going to gatekeep both themselves and America right out of existence. 

Not only because they're stripping all meaning away from what it means to be an American. But also because they literally do not seem to believe that there should be such a thing as future generations. Or at least, not nobody who doesn't fit their exceedingly narrow view of what it is to be a person and subscribe on a paid basis to their joyless worldview.

I mean what else is it, really, when they describe "Patriotism" or religion, let alone religious "revival" solely in terms of buying shit??

By that metric, Christmas is winning the war on Christmas, despite the fact that Halloween refuses to surrender it's already well up into September.

Fuck this for-profit Forever War on Christmas bullshit!

Capitalism isn't what Christmas is supposed to be for.

If that's what it is, what's even the damn point?? Some of us have families to help support now and can't afford (and don't actually need or want) to buy a new device every fuckin' year. We have no interest in buying shit just for the hell of it.

What about those of us who don't measure our spirituality how much money we spend or in Podcast downloads?

OR who don't set our metrics based on consumerism, hate, and pornography??

It's in fact, a view and interpretation of personhood that before it's all over narrows out to exclude basically everybody but themselves...on an individual basis.

How's that even work??

Who dafuq wants to be a Society Of One?

I mean, even being happy with what one has seems extremely foreign to these motherfuckers.

So naturally, given their dumb shit obsession with ever more endless bigotry, exclusivism, objectification and reductive stupidity, of course they're gonna port that over into their relationships sooner or later.

Good luck with that.

I mean, I've only ever been told for my entire life "Don't be that guy who only thinks about sex."

And that people who talked or thought like that were crude, debased and Sinful and should not be allowed to be around the women in your life.

And last I knew, that was the conservative point of view.

Here's Nick Fuentes saying the only thing women are good for is Sex.

You know, I got beat up by a girl for saying less-shitty things than that *Checks Notes* 40 years ago. And I deserved it. 

I got in trouble, she didn't.

But ya know, that's back when the world made sense.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

It's not even that all these motherfuckers don't like women, or LGBT folk, or whatever. It's that they LOVE NO ONE but themselves.

And then, even in the thrall of their selfish-as-fuck narcissism, they have the balls to wonder why they are lonely.

Not lonely enough yet, I think.

In spite of the fact that every last one of these idiots thinks they wanna be the last man standing, literally.

And of course the whole point of all this garbage in the first place is distraction while they strip America and as much of the rest of the world as they can for parts and (more importantly) for narcissistic fuel.

Nobody acts more like they know the Bible is all crap and lies and that they know there Is No God than the "Conservative" Christians do at this point.

What Nick Fuentes and Stephen Miller and Trump and War On Christmas random dude want isn't Christianity, it's Criminality with a huge heaping side-dish of Narcissism. Even the White Supremacy is only a means to an end, that end being Themselves.

Because they're White.

If they were something else the ideology would be different but still joyless.

Think Putinism or Soviet Communism, not that there's much of a difference, really.

And with that in mind, they want to demand that you celebrate Christmas in a fashion they approve of??

Yeah, fuck it, let's all be miserable shits like Republicans worship the idea of being.

And they can't even imagine that anybody else would really want to do anything different.

Like, their whole attitude is they hate everybody and everything, including themselves.

Praise Jesus.

How much fun does that sound, really??

I'm honestly surprised they're not demanding people put up Golden Idols for Christmas this year.

Maybe we should stop letting conflict-oriented narcissists and greedy capitalist Republicans and various joyless political and religious fanatics who believe WAR is the natural state of Man define the terms and just tell these fucking people to go fuck themselves?

Just sayin.'

Peace and love and yes, inclusion are supposed to be the reasons for the season.

Jesus wasn't born rich in a palace.

Jesus didn't preach exclusion and hate and try to turn every occasion into a fight.

Remember that.

If Christmas is just one more thing to fight about, let alone a scam for you to steal while getting other people to fight about it or some social status thing...you're already damned.

So yeah, just keep feeling special or making money or racking up imaginary culture war points.

See how far that gets you in the afterlife.

Christmas is supposed to be about Christ and love and family, not the Greater Glory of You.

Either you believe in freedom--for all people--or you don't.

Слава Україна!

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

One

Come, they told me, pa rum pum pum pum 

A newborn King to see, pa rum pum pum pum 

Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum 

To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum 

Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum. 

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum 

When we come.

Little baby, pa rum pum pum pum 

I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum 

I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum 

That’s fit to give a King, pa rum pum pum pum 

Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum. 

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum 

On my drum? Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum 

The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum 

I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum 

I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum 

Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum. 

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum,

Me and my drum.

~The Little Drummer Boy, Christmas Carol.

Fakepocalypse Now (Reason For The Season 2025, One.)

Osman Ali Atto: I see not catching Aidid is becoming routine.

General William Garrison: We're not leaving Somalia until we find him. And we will find him.

Atto: (scoffing) You've been here, what, six weeks? Six weeks, you tried to catch the General. You put up reward posters. $25,000. What's this, gunfight at K.O. Corral?

Garrison: It's O.K. Corral.

Atto: Don't make the mistake of thinking because I grew up without running water I am simple, General. I do know something about history. See all this? It's simply shaping tomorrow. A tomorrow without a lot of Arkansas white-boys' ideas in it.

Garrison: Well, I wouldn't know about that. I'm from Texas.

Atto: Mr. Garrison, I think you should not have come here. This is civil war. This is our war, not yours.

Garrison: Three hundred thousand dead and counting. That's not a war, Mr. Atto. That's genocide. ~From The Film Black Hawk Down.

...

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 

~Matthew 25:31-45

...

Chief Tyrol: I've known people from Aerelon. You don't sound anything like them.

Gaius Baltar: I don't sound like I'm from Aerelon?

Tyrol: No.

Baltar: Well, you know, I take that as a particular compliment. I don't know about you, but I've always founds the Aerelon dialect to be particularly hard on the ears. [affects a Yorkshire accent] Something about the consonants that scrape the back of the throat. [murmurs] Of course, I should know an awful lot about my native tongue; I spent hours on end trying to overcome it. Do you have any idea how hard it is for a ten-year-old boy to change the way he speaks? To unlearn everything he ever learned so that one day, one day there might be the small hope that he might be considered as not comin' from Aerelon? Maybe... I don't know... [switches back to Received Pronunciation.] Caprica. Caprican. Oh, to be Caprican. The seat of politics, culture, art, science, learning. And what was Aerelon, just a drab, ugly rock condemned to be the food basket for the Twelve Worlds. And that's how we were treated: like servants, like laborers, like working class. You know, you'd have fitted right in there, Chief. Lots of men who [switches back to Yorkshire accent] liked to work with their hands and, grab a pint down t'pub, and finish off the evening with a good old-fashioned fight.[switches back to Received Pronunciation] Oh yes, I left Aerelon after my eighteenth birthday. I turned my back on my family, on my heritage. All of them. 'Course it doesn't matter, that. They're all dead now. 

~From Battlestar Galactica (2003) S3.E16 "Dirty Hands."

Yesterday, some idiot that Trump granted asylum to shot and wounded two Army National Guardsmen in Washington DC.

OK, that's pretty fucked up.

I'll note I've seen These Fucking People go after people for saying that it's fucked up.

Because the only "Right" that matters in America to these motherfuckers is the Divine Right To Get Shot.

Meanwhile, "Conservatives" are trying to act like it's the fucking Apocalypse that somebody got shot.

(Interspersed with juvenile bullshit.)

For totally dishonest reasons, of course.

Again, I'll note during a real potentially apocalyptic situation like COVID-19 those who weren't trying to use that shit as a biological weapon to take out the people they don't like were busy as hell trying to deny that the problem existed at all.

So which is it??

Also, What's FOX News talking about? Trying to make Trad-wives a trend.

Trad-wives are not a trend, nobody who isn't already rich can afford that shit.

You know, maybe it's just me, but it sort of blows my mind that the bigotry, total dishonesty and utter elitism of so many of these damn "Republicans"...not to mention their treating literally everybody else like we're stupid...hasn't pissed off even more people than the 60% of the country that it already obviously has.

And to me, the worst thing about this trying to push "Traditional" whatever is it's based on about every damn thing but love.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

I mean, come on, just looking at mine and my partner's Amazon lists, for fuck's sake she defines herself by her damn job! And this woman who can be very Trad at home, insisted on doing the cooking when she was here, and so on.

Of course, neither of us wants that sort of traditional relationship.

But we are both old-school small-"c" conservatives.

And I love her, so of course I'm going to support her in doing what she needs and wants to do.

Because that's what I was taught, what Revealed Truth and the wisdom of my Ancestors and Elders said to do.

All I ask for is the same in return, because that's how it works. 

Otherwise what the shit am I even doing?

But MAGA "Conservatives" don't work that way.

For them; It's not about Love or Truth or what's gone before, it's about Power.

For them, Erika Kirk can do whatever she wants as long as she's useful including put her hands all over Megyn Kelly and basically preaching African Witch Doctor-ism. 

An openly bisexual woman like my partner on the other hand, who (despite being kinda conservative herself) openly defies a whole bunch of the "conservative" social memes simply as a matter of course? 

Not so much.

They don't care that that's who she is.

And These Fucking People literally seemed to think they could just waltz in and "claim" whatever they damned well pleased like some Prosperity Gospel televangelist that got too high on his own supply.

Like I can't even imagine why anybody was ever surprised that Canadians got all pissed off about Republicans just sort of trying to "name and claim" their whole damn country.

Imagine if the Chinese just walked up and started acting like they owned America?? These same fuckers would be demanding nuclear war.

The rest of the world...hell, the rest of the country...doesn't have to put up with this fucking bullshit.

And these jabronis cannot even handle that we don't.

These morons (OK, Laura Loomer, but she's pretty representative of These Morons) are basically saying they want Trump to be their King in order to "Protect" them, I suppose.

A few things; 

#1 This Is America, No.

Become familiar with that word, No, and apply it to your local Republican.

#2 I don't think, even if you got your wish, that it would go the way you think it will.

If you have functioning ears or eyes or are at all literate, how do you not know that??

It's not just that Trump isn't some kind of Tough Guy, it's that he actively is a Coward and a narcissist who'll blatantly and obviously betray anybody for no reason.

Including Laura Loomer, funny enough.

#3 Look, and I've been trying to tell you all this for years; People conditioned to be afraid, to live in fear, are not gonna be able to suddenly turn on a dime and Be Brave when it's either convenient or actually necessary.

And Donald Trump is not a good leader or a person with sufficient courage or moral fiber or possessed of enough strength of will to do anything to change that.

So all this Fakepocalypse Now shit is even going to accomplish, likely is to shit on somebody's Thanksgiving.

Which is of course the real point.

Because the one thing Republicans actually will fight and kill for is being miserable, and spreading that misery to Other People.

Because the three things Republicans really believe in are Miserable Bastardy and that This World is shit, So Vote For Them.

It's not just fucking stupid, it's boring and tedious as hell.

So say "Fuck The Republicans."

And have a good Thanksgiving anyway.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

If you need a Reason For The Season, how's that one?

Слава Україна!

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Last Post 

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