And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.
How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10
...
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
...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.
I saw this earlier today.
Like I'm pretty sure you don't want to know what happens to women who are alone and broke in a Criminal State like Russia, let alone to their kids.
There's nothing traditional about any of this.
Or at least, there's nothing traditional about it in the context of modern Western militaries and societies where a certain level of regard for life in a general sense is to be expected, where government is accountable to the People in a democratic and to whatever degree, pluralistic culture and society.
You know, like the kind of culture and society that (so far as I know) nurtured most Republicans?
I mean, if you think about it, I was a Republican right up until September of 2008 and honestly, except for my views on a bunch of social issues, not that much has really changed. I still believe that a strong national defense is necessary, I still believe in Ronald Reagan's ideal of America as a shining city on a hill (and very much also, in the ideals of the Gipper's "Tear Down This Wall" speech in Berlin in 1986) and I still think the State should fundamentally mind its own business and leave people alone while providing such support as is necessary to causes and people that require it.
Hell, one of the reasons I appreciated Joe Biden was that I didn't have to see his stupid face plastered all over everything like Trump's stupid face was. I really don't want the government or politics jammed in my face all the fucking time, either.
This isn't hard.
Or it shouldn't be.
Republicans think they want to go all the way back to the 11th Century, pre-Magna Carta so that they can bow and scrape for profit and lick the boots of unaccountable rulers.
Funny how nobody mentions just how many of those rulers came to bad ends, or worse never had a decent start because they were inbred idiots fit only to be figureheads for the more intelligent and ruthless who were not so richly born.
Republicans think they want basically mercenary armies of half-trained thieves like existed before the later 18th century and the beginnings of mass production and standardization, but at that point the average soldier didn't need to know Calculus or Trigonometry in case GPS on his M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer wasn't working or the targeting computer on one's Reaper drone failed. 17th Century armies basically consisted of cavalry, infantry...large swaths of which would carry pikes rather than guns...and the Black Powder firearms of those that had them weren't that great....and limited artillery. Armies were poorly supplied and mostly foraged and stole to feed themselves. It's for this reason that a lot of Protestant Christians whose denominations were forged during Europe's long and bloody wars of religion long regarded Soldiering as a profession of the wicked, and some such as the Amish, Anabaptists and Mennonites still do.
Granted, the few people in armies with knowledge at the time (many of them officers with Noble blood) had to do more work and do it faster, in their heads, with no support.
No, they did not always do it well.
And the weapons involved did not lend themselves well to precision.
While the Ukrainians decided they wanted to...indeed had to, for survival...emulate America and the West.
An armed force based on mass and numbers, with a strategy of flooding the zone with meat like it's some kind of Zombie Apocalypse out there is only good for racking up a fuck-ton of casualties against a modern military with any kind of competent leadership and logistics.
Putin's new Red Army passed the grim milestone of losing a million men on the field of battle awhile ago.
The Ukrainians have triumphed with far less resources than USAREUR at the height of the Cold War would have ever considered having in their most grim post-nuclear scenario in which any level of command and control remained and resistance still would have been possible.
Why? Courage.
Courage is the highest virtue.
Courage and intelligence, sound strategy and an unwillingness to give up are weapons of mass destruction.
I can't make it make any sense and I used to be a Republican.
The only things These Fucking People truly consider "Traditional" are cruelty, power, and slavery and wars for profit.
But that's not the entirety of the tradition of the West for the last 250 years or so, or at least not the theory behind it.
Republicans wish to turn "Freedom" into little more than an ability to say racial slurs and get away with it.
Again, you either believe in freedom or you don't.
You're either willing to fight for it or you're not.
It really is that simple.
So get after it.
Слава Україна!
Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18
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"
