Sodom Lives! (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Twelve.)

And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?

That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes:

Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.

And he spoke unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake.

And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there.

And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake.

And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.

And the Lord went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

~Genesis 18:20-33

I saw this last night.

Sodom lives.

And as usual it has nothing to do with the gay people.

Now, I'd heard about the Trump administration muscling the Romanian government into giving the Tate Brothers (R-Flight Risk) their passports back when I got up yesterday morning. But it was Russell Moore's explicitly Christian framing of the event that I was waiting to see if somebody did and why I decided to write about it.

On break at work last night I saw that several "Young Republican" clubs (apparently known for both White Supremacy and advocating rape) have invited either Andrew Tate or his brother Tristan to speak. 

Now, mind you, there's no proven-to-exist society on this Earth that I've ever heard of that actually thought this kind of shit was Okay. You have to go back to mythos, to Sodom and Gomorrah (and this story occurs in all of the Abrahamic faiths, Gnosticism and Middle Eastern traditions all of the above draw upon) to places not even proven to ever have existed, to find anything different. 

Like, I don't give a fuck how Conservative or Patriarchal a people are, Children deserve to know who their parents are, fathers deserve to know their children are actually theirs, whom issues from whom and thus who inherits what or is entitled to what are often contentious issues when everybody's on the up and up and...if you'll pardon the momentary crudeness...everybody knows where everybody else came from. Knowing who's who and what's what is part of what determines who a people are. That's why stuff like sexual violence is used as a weapon of war and considered to be a war crime.

Back in the ancient days and honestly even in traditional (especially Islamic and traditional African) societies today, issues like this can cause blood feuds and wars all by themselves. In a lot of the world, particularly the global "Other Half" this stuff is still No Shit. I'm ugly serious here.

Like, rape wasn't considered evil or a Sin or a societal wrong because of stuff like Empathy or any kind of Wokeness (in fact it was the total opposite of that) but because of things like bloodline and inheritance and yes, Patriarchy. There was only even a slight side of "Well, family feuds are bad for everybody."

How bad?? Google the level of power that family patriarchs traditionally had in the Ancient World, particularly in Rome. Go, see for yourself, I dare you.

There were layers upon layers of tyranny involved in just...functionally maintaining the basics of civilization and keeping things from going full Darwin every couple of hours or so...because literal Barbarism was not, in fact, that far away. I'm not saying that's good, I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying that's how it was and "Conservatives" have forgotten how shitty it was.

Rome was more fortunate than many such societies (as America is or at least was also up until a few months ago) in that they generally made the Barbarians want to become Romans.

It's for reasons like that that knowing history, mythology and theology are important.

For example, unlike a lot of these "Young Republicans" I can't just pull a pro-Nazi "narrative" out my own ass, because my Grandfathers and Great Uncles fought against Fascism and Japanese Imperialism and Nazism...and while I'm at it both of my grandfathers served long enough to retire from the military and that meant they stood up against Communism as well. I heard the stories. They made sure I knew what was what and why it mattered. Words have meanings.

When I say that Republicans are attacking Civilization down to the level of the family or the idea that words have meaning because they're a Death Cult, this is what I'm talking about.

I was taught in the military that you get what you tolerate. Is this kind of bullshit really a thing people think should happen??

Like, again, I'm not a born-again anything and I'm sorry but I kind of feel like we as a civilization can only tweak God's nipples so many times before He gets mad and fire starts falling out the sky.

I have basic reading comprehension and it's what I read.

And if we don't stop this now, it's going to get so if you want your Daughter or your Mom or your Sister or your Wife to be safe...not to mention the words that come own damn mouth to have any meaning or the knowledge of history or theology or tradition to know what people are even talking about when they say a word like "Conservatism" or "The Bible" you're probably going to have to fight for it. 

If you want those things to mean anything other than "Political Power Says..." you're gonna have to stand up.

Because when it gets bad enough that other countries decide to start coming in here and straightening our shit out for us, then you're not going to be able to control what the narrative or situation is either.

Let alone deities...remember, fire falling from the sky is bad for your health.

And I saw that James Carville is predicting Federal governmental collapse within six months, so yeah, somebody is gonna have to fill that vacuum just to keep our asses from going full Walking Dead (but with idiots instead of Zombies) on each other.

And it ain't gonna be Elon and the Billionaire Cabal, they're going to profit from the Fall and get the fuck out.

As ever, these fucking people know they're going down...indeed, they want that. Call it a side-effect of believing in the End Times and all that "Left Behind" crap...but they're also now plotting to take you with them. This is what happens when your idea of "Culture" is putting stickers that say "Alone in a lost and dying world" on things. Christianity and End Times belief has turned into utter Nihilism.

No, they don't care who dies.

And Republicans literally figure the lucky ones, or the "strong" who survive will end up bowing down to some Tyrant somewhere, as if that's somehow a good thing. They think they'll get some kind of a thrill out of being slaves to tyranny, instead of a boot in the mouth like everybody else.

My guess is coalitions of states will have to try and put things back together with some help from the international community, if it comes to that, and whether that's in the middle of a Soviet style collapse or a full-on Civil War, you can bet it's going to suck!

 Especially when the Other Side thinks this is some kind of bullshit action movie and will probably specifically try to get guys like Andrew Tate to train whatever fighters they come up with.

Yes, idiots like Kash Patel want "MMA fighters" to train FBI agents. In the real world, mind you, the best training for an FBI agent is a freaking Law degree, and many agents are in fact trained as lawyers. As an FBI agent your job is not to try to be some kind of bullshit Chuck Norris knockoff, nor to bust common criminals. It's supposed to be a serious job.

But the Trump administration is full of people who think all those bullshit Steven Seagal cop movies from the early 1990's weren't complete garbage.

Because they think Kickboxing and MMA shit matter in a world where Brimstone missiles, drones, Leopard 2A7 tanks and STEYR-AUG bullpup 5.56mm rifles freaking exist and where even Mexican Narcos are likely to be coming at you with an M4 Carbine and double drum mags.

This is not going to end well.

But resistance to it might well determine how you get judged or not.

You're either one of the 50 righteous people in Sodom or you ain't.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." ~Ezekiel 16:49-50

Eleven

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

Babylon, For Idiots (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Eleven.)

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sits upon many waters:

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

The beast that thou saw was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits.

And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.

And the ten horns which thou saw are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

And he saith unto me, The waters which thou saw, where the whore sits, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

And the ten horns which thou saw upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou saw is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth. ~Revelation 17, King James Version.

...

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

I started seeing stuff about this before I wrote my last post.

Somebody made some freakish AI rap video about "Trump Gaza" and Trump reposted it on Truth Social.

It's basically a bunch of stupid, tacky shit, clips of some magical city...kind of a cross between Dubai and the Moscow skyline mixed with clips of belly dancers, Elon eating a sandwich, gold-plated Trump-kitsch, people (including Benjamin Netanyahu) on a beach, and Trump partying it up. It'd be ridiculous if it wasn't so disturbing.

And honestly, the reason it disturbs me may not be the reason it disturbs most people. 

Like I've said, I was an End Times Prophecy guy.

The End Times Narrative that I was taught claimed that in the End Times, Babylon would be rebuilt as some golden magical city, to serve as the End Of Days capital for the Beast of Revelation...inevitably a bumptious fool that "Conservative" Christian writers tried to portray as a Leftist. Basically, if you think about it...if Donald Trump had stayed a Democrat, that's what these fucking people would be saying about him.

While a lot of individual people's stuff, the Left Behind series books for example, claimed New Babylon would be built/rebuilt at, or as something close to or adjoining or near the original location of ancient Babylon in modern Iraq...neither the Bible nor the 1990s narrative itself actually specified that. 

Historically, Technically, that's with good reason, because looking at it through the lens of culture and time and interpretation, Babylon was clearly a stand-in for Rome, and Rome a metaphor for Empire itself. I mean that's literally what it is...if you read the text with that stuff in mind. 

Mythologically, not so much.

Because that's what the End Times narrative as I was taught it was, mythology. In actuality, I mean, hell according to most accepted ways of reading the Bible this is mostly considered a bunch of shit that John Nelson Darby and Cyrus I. Scofield made up whole-cloth; It's no more true than saying that Athena was born from and sprang fully armed and armored from the head of Zeus because one of the other gods split his head open with an axe because he had a headache.

But right or wrong, people tend to get more excited about mythology than critiques of Empire no matter what century or holy text they're written in.

No, it doesn't have to make sense to you.

And along that line, something in my brain wonders if all this DOGE bullshit is Elon and his Nazi hacker kids trying to strip-mine America so Trump and his cabal of super-rich guys can buy the Gaza Strip from Israel and turn it into some kind of debased Billionaire-Shangri-La right smack in the middle of the Middle East. In other words, these assholes think that would be trading up.

In a way, technically I suppose these motherfuckers might want to try to write themselves into the mythos out of pure narcissism, but then that part of me that became an End Times Prophecy guy when I was still a young Air Force Sergeant listening to a couple of more-senior NCO's talking about all this shit in the library at KI Sawyer Air Force Base clicks on and says...hey, wait a minute!

This whole Trump thing made me start believing in the End Times again a long damn time ago. It's such that I've maintained since about the middle of 2016 that Trump is some kind of bullshit test run for the actual Beast Of Revelations.

And if so it's a test that the Christians in particular have failed absolutely miserably.

And worse, they don't even care.

Nobody acts more like the Bible is all crap than the Evangelical Christians do.

Remember that.

Because as to what such a place would actually look like, it's probably very important.

Let me put it another way:

The only way you become a citizen of the Trump Sultanate of Gaza is you buy your way in, call it $5 MILLION to become a citizen, everybody else is whatever class of hanger-on that they let do the manual labor, the paperwork and the trigger-pulling, a Third-Country National (and I dare you to look up how fucked up that is) or some kind of human-trafficked prostitute.

I give it about a week before every radical Jihadist in the Sandbox and his uncle Habib feels super-ass empowered and starts going apeshit on principle.

Crisis after crisis after crisis as these mooks end up shooting it out with the IDF one week and Radical Islam the next, probably causing a total and rather bloody political realignment in Israel in the process as the Israelis realize what the fuck they let move in next door, like that shit probably would be a new war about every other damn week.

Not that we can help much because half of what's left of America is picking up the pieces and trying to rebuild and going hat-in-hand to the Canadians, the Chinese, the EU, the Ukrainians and the United Nations to try to get our shit back in order. The other half...likely a whole other country by that point... is cheering this on and scheming how to join these motherfuckers.

How long before we got sucked in, anyway?? (Not Long.)

Fuck, how long before that shit makes Iraq look like summer training at Camp Grayling??

(And yet the wealthy and their drug parties keep going.)

Expect levels of Cryptocurrency horseshit, drug addiction, organized crime, White-collar crime and other scam-fuckery like you can't even imagine. Three words: There Is No Law.

Unless you're Ali the janitor and then it's cameras and guns and roid-rage coppers fuckin' everywhere.

I'm pretty sure, aside from the ethnic cleansing these fucking people have already proposed, one could expect human rights violations on an industrialized scale...for anybody but billionaires.

Yet somehow the partying continues, and remember, these are the "I studied the Blade..." people.

You can furthermore expect that the Russians, among other people, would probably arm these assholes for free. I fully expect them to just give up on the whole Ukraine thing simply because they've already accomplished their next several goals in getting America to basically destroy itself.

Like that was effectively the point of all these various crises that Putin has been starting.

And if Trump gets this shit, then losing Syria is pretty much no big deal for Putin.

If you think it'll be a fight to deal with these motherfuckers here...oh, you have absolutely no idea what the fuck it's gonna take if they get a foothold over there.

Like you could fully expect Trump City, Gaza disorder to replace Jerusalem Syndrome among right-wing Christians. IF they even still bothered to call themselves that.

Remember, Trump is a narcissist who wants to wield absolute power. America being America, it'll probably break before he gets that here. The trouble with America is that it's full of Americans. And hardcore MAGA and Republicans cannot stop blowing the damn narcissist!

You do the math what that shit looks like if these fucking people get their own place.

Especially if it's in a part of the world they've literally idolized to the 11th Degree. I mean, the shit's bad enough here.

Like I said, it's the New World Order, run by idiots. Republicans spent so long expecting some kind of gay Leftist antichrist that they never expected it would be themselves.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

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

Ten

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

New World Idiocracy (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Ten.)

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.

And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceive them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13, King James Bible.

I saw this last night.

In Arkansas, apparently, somebody's trying to pass a bill authorizing surveillance of kids born to IVF.

Surveillance. Of. Kids.

Think about that, for a second.

For what?? Also, on what grounds?? And with what?? Not only is this Unconstitutional on its face, it's simply unnecessary and the kind of thing a poor Red state like Arkansas simply couldn't afford.

I get it, though, that's not the point.

The point these motherfuckers are trying to make is it's somehow magically not the Mark of the Beast or some kind of Totalitarian Surveillance State when they do it.

*Cough* Bullshit. *Cough.*

Neither God's law in general nor Man's law in this country work that way, not to mention right and wrong.

Also, I'd like to reiterate here that for a very long time, the only people I knew (or even knew of) who had used IVF were a Baptist assistant Pastor and his wife. She had some kind of medical issue that was never discussed cuz back in the 1990's nobody thought that kind of stuff was anybody's business.

Because we were conservatives back when those people respected the privacy of others and you could be something other than a bigot who was ever on the hunt for permission to be bigoted against more people.

Now it's like they literally want to do the Mark Of The Beast and say it's NOT that because it's Republicans who are doing it. It's like some Republican dude-bro looked at Revelation 13 while reading the Bible at a Washington DC Cocaine Orgy and, looking through the haze of Crack vapors and peering around in a paranoid drug-addled frenzy, he loudly announced "Hey, we can do this!" thinking only of the Power it would give them...and since nobody said anything, this shit is slowly becoming some kind of official policy.

It never occurs to these fucking people that there might be a Higher Power than themselves.

Their Christianity is a belief in a Dead Savior On A Stick, a club to beat some Other over the head with, a leering totem, not a living, resurrected Savior (much less part of a Triune omnipotent God) who knows what they're doing, sees their bad intentions in real time and might judge them for their actions in this life.

I'm no longer a Born-Again anything and I think some people are going to be very surprised how that whole Afterlife thing works out, simply because I remember what I read.

And since it's Republicans who are doing it, the majority of Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Pentecostals don't even see it coming. It's the New World Order, but run by idiots.

They spent so long expecting some kind of devious Leftist-coded Antichrist that they never expected...themselves.

These fucking people don't care if they condemn their own followers to Hell.

Just in case you thought the Left Behind novels and shitty movies were anything other than lies and political tracts.

And now, because too many people couldn't be bothered to get off their asses in November and vote against this shit, it's going to come down to a fight to get rid of these assholes.

You were warned. I've been writing about this shit for years.

And it will get worse, it's gotten worse just today. It's sufficiently worse that I'll probably write about that too, but I already had this post planned out.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You can either believe in America and God or you can believe in Trump and all this New World Idiocracy bullshit these fucking people are spewing. One of these things is simply not like the other one and you should not need somebody like me to tell you this.

Слава Україна!

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

Nine

Program: Please speak your name as it appears on your current federal identity card. Document number G24L8.

Joe: I'm not sure if—

Program: You have entered the name "Not Sure". Is this correct, Not Sure?

Joe: No, it's not correct.

Program: Thank you. "Not" is correct. Is "Sure" correct?

Joe: No it's not. My name is Joe—

Program: You've already confirmed your first name is "Not". Please confirm your last name "Sure".

Joe: My last name is not "Sure".

Program: Thank you, "Not Sure".

Joe: No. What I mean is that my name is Joe.

Program: Confirmation is complete. Please wait while I tattoo your new identity on your arm.

~From the film Idiocracy.

Day Of The Lord? (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Nine.)

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:

That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. 

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.
And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.
Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. 

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

~Amos 5:1-24

I saw this the other day, a woman got dragged out of a Republican event in Idaho by three Party rent-a-cops for objecting to proposed State-level Medicaid cuts, and was evidently illegally detained (and she's apparently considering filing assault charges, and rightly so.)

First off, this is America, I don't give a damn how Red your State is, it ain't the Soviet Union.

Second, I'm just sayin' it's Idaho, there is a very, very good chance that this woman is, herself, a Republican. You see, there's plenty of Republicans on Medicaid, or those who care for aging relatives that are, or have disabled children that need it, and so on. Most of those people work and pay taxes and even if they didn't, they live here and should get a say in what goes on.

You see how that works??

Third, I don't give a damn how much you love your particular ideology, this isn't right.

But then, I strongly suspect that if America was what we say we are, we wouldn't keep seeing pictures of Luigi Mangione with the impression being given that these fucking people felt they needed the Death Star from Star Wars on Overwatch even though the dude is handcuffed and shackled.

To me, that projects neither that we are the "Land of the Free" nor that we are whatever kind of Macho-Crusader Nation "Conservatives" think we are this week. I'm a veteran, excessive force isn't the flex a lot of people seem to think it is.

And I'm sorry, but the more I think about it, the less I think this crap (not to mention the whole Trump thing) is some kind of recent social contagion but more the natural result of certain beliefs, ideas and things being allowed to proliferate and permeate the culture; Calvinism, for one.

Oh, sure, there's others; Hypocrisy, Narcissism, the list goes on. But here's the thing, those are as much individual bad traits as they are societal failings and that's hard to control for. But we, especially the "Christian Nation" folks, actively stopped being what we told ourselves we were a long damn time ago:

I'd like to start with these two jokers, John Nelson Darby, and Cyrus Ingersoll Schofield, the founders of modern Christian End Times Prophecy Bullshit.

John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish preacher, trained as a lawyer, but also a basic religious fanatic even though he had no background in theology. He nevertheless became a preacher in the Church of Ireland before leaving and being instrumental in the founding of the Fundamentalist sect called the Plymouth Brethren. Mind you, this denomination historically crops up in some pretty weird and significant places. 

Orde Wingate, the famous-yet-gibbering-insane British commando who would later fuck up the Japanese leading the Chindits in Burma got his start in Special Operations training Jewish settlers in then-British Palestine in self-defense against their Arab neighbors, many of those he trained would go on to found the Israeli Defense Force. Orde was the son of a Plymouth Brethren fanatic and former British Army colonel, from a family with deep ties to the sect.

But here's the thing, founding one Fundamentalist sect wasn't enough for old JN Darby, he caused a split in the original group and then went on to personally found the Exclusive Brethren, an even more tight-assed Fundamentalist sect. But where he's most relevant to the current moment is that he's the first big propagator of Pre-millennial dispensationalism (Link) and belief in the Rapture. (Link)

Now here's the thing, that crap still had to be translated into American.

Enter Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield, Old Cyrus was a former Confederate Soldier (and deserter, in case you think that his service conveys any level of character) former lawyer, politician and violent drunkard with a history of disgrace, scandal and stints in the local hoosegow who converted to Evangelicalism and started a career as a preacher in the late 1880's and early 1890's, rapidly becoming famous and then picking up the doctrines of people like John Nelson Darby (who was already dead by then) and preaching them, then distilling all that crap into the Scofield Reference Bible (which, mind you, I once owned a relatively recent edition of. I am not unfamiliar with this shit, personally) which was first published in 1909. 

This was during the heyday of early Christian Fundamentalism including the Azusa Street Revival (Link) which founded Pentecostalism specifically, and Christian Fundamentalism was a movement then gaining steam, until it was all exposed as a bunch of bullshit in the Scopes Trial over the teaching of Evolution in 1925 (Link) and after which it settled into a long, sulking period of insularity and violent ideation, which, as much as anything else feeds into the current moment.

Scofield also had an outsized influence on the formation of Christian Zionism and the popularization thereof.

In other words, modern "Conservatism," Evangelical Christianity and of course Donald Trump would've got nowhere without these two motherfuckers.

These fucking people's preference for criminals, drunks, nuts and racists and shit is not a new thing.

Nor is their hunger for somebody...anybody...to come along and smite the people they don't like. Jesus was a no-call/no-show so they replaced Him with Antivaxxer Woo, Conspiracy Theories, and Donald Trump.

But, the rot goes all the way back to the beginning, to before the beginning, really.

And again, it's going to come down to a fight to get rid of these assholes, and they'll probably still get some part of the country out of it because this shit is that pervasive.

You either believe in Freedom...in not having your life controlled by people who think the meaning of life is to lurch closer to the End Of All Things...or you don't. It's worth noting that the same fucking people are abandoning belief in the Rapture now, not because it's been proven wrong (which it is) but because if it's true they don't get to fight.

Do you get the seriousness of this now?? These fucking people don't believe what they say about themselves...but they expect you to.

Good Lord, but that sounds almost Soviet, doesn't it??

And as I intend to get into in a subsequent series, they desire the End Times so much that they intend to become the Beast Of Revelation their own damn selves if that's what it takes. Left Behind is a lie, and I can show you why that is.

You have been warned, now what are you going to do about it?

Слава Україна!

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

(Note: This is another case of me being "That Guy" here. Ronald Reagan is the son of a bitch who made Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians full partners in the Republican coalition.)

Eight

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

Downsizing (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Eight.)

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.

...

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.

...

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 yesterday.

In a word "Fuck No."

Okay, that's two words, but you get the point. I'm tired, I'm damn tired of all this Trump bullshit. King Trump?? Fuck No.

I'm tired of Republicans just endlessly blowing the goddamn narcissist, like, what's even the point?? He doesn't even care and you don't even enjoy it, so why do it? Are you that lacking in belief in anything, or in direction or meaning or purpose in your lives??? I mean, come on. What the fuck kind of loser makes Trump their fucking identity??

I mean, on a certain level I get that Trump is (and to one degree or another has been since the 1980's) some kind of lifestyle brand for assholes, but you'd think the novelty would've worn off by now.

Donald Trump is most certainly NOT the "Living embodiment of the Constitution." You'll notice that nobody ever said that kind of shit about Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or either Bush, and those were all the pre-Trump Republican presidents of my lifetime. Nobody said any of those guys deserved three terms, let alone tried to make them look like some kind of Roman god. 

This crap isn't conservatism or Republicanism, it's a fucking cult.

More to the point Elon and Trump are openly fawning over Vladimir Putin, running America into the ground at full speed, stealing the public's money, threatening Ukraine and wrecking the US military. It seems to me that people, even Republicans, are figuring this out and are getting very pissed off.

It's been *Checks Notes* 32 days.

Nobody gives a damn about Joe Biden, retiree, anymore. It's not Democrats doing this crap!

The "Own The Libs" crap isn't any fun anymore, not for old Republicans who are worried about Elon Musk taking their Social Security. They're changing from worried to pissed off.

The thing is, Politics turned into a game for a very long time, and Republicans exploited that. Then you have these dumb-shit weirdos like Elon start fucking with shit that's deadly serious for a hell of a lot of people. Then it's not a game anymore. It's not fun or funny. Like it or not there's very few Americans that are wealthy enough, whether they like it or not, that they don't need a functioning Federal government. Hell, a lot of our shit is structured around Federal programs!

More to the point, most of us need a Federal government that reliably employs people, fights our enemies instead of kissing their asses, pays its bills, and supports the international structures that kept America at the top of the pile.

You cannot run government like a "Business."

Not when business itself has become "cut everything to the bone, take a big payout, make sure the stockholders get theirs one time and then lie and engage in enough fuckery to keep regulators and shareholders distracted until a couple of cycles later when business is in the crapper because of what you did and the board realizes it and then fires your ass." Collect Golden Parachute money and pass Go. This shit doesn't do anything, it doesn't make anything, it just moves money around.

Good work if you can find it, I guess?

Most of the shit government actually does simply doesn't have a workable profit motive.

You cannot run a country like that. Hell. running a business like that doesn't actually work either, in case you were wondering why most people hate their jobs nowadays.

And what has any of this crap actually done??

Well, it's apparently created Canadian Nationalism, which wasn't even a thing last October.

Elon and Trump's constant divisiveness has turned our enemies into our friends and when push comes to shove, turned a fair percentage of Americans against each other. These motherfuckers don't give a shit about America. Hell, if they have to they'll gather their cults together and break off a chunk of America for themselves before they face the goddamn music (I suppose they figure they have enough actual fascists and wannabe-monarchists to pull it off now) and yes, they will absolutely leave Republican congressmen to face angry mobs of conned normie-Republicans in their own districts, and worse.

Because that's kind of what These Fucking People do.

Cut and run, downsizing, "Peace With Honor," and "Strategic Withdrawal" and throwing somebody else under the bus are words Americans have gotten used to hearing over the last 60 years. The difference is that unlike Vietnamese or Afghans, the Ukrainians have other sources of support and are willing to stay and fight. It's Republicans who don't WIN anything anymore, they make the big score, they turn a profit, and then they get the fuck out and try and leave as many Other People stuck holding the bag as is physically possible.

That's not just Trump's M.O. it's the whole Party.

It's Vulture Capitalism and War For Profit as a political movement.

And yes, that's exactly what these assholes are going to try to do here.

They've been doing it since Nixon, Trump is just the one guy who could successfully sell it, unvarnished, to a big enough chunk of the masses to get them to think they could buy in. Trump tried to say he'd be something different, he became a battering ram for more of the Same Old Shit.

You know, what people were tired of in the first place!

Now they're figuring out that was an illusion and they're just going to get stuck holding the bag.

I don't think the Revolution is gonna work out quite how these fucking people planned it.

Not least because most of us don't want to keep living like this.

As for Republicans? They'll keep downsizing America until they get it small enough they can stay in power forever and keep all the money. And then they'll get mad when the rest of us on the rest of this landmass figure it out, rebuild, and have decent lives...and eventually we'll even fight off Russia, liberate anybody we have to, and start making money again...without them.

See, it's not just, or even really the money that's the important part. It's the narcissism, stupid. They'll be mad as fuck when they're no longer the center of attention.

These fucking people have been willing to become the Beast of Revelations their own damn selves to keep the spotlight on. In case you wonder why I say all that Left Behind, End Times shit that I was taught was a fucking lie. 

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Now what are we gonna do about it??

Слава Україна!

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.

Seven

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

Murder-Publicans (Left Behind Is A Lie V, Seven.)

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"

...

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 yesterday.

70 Christians were murdered (mostly beheaded) in a church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Remember this the next time you hear some pampered, privileged American "Christian" claim that they're being persecuted.

They're not.

The average American Evangelical Fundamentalist dumb fuck wouldn't know what persecution was if it fell out of the sky, landed on their face and started swinging a cat-o'-nine tails about.

They will be completely unprepared, piss themselves and surrender when they are, in point of fact, actually persecuted, and it will happen. Trump's narcissism demands that he alone be worshiped.

Also, JD Vance is going around threatening Ukraine again.

Not for any actual reason, but because Zelenskyy and various European leaders haven't kissed Trump's ass enough.

And again, as I've said before, Ukraine is a Christian, traditional-conservative country, of course, being one that chose Democracy. If these Republicans ever had been who they say they are, Ukraine would have goddamned F-35 Lighting II jets and more money and weapons than they knew what to do with.

But of course, that's not what they are, and they have not been that for about 17 years, at least. They started being this 30 years ago...but it took the election of Obama and the rise of Trump...and more to the point, the continuation of Trump for the Conspiracy theories and Hate infection to fully take over.

Our former European allies (including Ukraine and most of the NATO countries) have already started seeing Trump's America-2.0 as a threat. And well they should. Oh, sure, they recognize that there's plenty of corporations that'll still deal with them and plenty of Americans and US orgs that will back them, but the American government itself? Under Trump Europe (including Ukraine) sees the USA as their enemy. Hell, if you're an American (even if you're a MAGA who actually voted for Trump and thought your vote mattered or was the point) these motherfuckers absolutely are your enemy, too.

But the truth is, current Republicans are just shitty nihilistic fucks who want to kill and steal from people, including Americans. Hell, especially Americans. They aren't even subconsciously telling on themselves, they're openly saying this shit. 

They don't care if people see them for what they are.

In fact, they want it, they want to be seen. They think being seen as the monsters they are will make them feel mighty. That's all they want or understand. Yes, that right there.

Why? Because they think people will be afraid of them rather than horrified or pissed off. 

They think they're going to get to revel in that fear, rather than be finding somewhere to hide when people that they've screwed over shoot back.

They don't really care who it is that they fuck over or kill, either. 

They want Wealth Without Work and they've decided murder and theft are how they're going to get it. They've decided Trump is going to give it to them. 

And they think they're going to use State Power to do it, right before they crash the State so nobody else can do it right back to them. Historically, this tends not to actually work, because other people who you've pissed off can grow or take that power themselves. These Trump fucks have literally dropped too much of America's power on the ground because they didn't want it. They would literally rather be Vlad Putin's butt-slaves than be equal and free citizens of an America that has Other People living in it. Thing is, History, Nature, and Power alike abhor a vacuum. Crash America, and something else will grow in its place. 

Break off a piece, and other parts get to react to that, too.

If you don't think those pimply-assed DOGE Nazi hacker kids are just stealing whatever they can get their hands on from all those government agencies, you have another thing coming.

I just...tend not to think this will work out the way that they think it will.

The truth is that this garbage is the natural result of all that American radical-individualism crap, and the Randian idea that Man is the center of a godless world where self-satisfaction is the moral purpose of his life.

Get money, and then you die, basically. (Seriously, who the fuck wants to live like that?)

There's a reason the core MAGA sales pitch has always basically been that sure, everything sucks, but at least if you follow us you'll get to have your boot on somebody else's throat before you, too, die a horrible death. They seem to have decided that they want to drag as many people as they can into the Void with them.

The catch is that this crap always depended on the rest of the world tolerating it.

And maybe it's just me, but it's starting to look like the rest of the world's tolerance for this bullshit...not to mention the toleration of the rest of America...is starting to wear thin and doing so very fast. 

(More to the point, even and perhaps especially the Chinese and the Russians are just waiting to fuck these craven idiots over, too. That they're too stupid to realize this is their problem.)

They were always going to be like this, win or lose, electorally, it was always gonna be this.

It's just that the American voting public was dumb enough to give them access to the big switch, again.

And if you think these motherfuckers won't do all the mass murder they can to try to keep that shit, you're wrong.

The main difference between Congolese revolutionaries and American fascists is very likely simply that the American body-count will be higher. That these fucking people are small, weak men will make them worse.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight to survive or you're not.

They aren't going to give us a choice but to make those decisions.

Слава Україна!

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

Six

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it…

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

Cassian Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1, E2 "That would be me."

Bonus Content