Mystery America The Great (Beginning Of Sorrows, Seven.)

 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 saw this yesterday.

Evidently some idiot who paid over a million bucks for a couple of "Bored Ape Yacht Club" NFT's at some point found out the hard way that they're just...gone.

A million bucks, for somebody's having done like five minutes worth of work on some bullshit drawing, and now even that's just "Poof, gone, fuck you." While somebody laughed all the way to the bank with this idiot's money.

The amount of sympathy I have for this idiocy is basically a mega-singularity of Nothing. 

This person could have done something worthwhile with that money, or even simply bought something of value or invested it but instead they chose to pour it down a rabbit hole of stupid.

As far as I'm concerned, they deserved to lose it. Shit, maybe they learned something from this experience?? I hope so, but I kind of doubt it.

And how did we, as a society, get here??

Gee, I wonder how, when there's some vapid Prosperity Gospel Pentecostal "Worship service" where you can't even tell what they're worshiping at the White House. Also, Paula White (I think?) appears to have spent most of this bullshit filming herself on her phone.

Just in case you were wondering what These Fucking People really "Worship."

Themselves, yo.

Stop and think about that for a second. 

'Cause that kind of crap is exactly how we got here.

And, weirdly, once one does that almost anything else seems to be acceptable.

I'm serious, This Is Not The Way.

25 years ago, I was your basic politically-conservative, relatively mainstream Baptist. I wasn't especially Evangelical or even the least bit Fundamentalist...but I was pretty comfortably adjacent to plenty of people who were one or the other, if not both.

And, having not been exposed to that stream of thought past the farcical Televangelist scandals of the 1980's, I was a few weeks from starting to chat up my Pentecostal ex-wife via the personal ads on Yahoo at the time and Yahoo messenger and we started actually dating a couple weeks after that.

I'm here to tell you, my ex-wife tried to perform some kind of exorcism bullshit on me for a hell of a lot less than I saw just in that New Age Sports Dude's bio on Threads.

For all that, he was an utterly stereotypical MAGA and it took me like two seconds to decide to block him, no engagement whatever, just Bye.

In my experience and I happened to know a lot of them back in the day (Hell, some of those people were really helpful in getting my life and spirituality back on track after things went to shit with my ex) the New Age woo woo crunchy types used to be Democrats and Liberals if not actual Leftists by comfortably large majorities, or at least all the ones I knew or ever heard of were. 

And thus, to my fellow Christians and conservatives in like 2000-2001, New Age stuff was about the most evilest thing there was.

LOL.

Now?? Like half of the New Age Woo folks are MAGA idiots who apparently absorbed none of the meaning of their alleged practices, and making common cause with violent Christian fanatics (Protestant and Sedevacantist Catholic alike, though the two factions seem to be slowly fusing and self-radicalizing against the rest of Christianity in particular and everybody else in general.) who would cheerfully burn the New Age types at the stake if they thought they could get away with it....to hear what they say on Twitter.

And apparently all the right-wing Christians are just fine with this.

I can't make it make sense.

Except that the only determining value in all this seems to be having above a certain level of narcissism and privilege and/or wealth.

So, basically the Whore Of Babylon, Christianized, or at least convinced to vote Republican.

Which is basically the same thing, at least according to a lot of Southern Baptists these days.

This isn't Christianity, it's Scam-Ianity.

And then we wonder how a country like Ukraine can basically have replaced us as the defender of freedom in the world??

All while America is disintegrating, and likely soon to be the next battlefield.

I think I know why.

Like, the holiest act in all this horseshit is blowing like a million bucks on some Cryptocurrency bullshit for no reason. I wrote about this like four years ago and I think we're there.

Only it turned out where it was really the kind of a stick-up where even the cops just laugh at you and call you a dumb motherfucker to your face.

And for what??

So Donald Trump can go to the Pope's funeral, be the only motherfucker there who didn't follow instructions and wear dark clothing (per Catholic tradition as its an occasion of mourning) and then fall asleep to the point where he was snoring??

The cruelty, disrespect, narcissism and stupidity are the goddamn point and by now the rest of the world has apparently internalized that America is composed of juvenile morons who cannot be relied upon even to do what's in their own, traditionally selfish, national interest. But at least we had some degree of pragmatism.

Sooner or later, bros, this is going to hit you in the pocketbook and you won't have no stupid-money to waste on no NFT's no more. If you did before, that is.

Otherwise, you probably won't even make it that far.

And as thoroughly as these chuckle-fucks are attempting to deconstruct a couple centuries of government, progress and society, not to mention economics...these idiots are going to be lucky if they have food to eat.

The threads that hold our civilization and society together are many and varied, but they are being cut. This is being done by a relatively small cabal of narcissists and an ass-ton of hangers-on whose only real interest appears to be hatred of the rest of us.

If you don't think this is gonna come down to a fight, I don't know what to tell you. The only thing in our favor, is that the other side is mostly idiots.

Rome wasn't the Babylon of Revelation.

In Rome, they treated a good (dead) man with respect.

It's America that's given itself over to the Prosperity Gospel and stripped Jesus out of even that, and can't be bothered to give a shit.

Rome ain't Babylon.

America is.

Prove me wrong, I'll wait.

We can be what we say we are, or we can be Mystery America The Great.

Not. Both.

One of these things is simply not like the other one.

I'm serious.

It's like I keep saying, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

The test is coming.

Soon.

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

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

A Reminder

To me belongs vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. ~Deuteronomy 32:35

Bonus Content

Death Panels? (Beginning Of Sorrows, Six.)

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. 

~Hunter S. Thompson.

...

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 hungry, 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 hungry, 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.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

~Matthew 25:31-46

...

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields

I saw this last night.

Some "Natalist" freak that I'd never heard of before I saw that post, saying that only some people should get the "bonus" that certain members of the Trump administration are advocating for women who have a bunch of kids.

Gee, I wonder who these racist motherfuckers think should be excluded??

By the way, that somebody even brought this up is literal Nazi shit, look up "Lebensborn."

Oh, so I went ahead and looked them up, and it was literally everything you would expect. I'm already damned tired of this Techno-Gnostic Unga Bunga bullshit from self-appointed "elite" weirdos. I don't give a damn how you try and dress it up.

And somehow it's always the rich Republicans and the weirdo heirs, ain't it?

And weren't these the same fucking people ranting about "Death Panels" back in 2009 when the Affordable Care Act was becoming a thing??

Yes, yes they were.

Of course, Eugenics means one thing to the racist freaks ("More White People") but to Trump, functionally, it apparently means "Well, his dad played Baseball and Football and looked real good on TV in 1989" or some shit like that.

I hate to speak in favor of Trump for any reason, but if it causes all these other shitty White eugenicists to facepalm I'll take it. Deion Sanders and his kids are Black, but apparently in his mind, having a parent who was good at some sport-ball bullshit gets one admitted to the Master Race.

Have to wonder how that plays among all these white people who think they're manipulating Trump.

I mean, what do you even do when it's your own Fake-god that goes off-script??

Also, trying to manipulate somebody with a personality disorder is a dangerous game, yo. Eventually, they will NOT do what you want, with malice aforethought, for any or no reason that occurs to them, just to fuck you over. 

I get it, all these people are basically soulless monsters, but borderlines and narcissists and shit are in a class all their own. I know this from experience. I won't feel sad if it blows up in the Republican Party's collective face, though. All these fucking people both hate and deserve each other.

Sooner or later, Stephen Miller is gonna find out he ain't White Enough. Neither am I, but the difference is I've always known it. Well, that and I was taught not to be a racist. By people who were mostly what passed for conservatives at that time, funny enough. Something changed along the way and it wasn't me.

Yet again, in case you were wondering, the problem here is current Republicans.

Pudding-brain Trump is a symptom of American idiocy and racism in general and those bad characteristics being endemic among modern Republicans in particular.

And they did this shit on purpose, so they could get the votes of the racists, originally.

Well, now it's all racists and there's nothing left of the Republican Party I came up in.

No, it's not coming back, ever.

And again, you look at America critically, and it's the pop-culture people and the people perpetually glued to their TV's that are the most fine with all this bullshit.

It's hard not to think there's something broken in American culture, and this Nazi shit makes me think it needs to go.

When the dust settles after we go the way of the Soviet Union in a few months or a couple years, I think the field of American Studies is gonna be pretty brutal to a lot of people's egos.

And we'll deserve it.

I remember many nights being on break and/or working in the breakroom at the casino and there was always at least one of the TV's set to Fox News, just perpetually pumping out hate. 

Even with the sound off, you could damn well feel it.

And there were always the invariably weird little old men (yes, it was always men, usually in certain age groups, too) glued to that shit zombie-eyed like ADHD kids watching cartoons.

I found that shit profoundly creepy, and still think it was.

We keep being shown what the Truth is.

And like the Old Testament Israelite in the Bible, we keep rejecting it, we think we know better than God.

And all you really need to do, to see this, is talk to an American Evangelical Christian. I'm serious.

We don't even want to be happy if everybody gets to be happy.

I mean, what the fuck kind of way to live even is that??

And if America doesn't get over its narcissism and stop with the bigotry, we as a nation are both damned and doomed. If we will not do that, if we keep worshiping this Golden Idol, we should not be surprised if the gods sweep us into the sea and start the fuck over.

People like Pope Francis and Jimmy Carter, among many others, lived and died to show us the way.

We continue to deny that truth and follow after the bright lights and the loud voices at our peril, especially when their ideology really is slouching towards "It's the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a mall."

You either believe in freedom or you don't, America.

And it's not freedom if everybody doesn't have it.

If we wanna stop this shit, it's going to come down to a fight.

Otherwise, these fucking people get to decide if you're one of the chosen ones or not.

Think about that, for a second.

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

Five

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Day Of The Lord? (Beginning Of Sorrows, Five.)

When ye therefore shall see the Abomination of Desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (who so reads, let him understand)

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Behold, I have told you before.

Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:15-27

...

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 last night.

Evidently, Trump administration officials are trying to figure out who's Jewish and who isn't on college campuses.

Considering that These Fucking People seem undecided between trying to imitate the goddamned Nazis and trying to be the goddamned Beast of Revelation while claiming to be supporting End Times nut Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, I'd say that's a bad sign.

And these fucking people been about half a step from trying to claim Trump is Jesus for a while now, that picture was taken at CPAC in February of 2021.

If they start trying to deport American Jews to Israel...regardless of the excuse...they will have clearly chosen the latter.

You need to understand one thing though.

Evangelical "Support" for Israel, same as their "Support" for most things, is completely in bad faith and totally dishonest.

End Times Evangelicals claim that more Jews going to Israel is a sign of the End Times, and they also claim that most Jews will be killed and the rest will be converted to Christianity during the later events of their End Times Narrative.

The actual mechanics of all this vary from one interpretation to the other and from preacher to preacher even in that context...but basically Republican support for Israel is all about fattening it up so that it can be used as a human sacrifice on a national scale to bring about the End Times and summon Republican Monster Jesus.

By the way, both Biblically and in secular terms, all this shit is lies spread by Deceivers...so of course MAGA's believe every damned word of it.

Trump doesn't care about Christ or Christianity, he wants to have himself declared as a god.

And the reason he wants Gaza...is at least on a lizard-brain level he thinks having a patch of dirt in the Holy Land will give him some kind of a shot at this.

Also, don't forget the Tech Bros want to get themselves some kind of an AI "God" probably with CGI "miracles" that they can use to rule over all the fake religious people who might be swayed by such a thing.

I think these fucking people have got bored with the traditional "Christian" view of "No man knows the day or the hour..." and they're going to try to figure out some kind of bullshit way to try and cause the End Times their own damn selves.

They know it's all bullshit.

They know we know it's all bullshit.

But Republicans on an almost theological level seem to think everybody should be miserable and everything should suck forever but they should get to have Power over it (Why else would they love Russia and Vladimir Putin?) and if they can't have that they want to blow up the world and take the rest of us down with them.

If you ask me, this shit is pretty much Demonic and I say that as a former Republican, myself.

And I think as resistance to all this Trump crap here in America and around the world starts to escalate, and things go badly because of their own incompetence, I think we're going to see both real End Times fanaticism from these nuts, and transparently false efforts to either bring about the End Times their own damn selves or to convince their cult that the End Times have already arrived.

These clowns have just enough hubris to think it'll work, too.

And they see actual practicing Christians and sincere faith as deserving only mockery because what these choads really believe in is the Prosperity Gospel.

And they've managed to strip Jesus out of that and replace Him with Donald Trump.

Remember, these are the same damn people who, in 2020, kicked Jesus out of His own End Times narrative and replaced Him with Antivaxxer Woo and conspiracy theories.

And well, now, we have a government of conspiracy theories.

You either believe in freedom...including genuine freedom of religion and thought...or you don't.

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

And you have been warned.

Just remember, MAGA's and Republicans, you ain't God.

Слава Україна!

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 5:16-24

Four

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism.
Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty. ~Saint Oscar Romero.

Memento Mori (Beginning Of Sorrows, Four.)

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. ~Isaiah 53:5

...

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ~James 1:27

...

 Why, why, why, why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't wanna fuck in the first place? Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you're just fine. Just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life... pro-life... These people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors! What kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do anything they can to save a fetus but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it? They're not pro-life. You know what they are? They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state. ~George Carlin

...

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

Very early Monday morning, Pope Francis died. I saw the news when I was on break at work.

Fundamentalist Christians and Right-wing Catholic Ghouls have been busy attacking him ever since.

Let me tell you something.

Over the years of his Papacy I saw a lot of people who weren't privileged White Conservatives either consider becoming Catholic or actually do it because of Pope Francis, because of his care for other people and his personal conduct.

And I'm not necessarily talking about people who'd fit the conventional image of folks who'd do that, either.

Pope Francis made an impression on my atheistic lesbian roommate, just for example. She actually started asking me questions and we talked about Christianity and Jesus and stuff one day.

It's like my Grandma used to say, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Like, nobody cares how harshly "religious" or sternly "Conservative" you are or appear to be, folks. You're the only ones who are impressed by your appearance of religiosity and Jesus had a hell of a lot to say about people like that. 

None of it was any good.

I'm serious. Jesus did not like those kind of people.

Don't take my word for it, go read the Gospels yourself.

And of course, these fucking people don't get that the Catholic church is majority-non-white and often has to live and work in places that make the worst neighborhood in America seem like heaven on earth.

Like, seriously, in America Opus Dei is a sect of the privileged and the wealthy with political influence (and striving for more) and there's a whole like, weird creepy industrial-complex around converting used-up celebrities to "Traditionalist" Catholicism in the name of getting more people to follow that belief. I guess, like everything else in American "Conservatism" it's a damn marketing scheme and political scam and not much else.

In most of the world, Opus Dei is a sect of the Poor, of people who have neither a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of, and it's centered on finding dignity in work and stuff like that. 

The words "Opus Dei" literally mean "The Work of God."

And there's a lot more poor Latino farm workers, citizens and not, documented and otherwise, than there is rich celebrities or richly-supported priests who believe this crap.

For Americans, it's all cosplay so they can feel "Special."

And it's not just that we don't get that for other people, it might not be that way. It's that we refuse to understand any of this.

Fuck all that.

I'm just sayin' damned few other countries at all, let alone Catholic ones, share America's utterly backwards priorities at this point.

It's like this:

When I lived down in Mount Pleasant I had this neighbor for awhile; a British lady, about ten years older than me. She was visiting faculty at CMU for a year or so. She saw me walking my Schnauzers one afternoon and I was wearing one of my old PSAB T-shirts at the time...and she had an ex-partner who was an RAF enlisted EOD troop (by then an SNCO) and had been stationed there also at some point.

So she started chatting me up, with obvious interests. Her dog liked my dogs, too, but not as much as my dogs liked him.

Nor, hilariously, in the same way.

(And her dog was a Labrador Retriever, go figure.)

Come to find out, we had a lot in common, including both bad and extensive histories with Evangelical Christianity.

We never ended up hooking up, because we got to be fairly close friends and it would've been weird by the time we actually considered it after a few months of joint dog-walks and lunch on Sundays followed by hours of throw-the-damn-ball-for-the-damn-dog off of her back patio.

But along the way she told me about tagging along, once, with a group of American Pentecostal missionaries who went to Paris at some point in the later-1980's. I mean, these fucking idiots from someplace like Dry Hump, Alabama doing the American style street corner jackleg preacher thing in France (of all the damn places!) with utterly predictable results of Zero. 

And they couldn't understand why converts weren't flocking to their homemade homophobic and misogynistic (in English!) signs and shit. 

All the while, these fucking people, who were in Paris...wouldn't shut up about Booty Poke, Alabama and how they couldn't wait to get back there. Like, why did they even leave??

And my neighbor talked about this bullshit while hilariously imitating their southern accents.

She of course, skipped out on that and did...what any twenty-something with a brain in their head would do in a place like Paris, just occasionally talking to people about religion while she was doing it.

And those fucking people blew a gasket, talked about her behind her back, finally started calling her all sorts of names to her face and then threw her out of the group with the excuse that they'd seen her bum a cigarette from some French guy...who she said she'd literally been trying to Evangelize at the time.

So she hung out in Paris for another week before catching a flight home because she'd had a new job she was starting or something.

And presumably, those Southern Pentecostals remained miserable bastards.

Because it's not about Jesus, to them. It's about their fake religiosity, insular bigotry and violent misspelled hatred. Only now, going on 40 years after the incidents my neighbor described to me, the hate has become the point. Like, there is nothing else.

Needless to say, by the time I met her, my neighbor was an Agnostic like I was, having last attended an Anglican church before she decided she preferred sleeping in on Sundays.

At that time, American conservatives were mad as hell about the declining levels of religious belief in this country. This was around 2010 at the height of the whole Tea Party thing.

American "Conservative" Christianity, now thoroughly identified with Donald Trump, is in free-fall, and even a whole hell of MAGA Evangelicals don't go to church anymore.

And they mad about it. Oh yes, they is.

I guarantee you that Pope Francis is standing tall before the Lord right now, having been called Good And Faithful Servant and told to enter into Eternal Life.

And the Right-wing Christians be mad about that, too.

And these fucking people think doing shit like mocking the Pope's death helps their case, or is at least funny or something.

It's really kind of hard to tell which is which, anymore.

Note: These are the same fucking people who'd gladly turn Ukraine...a small-c conservative, very Christian country...over to the tender mercies of KGB Agent Vladimir Putin, except the Ukrainians told them NO and kept fighting and the EU is ramping up preparing to defend themselves.

Think about that for a second.

These fucking people basically sold their souls to Donald Trump and a 2011 Fox News comment section. 

Their idea of religion is to sit in the breakroom with an open Bible looking all serious and shit, and they don't care if actual believers see that and think they're full of shit. Hell, they get mad if you point it out. They want an audience and props for looking "Righteous."

And they don't care if they go to hell. They want the reward of getting their narcissism jerked off in this life.

Their time is coming, too, on swift wings.

They know it, they just want to take you and me with them.

Be aware of this.

If you don't think it's going to come down to a fight to stop these motherfuckers from having power over your life and selling America to the lowest (and most malevolent) bidder for kicks...you're wrong.

It's really that simple.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Easter Post

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism.
Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty. ~Saint Oscar Romero.

(Note: Oscar Romero was a conservative Opus Dei bishop in El Salvador, if one who had a heart for the poor. Can you imagine Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito saying anything like that? I can't.)

There's this brother on death row somewhere, he checked in when he was 16. He sat there another 16 years while the courts and lawyers argued about this and that. While he waited he painted a mural on his wall. For all those years he painted, not letting a soul see what he was up to. Finally, when he was 32 and had spent more life on death row than in his mama's house, all his appeals were exhausted. He was about to die. As he was about to be let out for the final time, he finally unveiled his masterpiece. All there was were six words. "Death is certain, life is not". The next day the hacks painted over it. Peace out. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series "Oz" S1, E4 "Capital P."

Crucify Him! (Beginning Of Sorrows, Easter Edition.)

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.


He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
~Matthew 28:1-7

...

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~Gautama Buddha

...

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 the other day.

Some "Christian" idiot praising Trump for lying about Project 2025 and all his various agendas and saying that the American people do not deserve the Truth.

Fuck you, bro, Fuck You.

I mean, among other things, what about the Ten Commandments?? I was taught that lying is a sin, bro.

It's Easter, and yet another year in a row these fucking people are trying to make the Lord's day all about themselves and Trump. Like, JD Vance was apparently surprised when he just showed up and the Pope didn't want to talk to him.

What the fuck??

I don't just crash in on my neighbor like that. I wouldn't even consider just dropping in on the Pope.

I get that these fucking people are dishonest, ragingly stupid narcissists, but seeing them in action is very often infuriating simply because I remember not only what I was taught...but because I also remember that it was enforced, occasionally painfully. 

I mean, shit, I served in the military and can remember when lying would end somebody's career.

How the fuck do you maintain that, hell, how does anybody want to learn anything other than how to bullshit with somebody like Trump around??

I mean, what's even the point of being honest or doing honest work if one can become President or otherwise get extremely powerful and wealthy by telling obvious lies to the feeble-minded and willfully ignorant??

I mean, unless you have a conscience or even just don't wanna spend your Afterlife on Satan's hot-plate?

If we ever want to get out of this, if we ever want to get past it, hell, if anybody even wants an American Resurrection...or even simply to prevent the death of our nation...we are going to have to make lying wrong again and put the fear of God or somebody at least into these fucking people!!

And I say that on purpose. 

Nobody acts more like it's all crap than the "Christians" do.

It's Easter, and it's the Christians who are basically shouting at the World to move the stone back in its place because they prefer a dead Savior on a stick to a living Christ who might judge them.

So why should...and why would...anybody follow any of this stuff?? It seems like the only reason these assholes follow it is a ready excuse to hurt and subjugate other people...but that ain't what it's for.

These fucking people act like God is dumb, or at least can be manipulated or replaced by AI but if any of that's true He is NOT God and none of it matters anyway and they have nothing to stand on.

I was just talking to the Pastor of my old study group on Facebook Messenger, and he doesn't even do religion anymore because of people like that.

American Evangelical/Fundamentalist/Right-Wing Christianity seems, anymore, to do nothing but hurt people, especially anybody who really believes in anything at all.

These "Conservative" motherfuckers care more about Power than they ever did about Freedom, let alone Jesus.

And that, my friends, is how American Christianity dies...and deserves it.

Then it promotes lying sacks of shit like Donald Trump and JD Vance and podcast bros who look like they know where all the Glory Holes are at, while literally having the attitude that if you're just a regular person who doesn't wanna be bothered by this shit or who's just trying to live their life, fuck you.

And I'm here to tell you, it's getting real old, real fast.

And it ain't just me who's feeling that way, either.

I feel like we're sleepwalking into a second American revolution because too many fucking people missed the point of the first one.

And it will be soon.

When these fucking people, after it's all said and done, bitch about how the new nations where this one stood are all secular like Europe, I'm a remind those fucking people that when it mattered, they said Americans didn't deserve the Truth.

And if you'll say that...just outright say it like you think nobody will notice or punish you...what else and what exactly are you lying about??

Freedom requires Truth.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Sincere belief in Jesus (or any other divinity) requires an honest decision to be freely made and for the teachings to be followed.

If it's just an in-group or a political stunt or a social club to you or you follow Christianity because you think God will help you get rich, you're going to hell.

So why bother??

Neither America nor Christianity will hold up if they become based on lies.

This is what I was taught 40 years ago. I don't know why this is hard for people.

To be resurrected with Christ, you have to die to your Self.

Maybe it's just me but I think that disqualifies narcissists??

If you can't trust your neighbor...much less your President or other political leaders...how do you expect to have a nation for much longer, or even a society to live in??

The Truth, too, has become a thing we have to fight for.

Remember that, this Easter.

Because "What is True" isn't just going to be on the test...it's the basis for all of the answers.

Truth is the only thing that gives people a floor to stand on to push back against Power.

Jesus knew it, it was Pilate who asked Him "What is Truth" not the other way around.

If Jesus came back today, it'd be the "Christians" who tried to Crucify Him. They'd call Him a "Liberal" and a "Terrorist" and "Woke" and shout it in the streets.

It wouldn't matter if He came back preaching verbatim out of the King James Bible.

And talking to my former Pastor reminded me...I've been feeling and to one extent or another saying this for twenty years.

Maybe now is the time to make it stop.

Remember that, on this day, of all days.

And then, decide what you're going to do about it.

Слава Україна!

Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverts the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:
No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him. (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)
And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.) Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spoke again to them.
But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.
And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.
And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. ~Luke 23:14-23

Three

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