Sodom, USA (American Revelation XX, Prequel.)

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

...

[Mon Mothma addresses the Senate chambers again]

Mon Mothma: Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries, I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I've spent my life in this chamber. I came here as a child, and as I look around me now, I realize I have almost no memories that predate my arrival, and few bonds of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct. This chamber is a cauldron of opinions, and we've certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come.

I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil! When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber's hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza! What took place yesterday, what happened yesterday on Ghorman, was unprovoked genocide! Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we helped create, the monster who will come for us all soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine!

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E9 "Welcome To The Rebellion."

...

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 couple days ago, I heard that Stephen Miller's wife was leaving the White House to work for Elon Musk. Well, then I saw this last night.

Apparently Stephen Miller and his wife were engaged in some kind of polyamorous relationship with Elon Musk. Like, what? Was the local Nosferatu busy, or something?? If somebody in my D&D or White Wolf gaming groups suggested this as a plotline I'd have said WTF NO!

Now, on the face of it, Okay, whatever. It's the 21st Century, blah blah blah...except, there's that one little thing.

These fucking people are Nazis who not only want to take away other people's rights to do much less-weird gay stuff than they're doing, they basically want to kick most people out of this country because we don't ascribe to a "culture" or "traditional" way of life that these Nazi assholes claim but then don't even bother to follow their own damn selves.

I mean, technically, it might be if Stephen Miller had been related to his wife before they were married. This kind of debased shit (and these fucking people's apparent desire to go all the way back to before the Magna Carta) is straight-up Medieval European Nobility type of shit. 

I shouldn't need to tell you how much death and misery and pain all that caused. There was a Reformation and several centuries of Wars of Religion involved, among other things.

It's not just the hypocrisy, or the "Let Them Eat Cake" attitude...or these fucking people's mentality of "Freedom [In reality, privilege] for me but not for thee" which tends to end badly.

Especially considering that this country was supposed to, as the end product of the knowledge gained by people who'd lived through the tail end of a lot of that shit, avoid all that kind of crap!

I'm not asking you to think that much. Or even, in totality, to consider history. Nor the fact that those kind of attitudes tend to lead to bloody, fiery revolutions, guillotines and terrors and all type of nasty shit. The French Revolution took on a bloody and rather omnicidal life of its own after awhile. Or, if you prefer, there's always the rather more industrialized violence of the Russian Revolution and Lenin's Red Guards. These Fucking People still bitch about both.

As if Bourbon France or Tsarist Russia were anything but shitholes with gaudy, incestuous rulers? Oh, wait...

Just, do me a favor and stop and think about all the people who are going to get killed if We, The People don't step up and start putting an end to this garbage now.

These fucking assholes want to speed-run 800 years of history, because they're hoping they might get a different result this time, all while enjoying themselves. They think this is some kind of "Right" that only they have.

And they basically want the rest of humanity to pay for it.

Stop and think about that level of narcissism, will ya??

Then they have the nerve to sit there and cry and whine about how difficult they have it.

People like Dan Bongino simply do not want to do the work of life, they will crumble. That's why they became right-wing grifters in the first place.

People who go into politics and want to do the work...at least the administrative work once they get there, tend to be Democrats.

It's "Conservatism" that's turned into one big scam run by hustler-bros. Trouble is a lot of stupid people buy into it.

When these fucking people face actual opposition, violent or otherwise, they will crumble. I know it, they know it.

YOU know it.

The trouble is, they can get various and assorted minions to kill a bunch of people on the way out.

That seems to be the entire point, in fact.

And really, when 40% of the goddamn country thinks nothing of making some stupid racist comment while buying their beer and cigarettes, when we live in a country where in some parts of it everybody hates everybody else and they all have guns how do you think all that is gonna go??

That's pretty much my co-worker's line on Oklahoma, by the way.

A Second Revolution here is far more likely to be the Terror parts of the French Revolution on steroids than even the comparatively standard (if also especially violent and prone to atrocity) military defeat of the White Russian forces by the nascent Red Army.

Except places like Iowa or Oklahoma are far more likely to be 1990's Afghanistan with more drugs and more guns than orderly-if-shitty 1920's Moscow where people were lining up for potatoes and most of the violence happened out of sight once Stalin had anybody who looked at him or the Party wrong thrown in the Gulag.

And by the way, Republicans are for the most part responsible for creating these circumstances.

The difference between them and Mullah Omar or Osama Bin Laden and Stalin, though, is that it's getting to the point where no one fears Republicans.

Even Wall Street is making fun of Trump now, and Taco has become an acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out.

Apparently, West Point cadets laughed at Trump.

I'm a veteran. I don't have to stop and think about what that means. 

I can take a wild guess. 

No, this is not a good thing. Bumptious leaders with militaries that can't/don't respect them tend to come to bad ends, but their countries and people also suffer.

If These Fucking People are Eugenicists they sure aren't much of a "Master" Race. Mastery of anything...besides bullshit...is too much work for these idiots.

Mostly, they just want to kill and inflict suffering on the innocent while enjoying themselves, and in the end it won't matter who it is. Republicans have effectively branded the USA as the new Sodom.

And these assholes literally think they have a right to inflict suffering on the undeserving.

Like I said to our paper guy at work last night, I have enough Christian left in me to fully expect fire to start raining down from the sky on our asses at the rate things are going.

And if we don't stand up, we do deserve it.

Look, I don't know what more to say than either you believe in freedom, in your own life, or you don't.

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

Decide.

Because this crap is going to blow up.

And even if it doesn't, we are earning the Wrath of God.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

Some say finding God is a glorious thing. They're wrong. It's dangerous. You spend your whole life in a world of men. But when you finally see his power, his greatness, other men fall out of view. Because you're so focused on him, you can barely see them from the corners of your eyes. You lose sight of them. ~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin.'"

...

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

Day Of The Dead (Memorial Day, 2025.)

 [Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

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

...

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

...

Now, bring me that horizon. ~Jack Sparrow, from Pirates Of The Caribbean; The Curse Of The Black Pearl.

I saw this the other day.

Trump evidently tried to show Cyril Ramaphosa (the Black president of South Africa) "evidence" of "White Genocide" in South Africa with some bullshit he found on the internet, from some rabid racist that's also a Flat-Earth loon-bucket.

First off, I'm pretty sure the President of South Africa (unlike Trump) is like, required to know what's actually going on in his country since he's not just a damn figurehead for Christian Nationalist morons and fascist wannabe-murderers. White people, even after 30+ years still control something like 70% of the land and wealth in South Africa and I'm pretty damn sure that means Cyril Ramaphosa has to deal with a lot of old rich White Men in the course of doing his day-to-day work.

These fucking people have been banging on about this shit since like 2015 with not a shred of evidence. Trump was touting photos of people burying bodies, but those bodies were of Black people killed by M23 in the DRC in the Goma region where the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels are fighting a war against the Congolese government.

What does it say about America, about us, that we elected this doddering old racist who'll cheerfully believe and repeat any lie that strikes his fancy??

But ya know, it was the Flat-Earth idiocy that actually got my attention. 

The question is, if These Fucking People will lie about something obviously provable like the Earth being a sphere...what else will they lie to you about??

Because that's what "Conspiracy Theories" are is lies.

I've seen many pictures of the Earth taken from space. I own several.

I've personally been high up enough in an aircraft (an Evergreen Airways 747 over the Pacific Ocean on the way to Okinawa for temporary duty when I was a young Air Force security policeman) to have seen the Earth's curvature with my own eyes, simply by looking out the window. It becomes directly visible somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 feet up. I think, honestly, that's the first that I really thought about how big this world still is even with all our technology, or put some of my Grandpa's old "No Shit!" Sea Stories into perspective.

But you don't even have to go that high up.

I live like half a mile from Lake Huron, I have for a few years now, and I can actually see the lake and the horizon from my back deck if I look out over the river and past the drawbridge. That is the curvature of the Earth! This time of year, local tour boats go past my house on an hourly basis during business hours. Ain't a one of 'em that's failed to return due to falling off the edge of the horizon yet!

The evidence of the Truth is right there, every day, right in front of your eyes. It's up to you whether or not you want to see it.

For another example: I've read the Bible cover-to-cover many times. I own several copies, in different formats and translations, actually, in a couple different languages besides English, too (Arabic and Spanish.)

Nowhere in any of those translations of the Lord's Word do the words "Donald Trump" appear. I don't even need to look it up to know that.

Unless you happen to believe that Trump is the Antichrist, or at least the (debatably also-prophesied, depending on how far into End Times nut-ball shit you want to go) prelude to the same. (I think Trump is a test run, personally.)

It's a test the "Christian" Nationalists and Evangelicals have failed rather spectacularly badly.

And all Johnny Enlow can do about that is lie.

Remember, Johnny, a golden room in Hell is still in Hell.

Bright lights and gilded crap and hate and lies and Trump's Saddam Hussein-meets-Great Whore Of Babylon bit are pretty much all these fucking people even have.

And it's wearing thin.

At this point the only reason anybody still believes any of this garbage is because they want to. That said, this world, historically...is chock-full of ideas that persisted for a couple generations after everybody knew it was all bullshit, whether because of State Power or simply shitty people.

But Trump is going downhill fast, and the thing with this one is he is the idea. Other people tried to set themselves up as heirs to Trumpism and Trump himself crushed them. The reason his sons are still there is they are weak enough not to be a threat to his ego.

But Trump, the man, is fading out.

You can see it now.

And I'm here to tell you nobody cares about Trump or they'd get him help.

It's the hate and the greed-is-good mentality and the racism that he represents in their minds that's what These Fucking People are trying to preserve.

Trump gave a speech at West Point yesterday, and the cadets apparently laughed at some of the dumb shit he said.

I saw the video, speaking as a veteran here I was a little shocked because 30 years later I can still maintain a complete poker face if I have to.

It's getting so a lot of people aren't afraid of Trump anymore. 

He's not a god or some diabolical genius, he's just a man and not even a very good one.

But it's all these preachers and Republicans and shit, not to mention assholes with competing agendas, that are going to be the goddamn problem. 

That, as much as anything else, is where the civil war is going to come from. These fucking people don't have another figurehead to replace Trump with and so they'll all try to be That Guy. But, There Can Be Only One.

Because most of these fucking people are narcissists and Freedom means nobody needs them and they just can't stand that idea.

But the truth is that a lot of the real problem is America elected Trump again out of sheer vapid debased boredom because neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris was "entertaining" enough, whatever that even means.

You either believe in Freedom or you don't.

And time's coming where we're all going to have to fight for it, or there's gonna be a lot more Days Of The Dead like today in our future.

Remember that, this Memorial Weekend. Freedom isn't free.

Civilization, empathy, freedom, humanity, society...all these things require something of us.

Not necessarily much, but certainly that we care about other people enough to do something about it.

Remember that, it's going to be on the test.

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

Last Post

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

A Golden Room In Hell (MAGA Zombie Land, Five.)

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. ~Matthew 6:24-34

...

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

...

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

I saw this earlier; Some basic Prosperity Gospel Scamfluencer on Threads trying to tell people that God wants them to be rich.

Bullshit.

Jesus Christ, who according to Christians is God, said that one could not love both God and money.

And if we're being honest, the Old Testament prophets weren't really all that keen on the idea, either. 

If you actually look at it, the Israelites were consistently invaded and oppressed by far larger, richer empires, but usually retained their own identity...until ultimately the Romans just burned down everything after the Jewish Revolt, culminating at the siege of Jerusalem and the battle of Masada in 69-70 CE. And I'll note that in the histories of the time, Jesus appears to be a marginal figure, if he's mentioned at all.

Clearly, Christ and Christianity were not...per either the chapter-and-verse, black-and-white text of the Bible nor the early history of the faith...intended for or partial to the famous or the wealthy. That's a plain reading of the text and the early history of the church, yo. And, I'm no longer a Born-Again anything.

You want to get to the root of our dysfunctions? Start with the fact that America is and seems intent on remaining besotted with the Prosperity Gospel and drunk with the wine of the fornications of the Whore of Babylon. 

I'm serious.

Like, how else do you even explain this shit?? 

I mean "People Are Stupid" covers a lot of it, but I think this is more than mere malice or stupidity at this point, I have genuinely believed...per my own lived experience...since at least 2020 that this bullshit is at least getting an assist from literal Demonic corruption.

And, honestly, Drugs.

I think Drugs...and shitty judgmental behavior and fake moralism...has a lot to do with it, too. People use drugs as a form of escape from reality and whatever is bothering them.

If These Fucking People are so Christian and so conservative, and so right and/or righteous...why does their average political leader snort enough Cocaine to kill a horse on a regular damned basis? 

Sorry, but how in the hell is it acceptable that the FBI director has his eyes constantly bugging out of his head like he's on a Cocaine binge?? When I, as an Airman in the United States Air Force, lived under a zero-tolerance policy regarding drug use?? Had I used drugs in uniform, and that shit been detected, I'd have certainly been discharged under Other Than Honorable conditions, and would have been very likely to have done time.

I was a Christian, I was taught not to do shit like that. Granted I was taught this by people who for the most part drank alcohol and/or smoked cigarettes and shit, but there was a line.

And yeah, I'm an addict, but for me it was Alcohol and pain pills, and tobacco in general. 

I basically kicked all my habits on my own, although I got a big assist from my Church at the time (and if you think telling me God wanted me to be rich would have helped that, you're wrong.) in quitting drinking, and quitting smoking Cigarettes was five years of hell. I only started smoking weed on a consistent basis to deal with worsening arthritis, but then I had to quit that because I was spending too much money on junk food and didn't want to end up in worse health from spending $35 a day at Rally's either.

Also, in my experience, having money tends to make excesses worse.

This has been a conservative point of view.

Not that the expectations...be they community-based, moral or social...of conservatism as I was taught it even appear to exist anymore. Christianity (Or at least the various Evangelical, Fundamentalist Right-Wing kinds) appears to be going down the same road. 

Hell a raging fuck-ton of these American "Christians" love Jesus so much they've basically thrown Him out of His own alleged religion and replaced Him with conspiracy theories and Donald Trump.

Again, and not for the last time, either; Have fun in Hell, Idiots.

It's not just the spiritual aspect, the bad personal conduct pisses me right the fuck off.

Sorry, but again, I was taught that things like decency, empathy, kindness etc. should be nonpartisan.

Like, if you think basic Humanity is "Liberal" you have a fucking problem.

I heard the other day that Joe Biden has cancer, and apparently Republicans can't get enough of mocking him for it and/or alleging there was some kind of conspiracy theory involved. The part I don't get is why there's Far-Left assholes joining them in that shit.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

And here's the thing; If These Fucking People will lie to you about [Insert provably, empirically testable thing here] the question needs to be asked, what else are they lying to you about??

Because that's what Conspiracy Theories are; Lies.

Ivermectin doesn't cure cancer, it's used to treat parasite infections. Taking something like that for the wrong thing is a good way to shit your guts out for no reason.

But yo, Trump said something about it in 2020, so ever since then in the minds of these idiots, it's the Wonder Drug that works wonders.

Good Lord, these people are gonna have loads of fun when the results of decreased food safety regulations start hitting the markets. And I've been to other countries where the food or the water might not be safe and the medical care is likely to be substandard. I don't know why right-wingers think this shit is funny except that they've never had to live with it before. Again, people will die...and us White Folks are not exempt from the demands of basic biology and safety, either.

Sorry, but I'm a thoroughly modern person. Living and dying like a medieval peasant has never been on my bucket list. I don't give a damn. I have to watch what I eat as it is.

A lot of this shit is just a Death Cult wrapped up in narcissism and woo woo, with a side of "You Can't Tell Me What To Do!" by stupid people who need instructions to boil water.

But acting like a goddamned fool makes them feel "Special" or some bullshit.

America is increasingly falling down the rabbit hole of chasing after attention, fame, and most of all wealth without work...while other countries are changing the world, doing the things for which people naturally become famous, putting in the work, thinking about the future. The list goes on.

Unless we get our shit together, we're not just going to fall, worse, as a nation we will have come to nothing.

A hell of a lot of Americans literally act like our current situation is somehow never gonna end, and there won't be a reckoning for what they do now.

Motherfucker, life don't work that way.

You either believe in civilization, freedom, or the future or you don't.

And someday we're all gonna get the bill for this shit. We're all gonna be judged and held to account for the things we do. What we say we believe doesn't really enter into it all that much.

Or do you think you're gonna bullshit God, too??

The death of Truth is the ultimate victory of Evil.

You will not benefit from it.

Remember this, a golden room in Hell is still in Hell.

Слава Україна!

[Mon Mothma addresses the Senate chambers again]

Mon Mothma: Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries, I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I've spent my life in this chamber. I came here as a child, and as I look around me now, I realize I have almost no memories that predate my arrival, and few bonds of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct. This chamber is a cauldron of opinions, and we've certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come.

I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil! When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber's hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza! What took place yesterday, what happened yesterday on Ghorman, was unprovoked genocide! Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we helped create, the monster who will come for us all soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine!

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E9 "Welcome To The Rebellion."

Four

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

Burn Baby Burn (MAGA Zombie Land, Four.)

...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, Kingdom Of Fear (2004)

...

[Luthen receives Dedra at his antiquities store, where she presents him with something familiar - the N-S9 Starpath he was looking for in Ferrix]

Dedra Meero: A vintage Imperial Starpath unit. What do you think? A little damaged, perhaps... But I'd say it's held its value. [Luthen breathes deeply] I have dreamt of this. Too many versions to remember. And here you were... all that time, hiding in the shelter of Imperial peace and quiet.

Luthen Rael: And I've known you all along. Hardly seems fair.

Dedra: You disgust me. Do you want to know why?

Luthen: Everything you stand for. Freedom scares you.

Dedra: "Freedom"? You don't want freedom. You want chaos, chaos for everyone but you. Ruin the galaxy and then run back to your ridiculous wig and little workshop.

Luthen: How confident you are.

Dedra: We're done here.

Luthen: Confident and terrified.

Dedra: The building is surrounded. You're finished.

Luthen: And you're too late. The rebellion isn't here anymore. It's flown away. It's everywhere now. There's a whole galaxy out there waiting to disgust you.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E10 "Make It Stop."

...

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.

Video from that slave plantation in Louisiana that burned down, where some racist bitch was talking about how the slaves were treated "fairly well" and had a hospital and shit.

You know something? If you went to a damn hospital in the 1850's that was its own level of pain and suffering, on top of being a goddamned slave.

And then she mentioned that descendants of the slaves still worked there. In typical Caucasity "Isn't that neat?"

Fuck you, bitch.

You know what I think?? 

Burn, baby, Burn.

And as I understand it, the main thing the Nottaway Plantation was known for was being a wedding venue.

I mean, what the fuck?? If that's the case why spend so much time talking about slavery and trying to put a positive spin on it?? Is imagining oneself as a member of the Master Race, a Slaver...really that essential to White Southern marital bliss??

I guess I was just never that kind of White person, since I've been hearing that Slavery was straight up EVIL and WRONG for my whole life, and I've basically been studying the Civil War since I could read. I've also studied it in both an academic and military context.

But it's more than that: My Dad was a Civil War reenactor, he wore Blue. I still have some of his uniforms and all of his weapons. Shooting a .57 Caliber Enfield rifled musket is like shooting a cannon off your shoulder and I've also shot an M60 machine gun that way...but the Enfield was the M1 Garand or the M16A2 of its day, soldiers were expected to fire three aimed shots per minute with a goddamned Muzzle-loader. I've never been able to manage more than one shot per minute with my Dad's musket and I'm a veteran who earned a freaking Marksmanship Ribbon with an M16A2 rifle. And I've shot weapons like the M1 Garand or the Colt M1911A1, also. 

It's good to know where you came from.

Yeah, I get it, life was harder then, there are people and things about some of those people that genuinely do deserve to be respected, revered, even venerated as honored ancestors in some cases.

But Goddamn It, owning people is not one of those fucking things. 

The Confederate slavers were the goddamned Bad Guys. Why is this hard?? Goddamn It, White People...is it really so hard to consider that other people have passed-down memories of things where that stuff wasn't nearly as pleasant as you imagine it to have been??

I also well understand (because I've also studied that) that the Southern "Lost Cause" types, early Hollywood and the wealthy in the 1920's and 1930's (up into about the late 1950's) made a concerted effort to sell this bullshit to people because the South was regarded as a violent shitty backwater and rich northerners really wanted it to be "Cool" for them to hang out with their southern buddies again.

Among other things.

Oh, right, today's "Conservative" White People need to imagine that shit as some kind of pleasant or at least not-so-bad experience because they have even more garish horrors planned right now for no better reason than their own debased entertainment and as some kind of fucked up money-making scheme.

Or in the case of Donald Trump's stupid Gaza bullshit...straight up Antichrist-grade Evil.

Like they think the rest of the world is going to tolerate that shit?

I'm not embarrassed to be a White Person or a former Republican because of something "Liberals" taught me...like seriously, you should have seen some of the college professors I had. Those things embarrass me and make me ashamed because I see what that crap is coming to right now in the public behavior of folks like Donald Trump and Kristie Noem.

And again, this crap is how you go to Hell. The Bible is pretty damn clear on the matter:

“'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

~Leviticus 19:33-34, New International Version.

I've read the Lord's Word more than I care to at this point, and I'm not even joking. Don't abuse the immigrant or the stranger.

But it doesn't exactly help that so many of the alleged "Christians" these days make a mockery of the Lord Jesus Christ for no better reason than it gets them clicks and likes on the fucking Internet. 

I'm serious, Nobody acts more like they know it's all bullshit and there Is No God than a lot of religious people.

Like, what the fuck are we even doing here, America.

And yeah, I think in the end, it might come down to America being a victim of its own success. We got fat and happy and wealthy and we lost the goddamned plot. Too many of us have become a nation of petty narcissists.

I can't tell you...being that I've been in the field in some pretty damned dark and dangerous and remote places in this world with not much more than I could carry or fit in my ruck and pockets (and didn't get a choice what that was, either) just...how many times since 2020 I've heard or seen some idiot popping off about this or that stupid thing that has nothing to do with anything like it's somehow needed for survival. I wrote about it during COVID-19.

And when the Wrath of God falls hard on this country because of this fucking bullshit and these people's hubris, we shouldn't be surprised.

I mean, among other things, during the Pandemic I saw a hell of a lot of American Evangelicalism throw Jesus Christ out of His own End Times story and replace him with nothing but conspiracy theories...and I wrote extensively about that at the time, as well.

COVID-19 was a lot of people's first crisis, and they'd never had to know anything or give a shit about other people before, and it showed. When something bad happened, and it became not-a-choice, they still didn't want to.

Likewise, Trump was and is a test, a goddamned American-Antichrist-wannabe who gets his jollies off people worshiping golden idols of Himself.

And a hell of a lot of Christians failed that test.

Because to a lot of people, feeling "Special" right now was way more important than shit like basic survival skills or critical thinking or what they may have learned at church or in school..

This is going to bite us in the ass real hard if anything happens.

Remember that, when we start to hit situations where you have to be Brave, because it will be on the test. 

This is why I was against learned helplessness and moral relativism 30 years ago, people.

And I think I can pinpoint where Fascism really started to seep into the Church, too. Like so many bad things, the allowance of this was done with a profit motive.

Or, to put it another way, serious Believers who don't need Stuff to show their "Faith" aren't nearly as profitable as crowd-following Chuckle-Fucks who need a new Rick Warren "Purpose-driven" book every month or a new Snake Flag widget every time they see one, or a new MAGA hat every couple of weeks to show their Partisan loyalty.

And a lot of people who should have been leaders and known better turned out to be mercenaries who sold out to this crap.

That's also one of the reasons I think "Conservatives" will take the worst of whatever happens, because you cannot be taught to fear everything, to the point of becoming addicted to fear, and then suddenly turn around and be brave when it's convenient for the political slave-masters who taught you to be afraid all the time. Same goes for hate and willful ignorance and all these other goddamn problems we have.

I think some people think they're gonna be saying "Lord, Lord" when the Judgment comes but when they open their mouths, what will come out is "Trump! Trump!"

Freedom, as it turns out, is not defined as "The Capability to act like a braying jackass."

If Slavery was, as Abraham Lincoln thought, America's "Original Sin" then (to use one of the more indelicate metaphors in the Word) this whole Trump thing is where the dog returns to his vomit.

And there's people out there who, when at the End they are told they failed to Repent, will reply "What does that mean??"

And that's what's come of the ethic in American Protestant churches that Repenting is something Other people have to do, or that they can "Save" this or that or the other thing by forcing their idea of "Salvation" on somebody else.

Take it from this former Baptist, none of this works that way.

You have to want to be Saved, and too many don't.

In fact, they don't even think they're committing Sin or doing any Wrongs that they need to be Saved from.

Because Ego is more important to them than Eternity, because they've basically been told they could do whatever they wanted (so long as they maintained a "Conservative" and pious religious aesthetic) all their lives.

Because just like staying home during COVID-19 was too much to ask for these motherfuckers, leaving shit we already have that our Ancestors in their wisdom thought we needed well enough alone is just too damn much to ask. They have to fuck with shit, simply for the sake of being evil morons.

Do I need to repeat myself? 

This will not suffice.

And no, none of These Fucking People are conservatives in any sense of what that word means.

Like so many things, you either believe in the Lord's Word or you don't. 

You either accept the ideal of "Love Thy Neighbor" or you don't.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

These things should not need instruction.

(Which is exactly why fascists hate them cuz then they don't get to run ya life.)

And you're either willing to fight against this evil shit, or you ain't.

Yes, it needs to be called Evil.

Remember that.

Слава Україна!

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible. ~Maya Angelou

Three

And just so you know where I come from;

No one is more professional than I. I am a Noncommissioned Officer: a leader of people. I am proud of the Noncommissioned Officer corps and will, at all times, conduct myself so as to bring credit upon it. I will not use my grade or position to attain profit or safety.

So, what does this mean to me as an NCO? What this means is, I as an NCO will continually seek to better myself by going to my career schooling and absorbing what I learn from my senior NCO's, it means that I will lead to the best of my abilities and treat all soldiers with respect, courteousness and fairness.

Competence is my watchword. I will strive to remain tactically and technically proficient. I will always be aware of my role as a Noncommissioned Officer. I will fulfill my responsibilities and display professionalism at all times. I will strive to know my people and use their skills to the maximum degree possible. I will always place their needs above my own and will communicate with my supervisor and my people and never leave them uninformed

So, what does this mean to me as an NCO? It means that I will do my best to be proficient in my assigned jobs and learn from past tasks, it means that I will stay cognizant of my role as an NCO and fulfill my duties to the best of my abilities and take pride in what I do, no matter how others portray my accomplishments. It means that I know my soldiers and know how to use them in a manner that promotes the units needs. It means that I will take care of my soldiers fairly and mentor them to become better soldiers and would not ask them to do something I wouldn't do or have not done before. It means to me that I will keep my soldiers and senior NCO'S informed and they will keep me informed of changes and any information that pertains to me.

I will exert every effort and risk any ridicule to successfully accomplish my assigned duties. I will not look at a person and see any race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin, for I will only see the person; nor will I ever show prejudice or bias. I will lead by example and will resort to disciplinary action only when necessary.

SO, what does this mean to me as an NCO? It means I will take pride in my assigned duties and accomplish them to the best of my abilities. It means to me that I see that person not by race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, or origin but as an individual. It means I will treat all soldiers fairly, equally without malice or without bias. It means to me that I will lead by example and only resort to disciplinary action when appropriate It means to me that I will also give positive counseling when soldiers go above their responsibilities.

I will carry out the orders of my superiors to the best of ability and will always obey the decisions of my superiors. I will give all officers my maximum support to ensure mission accomplishments. I will earn their respect, obey their orders, and establish a high degree of integrity with them. I will exercise initiative in the absence of orders and will make decisive and accurate decisions. I will never compromise my integrity, nor my moral courage. I will not forget that I am a Professional, a Leader, but above all a Noncommissioned Officer. ~Non-Commissioned Officer's Creed (United States Air Force version.) 

NOTE: This was replaced in 2007 by the Airman's Creed.

Bonus Content 1

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

Bonus Content 2

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

Fire And Brimstone (MAGA Zombie Land, Three.)

“'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

~Leviticus 19:33-34, NIV.

...

[in the aftermath of the chaos at Palmo Square, Dreena goes on the radio]

Dreena: Palmo One. This is Palmo One. This is the voice of Ghorman. This is Palmo One making an emergency broadcast on all open channels. This is Palmo One! This is Palmo One. We are under siege. We're being slaughtered. The Imperial murder of Ghorman has begun. There are hundreds of bodies this moment. As I say these words, hundreds of murdered Ghormans lay dead in Palmo Plaza. Thousands more on the streets. More every minute. We're being destroyed! This is Ghorman reaching for any open channel that can hear me! If you can... If you can hear me... If you believe in truth, if you have any faith left in truth, please, please mark this message and pass it forward. This is murder! The Empire built this fire. They made this fire and led us to the slaughter. Now they expect us to die without knowing why. The conspiracy we've feared is real! It's here today! Imperial ships are already landing across... Help us! Is there no one who can help us? Is there no one? ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2 E8 "Who Are You?"

...

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, somebody pitched a "Reality Show" to DHS wherein immigrants are supposed to fight out the Hunger Games against each other for some bullshit alleged fast-track to citizenship.

First off; Bitch, that's not even what Citizenship is, nor what it's for, and anybody with two working brain cells going all the way back to the Roman Empire should be able to tell you that. 

You either believe in civilization as a concept, or you just don't.

Second, anybody who thinks it'll stop there has another thing coming.

Perhaps more to the point, last I checked, GOD takes hospitality and not abusing the immigrant or the stranger pretty damned seriously. You'd think all these American "Christians" would've noticed.

These fucking people are trying to turn America into the kind of freak-Donkey Show that nobody with even an ion of decency in their body will want to be a part of. If they do that? Concepts like national collapse or even Secession won't even begin to cover it. 

The shit will be like that one jungle temple in the Wrath of the Lich King World of Warcraft expansion with panicked jungle trolls stampeding out of it, but the end boss for the instance is a ridiculously bloated, engorged Donald Trump in a gilded chamber he's too big to get out of, who pretty much eats anybody that doesn't get away fast enough. That's even before you get to "These assholes want to turn America into the kind of place people try to get away from."

Like, this kind of bullshit isn't just how you go to Hell, it's how you get fire and brimstone falling out the sky and a special room just for you in Hell when you fucking get there after your ass gets blown up 'cause a flaming stone hit your giant useless pickup truck. 

And no, your AR-15 ain't gonna do shit against the wrath of God.

I mean, fuck, God made an example of Sodom for less than this type of shit, if you actually look at it.

And among other things, I think all the people who turned conservatism and the Lord's Word into nothing but a political grift and a Prosperity Gospel scam fucking caused this shit.

The reason Donald Trump and his cruelty and petty enablers and foreign satraps motherfucking resonate with so many damned people is the American Church is full of these kind of motherfuckers to the point where many people simply do not know Right from Wrong.

So what happens when your kid has to punch another kid in the nose just to get lunch at school? Where does this kind of shit stop? What happens when these assholes, so full of themselves, simply start throwing any American that they can into gladiator pits for entertainment during their cocaine orgies??

When is enough going to be enough??

This week Trump gleefully hopped in bed with the countries and people most responsible for propagating Radical Islam, and I'll note the deadly silence from all the "Conservatives" who treated the words "Radical Islamic Terrorist" as some kind of magic words and phrases a decade ago.

I mean, damn, what's next??

And these assholes will continue to use the most half-baked excuses imaginable, outright lie, or simply hope their base will continue to get some kind of a high off their freakish racism right up until somebody stops this fucking bullshit.

We're gonna have to invent new words to describe the level of evil that's even going on here now, much less if these fucking clowns get to do half the shit they want to.

Either We the People step up and fucking fix this, or the rest of the world is gonna have to kick our ass just for their own goddamned safety.

And at the rate we're going, in 2,000 years in some version of the Bible in that time, it'll be America that will be referred to as Babylon.

And honestly? We deserve it.

You either believe in civilization or you don't.

You either know right from wrong or you don't.

Pick one, but be aware there will be consequences.

Freedom isn't free.

Sometimes you have to fight for it.

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

Two

Falco: Games. One hundred and fifty days of games.

Gracchus: He's cleverer than I thought.

Falco: "Clever"! The whole of Rome would be laughing at him, if they weren't so afraid of his Praetorian.

Gracchus: Fear and wonder, a powerful combination.

Falco: You really think people are going to be seduced by that?

Gracchus: [about Commodus] I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it's the sand of the Colosseum. He'll bring them death…and they will love him for it.

~From the film Gladiator.