- [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."
- ...
- Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.
Good for him, good for us, I guess? To me, he looks like "Meet the new Pope, same as the old Pope." He seems fairly standard issue on most things, although from what I hear he's pretty smart. He'll probably let the conservatives do their thing and the liberals do theirs, same as before.
And, apparently, even Trump thinks, to quote Simon Adebesi from Oz, that "Sometimes it is good to be human."
His followers? Not so much.
Not that I have the slightest idea what MAGA, let alone Laura Loomer (who isn't even Christian, let alone Catholic) was even expecting? Catholicism is a global faith and most of its followers aren't White Conservatives from the USA. The leadership of the Faith has to take that into account.
(Remember, the vast majority of the Latino immigrants the Trump Admin has such a hate-on for are Catholics.)
Honestly, I'm just happy we got one, although I'll be the first to tell you I have no idea what it means yet, not that anybody else does either. I do think that the Schismatics and the Sedevacantists will try and start something over it.
I do not think this will go how they think it will. They're gonna lose.
Let me tell you why I think that;
My LT in the Air Force had her degree from USAFA in Mathematics, which Pope Leo has a Doctorate in. I've seen how fast somebody with that sort of knowledge can come up with a game-plan, on the fly, while running through a swamp in full battle rattle and carrying an M16. Change that out for a sedate walk in Priestly regalia and I suppose the figures and the logic and the plan might come faster? Mathematics is the grandfather of all the other physical sciences, and lends itself well to logic, which covers all the rest of them, pretty much.More to the point, and I think it bears particular noting here, the Catholic Church has been doing Politics since long before the United States of America...much less MAGA...was even thought of. Push comes to shove, that'll leave a mark.
I looked Pope Leo up on Wikipedia last night before I left for work, I'd actually heard of this guy before, if only because I have ties to people who were in Chicago when he was the Cardinal there (or they still are) and a bunch of those people either are Catholic or were doing the Catholic thing at that time, for various reasons.
But it's both deeper than that and...no, not at all, really.
It's actually pretty simple, from a religious point of view.
Leo's motto as Pope is In illo uno unum, meaning "In the One (Christ) [We are] One."
Contrast that to the endless divisiveness of Trump and MAGA.
And the fact that MAGA Christians seem to judge themselves by if they have a personal relationship with Donald Trump, nowadays, rather than Jesus Christ.
Catholicism is a community that traces itself back to Saint Peter, who was the first Bishop of Rome. The Pope is considered the Vicar of Christ. That is, not an equal but a successor. Catholicism is a literally global community which has its roots in (for better and worse) the Roman Empire.
By comparison, most "Evangelical" churches in America might as well have been founded last Tuesday, and their emphasis on "Faith" and personal Salvation just seems small by comparison.
And it's the novelty factor in all this, in a general sense, that made these fucking people fall for Trump.
I've done the Catholic thing myself, but I started out as a Baptist. I spent most of my life as various flavors of mainstream Protestant...but mostly Baptist. Being politically conservative for much of my life and that time of it in particular, I just sort of fell into the End Times Prophecy movement when I was in the Air Force, albeit with a big assist from a late friend of mine who was only too happy to answer when I started asking questions, since my Christian education up to that point hadn't exactly emphasized Prophecy or the Book of Revelation.
Now? I think so much of that is just innovation and malarkey, made-up bullshit and self-serving interpretations, put out by narcissistic preachers to scare the churchgoers into submission, offering exclusivism as a drug in exchange for their freedom of thought. The truth is, it doesn't work like that.
You know how I figured this out?? I read the Bible, cover to cover, multiple times.
The fact that I got a real Christian education, with a lot of history and theology, helped.
That's the value of a couple thousand years, it's more difficult to have the mentality of a Goldfish.
Anyway I don't know if I just give off some sort of vibe, but several people this week have asked me if I think Trump is the Antichrist.
I think it most likely, if there really is such a thing, that he's simply a test run.
But even if it isn't a thing, enough people believe in it to make it one, if only after a fashion.
More to the point, the Christians failed the test. Whoever thought this up (IF I'm right) must be jumping for joy at that specific result of this whole mess.
In any case, Trump is certainly MAGA's Anti-Pope, and that's not what I think. Trump and his White House staff sort of made that decision for us all, as I said a few days ago. I believe MAGA will turn out to be an Anti-Christian movement, in about the same way as the Nazis were, and for the same reasons.
Because the whole point of all this MAGA shit is ANYTHING but "Love Thy Neighbor."
And Jesus said His two most important commands were "Love Thy Neighbor" and "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy mind."
Trump demands that people love only Himself.
(Gee, where have I heard that before??)
It's not just that those things bring MAGA into confrontation with Christ and Christianity (and more broadly, religion in general) it's that MAGA's as people seem to relish the idea of every possible fight they might get into, in fact the fight seems to be all they want or understand. That's why they love the idea of a second US Civil War.
(Also; You don't have to win the argument if you think the other guy's gonna be dead.)
But also, these fucking people who couldn't get enough of End Times Prophecy before seem suddenly wary of the possibility of a Living God that might judge them, rather than a Dead Savior On A Stick.
Which is exactly why, when given the choice between Jesus and Trump, they will choose Trump.
Again, I read the Bible. I know how it says that turns out.
And that's where they lose. In fact, the Bible is rather exacting in its descriptions of what happens to followers of Antichrist, be it the concept in general or of some individual claiming (or assigned) the label.
Personally, I think These Fucking People are cruising at flank speed towards "Fuck Around and Find Out." But then they'll want to fight about that, too.
But when that time comes, you either believe in freedom or you don't.
It's going to come down to a fight. The rest of the world seems to understand this. That's why the Catholics chose a leader.
We'd better get started, because where we stand on this stuff isn't just the question.
It's the only question that matters.
We are who we say we are, or we're not.
Remember that.
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
And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.
And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. ~Matthew 24:1-13
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