World War(R) (American Revelation XX, Ten.)

You were just babies then!" she said.
"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war— like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I — I don't know," I said.
"Well I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.

So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade." She was my friend after that.

~From the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 

...

[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."

I saw this a bit ago; Fucking fabulist weirdo Benny Johnson and Senator Tommy Tube-steak talking shit about New York City and trying to say the people there "live off the Federal Government."

Slight problem: The population of NYC is as of now 8.28 million. NYC is probably in real terms as close to a planetary capital as the Earth has, on top of being (via Wall Street among other things) the kind of financial engine that can just buy what the fuck ever, that shit could easily be its own country, like Singapore. NYC has its own money, trust me. The NYPD is bigger than a number of small countries armed forces, also.

(And if these chuckle-fucks get their wish and throw the United States into Civil War (an event I see as very likely happening this summer, it very well could play out that way. I see a nationwide-scale Soviet-style US collapse with pockets of extremely violent Civil War as more likely. These fucking people would burn and scour the planet down to the bedrock for their political bullshit.)

Alabama on the other hand, has something like 5.1 million people and is genuinely a lot poorer and much more dependent on Federal money and as somebody who's been to Alabama I've seen this myself.

Pretty much once you get outside of Huntsville, nobody ever invented the future in Alabama. That ain't what Alabama does. NYC vs. Alabama ends horribly for Alabama.

Mostly this shit comes down to the fact that New Yorkers voted for Zoran Mamdami instead of Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams in the NYC primary and "Conservatives" hate that shit. They know New York City has about as much of a chance of ever having another Republican mayor as I do of walking outside and seeing a living Tyrannosaurus Rex walking down the street here in Northern Michigan, but they figured they could work with the Corrupt Cop Democrat or the Disgraced Democratic Governor or some shit like that.

But the fucking truth is that's not even really what this shit is about.

Bear with me, for a moment.

Much was made about the idea of a "White Ethno-State" during Trump's first term. How's that going? The road construction company that does a lot of the work here just hired a bunch of Latinos. That's how!

And the 2025 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue had a bunch of thick Women of Color in it. Yeah, guys, I don't think this culture war is goin' as much your way as you think it is.

And, These Fucking People lack the resources and know the actual political will for that doesn't exist. Nobody wants this bullshit but Stephen Miller and Tom Homan. I mean, fuck, the actual view among real White Supremacists (as opposed to the MAGA cosplay kind, who tend to fare badly in prison) is that Trump is controlled by Jewish people and while they take what they can get out of him, they don't see him as a god like MAGA does.

Or at least most of them don't, from what I hear.

It's actually worse even than that.

I mean, fuck, even "White Evangelical Ethno-State" simply doesn't even cover it anymore. There's some combination of MAGA's and Republicans that, well they want to have a place and be the only ones who live there.

(Never mind that when these idiots are the only ones occupying a space, they get bored real fast without having somebody else to argue with.)

And they're willing to break up America to get it. 

I'm serious.

And, They don't care if that shit falls apart because of conspiracy theories and/or rabid idiocy.

In fact, they'd think it was funny if it did.

These assholes want their little Republicans-only Banana Republic to basically be like a fucking HOA.

You know, the kind of organizations that are notorious for shit like *Checks Notes* trying to run families with a disabled child out of the damned neighborhood, which is illegal as fuck for a variety of reasons. These things also tend to be dumb ass lawsuit-magnets for that kind of reason.

Of course, Republicans do actually want to either enslave, immiserate or simply kill as many people "Not Like Them" as they can in the process.

Fuck all that, and I say that both as a former Republican and as a veteran.

In personal news, In the last week I've reconnected with an old friend, we're officially Partners now. My Partner is both Autistic and LGBT...as is her teenage daughter.

Both are people that Eugenicists like all these health-woo loons in the Trump administration would happily kill. I'm pretty sure I've been on a Christian Fundamentalist hit list since at least 2002.

Yet all the sudden I find myself facing the possibility of not only love, but family.

Thus, my previous grim determination has been replaced with a burning desire to fight for the fuckin' future. Republicans can have them, or the more-diverse world we're all trying to build, when they pry all that from my cold dead hands. Fuck them.

I shit-canned an actual friend this week and told him if he ever talked to women like that again and I heard it, I was gonna fuck him up. He tried to blame her, defend his ego, and then finally lie about it. Never mind I was looking at screenshots of the texts the whole time. Technically, I made him apologize and according to my partner he did. (If in a spectacularly half-ass fashion.)

Then I shit-canned him anyway. I've known this guy for 23 years and we've trusted each other with shit you wouldn't even want to know. Even so, nothing of value was lost.

So yeah, in my book some fat redneck Bubba The Hutt or idiot Republican ain't got a chance.

This isn't some patriarchal defending what's "Mine." This is simply about a longtime loved one's right to not be bothered by some narcissistic sex pest.

I'm apparently a lot less alone than I thought I was, since my Partner has some Middle Eastern friends where she lives that apparently approve of me, but also wished it to be known that if I hurt her, they might handle it old-school. I made sure to tell her to tell them I understood.

I've been over there, I know those kinds of people, if they say they got her back, she's safe and I'm honestly glad they're there even though I know they'd hold me to account in a hot minute too. 

We both live in Democratic states. She could come here or I could go there.

But a lot of people don't, or they don't have the means to go somewhere, or whatever.

And when the shit hits the fan, God help people in places like the rural Deep South or in Texas outside of the cities.

Good people are going to have to network, and a hell of a lot of people will end up fighting for their lives because of these goddamned Manifest Destiny idiots basically trying to colonize America now.

And yeah, that includes the White people.

This country is, in my view, very close to flying apart...but it's more than that and it's worse. Republicans wish to declare a Jihad against All That Is Not Republican because they think if things get really bad and they lose that Republican Jesus will come and "save" them.

And only them.

Thus their objective isn't even winning, but simply destruction for its own sake.

These assholes don't want to make anything "Great."

This is going to come down to a fight, not only because Republicans want to fight the rest of America, but because they want to fight the rest of the world...and for the same reason.

Call it World War (R) because it's with Republicans instead of Zombies.

Yes, Reagan Wept.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to treat your fellow humans with some basic respect or you aren't.

There is no middle ground here.

Pick a side. It's going to come down to a fight.

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There's a man goin' 'round takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down
When the man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin'
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum
Voices callin', voices cryin'
Some are born and some are dyin'
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
~Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around.

Nine

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.  The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same.  And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

Men Of Sin (American Revelation XX, Nine.)

You take a drug, right? The chemicals, they rush through your body, rush through your brain. And the sensations, you want the sensations again and again and again, but let me tell you, you can also get addicted to grief, to guilt, to hate. Because when you feel dead inside, even bad sensations make you feel like you're alive! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E5 "The Straight Life."

...

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

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

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

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

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? ~Amos 5:18-20

...

[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."

I saw this the other day.

Some idiot Evangelical rooting for "The Rapture" to happen because of the airstrikes on Iran.

They think (per the End Times Prophecy narrative) that war in the Middle East could lead to the End Times, or some bullshit like that, and they see (or have in the past, seen) Trump as some unbelieving Cyrus or Nebuchadnezzar who would nevertheless somehow "help" God bring about Something Something Gazpacho. The problem with that is, now, a hell of a lot of these morons transparently see Trump as Jesus.

As if God needing Man's help with any damn thing would not invalidate the entire concept of "God" as Christianity has traditionally preached and taught it.

As if spending Eternity with Donald Trump would not be its own form of punishment, wherever that supposedly happened??

These Fucking People literally think...and the point of their religion has become...this idea that they will be the lucky ones who get to go to Heaven without dying and then get to watch the rest of us burn and suffer torment here on Earth. The fucking sadistic cruelty is the point.

Here's the fuckin' thing, though; Jesus did not promise The Rapture.

The Rapture is a man-made doctrine, originally created by a British preacher, John Nelson Darby, and propagated after Darby's death by a former Confederate soldier turned lawyer turned preacher named Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield. We know when and where all this happened. It's doctrine, not magic.

And it is not real, not even Biblical in the same sense that Revelation itself is. The shit is fanfiction, except that it contains far more malice than most such things.

It's basic Escapism, and it's wrong. But if they're all so right, and so righteous, what do all these fucking Evangelical Christians feel such a need to escape from.

Honestly? 

After the last few days? 

I think that answer is "Each Other."

The motherfucking people these same sons of bitches damn near all voted for are basically outright saying right in the US Capitol that :"It's not the Mark Of The Beast when they do it." It's all bullshit and nonsense, these fucking people don't know what they want, don't know what they worship, and they really don't want to know, or even care, so long as they get to live hedonistic lifestyles and take out their anger and confusion at things like "Everyday life" and "Other People Exist" and inflict their cruelty on other people.

Last weekend, I had an ex-girlfriend (and former roommate and friend of over 20 years who I dearly love and always have) walk back into my life by the random grace of a Facebook post. Come to find out that the guy she got with after me abused both her and their daughter rather badly.

She's having a rough time right now, I'm trying to help, because it's the right thing to do.

I mentioned this to another longtime friend who worked with us, who then proceeded to get....well, from my side of it, anyway...more than a little weird about the situation. I find out the next day that dude (who I thought I and a whole bunch of people modeled better behavior for and taught better than this) found on Facebook and then went full creepy sexual harasser on my other friend. I expected better of him, for damned sure. She didn't see it coming either.

I'm unhappy about that, there will be another shoe that drops, here.

She's not a piece of meat, bro. She's a person.

But it's not just these two. I see stories like that everywhere.

Not just from individual people, there's accounts like Ask Aubry on social media that exposing or mocking this type of shit is what they do.

These kind of guys are a dime a dozen pretty much everywhere these days, and I don't know how so many dudes didn't get no home training but if I'd have ever talked like that to a woman as a young man  and my Mom found out about it, she'd have put me under the house while my Grandma kept a lookout.

And I'm sorry, but abusing, mistreating and objectifying women and girls is not what I was taught, it's not any kind of "Christian" values (and the sex pest mentioned above, while he's not either among other things because he's a gamer, he is very Christian-adjacent and very conservative-adjacent. I know his family, the list goes on. 

I wouldn't think any of those people would be or ever have been Okay with anything like that out of his mouth, but yet here we are. The lady he was being so shitty to told him to go pound sand for reasons that should be entirely obvious.

This ain't the way, my brothers, this ain't the way.

Women are people, too.

Other men who are different than yourself are people, also.

People who want to define themselves, whatever their nature, are people.

You don't get a say what somebody else is, my dudes.

You don't get to hit your wife...

Or talk to someone you once called friend worse than you'd talk to some freaking sex robot built by Elon Musk.

I can remember when a relatively common social response to that kind of crap was for somebody to about go full B.A. from The A-Team on somebody ass and be like "You talk to my (whatever) that way again, I'mma kill you, fool."

I remember when people used to post signs with guns on them that said "Pedophiles will be handled by Smith and Wesson."

You know, that stopped about the same time all the Q-Anon crazy bullshit started. On reflection, I no longer think that's a coincidence.

What the fuck are we even doing here??

And I think it's because it's easier for too many people to rail against some imaginary bogeyman built out of bigotries and conspiracy theories and partisanship than to clean up the filth in their own house.

I keep hearing about a "Male Loneliness Epidemic." These dudes ain't lonely, they're assholes.

And people have a right not to put up with that.

I've often said "Either you believe in freedom or you don't."

But if we don't believe in the humanity of other humans...if we don't believe in the Earth we're all walking around on...if your highest goal is to fuck off to some superior alleged spiritual plane...

And yet, at the end of the day all people care about really is control and power and satisfying their most base desires...or serving those of somebody like Donald Trump...

What the fuck is the basis of anything, much less freedom??

Without Truth, without the basic recognition that other people have the right to exist and be treated fairly, what's even the damn point??

What right do you, or I, have to exist and not be treated as some kind of device that exists only to please those who think they have more social power??

Without the belief that God or the Universe or whatever created all people equally and with certain God-endowed and given rights, what do any of us have??

Privilege ain't gonna cut it, bros, relative status will not save you. You cannot show me where anything says inalienable privilege because them two words don't even go together.

In a world where any random man can reduce any random woman to nothing more than an object to be used....don't doubt that eventually somebody will work around to thinking about you that same way.

One Antichrist, One Man of Sin, is bad enough, correct?? Isn't that what all these Christian End Times nuts think is gonna end the world??

What are we gonna do with a hundred million of the fuckers??

We'd best start dealing with this shit.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.  The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same.  And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

Eight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Darkness And Not Light (American Revelation XX, Eight.)

I don't have to tell you, drugs ain't the only things to get addicted to. Some people mainline their work, some people... snort ESPN. Some people needle-pop gambling. There are those that shoot up junk foods, fine wines, Cohibas, baby. Some people get hooked on love. And like any fiend on the street, you always need another bump. Just one more bump, man! Just one more bump! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E5 "The Straight Life."

...

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? ~Amos 5:18-20

...

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

So, Trump ordered airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites yesterday, for all the good it apparently did (which was nothing) and then immediately declared "Victory."

And no such thing happened. 

Apparently, the Iranians moved a lot of the shit we were trying to hit beforehand, and according to something else I saw, the bombs didn't even penetrate deep enough to damage one of the nuclear facilities anyway.

I saw this morning per the former Russian president Dimitry Medvedev that, now, all those "Axis Of Evil" countries...like North Korea and Russia are supposedly in talks to give Iran nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Trump's followers are busy trying to Declare War on the rest of America.

Think about that for a second.

Ya know, I know a little about this sort of thing and I'm not sure I see a coherent strategy here. This is the constant drama and flailing about of a conflict-obsessed narcissist. This is the kind of shit that my ex-wife did, but these motherfuckers want to do it with weapons instead of endless religious hokum.

(Although I'm sure there will be plenty of both.)

And they really don't care about that shit killing people, either. But if you expect to actually win, you don't start an unending stream of fights with no clear objective while trying to go in fifteen different directions all at once. 

It simply doesn't work that way.

I mean, I get it. Functionally, the Evangelical right-winger's actual objective is simply to fuck shit up so bad that "Jesus" comes back to "Save" them...and only them...Heaven isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go, and they all think they're going to be the ones who get to watch the rest of us burn here on Earth or (somehow, by magic I guess) in hell. In fact, that seems to somewhere along the way have become the entire point of their religion. That's wrong and I say that as a former End Times guy. 

I wonder if these assholes or those who perpetrated their Christ-less Prosperity Gospel religiosity upon the world 100+ years ago realize that they don't get to be the ones who make that decision about who goes where, not even regarding themselves.

Of course, I suppose they don't teach about the Judgment of the Sheep and the Goats or the Sermon On The Mount either. They apparently think "Grace" is dangerous, and that control over other people or political Power will somehow Save them.

I've read the Lord's Word, folks, none of this works like that.

Without Grace, without "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing" and without "Love Thy Neighbor" you may have something, but it ain't Christianity.

But the thing that needs to be said here, the thing people need to understand, is that These Fucking People are addicted to this self-serving BULLSHIT!

And along the way, it's become so that nobody acts more like they think that the Bible is a lie and it's all some kind of sick joke and that God is not real than the Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians do. And they don't care if we know, as long as they get to hate.

They don't want Jesus, they don't want a Relationship (which I was taught was required to be Saved) with a Living God, a Risen Savior, or Transcendent Christ who might Judge them for their wrongs and whose Kingdom (such as it is) is Not of this world.

They want a Dead Prophet On A Stick who they can use to justify their atrocities, their bad behavior and their empires and use to sacralize their hate and obsessions with political Power and wealth. And their desired "Kingdom" is exclusively of This World and all else be damned, they'll take their chances in the Afterlife as long as they get to have their fun now.

Yeah, the Word has some very specific things to say about people exactly like this and if this really is the End Of Days, you really don't want to be one of These Fucking People.

Republicans and shit just want to bomb Iran, they don't give a damn if, when they stand before Jesus, that gets them sent to Hell. Their "Faith" is in their shitty ideology and in money. They'd openly worship Dis Pater and Mammon if somebody told them that crap was acceptable.

And I genuinely believe that before this is over, someone will try exactly that, after all it's not like Trump hasn't provided a test case complete with golden idols, which also enabled them to pretend to be "Conservative."

My question is, if they're so right and so righteous, why are they so afraid?? 

Why do these fucking people do so many drugs and shit??

Why are they never happy with anything??

All this shit these MAGA's and Republicans are doing is not sustainable, and it's mostly not effective at any of the shit they're trying to say it is. You don't send Dr. Phil (of all fucking people) out with ICE goons unless all you're trying to do is generate hits for some kind of reality TV bullshit.

And it's getting to the point, whether it's Revelations or the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, that this bullshit is starting to look like a legit Biblical level of Evil (and Stupid.)

Being willing to squat in the dark in bunkers and shit on their own shoes while peering suspiciously out of the firing ports through a rifle scope...just so that nobody else gets any light...seems like a hell of a way to live.

And whether it's We, The People...or just the world we live in...I sort of feel like somebody's had just about enough of this fucking garbage. 

I mean, like I'm looking around at this crap and wondering...whether it was my former Christian belief or my military service or my having been a Republican and I'm wondering what the hell it was all even for.

The weather yesterday where I live was like something out of Revelation, massive thunderstorms all morning, and then when I got up and went to work, it was still hot as fuck outside.

All this MAGA shit has long since reached the point of Blasphemy in my opinion. It's a cult.

But more to the point, I have experience with both personality disorders and religious weirdness and it's my literal lived experience that if you get out but then go back a second time, usually that wrecks your life worse than if you'd just got out and stayed the fuck away.

But Republicans in particular can't seem to stop. They're pretty much freebasing this shit. They keep blowing the narcissist. They don't seem to care if all this destroys them as long as it takes out the rest of us, too.

You either believe in civilization and freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to stand up and do something about it or you're not.

That's not a question, it's the only question.

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 [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."

 Seven

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Day Of The Lord (American Revelation XX, Seven.

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

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

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

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

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

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

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

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

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

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

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

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

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

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

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. ~Amos 5:7-26

I saw this yesterday.

Trump is claiming that we have "Total Air Supremacy" over Iran.

I hate to point this out but with the assets we have in place, we're just supporting the Israelis at this point and, so far as I know, leaving offensive ops to them, although we (and the Jordanians) have shot down plenty of drones and missiles aimed at Israel.

Two days ago I saw on various flight trackers that I follow, that the Air Force is staging tankers. This is a prerequisite to any military action. I know a thing or two about this because as a USAF Security Forces veteran there were a couple times I was on those tankers (or other aircraft) in a similar scenario (Operation Deliberate Force comes to mind as does my Southern Watch deployment before that.) It can take days or weeks to work up a proper air campaign and/or naval operation, getting everything in place for a full-on war takes months.

And yeah, we're apparently working something up, or at least the tempo of training has increased. I heard four sonic booms yesterday...which tends to mean Air Force training flights are off the hook.

No, "We" don't have "Air Supremacy" over shit. 

The Israelis apparently have at least parity, maybe air superiority or something close to it...but as much as anything that's because Iran's air defense radars are a mix of outdated US equipment and 1980's Soviet junk. Some of their shit is cutting edge, or at least pretty current. I saw a video the other night of Israeli air defenses shooting down inbound missiles in Haifa and then this Iranian hypersonic missile comes blasting in like a freaking laser beam from orbit and knocks out the power. The Iranians apparently have neglected basics like radars, though. 

That does not an Apocalyptic rain of fire make, although it might look like it on either side to the basic person on the ground.

And then, here's the thing, Mike Huckabee (our current ambassador to Israel, yo) jumped in with some weird Pentecostal-sounding nonsense to back this bullshit up.

Which is weird, given that old Mike was supposedly a Baptist minister at some point, although I happen to know from personal experience that distinctions like that blur a bit in places like Arkansas.

There is a non-zero percentage of American Evangelicals and MAGA (although I repeat myself) that thinks Trump is some kind of non-Christian "Cyrus" or "Nebuchadnezzar" who will "help" God by ushering in the End Times. 

No, none of this works like that. God does not need your help, or He is not God.

Yes, stop and think about that for a second.

Also, Among Republicans specifically, it's effectively an article of faith that war with Iran is somehow a good thing.

See Also: Ted Cruz, apparently. I'm legit surprised Ted hasn't posted some kind of weird Pentecostal BS because he actually is that way.

I was an End Times Prophecy guy myself. I cannot even begin to tell you how ridiculous that is, per what I was actually taught.

And the only person I've seen even make a half-ass attempt to call this shit out is *Checks Notes* Tucker Carlson. I feel extremely dirty agreeing with that fool about anything.

Between the No Kings protests last weekend and now...this crap...I can't help but feel (yet again) like These Fucking People are very afraid of *Something.*

No idea what, but the evidence suggests that it might be God, because these motherfuckers know all their talk is just a lie...whether they know this consciously or otherwise I'm not certain but I think they do know it.

Like, I saw this weird cope-post from Charlie Kirk this morning.

Here's the thing, Conservatives; By the time Your Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Coming Of The Lord, it'll be way too late to repent.

I don't know why, but it appears to me that they think this is all going to come crashing down soon.

Like maybe if we attack Iran, all the shit Vladimir Putin has on these fucking people is gonna come out?

I don't know what their deal is.

As for the rest of you? I do know that You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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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."

Six

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

No Kings II (American Revelation XX, Six.)

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Hoo, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no furtunate one, no
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord?
But when the taxman come to the door
Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no millionaire's son, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no
Yeah-yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
Hoo, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask 'em, "How much should we give?"
Hoo, they only answer, "More, more, more, more"

~Fortunate Son, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

...

[In the Preox-Morlana planet of Morlana One, Deputy Inspector Syril Karn is confused his superior won't open an investigation into the murder of two Pre-Mor officers]

Chief Inspector Hyne: Tough case. Bad timing.

Deputy Inspector Syril Karn: I'm sure that in several days, with the proper resources, I can bring this case to a-

Hyne: Stop! And I don't just mean the talking. I mean stop. [closes his office door] This case appears to bear all the hallmarks of what I like to describe as regrettable misadventure.

Karn: Sir?

Hyne: Two dedicated Pre-Mor employees caught in the sad orbit of a rare calamity.

Karn: I don't understand.

Hyne: I want you to conjure a suitable accident, and let's make sure it's on the far side of the plaza. Let's get it outside the Leisure Zone.

Karn: But they were murdered!

Hyne: No, they weren't. They were killed in a fight. They were in a brothel, which we're not supposed to have. The expensive one, which they shouldn't be able to afford. Drinking Revnog, which we're not supposed to allow. Both of them supposedly on the job, which is a dismissible offense. They clearly harassed a human with dark features and chose the wrong person to annoy. I suspect they died rushing to aid someone in distress. Nothing too heroic. We don't need a parade. They died being helpful. Something sad but inspiring in a mundane sort of way. [regards Karn] You look stricken, Deputy Inspector. Are you absorbing my meaning here?

Karn: Trying to, sir.

Hyne: When I said bad timing, I wasn't referring to the fact you spent all night worrying this. I mean that I am on my way this very morning to an Imperial Regional Command review, where I'll be asked to make a report about our crime rates, and the goal of that speech, should you ever be asked to deliver it, is brevity. Minimizing the time the Empire spends thinking about Preox-Morlana benefits our superiors and, by extension, everyone here at the Pre-Mor Security Inspection team, which at the moment includes you. [dons his coat, picks up his briefcase and moves to leave] Don't put your feet on my desk in my absence, and let's have an accident report waiting when I get back.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E1 "Kassa."

So No Kings Day was yesterday.

Looks like Trump's military parade was every bit the massive flop I thought it was gonna be, and whether it was civil disobedience, utterly malicious compliance or simply unimaginable incompetence, the whole goddamned thing was a Soup Sandwich on such a level as to redefine the term. 

The parade featured WWII Sherman Tanks, which looked for all the world like some kind of wind-up toy ordered from Acme by Wile E. Coyote, operated by Porky Pig, and ordered up like a Dollar General version of the old Soviet missile parades in Red Square whistled up by the dumbest fucking President imaginable, I mean, fuck.

The troops were...marching, if you dare call it that. I said to a fellow veteran on Threads that if I'd have marched like that, let alone my guys did it when I was a Sergeant I'd still have scars from the ass chewing I got from the LT and she'd have had us drilling in the rain, snow and blazing ass hot sun until we got it right and it stayed that way...to CCR's "Fortunate Son" which is the sort of song written to call out Vietnam draft dodgers in general and rich ones like Trump in particular.

And 11 Million Americans took to the streets in protest of this crap.

Think about that, for a second.

Also, the Speaker of the Minnesota State House and her husband were murdered yesterday, a State Senator and his wife were shot but survived. All four were Democrats. The shooter was an Evangelical Christian Republican freak who left a manifesto in his fake police car and (so far as I know) remains at large but facing a massive manhunt.

I want you to take a moment and reflect on that, too.

That kind of thing isn't supposed to happen in America.

Nobody gives a shit about Trump and Trumpism except for all the people who hate this crap.

Lots of people are using Trump though, either as cover or as an excuse to play their own game.

And as I've always warned, there are people out there far worse than Trump, who will do worse, and might be smarter.

It's all a means to an end, like, the Far-right, the religious nuts and the rest of These Fucking People want to start a civil war.

There's just one small problem with that.

People stood the fuck up yesterday.

A bit late maybe, but they did it.

And most of these far-right weirdos are actually cowardly shits who only really want to attack when they know most people aren't going to fight back.

They thought they could shoot a few people and the rest would go home, or something.

Wrong answer, looks like.

I mean for fuck's sake I live smack in the middle of northeastern Michigan, I'm a hundred miles in either direction from anything but Lake Huron. and there was a No Kings protest here. 

Like I said yesterday, I'm glad that all made it up here, but I was more than a little surprised.

Usually expressions of stuff like that are not uncommon but done on a much more individualistic basis up here. I didn't think we'd see any of it.

I went outside and watched the people go by for a couple minutes. 

I'd have participated, but I had to work both Friday night and last night.

And there's many times more people like me here and elsewhere for whom life could not be put on hold or who had preexisting commitments than there are of those who went out and marched, but who supported the whole thing as best we could, anyway.

I haven't heard anybody say anything bad about the protest yet. (And around here, on the rare occasions there's something like that even happens, there's often a lot of people trying to talk bad about it.)

It's...more than that, though.

A buddy of mine, and fellow veteran, posted this yesterday on Facebook. I have to say I'm kind of impressed.

He lives in Midland, about 2 hours south of here, and we worked at the casino (although on different shifts, so we didn't really know each other at that point) at overlapping times but we had a lot of friends in common and shit, the same D&D and video game crowd, for the most part.

Midland is the next city over from where I used to live, it's where I go to Barnes & Noble and shit even now, and it's the big Republican bastion in Central Michigan. But ya know, then, back in the day when I was a Republican, they didn't support the idea of Kings either. At least not in America. 

Lots of them might well have loved them some Gulf oil sheikdoms, but they'd have never thought of trying to turn the United States into one.

There was also a huge No Kings protest in Traverse City, which surprises me less, but I'm impressed that so many people showed up. Traverse City is sort of known for that kind of thing (I participated in a protest against the Iraq War over there in 2003) and, generally speaking, it's one of the main Liberal areas around here. 

Note: "Around here" is a relative term. It's a good three hour drive from where I currently live, but still very much culturally in the same zone. Northern Michigan is a big area. 

And for the record this was a Blue congressional district in the Bush 43 years.

When I lived in Petoskey, Traverse City was the place I tended to go to go to the bookstore and shit and get my gaming stuff or the latest video games etc. and it was where I'd take a date to dinner back in the day.

If stuff like this was just happening in places like Mount Pleasant or Petoskey or Traverse City, or in bigger cities like Detroit or even Midland, I'd find it a lot less noteworthy.

There were also protests in places like Marquette (which I heard about from my Aunt overnight, she and my uncle went) and Petoskey (again, that's where I used to live, and also participated in protests RE: the Iraq War) neither of which surprises me since both areas have pretty big liberal contingents, but there were also protests in places like Gaylord and St. Ignace, which are both pretty conservative areas generally speaking and not known for anything of the sort.

If yesterday wasn't a mass movement, I don't know what is.

"Conservatives" are trying to say the protests were Astro-turfed, because theirs often are. Or they're trying to say that the protesters were paid or some shit. Hell, I hear they're even trying to investigate some billionaire but a cursory inspection of his and his wife's actual history show that those people have links to Code Pink and various pro-Hamas far-left groups some of which have ties to the Chinese Communist Party and to Vladimir Putin. So, hey, if MAGA wants to investigate somebody that's on the same side as them in real terms, have at it, I guess.

The truth is not much will come of any of that. It's a distraction.

MAGA is also on Team Putin, as is China, as is Hamas, as is Iran. Any "conflict" between these groups is basically meant to be a distraction from whatever else this same Axis Of Evil is doing that you can't see or that our media simply won't report on. Yes, there are frictions between these groups, but they all have the same basic sets of goals; That of pre-Enlightenment Power and pre-modern monarchy or religious rulership. These fucking people are probably all gonna try to fuck each other over eventually, but first they want to fuck over anybody who believes in democracy and freedom.

So of course people are going to stand up against it.

We're sick of this bullshit.

And these assholes next collective move is to try and play the "God" card. Like I couldn't have told you that shit was coming just based on my own experiences with my ex-wife.

I saw this same comment several times, plus a few more variations of it. All were under different allegedly-Christian names on Threads last night, trying to claim that "No Kings" was some sort of rebellion against God.

To which I responded:

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?

Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

Show me in the Bible where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego bowed down to the Golden Image of King Nebuchadnezzar when the music started to play.

Show me in the Bible where Jesus Christ exhorted the first Christians to go to the Pagan temples and make offerings to the Emperor and the Roman gods.

You can't do that, because it isn't in there.

You cannot do that, because Jesus Christ said "My Kingdom is not of this world."

It's right there in black and white. I've read those words many times.

Christ rejected worldly power, and taught that we are but travelers in a far country, and that this fallen world is not our true home.

Any "Christian" that is goat-eager to serve a worldly ruler isn't following Christ.

They just want Power for themselves, the next world be damned.

To say "No Kings" now is blatantly obvious, in a worldly sense or otherwise.

To say it 2,000 years ago was downright revolutionary, but He did, and Jesus was not the first of the holy prophets to say it.

"But if not, be it known unto thee, Oh king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image..." Even had God refused to help them, they would not have bowed down.

There's a lesson there, remember it.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

Five

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

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

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