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.

Слава Україна!

 [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