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.

Слава Україна!

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."