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.

Слава Україна!

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