For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. ~Hosea 8:7...
Sure, we were unprepared, our tools, our training, everything I just talked about, all one class-A, gold-standard clusterfuck, but the weapon that really failed wasn’t something that rolled off an assembly line. It’s as old as…I don’t know, I guess as old as war. It’s fear, dude, just fear and you don’t have to be Sun freaking Tzu to know that real fighting isn’t about killing or even hurting the other guy, it’s about scaring him enough to call it a day... “Shock and Awe”? Perfect name, “Shock and Awe”! But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid! ~Todd Waino, World War Z (Novel by Max Brooks)
...
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
Again, I keep trying to warn people.
Lots of these fucking right-wing morons are so desperate for either a Cold War-like showdown with the "Left" or some kind of cosplay Christian "Holy War" that they don't see the threats within their own house. Yes, there's people who think all this crazy shit doesn't go near to far enough, there's people who just want to cause chaos and death and don't want to be bothered with all the "Christian" hokum, among other things. Pretty much the only value all of these groups have in common that I've observed is a ravening hatred of women that makes basic Republican misogyny look like Second Wave Feminism.
And when the shit hits the fan...an event I see as not only likely but soon...these fucking people are going to be wearing their bomber-jackets like Mike Pence at the Korean DMZ, glaring bumboclaatically with rifles in hand at some supposed "Leftist" (who may well just be a conservative Democrat or moderate Republican) or a few mid-lib protesters across a No Man's Land of barbed wire and shit...and they're gonna get shot in the back by some fat bearded internet moron who'll then live-stream the event to the tune of "Big Time" by Peter Gabriel and post that shit all over YouTube, blatantly obvious far-right commentary, declarations of racial holy war and all.
And the Republican response will be to try to haul Peter Gabriel and record label execs in for some bullshit congressional hearings or something.
I get the worldview, OK?? But it's not 1985 anymore.
(And while I'm at it, now Republicans are gleefully in bed with the very remnants of the same Soviet Union they once fanatically opposed. Yes, I'm a little tired of this bullshit.)
More to the point, it's specifically conservatism, corporations like META and Republicans that created this fucking mess...and then refused to adapt. In fact, the corps keep doubling down on stupid shit. META wants to make pretty much another Instagram clone
just for AI slop bullshit, just for example.
It's Idicocracy, only somehow a lot more stupid.
Like, some idiot Congressional Republicans want to mint a Charlie Kirk coin that's actual goddamn money.
Somehow on the coin they manage to make Charlie Kirk look like what they think some goddamned Roman Emperor's male concubine might look like.
Republicans are basically Nero, at this point, playing some fucking musical instrument or other while Rome burns...because they live in and are acting (in the real world) in accordance with a bunch of crazy shit that only exists in their own pointed heads. I mean, Good Lord, come on!
Trust me, I get it. Ideology can be a hell of a damned drug.
But if you're not gonna put the pipe down at some point it pretty quickly becomes indistinguishable from garden-variety Mental Illness.
Or just plain stupidity, if you wanna get really technical about it.
And not just a lot of These Fucking People...but a lot of people in general...have had it too good for too long and their survival skills (or willingness to survive without FOX News or Hulu or their daily dose of whatever if not all of the above) have atrophied.
If they had any in the first place, that is.
When the shit hits the fan a hell of a lot of people aren't going to be able to handle it, and even a lot of those with enough survival skills that they can adjust are going to struggle just with the changes in their worldview that are going to be required by acknowledging (functionally) far-rightists shooting at "Conservatives" and honestly that whole movement is
going to fall apart as soon as their information infrastructure and worldview bubble do.
Except of course on the far edges where people are so goddamned brain-fried it won't matter, but then those will be the people shooting at the rest of us.
The continuing Controlled Flight Into Terrain by the Trump administration in terms of running both America and their own popularity into the ground will not help...and like any fucking narcissistic abusers given power for awhile, then let back in after a breakup, these fucking people have functionally made it very difficult for this country to continue in anything like its current form without them.
I've been through this in terms of relationships, rebuilding is hard, and there will be people who just don't want to do it.
More to the point (and that's the problem) there's also those for whom chaos itself is addictive and fun and they think it's hilarious, etc.
And that, right there, is the people we're going to have to worry about.
America is going to reap the whirlwind of a lot of the bullshit from the last 25 years because there's at least one generation that thinks the Yahoo News comments section circa 2008 either is real life, or what real life should have been.
You might as well get used to the fact that there's no Rapture, no easy out, no escapist fantasy coming to save you...and prepare for this particular fight.
'Cause I guarantee you the bad guys are preparing, perhaps badly, but they are preparing.
And worse, Republicans will pick the wrong fight, do it in a self-aggrandizing fashion, and wonder why they're getting shot at, same as the rest of us are.
You either believe in freedom or you don't.
And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.
The time to decide is now.
Слава Україна!
The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27).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 intermittently 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.
Yuri Orlov: [At Andrei's presidential compound showing the Liberian president a silver revolver pistol] The Glock is interesting. It is made of a polymer composite. Many of my clients feel that they can go through airport security without seeing a lot of bells and whistles. Personally, I do not recommend that. [Andrei chuckles glancing over at a guard flirting with a female staffer] On the other hand, if you are looking for traditional wheel gun, there is no substitute for six inches of muzzle energy of 357 mag I mean, of course, it will never jam. [Andrei shoots the guard flirting with the female staffer] WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!Andrei Baptiste Sr.: [Aims gun at Yuri] WHAT DID YOU SAY?!
Yuri Orlov: Now, you gonna have to buy it! IT IS A USED GUN! How can I sell a used gun? [Takes pistol from Andrei with his son and bodyguards all aiming rifles at an entirely still business-focused Yuri]
Andrei Baptiste Sr.: A "used gun"? A "used gun"?! [Chuckles] That's a good one. You know? There is no discipline with the youth today. I tried to set an example, but it is difficult huh? Personally, I blame MTV. [Smiles and Yuri nods in acknowledgment] A "used gun"? [Chuckles heartily, gets up and extends hand for handshake] I think you and I, we can do business. ~From the film Lord Of War.
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