Kings Of The Apocalypse (American Abominations, Three.)

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)

...

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

...

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.

I saw this bullshit last night.

"Christian" Nationalist pastor Joel Webbon is trying to tell "Christian" men that, since he foresees a breakdown of society because of the government not issuing SNAP benefits next month, these so-called "Christian" men should forbid their wives from going to the store, demanding instead that they order online or be escorted by their husbands who should be carrying guns. I'm just sayin' has this dude even seen Civil War, or The Walking Dead (especially the Fear The Walking Dead prequel) or any of those various Apocalyptic visions that clearly inform his view of the world??

Basically, Joel Webbon just wants to shoot somebody. I'm sure he has some vague idea of what he'd like that person to look like but the truth is he doesn't really care who it is or what they look like. 

If it gets that bad, there's not going to be any grocery stores after the first couple days, there's not going to be much bandwidth if there's any internet at all, let alone online ordering or delivery, and electricity itself will likely be a rare thing unless you've got a generator (and fuel!) or Solar or Wind power handy.

Here's the thing; I have a feeling it's not gonna get that bad unless people like Joel Webbon make it that bad, because I'm already seeing a lot of people saying they're gonna help their neighbors and shit. A lot of liberals, LGBT folks, mid-conservatives, various POC, and women will band together to help each other out...

Like if I have to go without to help my Mom or my partner I'll do it.

It's people like Joel Webbon and other "Christian" Nationalists and the ICE goons and Trump and his cronies, that all they want to do is kill and steal, and what they really want is to spark off a second US Civil War so they can do it more.

And if they have to worship Devils and Idols Of Gold in order to do that, they'll do it.

I'm very serious on this particular point, especially since so much of Christianity is turning against this shit...yeah, you'll find these fucking people becoming Antichrist-worshipers very quickly, or worse.

I would not put outright demon-worship past them.

Not if they think it'll help them become Kings Of The Apocalypse.

And the longer this situation persists, or at least does so before people get networked and other polities step in as Federal power collapses (and it will if this keeps up) the more these sort of "Men" will attempt to run wild.

Like, if you thought that people being on SNAP was a social problem?? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Guys like this will attempt to solicit survival sex from poor single mothers and women that can't work. When they are refused and told "No" and when women fight back? Do the math.

I suspect there's going to be an epidemic of (at least) attempted sexual assaults.

These guys clearly all think they're gonna be King Shit in the Apocalyptic Hellscape.

Which suggests they don't view government power as likely to hold out, either. 

(Yet they think the Internet will still be on, that is outside of government and rebel firebases and secure facilities or some guy making you pay through the nose for using their Starlink or some shit?? Excuse me?? I'm confused.)

And there's absolutely, especially if things even appear to be starting to get out of hand, going to be a hell of a lot of these guys running off to join ragtag "militias" to go fight...well, somebody or other. And again, they don't really care who it is.

You think these guys won't abandon their families (including large families) to go play Taliban?? LOL.

Once these guys get there? Well, if what happens in places like Afghanistan is any indication?? Where you have a bunch of hella patriarchal religious men all amped up wanting to go fight somebody and every last one of them walking around with more wood than Sequoia National Park, less than regular access to women and that kind of mentality?? 

Yeah, Joel? 

Don't drop the soap, buddy.

These guys all think they're gonna be the local warlord, not the catamite strapped to the tailgate of the local warlord's technical truck right next to the 20mm ammunition waiting for the smelly bastard to come visit (and eventually, if they're lucky, requiring rescue by foreign peacekeepers.)

Yet somehow it never occurs to these guys to simply maintain a worldview where that type of shit is just wrong.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor" like I've been saying for a year or so.

Anything but America.

And trust me, these fucking guys won't wanna go to Heaven if they don't think they'll be the only ones there, either.

They don't view other people...including other men like themselves...as people, but rather as things to exploit. These guys view women as sexual objects, and so on. 

Even in a worst-case scenario I wouldn't tell my partner not to go out. She can defend herself quite well.

Just sayin.'

You wanna have people like her by your side, or in your network, not under your boot.

Because that's how they survive and thrive and make sure you do too.

We survive by working together, not by one dominating another.

I strongly suspect Joel Webbon doesn't know how to grow a tomato or saw a board or shoot a gun under combat conditions or walk a mile, and he has probably never even gotten dirty in his life. That's how people who think like he does operate far more often than it isn't.

He wants other people to do his dirty work for him, to do the terrible things, to get shot, to suffer through the PTSD and so on. He just wants to sit back and watch and yank his own crank to the idea of causing all that kind of suffering. 

And then he has the balls to call himself a preacher??

A preacher of Dis Pater or Mammon, perhaps.

There ain't one damn thing Christian about any of this.

And don't you dare forget that.

What does Jesus think about stuff like SNAP??

Well, there's a handy-dandy reference guide that tells you exactly what He thinks:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 

~Matthew 25:31-45

Remember that, too.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Same goes for belief in America, or Jesus Christ or any other damned thing.

If you don't act on that belief and in accordance with the standards of it, what good is it??

Christian Nationalism and MAGA don't profess Christ.

They profess the Self. They want the Self on the Throne.

They think They are God.

(And they're wrong, but they'll burn down America and the world trying to prove otherwise.)

This isn't religion, it's narcissism.

Слава Україна!

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing.

Charity suffers long, and is kind; charity envies not; charity vaunts not itself, is not puffed up,

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice in the truth;

Bear all things, believeth all things, hope all things, endure all things.

Charity never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

~1 Corinthians 13 (KJV)

Two

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco