Sorcery (American Judgment Day II, Three.)

 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

...

There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. ~George Carlin

...

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

I wasn't going to write today and then I saw this crap early this morning.

The media and Republicans are desperately trying to spin Generation Z as conservative.

No, bro. Just no.

I live 2 hours from the nearest freeway or large city and I don't know any conservative young people. More to the point, the one I'm most familiar with the views of...my partner's daughter...is a liberal-as-hell Atheist lesbian who's smart as a whip and pretty often doesn't have time for either of our shit (and basically thinks both her mom and me are idiots. Oh well, who doesn't know everything at that age.)

And of course, then I saw this bit about Kim Kardashian becoming a Moon-landing denier.

My Grandma was in the same high school class as Jim Lovell, fuck you.

Conspiracy theories are just selfish narcissistic idiocy meant to make vapid morons feel special.

Young people aren't the problem here, the problem is selfish-as-fuck, stupid-on-purpose older people who are also greedy and narcissistic as all hell. 

This shit is deliberate stupidity and weaponized incompetence.

Thus things like the entire AI "Industry."

Which shouldn't even exist if you ask me.

I've seen Alien, Battlestar Galactica, the Terminator movies and 2001:A Space Odyssey.

Like, oh hey if this fails it causes a recession and fucks up the economy.

If it succeeds, it's the Judgments of Revelation, Chapter Six on pretty much anybody who isn't a billionaire.

It's basically the Man-made Prosperity Gospel version of the Book of Revelation.

AI isn't designed to make anything better, or make anything work better, it's designed to help the Billionaires hog up more resources and that's it.

Also, what happens when AI and robots don't like the super-rich anymore than the rest of us do??

Don't any of these fucking nuts read science fiction??

Or do they think the Weyland-Yutani corporation are the good guys, somehow??

(Don't answer that.)

Humans are playing god and creating our own downfall, unless governments listen to the global public, almost nobody that I know likes or trusts AI for anything beyond entertainment purposes.

Yet on the regular I see stories about conservative Chud guys literally falling in love with (technically, I guess?) female AI constructs. No, sorry, I can't make that make any goddamned sense.

But then I've worked in IT, and I've always been a huge science fiction fan.

I mean don't these fucking people even watch movies??

(Again, don't answer that.)

Conservatives are, by definition, supposed to be the people who are asking not if we can do something but if we should.

Apparently that dynamic is deader than Ronald Reagan, and "Conservatives" themselves killed it.

I guess Technocracy Babylon is just more fun, or something??

Somehow I see sex robots ending up creating a host of social problems that could be avoided just by appreciating and loving and respecting the women we already have, but then I never was one of These Fucking People.

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The truth is, these assholes for the most part regard the rest of us as things to play with, like a cat toying with a mouse before the cat eats it, at best. That's what they're doing trying to say Gen Z is right-wing, they're trying to make that opinion, not report on it.

And it's all bullshit.

From a Biblical perspective, you could argue it's Sorcery, except we know what it is so it's not really Magic anymore.

It's been my experience hungry kids seldom grow up to be greedy Republicans. 

I'm tired of this bullshit, people that I know and love are already scared and suffering because of the SNAP pause.

And again, I ask myself, what color will the Revolution be? I ask this because most of us were already a couple days worth of missed meals away from being revolutionaries.

But there's more to it than that.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

You can either believe in rich people and their fuck-fuck games or you can believe in freedom.

You cannot have both.

Слава Україна!

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! [repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

Two

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10