Joyless (Babylon Or Sodom? Six.)

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

...

Valin Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

I had to work last night. Naturally, I didn't bother watching the Super Bowl. 

But all night I got to see "Conservatives" from Trump on down, ranting about it on social media.

Honestly there was only one person I talked to who watched the Kid Rock "alternative" halftime show (they said they were a fan) and they didn't seem very impressed with what they saw, although they sounded like they'd wished they had been.

The bits and pieces of both that I saw when I took my lunch break suggested that Bad Bunny was pretty good and Kid Rock was his usual should've-hung-it-up-20-years-ago self. On TBN (The Prosperity Gospel Liar channel) no less, 'cause that channel is fake shit.

I mean, just looking at their respective lyrics I think Bad Bunny should be the one who's more at home on a "Christian" channel if those people are who they say they are, and Kid Rock should not be there. Except of course, those fucking people aren't who they say they are.

As an aside, I'll note it appears somebody quietly shanked all that Q-Anon bullshit and dragged the body off into the woods somewhere, funny how that works, isn't it??

Of course the trouble is a lot of American "Evangelical" Christianity (even the Pentecostal crap) is rooted in both a deep joylessness and intense racism (with a big side order of narcissism) far more than it is in the Lord's Word...this despite the fact that the vast majority of the world's Charismatic and Pentecostal people are not White. Oh, and by the way, I'll worship with foreign (or non-White American) Pentecostals all day, among other things, because the vast majority of those people in my experience aren't narcissistic freaks looking to do me wrong, and if you want to see some rock-star passion for the Lord that'll fire you up almost no matter what you believe, go to a church with a bunch of Nigerians in it.

It's like my partner said once 20 years ago when one of our coworkers talked us into going to the Potter's House (the Pentecostal church across the field from our apartments) "Hanging with these people makes me want to go shopping!"

It's not for nothing that another friend of mine maintains a basic stereotype of Republicans as angry boring money-grubbing Calvinists who don't even like spicy food and who seem to have a pathological hatred for anyone having fun.

To paraphrase something Chuck Colson said once about Ayn Rand, these fucking people believe in a Godless and Joyless world where a [Rich] Man's self-satisfaction is the moral purpose of his life.

Which isn't that much of a shift from how Republicans used to be, but it's a noticeable one for those of us who used to be Republicans back in the day. One of these people giving me a bag of books when I was in the hospital (and so bored my brain was crawling out of my skull) after my accident is how I even read Atlas Shrugged.

I mean, I literally used to know old White Republicans exactly like that in real life. I equate those old men with shit like Elks Club roast-beef dinners where that shit was like leather under the goddamn heat lamps by the time I got to it for a fucking reason. 

That said, I don't think most of those people would have been MAGA if they were still around, a lot of these guys did have some principles (even if today some of their principles would likely be considered bad.) These guys didn't do conspiracy theories or make shit up as they went along. They would not have let Donald Trump in the Party. A lot of those guys hated Trump (who was then the archetype of bankruptcy, divorce and NYC Fat Cat Liberals.) 

I've written about these guys before.

Probably the closest there is to that today is people like MTG, Never-Trump Republicans and Thomas Massie. Like I said, I ain't saying those people were great. A lot of them really were joyless assholes, but there were lines they wouldn't cross.

The difference is a lot of them really did believe for themselves that this life wasn't especially meant to be enjoyed. MAGA on the other hand basically believes they can (and should) act like the Whores Of Babylon...but that you can't...even if you're just harmlessly minding your own business.

MAGA wants to live like Babylon, or like the Persian king's menagerie in 300 but they want everybody else to be dour uber-Christian peasant worker bees who just work for their profit while living in poverty because Jesus.

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

Never mind that one of these things is not like the other one, and you can't really pull "Do as I say, not as I do" on a smart kid, no matter how much political power you think you have. The fucked up thing is adults try that on other adults all the time and some of them will pretend to go along with that shit.

And then go off and do worse in private.

I'm tired of this crap.

Among other things, people who are in the Epstein files or who think they need a bigger motorcade than the Pope have no business commenting on Latina dancers at the fucking Super Bowl.

It should go without saying that anybody who's still uncritically MAGA at this point doesn't believe in the Lord's Word. I'll say it again, I've seen the evidence that they don't.

Maybe we should stop trusting people whose main question in life is if they want to live in Babylon or Sodom?

You wanna stop this shit? Maybe we should crucify the White Jesus?

Don't worry, that one won't resurrect.

Again, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

And either you're willing to fight for it, or you're not.

Слава Україна!

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Five

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press