The Unseeing (Exorcism, 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

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We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

...

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it…

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E2 "That Would Be Me."

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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

I saw this last night. 

Florida Republicans are naming the Palm Beach airport after Trump.

And, perversely enough, this shit reminded me of the day I met my ex-wife.

(Actually, Florida-related stuff does that more than I'd like. The over-the-top Banana Republic Conservatism and religiosity combined with the sexual morals of a goat that defines that place now was her vibe.)

It was towards the end of May, 2000. I'd somehow managed a Friday off from both of my jobs, had Saturday morning off because I was working an evening shift at the clubhouse, and I had money. Basically, the stars had to align correctly for all this to happen at once. I was thrilled.

So I'd decided to go over to Traverse City and go to Borders bookstore and a few other places, and because there was this girl I'd been talking to from over there I'd fired off a message on MSN Messenger and also called and left a message on her voicemail, with my then-new-and-exciting Nokia Track-Phone.

(LOL)

So I drove over there, did most of my running, went to PetSmart and got dog food, etc. Then I went to the book store basically with full intent to just hang out for the afternoon regardless of anything else. I ended up reading a good chunk of The Indwelling, the new Left Behind Series novel at the time...and thinking it was absolute crap. 

Note I was only just coming down off of being all about End Times Prophecy stuff.

As it turned out, I was a good couple hours into it and my girl called me, I told her where I was and asked if she wanted to meet and it turned out she was up for it. Hour or so later she showed up more in a T-shirt and fuzzy pink pajama bottoms but she was cute and chubby, flirty and, fun to hang out with and physical in a way my last girl definitely hadn't been so I didn't care. We ended up getting a coffee, sitting together and reading, I bought us both some books (although definitely not the one I'd been looking at) then we went to lunch at Chili's and ultimately we decided to go back to her place and hooked up and the rest is some seriously unfortunate history.

But at the time it seemed like a good day. 

Considering I was coming off a breakup it was the very best of days in the heat of the moment. I remember every damn thing about that day, unfortunately including every fucking line that I read in that book. Including the fact that the "Global Community" bad guys started renaming everything that wasn't nailed down after the Antichrist, from the highway system to the money.

Honestly I thought that was so ridiculous at the time that I still remember it all these years later. Actually, come to think of it the whole day ended up like that. I just didn't see the rest of it that way at the time.

And that entire day, including the sexual looseness of the moment (and keep in mind me and her were both different levels of Conservative Christian at the time) to a bunch of buried secrets I'd only discover later is a little too much like what all this shit has turned into now in real life.

Yeah, we were a bit of "Convenience Christians" ourselves but we were two consenting adults doing nothing much compared to what's being excused by These Fucking People nowadays!

We were also, still could be and if I can even now I'd assume she can be as well...observant Believers to the best of our ability.

Other people, apparently not so much.

Trump is the natural end result of the Prosperity Gospel and of empty spiritually vapid Pentecostalism more broadly.

More to the point this absurd desire to remake the world in Trump's bloated, doddering image is all too indicative of the mentality of what I call the "Atheism Minus One" people, the people who don't wanna believe in anything but some variant of Right-wing Christianity and Republican politics. 

Including rejecting not only every other religion (even Christian denominations) but rejecting the validity of reality and science themselves in favor of whatever conspiracy theories make their chosen (false) god look good.

Also typically such people see no difference between Christianity and being a Republican, the two things are fused together like they got melted by a dragon's fire-breath.

And as consequences and scrutiny intensify, yeah sure...some of these people will get disgusted and leave. Some will bow out and revert to sports-fandom or some other addiction to fill the Void. But, some will get weird and double- and triple-down infinitely on this fucking garbage.

Even now, and I say that because that type of shit has already been happening for years and by now most of the MAGA's that are still left have already done that kind of thing at least once.

Now I don't know if Trump is The Antichrist but MAGA and Trump and a lot of the other people associated with all this shit definitely are Antichrists and I find it interesting that even my ex-wife is apparently against this shit.

So is my partner, so is my conservative religious old-lady neighbor that I ran into when I went and checked the mail. I mean at this point being against Trump and this Ideology of Power and Wealth that now seems to be fine with cannibalism, murder and pedophilia is pretty much just a baseline for keeping one's Humanity somewhat intact.

But to me and given my own experience, the headline is more that the End Times conservative and Evangelical Christians have basically become the villains in their own goddamned fanfiction.

Complete with a bumptious Antichrist surrounded by ass-kissing yammering fools and literal False Prophets.

It's not just that they don't even care...honestly, I think they don't even notice.

Call it The Great Unseeing.

If you don't see why that's a problem I can't help you, and I'm not sure I want to try.

I'm not even sure a National Exorcism would fix this, because to get rid of the bad spirits, first you have to be willing to see that they're even there.

Слава Україна!

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

One

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