Rabbit Hole (Bropocalypse Now, One.)

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"

...

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

...

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

I saw this earlier and was reduced to cough-laughing about it, twice.

How the fuck is this so much of the rest of the world and countries like Iran and the United States Of America have so many fucking uptight-ass religious nuts? 

Yeah, Okay, Iran has sometimes-insane violent Islamic Fundamentalism. Apparently those people can still plan things and fight an insurgent hybrid war competently.

America has *Checks Notes* Atheistic selfish hyper-Capitalism often working in concert with increasingly fanatical and violent Christian Nationalist weirdos who make the occasional violent Calvinist from back in the aughts much less the basic ass bog-standard Christian Fundamentalists or whack-a-nut Pentecostals of a generation ago look like Bill Maher by comparison.

Again, one of these things is not like the other one.

Others who are far better at this than me have pointed that out.

And the day is coming when These Fucking People are going to try and fight everybody else starting with other Christians and conservatives who don't buy into their crazy bullshit. We're lucky that they apparently suck at this whole war thing and even with massive profligate expenditure of lives and munitions, they're not winning. I guess, and maybe I'm glad, that I have to care about life.

Like, I'm sorry, but among other things I was raised Christian and conservative when those words meant different things, apparently, These Fucking People's entire thought process is completely alien to me.

And honestly, I would not want it to be anything else.

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.

I can't even talk the way these people talk.

And if I was capable of talking it, I wouldn't want to, my God.

I've seen These Fucking People both advocate for and tolerate shit that absolutely sickens me.

I have a daughter to think about, whether I want to or not. I cannot even imagine thinking the kind of shit that comes out of Doug Wilson's mouth on a regular basis. "Friend to pedophiles?" What the fuck is wrong with you dude?

Her mother, my partner, is Christian, strong and independent and I wouldn't want her to be any other way, even though this doesn't always (or even necessarily often) work out in my favor. No, it doesn't have to make sense to you.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

Also, when we were not together she and the kid were horribly traumatized for ten of those years by *Checks Notes* exactly these kinds of fucking people.

That people are putting up with this shit much less these fucking freaks are building churches in our national centers of Power is even a question fills me with an absolute fiery rage.

They're not looking to build the Kingdom of Christ, they're looking to consolidate power for the Cult of Baal.

How do I know?? I've read the Lord's Word.

It's pretty simple, honestly.

Christ's Kingdom is NOT of This World. He said so Himself.

Why is this so fucking hard for some people??

Because the Truth is they'd rather go down endless Rabbit Holes of endless Manipulation, freakish perversion and stupid shit in search of political power, sexual perversity and wealth without work.

And they've figured out that Jesus Christ isn't gonna help them with that, not really, or at least not enough. Even the most skeevy interpretation of the Prosperity Gospel, as interpreted and written in the context of Christianity...Just Doesn't Do It For Them Anymore.

It's not hitting right, they can't mainline their own goddamned narcissism well enough, it's not a big enough high to simply preach Jesus while mocking Him with their every action anymore.

And that's what they really want, a bigger High.

Damaskinos: It has been said, "Be proud of your enemy and enjoy his success." In that regard, I should thank you.

Blade: For what?

Karel Kounen: Eliminating Deacon Frost. You did us a favor. Karel Kounen.

Blade: [noticing vampire tattoo] You're human.

Karel: Barely. I'm a lawyer. European Health Consortium.

Damaskinos: As you may know, Vampirism is... a horrible virus, carried in the saliva of predators. In 72 hours, it spreads through the human bloodstream, creating new, parasitic organs.

Blade: Like cancer.

Damaskinos: Cancer with a purpose.

Karel: Unfortunately, viruses evolve, too. We've encountered a new one. We dubbed it the Reaper Strain. And like any good pathogen, it appears to have found a carrier.

[Karel places a disk into a computer. Nomak's first attack plays via a recording]

Karel: There. [Points to an image of Nomak] Jared Nomak.

Damaskinos: Born a vampire, but an anomaly like you. Unlike the rest of us, however, he feeds on not just humans, but Vampires as well.

Blade: Looks like he was doing me a favor.

Nyssa: You're missing the point. Their vampire victims don't die. They turn. They become carriers.

Asad: You've got to understand. These things are like crack addicts. They need to feed daily. Nomak's been up for 72 hours. By our estimates, there are already a dozen Reapers. There'll be hundreds before the week is out. Thousands within a matter of months. Do the math.

Blade: Wait. Let me get this right. You want me... to hunt them... for you?

Damaskinos: Once they are finished with us, who do you think they'll turn against next? Your precious humans. Not one of them will be left.

Karel: We spent two years training a small tactical unit: the Blood pack. We want you to lead them.

Blade: Two years?

Nyssa: We've been training to hunt you.

~From the film Blade II.

And no, they don't care what they break or who they kill or what they wreck in the search for it, including themselves.

Doesn't matter if it's America.

Doesn't matter if it's Civilization, or the Earth itself. I'm fucking serious.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Anything but America or Freedom.

Worse, these jerkoffs want to take the same joyless fundamentalist religiosity their fathers applied to Christianity and turn it to Baal worship. It's about the addiction, the high. They don't even want to enjoy the fruits of their greed or their perversity, they just want the Dopamine hit that shit generates. The damn Dopamine has become their fucking Jihad. Like broken-ass hardcore addicts, they'll do anything for the shit and it's not even fun anymore. They simply consider it the same dour joyless "Religious" duty that their fathers and grandfathers applied to Calvinism and hatred of spicy food.

They are ruled by their dicks not because they enjoy the pleasure or even want to but because to them that shit represents Power and the accumulation of Power and Control and place in the hierarchy is a ravening Addiction and a total freakish Compulsion to these absolute weird motherfuckers.

"Winning" isn't "Everything" or even for a purpose anymore. Power is the ONLY thing these freaks want or understand. It's like what Red said to Andy Dufresne about the Bull Queers in the Shawshank Redemption.

Red: The Sisters have taken quite a liking to you. Especially Bogs.

Andy: Don't suppose it would help any if I explained to them I'm not homosexual.

Red: Neither are they. You'd have to be human first. They don't qualify. Bull queers take by force. That's all they want or understand. But if I were you, I'd grow eyes in the back of my head.

Andy: Thanks for the advice.

To them the Epstein cult victim sexual slave from god-knows-where who hasn't been taught anything and is forced to participate in ecstatic rites to Baal and made to do shit that no one should ever have to is more "Christian" to these monsters than a professing, theologically-educated Believer like James Talarico.

Hell, a cult-slave to ancient Demon-gods fits These Fucking People's worldview more than the two basic Christian church-camp teenagers literally born and raised in a small-town American Pentecostal church-community who keep dry-humping because they like each other and have every intent to get married, be a family and have kids eventually, with their literal professed faith in God and Jesus Christ as the glue that holds it all together.

Because that's not what "Christianity" even is to these Monsters.

Because those Believers in my example (as evidenced by their simply liking each other) might not do what Power wants every time, and if pushed the wrong way or asked to do something they don't want to do those Believers might fight against Power with the faith that God will back them up. Why do you think these fucking beasts really hate the Ukrainians so much, even though so many Ukrainians are both Christian and (small "C") conservative??

Because it's not about any of that. Not at all. Not even close.

Being in a gang is a lot like being in a religion. You got rules to follow, a leader to obey, and at the heart, it's about love. "Love thy fellow man" becomes "love thy brother gangster." But what if you stop believing the religion you've been preaching? You come to see that the hole is still in your soul, that the God/love you thought you had is nothing but a hologram. ~ Augustus Hill, ~From the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin.'"

Because simply by caring about something other than Cultic Power and devotion to a given Narcissist, simply by liking each other, simply by believing that they have a right to defend themselves from the extinction some powerful authoritarian narcissistic ruler decreed for them...whether it's the church teenagers in my example or the Ukrainian soldiers in the field or angry American Airmen, Marines, Sailors and Soldiers reporting on Christian Nationalists trying to tell them to fight in the name of bringing about Armageddon, or just basic Americans who don't support or vote for any of this fucking bullshit, people break the framework and the narrative and the endless Power-seeking Rabbit Hole that these assholes demand...not just by actively resisting but by simply existing.

Remember that.

Because they sure will.

And sooner or later the monsters whose main problem is simply that "Other People Exist" are going to try to do something about that.

Bropocalypse Now, Yo.

You either believe in freedom, and in your own right to have a life, or you don't.

Слава Україна!

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

Prequel

And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. ~Matthew 24:1-13