Left Behind (American Revelation XXII, Prequel.)

Theo: Those guys in the suits, I don't know who they are.

Hans Gruber: That's the FBI. They're ordering the others to cut the building's power. Regular as clockwork.

Theo: [grins in realization] Or a time lock.

Hans Gruber: Precisely. The circuits that can't be cut are cut automatically in response to a terrorist incident. You asked for miracles, Theo. I give you the F...B...I...

~From the film Die Hard.

...

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.

And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceive them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13, King James Bible.

So apparently, there was another assassination attempt on Trump last night at the White House correspondents dinner. Which, it seems weird to me that Trump even wanted to go to it, given that one of the regular activities at such things is making fun of the President. I guess they had some bullshit psychic instead and they never even got to perform.

I'm not gonna say one way or another on here whether I think it was staged or not, but to me it looks a little suspicious.

I feel like America is being run by some combination of the Soviets from the earlier Tom Clancy novels and the FBI and the media as portrayed in Die Hard and a bunch of other 1980's movies, a combination of sub-literate goons and vapid media consultants seem to be making our national decisions.

Now, If I had to cast the Iranians?

They're Hans Gruber, or some other villain of the era played by Alan Rickman...except that his plan is working because there's no John McClain to monkey-wrench it all up.

Like, okay, I could be wrong but I can't recall any attempted or successful violence against government officials in my lifetime where "Somebody tried to kill OUR President" (I'm gonna use the MAGA Emphasis here) was followed up immediately with "We need a new ballroom!"

One of these things is not like the other one, it's as simple as that.

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? "No," says the man in Washington, "it belongs to the poor." "No," says the man in the Vatican, "it belongs to God." "No," says the man in Moscow, "it belongs to everyone." I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

Seriously, among other things, even if a ballroom were somehow a fortress, or perhaps a Fuhrer-bunker if you will, with the implication being that no President would ever leave such a place again...well, I can't imagine anybody (not even Trump, to be honest) wanting to live like that.

I mean what's even the damn point?

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

I'm tired of this crap, and at this point it baffles me that even Republicans wanna live like this because I used to be a Republican and this shit isn't what I was taught.

Except of course all the Ballroom bullshit makes sense if you consider it in the context of he wants to turn it into another weird focus for the kind of parties he has at Mar-A-Lago which look for all the world like something stuck between Victorian galas and Baal-cult rituals in their own right at least half the goddamned time, not to mention using the shit as a place to cruise for underage ass and maybe it's just me but the whole idea seems even worse now. I believe I was on record from the jump saying that shit was pretty damned bad to start with. Like, there's something wrong with all this bullshit and you shouldn't need some person like me to tell you that. Do we really, as a culture, as a nation, have such shitty survival instincts as this??

(Don't answer that.)

Like Okay, again, I get it, Empire, White Supremacy blah blah blah. As long as the "Meme" survives, a hell of a lot of these idiots don't care. I've said myself that These Fucking People would go be the slaves if that's what it took to preserve the ideal of Slavery.

My question thus, "Conservatives" is; Okay, if you're dead or enslaved what good does the preservation of some bullshit social meme that most of the world rejects in the first place do you??

Yes also I get it ideas are more important than people Something Something drawing dicks on the walls of Plato's Cave blah blah blah.

It's all the more asinine if you think about it, which I suppose is why a lot of you don't.

And the thing that scares me is you can see America crumbling in the fucking headlines, because this happened and, aside from people like me who write about stuff, half the country barely noticed, and most of the people upset about this (the ones that are real people anyway) are the same people that bark when Trump says bark anyway!

I've said before that I think all this ridiculous shit is going to cause America to go the way of the Soviet Union. Among other things I don't think the psyche of the American Idiot is going to deal well with the loss of American hegemony as the rest of the world has gotten tired of waiting for the American voters to get their heads out of their asses.

Oh sure, America or whatever agglomerations of states have the most capital and industry or have worked to maintain international goodwill will still be important when we get this resolved, in the same way that the King of England is still technically the ruler of a sizeable chunk of the Earth's surface or that Vladimir Putin wields considerable influence in Post-Soviet states...but if I had to guess we'll be even less well-liked.

Because as regards American Revelation...that shit is specific to us. The whole world isn't going to be "Wondering after the beast" in our particular context. Hell, a big-ass chunk of America is done with all this bullshit!

And if Republicans don't get out of the way when that time comes (and keep in mind that's coming soon) they're (rightly) going to get left behind....and yeah, this is why I think America will probably break up Soviet style, because Republicans will just break off a piece and no one else will care. They'll keep tryin to discriminate against somebody or hold back change or progress for anybody that'll put up with that bullshit. They'd rather worship the Image Of The Beast than accept that all people are created equal before the God they claim to so fanatically believe in.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

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Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. ~Chief Seattle.

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