Missing The Damn Point, Again (Left Behind Is A Lie VI, Five.)

Brothers and sisters, please quiet down. Thank you.

We come here time after time and we talk about the same old same old.

Hey, quiet down.
- We talk about Jesus. - That's right.
Jesus said and Jesus wept.
Jesus heard and Jesus walked over.
I don't wanna talk about Jesus.
Cos as the big man teaches us, there's two sides to every story.
Not one but two. A story is not one-sided.
A story has duality. There's two sides to every story.
Which brings to mind the phrase "necessary evil".
I know many of you hear that phrase and say,
"That don't even make no sense to me.
"Can't be no such thing as necessary - how's evil necessary?
"That don't match. That's plaids and stripes, evil and necessary."
You see, because without bad, there is no good.
Without light, there is no dark, you need both these things.
You hear what I'm saying?
If every day is a sunny day, well, then, what's a sunny day?
Well, the bottom line, what I'm trying to tell you tonight,
is that evil...evil... is necessary.
Evil is necessary, thereby, if it's necessary, evil...
- Evil... -must be good.
Evil is good.
That's what I think. Evil must be good, must be good.
- Let me hear y'all say it... - Evil is good.

Evil is good. Take Brother Brown, one of our strongest deacons, pillar of stability.
Brother Brown was on Bushwick Avenue last night with a two-dollar ho.
When you tell your wife, "I'm going to see Mama," then you go get you a two-dollar ho, that's evil.
But Brother Brown had a good time with that two-dollar ho.
You can push a two-dollar ho and she don't have no limits!
Evil and good walk hand in hand. - Evil is as evil does. 

I know many of y'all may be saying, "How can he say ass is good?"
How y'all think y'all got here?
Ass is good! Evil's good and ass is good.
And if you get you a piece of evil ass...Woo!

~Maximilian The Vampire (As Preacher Paulie) from A Vampire In Brooklyn.

I saw this when I got home from work. James Talarico with his girlfriend.

LMAO.

Now compare those two, their apparent difference and diversity, their obvious happiness, and the smiles on their faces...with the fucking Republicans who are trying to talk shit about James, trying to say he's gay or trans or some bullshit. He's not, and it wouldn't matter to anybody but then if he was.

I mean, come the fuck on, people, when is enough, enough with this BS?

And when is enough going to be enough with the disingenuous fake moralism by the fucking Republicans who are all too happy to start these kind of fights but suddenly have glass jaws and the performative moralism of old uptight Western Michigan Dutch Reformed Calvinist church people when Democrats respond as Men...as people...should to this kind of garbage??

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X.

Some arguments should not be taken seriously and are best responded to with a punch in the face. That's why I say that Democratic Party secular Liberalism as currently constituted ain't gonna solve this damn problem on its own.

Emperor Palpatine: At last. Snoke trained you well.

Kylo Ren: I killed Snoke. I'll kill you.

Palpatine: My boy... I made Snoke. I have been every voice... [as Snoke] ...you have ever heard... [as Darth Vader] ...inside your head. [breathes] The First Order was just the beginning... I will give you so much more.

Ren: You'll die first.

Palpatine: I have died before. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... [lightning flashes, revealing Palpatine's decaying face] ...unnatural.

Ren: [raises his lightsaber at Palpatine] What could you give me?

Palpatine: Everything. A new Empire. [raises his decaying hands, with electricity surging between his fingers. Suddenly, multiple Xyston-class Star Destroyers rise from the ground] The might of the Final Order will soon be ready. It will be yours if you do as I ask: Kill the girl, end the Jedi, and become what your grandfather, Vader, could not. You will rule all the galaxy as the new Emperor. But beware: She is not who you think she is.

Ren: [turns his lightsaber off; a bit confused yet intrigued] Who is she? [Palpatine smiles sinisterly.] ~From Star Wars: Episode IX, The Rise Of Skywalker.

That said, if you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be emphatically agreeing with Hillary Clinton about much of anything, I'm not sure if I would have laughed at you or punched you in the face.

I couldn't help but notice that Trump's weird Death Star-looking UFC fighting ring is complemented by *Checks Notes* Legions of port-a-shitters, a rather different take on this mess than the legions of Imperial Stormtroopers that George Lucas and Disney conjured up, but Okay.

These motherfuckers have literally turned the grounds of the White House into a fucking toilet.

And this is supposed to be a symbol of Empire, of a thousand years of MAGA?

LOL, No.

For people that believe themselves to be so macho and manly and strong, they sure seem to have a weird obsession with making sure they can get to the bathroom on time. 

I'm just sayin.'

And, speaking as an old guy here, there's nothing especially manly about that. 

Start minding your health a little bit if you got a problem, start watching what you eat or otherwise put in your body! I had to, but when I did life got better. Y'all should've seen me when I started following my doctor's instructions and looking at the ingredients in things...

These corporations and shit do not put all these chemicals in food because they care about us, and if you live on fast food and other assorted garbage (let alone by choice?!?!) sooner or later you have nobody to blame but yourself for why you need a Port-O-John every ten feet!

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.

Same extremely "hyper-masculine" men have an equally weird obsession with the uh "aesthetics" and bodies of other men, just sayin.'

In fact, as several people have pointed out the restrictions on military personnel who might be theoretically attending this shit seem primarily geared towards preventing old Generals and women from attending...

And obviously Trump doesn't meet his own requirements. Have to wonder why this dude wants to be surrounded by young muscular men, don't you?? That doesn't seem very conservative, Christian or *Checks Notes Again* Straight.

And the obsession with toilets doesn't seem to be for actual Roman-style militaristic purposes like preventing disease outbreaks in camp, or they'd be doing this shit a lot differently.

(Yeah, I've actually studied this, the Romans put as much thought into waste disposal as they did into engineering and military tactics, which appears to be something that the US Navy for example has forgotten all about. The Romans, a couple thousand years ago, made their Legionaries carry pipes and tent stakes as much as armor and sword for a damn reason.)

But ya know it's not like 300 (a very Fash-coded movie, if you think about it) isn't also dripping gay subtexts throughout the whole damn film. That said...

Even people like Frank Miller still fucking get it more than Trump and his goons do. A lot more.

[Xerxes has advanced to meet Leonidas, seated on a solid gold throne carried on the backs of many slaves.]

Leonidas: Let me guess... you must be... Xerxes?

Xerxes: Come, Leonidas. Let us reason together. It would be a regrettable waste, it would be nothing short of madness, were you, brave King, and your valiant troops to perish... all because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share.

Leonidas: Oh, haven't you noticed? We've been sharing our culture with you all morning.

Xerxes: Yours is a fascinating tribe. Even now, you are defiant, in the face of annihilation and the presence of a god. It isn't wise to stand against me, Leonidas. Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.

Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine.

Xerxes: You Greeks take pride in your logic. I suggest you employ it. Consider the beautiful land you so vigorously defend. Picture it reduced to ash at my whim! Consider the fate of your women!

Leonidas: Clearly you don't know our women. I might as well have marched them up here, judging by what I've seen. You have many slaves, Xerxes, but few warriors. It won't be long before they fear my spears more than your whips.

Xerxes: It is not the lash they fear, it is my divine power. But I am a generous god. I can make you rich beyond all measure. I will make you warlord of all Greece. You will carry my battle standard to the heart of Europa. Your Athenian rivals will kneel at your feet... if you will but kneel at mine.

Leonidas: You are generous as you are divine, O King of Kings. Such an offer only a madman would refuse. But the, uh, the idea of kneeling, it's... You see, slaughtering all those men of yours has, uh, well, it's left a nasty cramp in my leg, so kneeling will be hard for me.

Xerxes: [incensed at what Leonidas just said] There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories. Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned, and every Greek historian and every scribe shall have their eyes put out and their tongues cut from their mouths! Why, uttering the very name of Sparta or Leonidas will be punishable by death! The world will never know you existed at all!

Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many and, before this battle is over, that even a god-king can bleed.

~From the film 300.

Stop and think about that for a second, too.

These Fucking People have either forgotten or just plain missed the point, even of the stories they tell themselves to justify themselves.

Like, fuck, I couldn't do it.

But then I have some level of intelligence and reading comprehension, or something.

And seriously, most of the musicians and shit that've been touted as being part of Trump's America 250 event have backed out (Some, apparently being dead such as Milli Vanilli's Rob Pilatus, were not consulted at all) with most claiming they were lied to about the nature of the event or even not told what it was.

A few right-leaning artists cited safety concerns in their declinations, but the truth is I imagine their real issues with the whole thing are the same as anybody else's, not wanted to attach Trump's name to their career for entirely obvious ETTD reasons. 

Everything Trump Touches Dies, Yo.

Well, she seemed all right by dawn's early light
Though she looked a little worried and weak
She tried to pretend he wasn't drinkin' again
But daddy left the proof on her cheek
And I was only eight years old that summer
And I always seemed to be in the way
So I took myself down to the fair in town
On Independence Day

Well, word gets around in a small, small town
They said he was a dangerous man
But mama was proud and she stood her ground
She knew she was on the losin' end
Some folks whispered, some folks talked
But everybody looked the other way
And when time ran out there was no one about
On Independence Day

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It's Independence Day

Well, she lit up the sky that fourth of July
By the time that the firemen come
They just put out the flames
And took down some names
And send me to the county home
Now I ain't sayin' it's right or it's wrong
But maybe it's the only way
Talk about your revolution
It's Independence Day ~Martina McBride, Independence Day.

Most of these the reaction was kind of "Meh" but there seems to have been a general freak-out that Martina McBride told Trump "No."

Thanks to the women in my life, funny enough both my ex-wife and my partner, I have probably a bit more familiarity with Martina and her lyrics and how she conducts herself as a person and I don't know why anybody's surprised that she wouldn't want anything to do with Trump.

But, again, missing the point is the whole damn point for these fucking people. They want to do what they want to do anyway and they don't think little things like good character, law, logic, reality or ya know, simply having to give a shit about other people should get in the way.

Well they're gonna have to. As much for these people's defense as anybody else's, because just like back during the COVID-19 pandemic there's no way these idiots following this shit down the rabbit hole to its logical conclusions only affects said idiots.

They want a future that's the Killing Fields with a mall and apparently a weird UFC fighting ring and a bunch of portable toilets, because they think that will continually stroke their Narcissism.

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields

And that, at the end of the day, is what this whole thing is about, Narcissism and Selfishness.

Hell, even American Christianity has gotten jacked by this, all that Left Behind crap back in the 1990's was a thin cover for not much more than theologized sadism and the idea that Heaven simply isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go.

And then the same damn people today act like they know it's all a lie and there's no God that will judge them. It's easy to miss the point of everything when you can't see past the end of your own schwantz. It's easy to forget about Eternity when you're privileged and rich and focused on the here and now. The Bible itself spent a lot of ink warning about the perils of exactly that.

Decent government isn't a donkey show, freedom isn't relative status, and a worldview centered on the Self still doesn't make one a god. We're all still gonna have to answer to God as we understand it to be, or to the Universe or whatever someday.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

Remember that, because you either believe in Freedom or you don't.

And if these people are lying to you about the shit we know they've lied about? What else are they lying about?

A free people have a duty to the Truth, remember that, too.

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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.

Four

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."