Six Hundred Threescore And Six (Left Behind Is A Lie VI, Two.)

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.

...

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

So I saw this early this morning.

Apparently there's going to be some mandated app that worships Trump on government-issue Smartphones now?

Like seriously what the hell kind of fragile-ass narcissistic man-baby needs that type of shit? Oh, right, Trump.

Meanwhile Republicans keep crapping all over the country and goddamn but I can't help noticing that the "Golden Dome" version of Israel's Iron Dome system has magically shrunk down from protecting the entire country to only protecting about a third of the original White House? 

My guess is it'll shrink down to just protecting Trump before it ever actually hits the design stage??

Like, I'm being kinda-serious here, Late Stage Trumpism is starting to make the various excesses of Saddam Hussein seem...tame...by comparison. And it's not just him, a lot of these idiot CHUDs think they're gonna get to be Saddam, too!

And elected Republicans plus about half their voters (and certainly anybody voting in a Republican primary) are fine with this??

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'm not a huge fan of just mindlessly repeating other people's talking points but yes, "It's A Cult."

More than that, this is a cult of miserable people who basically worship their own self-inflicted misery in the hope that it'll make somebody else's life worse.

They don't seem to care that they're still miserable.

Or maybe they just like it that way?

Like I don't know who the fuck got the idea that Trump was "Fixated On Heaven?" 

You mean when he decided he probably wasn't gonna go there awhile back??

Or have we just forgotten about that, now??

Like, I'm sorry, I don't even understand what these fucking people are trying to accomplish at this point?? Do they think Trump will give them a cookie? Re-Tweet (or whatever) their bullshit enough that they can monetize it?? 

I don't even see the damn point.

Hell, maybe I just don't want to.

Clemency. That's a fancy word for mercy. You see, the governor can commute a death sentence. He has the power to just pick up the phone and say no. But to me, the only time the governor shows clemency, is when he don't make that call. Because life in prison without parole is a shitload worse than death. Death is parole. Death is the real mercy. ~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz S1.E4 "Capital P."

The whole damn point of all this MAGA shit seems to be they think they'll get to have their boot on somebody else's throat before they, too, die a horrible death. Seems like a hell of an ideal to live with, if you ask me.

Death with a higher relative status, or under some gold Techno-dome of alleged protection, or with a quadrillion fake AI's singing your praises every second of every day is still DEATH.

I have a church background, I've read the Lord's Word, most of my remaining friends and my partner etc. are all the same way. GOD is not going to care about all that crap! God is not going to be impressed by all the same shit that fools American redneck idiots into worshiping this walking garbage bag full of rotten flabby assholes!

And Trump is not a god, he's just a man, and not even a very good one. He's an Antichrist, but apparently not very good at that either.

Remember that, and remember too that attempting to outsource your Sin to this creep is still, in fact, Sin. 

You are not going to fool the Almighty.

You know how I know Left Behind Is A Lie?? 

Trump is literally acting like the dumbest possible version of every Antichrist or Beast of Revelation in every dumbass Christian novel or low-budget movie I ever heard of much less partook of my damn self...and a majority of "Evangelicals" still support that bullshit!

In fact, dude has hit October of 2008 Bush 43-level polling nadirs on way more issues than he hasn't, overall approval rating is to the tune of around 30% (This is, in real terms, a political death spiral, it's just I think it's gotten so big that it's gonna take the Republican Party and half of America down with it!) and I live in Northern Michigan and pretty much have to go through the backwaters of the backwaters of the poorest area around here to see an actual Trump flag in the wild now and there's still a large slice of the White Evangelical population that literally thinks Trump can do no wrong.

And he can't get people to worship him so now he's having AI or apps or some bullshit installed that'll do it??

Yeah, there's something vaguely Biblical-sounding about that, alright.

But not in any sort of way that tells me anybody involved is going to Heaven, or even planning to or wants to.

More like they know they're going to Hell, and they wanna see who they can take with them when they go.

You wanna make this shit stop, it's going to come down to a fight.

Soon.

Because if it doesn't?

Well, I've read enough of the Bible to be able to tell you exactly how these fucking people think this is gonna end.

Слава Україна!

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost in time, like tears...in rain. Time to die. ~Roy Batty, Blade Runner.

One

There's a man goin' 'round takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down
When the man comes around
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around

… Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin'
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum
Voices callin', voices cryin'
Some are born and some are dyin'
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 

~Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around.

Bonus Content

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out!

[repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."