Zombies (American Revelation XXII, Eight.)

Glenn Rhee: [Over the radio to Rick] Hey, you. Dumbass. Hey, you in the tank. Cozy in there?

Glenn: Hey, are you alive in there?

Rick Grimes: Hello? Hello?

Glenn: There you are. You had me wondering.

Rick: Where are you? Outside? Can you see me right now?

Glenn: Yeah, I can see you. You're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news.

Rick: There's good news?

Glenn: No.

Rick: Listen, whoever you are, I don't mind telling you I'm a little concerned in here.

Glenn: Oh man. You should see it from over here. You'd be having a major freak-out.

Rick: Got any advice for me?

Glenn: Yeah, I'd say make a run for it.

Rick: That's it? 'Make a run for it?

Glenn: My way's not as dumb as it sounds.

~From The Walking Dead S1.E2 "Guts."

...

When the earliest settlers poured into a wild continent there was no one to ask them where they came from. The only question was: Were they sturdy enough to make the journey, were they strong enough to clear the land, were they enduring enough to make a home for freedom, and were they brave enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so? And so it has been through all the great and testing moments of American history. Our history this year we see in Vietnam. Men there are dying; men named Fernandez and Zajac and Zelinko and Mariano and McCormick. Neither the enemy who killed them nor the people whose independence they have fought to save ever asked them where they or their parents came from. They were all Americans. It was for free men and for America that they gave their all, they gave their lives and selves. By eliminating that same question as a test for immigration the Congress proves ourselves worthy of those men and worthy of our own traditions as a nation. ~Lyndon B. Johnson.

...

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

I saw this yesterday.

"Christian" Nationalist "Pastor" Joel Webbon ranting against *Checks Notes* Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy simply for being a Hindu and saying he should "go home."

Then Tommy Tube-Steak (naturally) trying to say immigrants should "Assimilate or go home" to India. Last I checked, right or wrong, like it or not, "home" for Vivek (both by birth and inclination, apparently) is Ohio.

And, same day, I saw that Seb Gorka (of all people) himself an immigrant, is trying to call Tucker Carlson a "Domestic Terrorist." Personally, I think we should send Seb back to Hungary where his British accent alone ought to make sure he has loads of fun in the jail that the new government is almost certain to throw his Nazi ass in because he's an Orban stooge, too.

The thing is, for a lot of these MAGA's and people like Trump, it's a game.

But there's a hell of a lot of under-the-radar or up-and-coming weirdos in this shit for whom it isn't, and most of those freaks would make the average MAGA/Tribal Republican type at even this point look like European Socialists by comparison.

Their ideal world is basically The Walking Dead, but with idiots instead of Zombies.

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."

I feel like two things are about to happen:

#1 The country is very likely going to go full Sunday Night At Woodstock '99 on these motherfuckers, in November at least, but very likely before that, people are tired of this shit, and some of these idiots want to make it worse.

#2 MAGA and Republicans are very, very likely to get attacked from their Right by fanatics who see their agenda as not progressing fast enough or "Too weak."

And, as an addendum #3 Republicans going after Republicans has always been my cue to start worrying about Civil War.

Meanwhile Trump and the Billionaires have pretty much came right out and said they don't give a shit about how the average person is doing.

Historically, that's a good way to piss off even your own voters.

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.

This is going to end, soon, and very likely extremely badly.

I mean, it's The Walking Dumb out there, but people are pissed off.

Especially for people like Trump and his lackeys like Seb Gorka.

Billionaires like Elon and Peter Pan Thiel will just bunker up and if they've managed to piss off enough of the rest of humanity (also likely) there's a non-zero chance their bunkers will each take a JDAM right down the stovepipe and that'll be the end of that, real quick.

And everybody, including the US government, has some kind of a half-ass plan for when everything comes flying apart. Or they think they do.

Most of them will suck at it.

Not the religious nuts (and certain corporations that they inflect or own.) No, they have a whole-ass plan to carve out shitty little fiefdoms for themselves and their cults. I mean, it'll probably be as badly executed and shitty as everybody else's but it is a plan and if nothing else these CHUDs have been working on that kind of shit since at least the 1970's that I know of.

Elisabet Sobeck: I remember yelling that I didn’t care. And that’s when my mother took my face in her hands and…spoke.

GAIA: Query: What did she say?

Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, “Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death.”

~From the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

The problem, in terms of survival instinct, is that some of these dusty old morons think a kid writing a letter saying they should keep the tax credit for electric vehicles and wishing to participate in society is (get this) "Propagandized."

Just sayin' I know from personal experience that gas depends on a functioning distribution network vs. anybody with a solar panel and the right power cord can charge an EV. And the Sun is free, no one owns it.

Which of course is the goddamn problem from a Republican standpoint.

These fucking people started putting ideology and profit over basic human survival instinct a long-ass time ago.

The problem with that, at the end of the day, is that when push comes to shove people like Joel Webbon don't care about money and they regard idiots like Seb Gorka and Tommy Tuberville as little more than ridiculous cosplayers. I know a lot of MAGA's that talk this shit real good, but fundamentally they still expect society to progress as normal, at least for themselves, and for things like their Social Security check (or their government paycheck in the case of people like Seb Gorka, Tommy Tube-Steak or Virginia Fox) to deposit on time.

The genuine religious fanatics out there, people like Doug Wilson or Joel Webbon (or to a lesser extent my ex-wife) not so much.

Whether they, in a logistical or physical sense, have an actual plan or not I don't know...although I'm betting they have more of one in real terms than Trump and the billionaires do. But mentally, certainly theologically, they have a plan and some idea of what they think is going to happen.

It's wrong, let's start with that. I've read the Bible and none of this works that way. At minimum it's no more accurate than Vladimir Putin thinking he was gonna conquer Ukraine in 3 days. But in terms of justification and intent to hurt people, they have a plan, it exists.

And the truth is the actual objective is simply hurting people, they don't really care about the rest, or how they get there, call it the Underpants Gnome theory of politics.

The only Republican elected officials with something likely resembling a plan that doesn't amount to conspiracy theories and dorm-room pot-smoke talk are almost certainly the Neo-Confederates. They're also wrong, but in the moral rather than empirical sense. That's just pattern recognition at this point.

Their plan, such as it is, is that these fucking people have been getting told all their lives about the sumptuous lives of those who serve the Beast in the End Times, and they've decided they want a taste of That Antichrist Life.

The rest of us, not so much. The rest of us get shit. The rest of us get whatever God gives us to survive on. The Bad Guys are taking that not as hope of survival in an Apocalypse but as their excuse to suck up all the rest of the resources, what the fuck do you think all the "Data Centers" are really for??

(Aside from turning most of America into the Aralkum, but I digress.)

These Fucking People have forgotten there's a whole massive sub-sect of various nominal "Christians" AKA also These Fucking People with an entire infrastructure of thought concerning what to do about computer chips and data centers, and fundamentally, these two sides are gonna fight.

Their idea of the Future is a blend of Idiocracy and Revelations, but considerably more malicious.

In fact I think there's more chance of the End Times nuts and the Tech nuts actually fighting than there is of the Baal-worshipers and the Christian Nationalists actually fighting it out (rather than just talking a bunch of crap at each other while quietly pursuing their shared goal of the abuse and exploitation of women and girls.) The End Times Christian phobia of technology runs deep and wide.

When the Christian Nationalists and the Demon-worshipers finally fight, the Christian Nationalists will probably melt like the Afghan National Army did when it came time to fight the Taliban by themselves, and for the same exact reason.

They mostly believe in all the same shit.

Same goes for at least a large enough plurality of idiot Republicans to matter when it comes to the Joel Webbon types (or people like my partner's idiot relatives.) Even Trump will find out he's just a different species of "Globalist" or "Liberal" to them.

These fucking monsters are just as cannibalistic and ravening as any undead Zombie out of ancient or modern legend.

Basically for the rest of us, it goes like this;

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

And either you're willing to fight for it or you're not.

For myself, I've got a partner and a kid to think about. I don't want to live in These Fucking People's world. 

The question is why are you tolerating this shit??

Слава Україна!

Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator had come to replace water, virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the F.D.A. and the F.C.C., enabling them to say, do, and sell, anything they wanted. ~Narrator, Idiocracy

Seven

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

And he exercise all the power of the first beast before him, and cause 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 deceives 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 13:11-18