...
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.
I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran
...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.
I saw this earlier today.
Freakish asshole Dale Partridge trying to say that European nations should go back to colonizing African nations, claiming God cursed Black people.
Except God didn't do anything of the sort.
Man made that shit up all by his damn self.
Couple things there, homie.
#1 Even in the context of today, it's cute that you think that shit ever stopped. Oh, sure, outright colonization did but only after some rather nasty wars all around, most of which were heavy on British, French, Portuguese, South African or Rhodesian tactical victories, but in terms of global and domestic public opinion and even the willpower of the combatants themselves, outright militarized political colonization rapidly became unsustainable.
It's still there, it just mostly switched to economic colonization instead. It's cheaper, it's easier and everybody profits. Sure, you won't find a British soldier anywhere in Egypt, but you can get a Coke or Pepsi in a lot of stores, the Egyptian Air Force flies F-16 Fighting Falcons, and lots of the pop-culture shit in (for example) Cairo ain't no damn different than it is in New York City or for that matter Oklahoma City. In fact, once you consider that Christian and Islamic social mores ain't that different it's probably closer to Dallas or OKC than it is to NYC.
At the end of the day, old-school Colonialism was to a great extent simply undone by modern Supply And Demand as much as anything else! If you can get Chinese or Palestinians or South Africans to give you money for Coca-Cola what's even the damn point of going to all the extra work??
(I know, I know, for these assholes it's all shitty ideology.)
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. ~2 Timothy 4:3
And let's not forget that most of sub-Saharan Africa is already extremely Christian. In fact, some of those African Christian churches send missionaries to America now!
But of course they're not Dale's type of dour, mean-spirited Calvinist, and let's not forget; In the South African Border War, them guys lost. I suspect that's really what the people who consider Elon Musk their spirit animal, and who take money from Peter Pan Theil are really upset about.
#2 The reason for #1 mostly is, it came down to blood, casualties, Three Words, yo: Killed In Action. British and French boys and the sons of actual colonizers...not only did the population back home tire of their sons (and at the time it was, overwhelmingly, exactly that) dying for some godforsaken strip of desert or veldt that they would never see or give a damn about The blood and the killing always go both ways, the enemy gets a vote. At the end of the day no one cares if its for "Jesus" or for Soviet Communism like in Afghanistan in the 1980's. If your daughter or your son is Dead dead, it doesn't fucking matter if it's for the Cause Of Christ or the Glorious Revolution.
#3 And this is interrelated and something Dale Partridge of all people should understand. One of the reasons America spent so much of its time being so isolationist was the racism! The reason the United States never conquered and colonized Mexico was the racist assholes of the 19th century understood that if they made Mexico part of America, those people would get to come here.
The assholes of our own day don't (or 20 years ago they didn't) much care about stuff like that, and that's why there's a lot of Afghan and Iraqi Americans now. I waited on a guy from Iraq at my work the other night, a delivery driver who had something for the store. Note: I live in Northern Michigan and this is not the first time such a scenario has happened.
I asked him where he was from and he replied "Illinois." I asked about the accent (which was very thick Arabic but I was curious where) and he told me he came from Najaf in Iraq. It should be easy to become an American, our country is an idea, not a race, even Ronald Reagan understood that.
The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.
And of course the racism is instantly revocable too, if that helps their politricks more. These fucking people believe in nothing. At least the old-school asshole Republicans I used to know were consistent.
Do you think their belief in or application of Christianity would be any more consistent?? Because it would not be.
It's all bullshit and a game to these CHUDs.
Anything to acquire Power or Wealth.
If, once they got it, they could feed We The People feet-first into a woodchipper, they would do that.
I mean, fundamentally these guys just think that killing a lot of people will make them famous. They don't care how, or what the consequences are.
And while we're at it, you think they'd be any better to Americans?? These assholes already don't think half the population we have automatically should have any rights worth respecting.
I can't live like that. I wouldn't like like that.
There is no space for genuinely loving your partner in These Fucking People's religion.
There is no real Honoring Thy Mother as the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus demand we do.
There is no real loving a child and helping them to grow and learn, much less training them up in the way they should go.
Hell, there's no damn self-respect, either.
Not when every single thing is basically bullets in a gun called "White Male Narcissism" to be pointed at whatever has them in a fit of pique or short on narcissistic supply right now.
[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.
That someone is Christian, or conservative, means fuck all to these guys if such a belief is chosen and not because White Male Calvinist Power said you had to. I mean...if we're being honest here that's pretty much the opposite of the Christian message as I've heard it all my life. You gotta want to be Saved. Sorry, that's just how it works.
I did not make this rule, take it up with God.
Not that they really care to, at the end of the day.
Because at the End OF Days they don't care what happens to them. All those disparaging verses where Jesus says "And they have their reward NOW?" That's what these guys want.
Don't Tread On Me with this bullshit.
Narcissistic Supply, Power, Give It To Me Now. It's all they want or understand. Strip everything else away and there's no difference between them and Simon Adebesi begging for drugs when the rioters run out of Heroin in the Oz episode "A Game Of Checkers."
They don't give a shit what God demands. In fact, "Love Thy Neighbor" becomes nothing more than something to be worked around. "Love The Lord Thy God With All Thy Heart, All Thy Soul And All Thy Mind" gets real easy...when they think their God is themselves.
That's why when you give these debased fucks Power, their wants never cease.
The truth is, what God Demands cuts into their Supply.
It's a lot easier to scream about Jesus all day than it is to follow His ways.
Even the simple imposition of rules for their behavior in such a case is too much for them.
And that's why they will never do it.
You either believe in freedom or you don't.
And to make the choice to follow this stuff or not, you have to be a free person. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts, and neither can slaves.
Remember that.
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