Gravediggers (Scenes From The Fall, One.)

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains
just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains
and go to your Gawd like a soldier
  -- Rudyard Kipling

...

Fall-From-Grace: It is difficult to separate shadows from the darkness here. This is not a place meant for the living.

The Transcendent One: AH... THE TANAR'RI.

Fall-From-Grace: So, you are the spider that lies in the center of it all. I have many questions that you could answer. Your goals in this matter have not been entirely clear.

The Transcendent One: MY GOALS ARE NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW, FALLEN TANAR'RI. MY INDULGENCE IS ALL THAT KEEPS YOUR BLACK HEART BEATING IN YOUR CHEST; YOU MAY LEAVE WITH YOUR LIFE NOW... IF YOU WILL.

Fall-From-Grace: My heart is neither black nor do I fear for my life. My companions, my friends, are here in your Fortress. I shall not leave until we are rejoined and the man we follow has resolved this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.

The Transcendent One: THERE IS *NO* SATISFACTORY CONCLUSION TO THIS FOOL'S ERRAND. YOU WILL LEAVE THIS PLACE, AND YOU SHALL LEAVE YOUR UNDYING COMPANION HERE. FEAR NOT FOR HIS LIFE. THE ONLY PRICE HE SHALL PAY IS THE LOSS OF MEMORY.

Fall-From-Grace: As gracious as your offer is, I must refuse your offer to abandon my friends. As for the 'small' price he will pay at your hands, it is the equivalent of death to him. I have traveled with this man for some time, and there are many things I do not wish him to forget.

The Transcendent One: HE WILL FORGET. IT IS HIS FATE TO REMAIN IGNORANT. HE WILL FORGET YOU, TANAR'RI, JUST AS HE HAS FORGOTTEN ALL WHO HAVE WALKED THE PATH OF MISERY WITH HIM. HE EXISTS TO DIE, FORGET, AND DIE AGAIN. HE IS *NOTHING*.

Fall-From-Grace: That is *your* judgment. The fact remains that I do not wish him to forget me, nor all that he has struggled for to reach this place. He has suffered much, and I find my sympathies lie with him rather than the arrogant creature that postures before me and fights as a *coward* fights, preferring to kill from a distance where his opponent cannot reach him. You shall torment him no more.

The Transcendent One: TANAR'RI... PERHAPS YOU DOUBT MY POWERS HERE, IN THIS PLACE. A DEMONSTRATION MAY SILENCE YOUR DOUBT.

Fall-From-Grace: You have done enough harm - prepare yourself! (casting)

The Transcendent One: YOU ARE NOTHING. I CAN FORGE PLANES WITH MY POWER - I CAN UNMAKE YOU. 

~From the video game Planescape: Torment.

...

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 yesterday.

In Yemen, the Houthis just successfully launched a major assault against one of the other major factions, gaining full control of the islands in the Bab-El-Mandeb strait, and the entire Red Sea coast. They're also holding their own against major offensives by the rump Yemeni government and the Saudis and have damaged (and forced the shutdown of) a major Saudi oil pipeline. They've also looted a shit-ton of US-made, Saudi-provided weapons from the armories of the faction they defeated, the Yemeni National Resistance. And 'cause of the capture of the port city of Mocha and the nearby islands, they control the Red Sea chokepoint, too.

All things considered, the situation reminds me all too much of August, 2021, except that nobody took the time to sabotage the gear left behind. It's likely there simply wasn't time.

Afghanistan fell apart so quickly the allies couldn't react in time.

This time around we're too heavily engaged and tied down attacking Iran, which is just another reason why that whole mess was a royally stupid idea. And as a result, we don't have any allies, only co-conspirators, and of course Israel isn't going to help us.

Except that it's not the Afghan government that's in the hot seat, it's the Saudis, and by extension the Israelis and the USA that are all in the crosshairs.

If you're not willing to fight for it, take the word 'Freedom' out of your vocabulary. ~Malcolm X.

Our government in general and the Republican Party in particular seem to have lost the confidence of even their own supporters, and the November midterm elections are widely expected to be a bloodbath as a result (and rightly so.)

Republican Senators like Roger Marshall are getting booed by their own supporters at their own events. They don't understand why regular people don't like their BS. Apparently Roger Marshall sued patients for unpaid bills as small as $101...when it'd be cheaper to write it off 'cause then they don't have to pay lawyers.

It's not about the money, it's about the cruelty. It's about that the only "beliefs" or "values" modern "Conservatives" have are in cruelty, profit, and slavery.

I've written about this shit, and it doesn't matter if it's people like Senator Roger Marshall or redneck MAGA Welfare people like my partner's idiot cousins. Any Republican that's still in the tank for Trump and/or the Republican Party should be assumed to be like this, to, fundamentally be a person who wants to have slaves.

They were offered better than that, they said no.

"I will not trash talk. I will not be a divider in chief or an agitator in chief. I won't be out there blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up. I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interests of this country — to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world."

[Silence. Crickets Chirping, Sad Trombone Noise.]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

And they have the balls to (willfully, on purpose and with malice aforethought) refuse to understand why anybody would have a problem with that. I'll further note that it's people like *Checks Notes* Roger Marshall, who've spent most of the last ten or eleven years not doing very much, that are suddenly all-in on MAGA even as most of the MAGA's are heading for the exits.

I'm so tired of this fucking shit, I'm so tired of These Fucking People.

And apparently, at this point, I'm not the only one.

I mean, for fuck's sake, Ken Paxton is being referred to as a "Toilet" by his own former supporters in Texas.

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 mean how bad do you have to fuck up Texas, as a Republican, to lose Texas Republicans??

Honestly at this point the average Republican voter literally can't afford to keep voting Republican. That's basically how bad it is, at least here. The only place where you see any Republican campaign signs that I've observed so far is along Lake Huron where all the rich people live.

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)

The MAGA dead-enders and die-hards have been quiet and sullen for over a year in my experience.

The Born-Again Anti-Trump Republicans are pretty much starting to make that shit their whole identity.

And if you don't think this could end us up with President Tucker Carlson and Vice President Marjorie Taylor Greene...well you ain't been paying attention.

I mean, strong-as-fuck chance that the House pretty much stays Democratic-majority for another 40-year stretch at the rate current Republicans are fucking up. But if you don't think the MTG and Tucker people have at least a few valid points (especially concerning Israel) and that Democrats, especially leadership, has not thoroughly fucked that issue up for themselves already, you're wrong.

And I can already tell you how that'll play with a lot of the Third-Party and Leftist wannabes and wonks that have a strong presence here in Michigan. These are people who have no vested interest in the outgoing American "Empire."

Carlson in particular knows both sides of the game and on both CNN and FOX News he made his money by being a gadfly, by being that asshole, that smug punchable face. And he ain't Trump, he ain't secretly or otherwise gonna care if you like him. In fact he'd probably rather that you don't.

Most people, be they Democrats or Republicans, are well aware they're getting screwed...and people who went whole-hog on Trump are realizing that racism doesn't pay the bills and Black people aren't going to do...whatever they thought Black people were going to do, and that they can't make that happen either.

And especially as the cost of gas and groceries goes up, they're going to take it out on Trump and a lot of these Republicans...who've basically tried to make it so if they go down, so does America.

I'm a veteran, and I'm here to tell you that the fall of Afghanistan wrecked Biden's presidency for a hell of a lot of people. I'm also going to straight-up say that just what we know about the Iran War so far has likewise wrecked Trump with anybody who knows anything, no matter how Republican they were before.

Guys like Ken Paxton, Roger Marshall? They're just wrecking the brand even more, now. The next tranche of conservatives will be different. I'm not saying they'll be any better, just they'll be different.

For Republicans it's not just "October 2008" levels of bad, it's been there for awhile.

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

One way or another, the Empire is falling. Not "It's going to Fall" it's "We're already there."

And Trump is less a Caesar than like the "Little Augustus" who presided over the Fall Of Rome.

Well guess what? There's a whole bunch of Barbarian Kings that'd gladly serve as his replacement. There's a whole bunch of gravediggers who'd love to take this mess as a chance to bury the American Experiment forever.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

My black face fades,
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

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"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press