Jihad And The Last Day (9/11, 25 Years Later, One.)

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

...

When ye therefore shall see the Abomination of Desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (who so reads, let him understand)

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

hen if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Behold, I have told you before.

Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shines even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:15-27

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"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, A Tumbleweed rolls by, a Coyote howls mournfully in the distance.]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

I remember.

Oh yes, I do, and for that reason I always mark the 10th of September as pretty much the Last Day before things started to get crazy.

And that's what September 10th, 2001, was, a normal day. I don't even remember much about it...and why should I? Isn't that the point of a normal day??

The next morning like the rest of America, I woke up to an Apocalypse striking out of an infamously clear blue sky.

I was a conservative person, a theologically-conservative Christian, a Republican.

Me. Not much different from how I am today, either. I didn't change, they did.

But tomorrow morning I will wake up in a world where conservative Christian Republicans have become the Idiocracy Taliban, protesting the death of an Influencer in a city where he was NOT killed, who think evangelizing a person in a squirrel suit in the middle of a gas station is somehow What Jesus Would Do. People for whom the point of the Bible is ANYTHING but "Love Thy Neighbor." Their "god" is Hate.

And getting attention for themselves.

And stupidity, if we're being honest.

Willful stupidity, on purpose and with malice aforethought, because they think they're going to get something for it.

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.

These are people who, when offered the chance, did not want a better or more peaceful world, or actual observant Christians in government, even.

They'd rather try and say an adulterous corrupt lying scumbag like Ken Paxton is a "Christian."

That is literally not what I was taught.

And here's the thing; I'm not unfamiliar with some degree of "Christian Nationalism" either.

I just gradually became disgusted by it as I gradually realized what these fucking people were, a process that happened for me throughout the Aughts.

But, at that point, what these assholes believed could still be recognized as both American and as a form of Christianity.

That's not what this is anymore.

These Fucking People are no more "Christian" in any cultural, orthodox or theological sense than the boy-abusing, drug-using, terrorism-practicing Taliban are Muslim in any real way.

At best, their religion is about Christianity, not about following Christianity.

They're "Proud of" and want to claim the stern public religiosity of it.

And they want to impose that mentality on the world. The rest can go to Hell, all day and twice on Sundays.

These motherfuckers just wanna have a Jihad, they don't care what it's for.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

They don't care if they run the country and the world into the ground in the process, so long as they or somebody they "claim" or "like" gets rich off the whole fucking mess or gets to pretend he's King for an hour.

They don't care if he, or they, has to sell their souls to the demons for it, either.

I couldn't do it.

And evidently, even a lot of These Fucking People can't keep up with the demands of this bullshit either because the whole mess is literally falling apart right in front of all of our faces.

And These Fucking People Don't Care.

In fact, the falling apart is the point.

They want to ride the bomb all the way down whooping and hollering like Major Kong in Doctor Strangelove because they think it proves some sort of a point, and they don't actually give a damn about the rest of us. Or even themselves, or their own kin in too many of these people's cases.

I have seen it.

These are people who, fundamentally, believe this world sucks, that it should suck, that they should make it as terrible as possible to punish...well, pretty much everybody...for existing and not being a shadow on the wall in the firelight in someone's cave on some other world that, in their imagination, is somehow holier than this one.

Oh, and don't forget, they believe that they should have the right to be comfortable and well-fed and have money because they have the "Right" beliefs.

Yeah, fuck all that, and I say that as a former conservative Republican.

I'm tired of this shit, too many people I know...like my Mom, or my partner and the kid...don't deserve any of this shit. People who've already busted their ass, or endured hardships, should not have to suffer more.

The thing is, a lot of the beliefs these people claim (but don't follow) are not wrong.

If they really do believe any of it (and I don't think they do) they seem to have missed the point that they'll be judged right along with everybody else.

Jesus Himself used the example of the Sheep and the Goats.

I just don't think the Judgment is going to work out for These Fucking People the way that they believe it will.

Fuck them, they can commiserate with Abdullah the Taliban in Hell for all I care.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

[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."

Last Post

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that? 

~from Planescape Torment

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. 

~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran