Blaspheming Jesus in Holy Week (Easter 2026, One.)

 "I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.

...

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. ~Matthew 25:31-45

It's Holy Week.

Tomorrow is Good Friday.

So naturally, the MAGA's are trying to declare that Trump is Jesus.But it's not just that.

They can't wait to hand over their citizenship, their rights, in fact about everything that makes them, them and America be America. Hand it to *Checks Notes* Donald Trump cuz these idiots have absolutely boundless faith in that dude for whatever stupid reason.

And it basically comes down to one of two things, the Stephen Miller school of MAGA Takfiris who think that Trump will, given infinite Power, hurt somebody else more than he will them, and that's all they want or understand, to take by force, like the Bull Queers in The Shawshank Redemption.

Red: The Sisters have taken quite a liking to you. Especially Bogs.

Andy: Don't suppose it would help any if I explained to them I'm not homosexual.

Red: Neither are they. You'd have to be human first. They don't qualify. Bull Queers take by force. That's all they want or understand. But if I were you, I'd grow eyes in the back of my head.

Andy: Thanks for the advice.

~From the film The Shawshank Redemption.

They don't care what they're actually taking. All they really want is to kill, manipulate and steal.

Stephen Miller isn't talking about any familial, financial or property-based inheritance. He's trying to tell These Fucking People that the children of immigrants can take their "Whiteness" away.

For the record I'm a White Guy but since I'm not That kind of White Guy I've never been looked at as "White" by people like Stephen Miller (and I'm just fine with that.) 

Also, I'm old enough to remember White-On-White Racism and that despite being Whiter Than A Fucking Ghost and of Nordic descent...as a non-WASP, those people thought I was one of "Those People." 

For the record, neither Stephen Miller nor Trump himself would actually be in the club their own damn selves and yes, I used to drink and golf with old WASP Republicans who thought exactly like that and bemoaned the fact that all their shitty little clubs had to let people like me and my Grandpa in the door (and Black people and women, although we took the brunt of it because as non-wealthy White guys in their space, who cut their grass and shit, we were "acceptable" in-public targets, they had to bitch about "The Blacks" when it was just them. These assholes paid too much for my Grandpa to not take their money and their bullshit.)

Which of course was the whole point, for them. I'm pretty sure they griped about having to pay for it, too.

I live in a town that has four different Catholic churches for these kind of reasons and where you can see that the Catholic cemeteries were once pretty ethnically split and the Jewish and Protestant cemeteries were pretty much the same but in a different way.

I remember when Sectarian Violence between Christians..."The Troubles" in Northern Ireland...was on the news most nights.

And that's the world that Stephen Miller thinks he wants because he thinks he's been adopted into grace somehow.

No, bro, I remember those days, and by the time I was dealing with that shit those days were very much on the wane and that crap was still stupid.

And you can tell the people that really know or at least have actually looked at what it was and want to bring it back because they're the ones bitching about Trump being surrounded by Jews and f****t's and thinking the Hard Right Catholics aren't Hard Right ENOUGH and not getting the womenfolk back into domestic slavery fast enough. Again, these are the people who appear to be willing to sign up for Trumpian slavery.

You know, like all these damn Calvinist and Pentecostal preachers and shit.

But then, these are just differing flavors of the Prosperity Gospel, so naturally they'd think a self-promoting rich man is God, and any one would do (regardless of competence, in fact the worse, the better) which is how we got Trump instead of, say, Ted Cruz.

Despite the fact that Ted Cruz actually is one of Those Fucking People and Trump only half-ass plays at being one, in the process having created a whole different class of These Fucking People.

You know, the people that buy into the con, that can't stop blowing the narcissist, that increasingly seem to think The Con will get them into Heaven by itself. These assholes think they're gonna lie to God.

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

These CHUDs fear the Void but not as much as they jerk off to the idea of feeding everybody else to it.

But of course they seem to want to abase themselves before Trump first.

I get it and I know some of you are thinking, and will tell me, that "Conservatives" love the idea of bowing and scraping for profit, but the truth is somebody like Paula White doesn't need to do that crap.

She could easily up her Prosperity Gospel lying game and have more money than Trump.

The Truth is a lot of these Calvinists, Fundamentalists and Prosperity Gospel Pentecostals basically think God is a cruel narcissist and thus that mirrors what Trump visibly is.

This is where the "Trump Is God" crap even comes from.

Of course these faithless assholes are desperate for a god they can see, who confirms and matches all their biases and in so doing makes them "god" as well.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Joint heirs with Jesus" doesn't it?

This shit is straight up Blasphemy and Self-worship.

These people know they're destroying themselves and going to Hell, they just hope they're gonna take you and me with them. That's the point.

You cannot fill someone's head with ideals of fucking people over for their whole life and expect they're gonna be righteous.

And you either believe in freedom...and in your own right to have a life...or you don't.

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And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews. ~Luke 23:33-38

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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

Mutants (Rationalizing Themselves Into Revelation, Five.)

Lucy: How do you live like this?! Why keep going?!

The Ghoul: Well, one good question deserves another. Why the fuck am I doing all the work? Now come on, Vaultie. Ass jerky don't make itself.

~The Ghoul, from Fallout S1.E4 "The Ghouls."

...

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

...

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.

...

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

I keep seeing shit like this.

And I have to ask, just how is the "Master Race" so fucking pathetic??

Apparently there's "Elite" white couples "Breeding" to "Save Humanity" while already managing to look like the inbred mutants and vault-dwellers from the Fallout games, but with beliefs and politics that'd fit handily into the franchise on the end of the Enclave and Vault-Tech.

Seriously, fuck these motherfuckers.

We've got corporations basically shilling for slavery. I don't give a damn if they're acting like they're going to pretend to pay the slaves more, that's still exactly what they're advocating for.

And the White House is trying to run itself like some Meth'd out Pentecostal church on the outskirts of Howell, Michigan.

Yet every once in awhile, I find myself arguing with some jackass online who has the balls to wonder why we're losing a fucking war? 

Might be something like *Checks Notes* firing two missiles that work out to $25 MILLION dollars worth of munitions at a drone that costs less than my car isn't especially cost-effective or efficient?? Especially when we are not exactly mass-producing the weapons, because the entire complex is set up for basically peacetime low-rate production and given the costs involved, it's probably not possible to scale up.

Not with the amount of money we're willing to pay.

Not without taxing the fuck out of Billionaires.

Yes, as a veteran, I'm aware that the original idea was that equipment quality (and also the way that alliances and modern military shit are structured which theoretically would spread cost and risk) would make doing so unnecessary but the Iranians apparently had other plans.

None of these systems, international, procurement, our own proven standard operating procedures, etc. are designed for any one nation (including the United States) to go rogue and all this shit was done (much of it by previous generations of Republicans) with intent to prevent exactly that.

Again, none of those people ever really expected these goddamned mutants to get ahold of the system.

Republicans are selling their soul to win elections. Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won't work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them. ~Barry Goldwater

And they did have their own versions of Those Fucking People to deal with.

Yes, this shit can and will get worse.

Motherfuckers can't even get the answers they want from their own people anymore.

Therefore they will likely try to redefine "People" like late-1990's Clintonistas trying to split hairs on the definition of "Is."

Think about that for a second.

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

I'm warning you right now, it's an utterly safe bet that none of These Fucking People are taking any of this shit even close to seriously.

It's all a game to people like Keg-Breath and Trump.

And it's not just that people will die because these idiots aren't doing anything properly or taking any of this shit seriously.

It's that's the Point. 

That's Exactly why they're doing it that way.

Because they're malicious narcissistic idiots.

And they think they have a Divine Right to act like this.

77 million of us voted for this bullshit basically because they were bored and thought it would be funny.

Well I don't see very many people laughing now.

Except for the very worst of us.

Most of whom wouldn't actually make it in the world they're trying to create.

But of course, that too is the point.

Collapse, Destruction for its own sake, Failure, Government by Personality Disorder...all symptoms of a bored narcissistic out-of-touch political class and an electorate that large sections of are themselves fucked up on their own brain chemicals...until the consequences of their own actions hit them.

Or until their broad but mostly imagined "Authority" evaporates because they themselves vandalized that shit out of existence.

I don't even recognize the Republican Party anymore. I can't even talk the way these people talk.

And I would not want to.

These idiots are going to bumble-fuck their way right into all the Torments of Revelation because they think it'll fuck over the rest of us.

Guess what, guys? There ain't no Rapture and if there was? God ain't on the same page as ya'll.

And there will be consequences in this life and the next.

Again, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

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And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

Nobody. Asked. You. II (Rationalizing Themselves Into Revelation, No Kings Edition.)

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.

...

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

...

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

So No Kings (again) was on Saturday.

Yet that same day, I saw that the former Crown Prince of Iran, a wannabe King who's basically had to do exactly jack shit his whole life, spoke at CPAC.

Something tells me that America and *Checks Notes* the REPUBLIC-an Party has pretty much forgotten what the fuck it's supposed to be doing with itself? First off, America was founded in opposition to Monarchy in a world where Emperors, Kings, Princes, Beys, Pashas, Sultans and Tribal Chiefs of every kind were the fucking rule and damned few of them got their power by reason of anything other than who their parents were or they took it. Second, a REPUBLIC is, by definition, a country that doesn't have a King.

So why the fuck would we want to foist one on somebody else, let alone do so again?

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

I don't exactly see Monarchy as a political philosophy growing in the world, and most especially not in a Christian or Western context..

In point of fact the only people in the "West" clamoring for a "Restoration" of the "Divine Right Of Kings" are in fact Republicans and then only as regards Trump...they appear to even be losing a fair portion of MAGA on this at this point. There's a certain type of Republican or MAGA that somehow thinks Trump should be some kind of world-spanning God-Emperor or King-Priest basically so they can suck up to him and get things.

Which is very much not the point of why things like centralized authority of any kind exists anywhere.

I mean, fuck, this shit is so against the idea of America at this point there was a "No Kings" protest in Holland, Michigan, for fuck's sake. In a Michigan context that's the capital of Calvinist-Tight-Ass Land right there!

Like somebody said, how bad do you have to be to have lost the Dutch Reformed??

Sorry but I started out as a conservative myself and like, literally the entire point of America is "No Kings."

That's just the way it is.

And nobody asked these motherfuckers.

Technically, you don't have to like it, but let's just say I've never seen all that many Americans looking to become citizens of places like Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, or Tonga, and all the "White" monarchies are also democracies where the monarchy has been constrained into near-irrelevance by a Constitution and such countries are generally far more liberal than America.

And there's actually a reason for that. Most of those countries have been around for a lot longer so they know what does or doesn't work. 

Meanwhile, America insists on trying its damnedest to be the world's Shitty Teenager.

More to the point, American culture itself is almost excessively democratic...which is a part of how we got into this mess, given that some people think they have a "right" to debate the existence or human rights of other people.

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

And of course a vast majority of Americans are sick of this shit, including a lot of the people who thought they were gonna be in the club and Trump wasn't gonna fuck them over.

Thing is, OF COURSE Trump is going to fuck over everybody, including the billionaires and shit, because that's what he does.

I traded You, oh Lord, for Mammon, and what did it get me, huh?! ~Splicer, from Bioshock

Trump just hasn't gotten around to shanking Elon Musk in the back yet, but he'll get there.

And when he does, Muskrat is gonna have no recourse...because he deliberately set it up so he wouldn't have any. I mean, sure, you can flatter and manipulate Trump or somebody like him...until you can't, and that's the goddamned problem people like Elon don't understand. Privilege can evaporate in a second. You cannot rely on it. That's what rights are even for.

That's what Truth freaking is. Truth is all that gives most people a floor to stand on to push back against Power, and do not forget this.

Again, fuck privilege, I started out as a conservative and was taught to believe that rights were given to people by God, not the State. You either believe in freedom and rights and that somebody's humanity comes from a higher source than Man's collective Approval or Opinion...or you don't. Because I guarantee you, if it were somehow up to Man to determine who went to Heaven or not, we're pretty much all fucked.

I'm not even kidding when I say I don't understand where all these narcissistic CHUD-bros think they have some kind of right to tell other people even one damn thing.

And I'm honestly very tired of this whole goddamned mess. We as a people need to stop tolerating bad behavior and stupidity.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

Used to be you'd see some random dumbass guy trying to tell people what to do for no reason, or talking bad to women or other people who didn't deserve it, and somebody would come along and punch that dude right in the mouth, and then he'd either not talk like that anymore or at least have the sense to not do it around all the people who saw him get his ass whupped. 

That shit still happens, but not nearly as frequently as it should.

There's a reason I keep saying that Men are not lonely enough.

There's a reason I say *I* pick the bear, and I'm a Man.

Nobody asked these motherfuckers.

And the rest of us straight up need to stop tolerating this garbage!

Yes, it really the fuck is that simple.

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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

Four

Valin Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them? 

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

Nobody. Asked. You I. (Rationalizing Themselves Into Revelation, Four.)

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

...

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.

I saw this yesterday.

Dale Partridge again, saying women are "Free to be feminine, find a husband, have lots of babies, bake and wear dresses...wait, really??

I'm gonna be honest here. Does this lady look especially...domestic??

This is a picture of my partner back when we were basically kids, in her parents' garage with a Deer she shot. I took the pic. She called me to come up to Harrison with the truck because her Dad didn't want to do the butchering and didn't really want to store the thing or have a place to until we could do it. He gave her the money to get it processed though, so we loaded it in the bed of my S-10 and took it to the butcher by the liquor store on Broadway in Mount Pleasant for processing.

So...being Feminine? Having Babies? Wearing a dress??

A vast majority of the women that I've ever dated, let alone had any kind of long term relationship with, are *Checks Notes* Not Good at that sort of stuff, as in they have no ability or inclination for it!

I have personally, physically seen my partner wear a dress three times in 21 years. That I know of, maybe a handful of times more.

And there's not one damn thing wrong with that.

In fact, my partner's lifelong ball-kicking affect and determination to be almost more "One of the Guys" than the actual guys is a huge part of why I love her. It's who she is and always has been.

Anyone expecting anything different of her would be wrong.

It's not right to expect somebody to not be who they are.

More to the point These Fucking People's mania for control is getting positively creepy.

I've had these Manosphere chuds try to tell me I was "Gay" because I love and appreciate my partner for who she is and treat her accordingly.

Nobody asked them.

I hate to tell you, Dale, nobody wants this shit but you. No one else fucking cares.

Nobody. Asked. You. Dumbass.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

We want the bullshit to stop.

And I'm here to tell you as a United States Air Force veteran who served honorably with men and women of all races, who was taught the history, who stood there in dress uniform one night in February of 1994 and listened to old Tuskegee Airmen talk about the discrimination they faced in post-WWII America, I'm increasingly appalled by all the racism and shit.

My best friend in the Air Force was Black, was in fact a convert to Islam.

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.

I've written about this.

Black people have been contributing to and fighting for this country, often with little or no compensation for their efforts, since before America was America.

We've fought a war over this and the racist side lost. I'm goddamned tired of the fact that we're still arguing about this in the 21st goddamned century.

Literally everybody who took up arms for the Confederacy, or worked for its government, was a fucking traitor. Any and all of them were liable for the death penalty. The United States Government did not at the time have to abide by the rules of war here (and truthfully in a lot of cases it did not) but at the same time history has shown that our country was far too magnanimous to people who manifestly did not deserve it. A hell of a lot of Confederates and their descendants followed the example of Robert E. Lee and submitted to defeat only on the bitterest bare minimum of terms.

And since the 1960's and Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" American conservatism has in fact been effectively Southernized. It's probably one of the darkest ironies of American history that the Party of Lincoln became the party of Southern Segregationists within a matter of a few years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

101 years before that, in the battle of Grimaldi's Landing on James Island, SC (a small action during the wider siege of Charleston, SC) the 54th Massachusetts Infantry first saw action, then fighting in several more engagements against numerically superior Confederate forces on that day, July 16th, 1863. Two days later, the 54th led the storming of Fort Wagner, one of the main gun batteries that defended Charleston Harbor. The 54th successfully seized the outer walls, but during the assault Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the CO, was killed, and the attack was ultimately repulsed with heavy losses. Of the 54th's 600 men, 270 were killed, wounded or captured with a further 52 missing in action and never accounted for. The white brigades on the line suffered similarly heavy losses.

For his courage in bearing the Regiment's colors during the action, Sgt. William Harvey Carney would later be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Oh, and I should add, these men were fighting without pay, out of protest of the fact that they were only paid $10 a month, minus deductions for clothing, room and board, with their final wage amounting to $7 a month. White troops did not have deductions taken out and were paid $13 a month.

The war would  go on for another year before this injustice was corrected by Congress.

And the 54th Massachusetts Infantry would play a pivotal role in several more battles later on in the war.

That was only the beginning.

[Shaw enters the quartermaster's office while some of his soldiers guard the door]

Quartermaster Kendrick: Good afternoon, Colonel. Change your mind about that bottle I was talking about?

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I want 600 pairs of shoes and 1200 pairs of socks...and anything else you've been holding out on us, you piece of rat filth.

Quartermaster Kendrick: I'd love to help you, Colonel, but we just don't have any.

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Not for n*****s, you don't!

Quartermaster Kendrick: Not for anybody.

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I see. Pity. I'll just look around to see if you haven't misplaced them, hmm? [starts smashing up the place, throwing items off shelves and onto the floor]

Quartermaster Kendrick: HEY!

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: [over the noise] Where are they, you son of a bitch?! [throws items off another shelf]

Quartermaster Kendrick: Damn it, you can't-!

Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Can't I?! I'm a colonel, you nasty little cuss! You really think you can keep 700 Union soldiers without proper shoes because you think it's funny?! Now, where would that power come from?! ~From the film Glory.

Those Tuskegee Airmen that I listened to at that Black History Month event?

They never lost an escorted Bomber to enemy air action, at the cost of many of their own lives!

And then they came back to an America that treated them worse than dirt.

That Black lady up for her Star had more right to be there than Hegseth or Trump did, period.

Again, nobody asked these motherfuckers.

And it's getting so these motherfuckers can't even get the answers they want at fucking canned-ass events like CPAC.

Guarantee you they'll try making the events more canned and controlled and vetted, not fix their own bullshit.

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.

Republicans have been picking their own audience, their own voters, all that shit for so damn long they can't even talk to their own people anymore.

And not only that, they don't really want to.

It's straight up narcissism mixed in with political authoritarianism and religious fanaticism...not that most of These Fucking People know or can even see a meaningful difference between any of those things anymore.

In fact, I think a hell of a lot of these idiots think Christianity is "Conservatism" and "Conservatism" is Christianity and they've never read the Lord's Word for themselves beyond a few carefully curated pie-in-the-sky nonthreatening verses and don't tell me they don't do this shit I've sat there and watched them in the breakroom at my old job while they're looking oh-so-serious. Me and my house-church people used to sit there and laugh at these fucking people.

I'm an American, a conservative Democrat (which still makes me look like Mikhail Gorbachev next to these motherfuckers) and a fairly agnostic sort of Christian. But I'm also a former conservative Christian who used to be a Republican back before they became this fucking shit.

My rights, my partner's rights, our kid's rights? The rights of Norberto the truck driver who ain't even a citizen yet...but he's here and may well be our truck driver at work one of these Sunday nights?

Those rights were given to all of us by God, not Donald Trump or Pam Bondi.

Again, nobody asked these motherfuckers.

And their refusal to leave other people the fuck alone is going to cause a monumental backlash.

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

You might want to stop and think about that for a second.

They sure do, they know it's coming.

And that's exactly why these nuts are very likely going to try to break off a piece of America for themselves, my money is on Florida, although to be honest they probably wouldn't even get the whole state.

And the truth is they don't really care. I mean, sure, they want infinite corruption and Epstein-cult Baal-worship and the kind of financial and political fuck-fuck games they play with each other to go on forever...but a lot of These Fucking People also seem to crave destruction, their own and that of others...on the kind of theological level that people used to make up specific Greek words for.

They hate America, they hate themselves, they hate each other, I'd be willing to put money on it that these fucking people hate God.

At least as any of this stuff is currently constituted.

And they'd rather bring all the Torments of Revelation on themselves and the rest of us than accept America as she is...much less what she could be or what was promised to us as citizens.

At this point you either believe in freedom...and in your own right to have your own life...or you don't.

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When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. ~Matthew 25:31-45

Three

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)