Empire Of Self (American Revelation XII, Nine.)

It was right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called America would succeed. More than half of you represent the very first member of your family to ever attend college. In the most diverse university in all of New England, I look out at a sea of faces that are African-American and Hispanic-American and Asian-American and Arab-American. I see students that have come here from over 100 different countries, believing like those first settlers that they too could find a home in this City on a Hill—that they too could find success in this unlikeliest of places. ~Barack Obama

...

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

I saw this earlier today.

Fox News is evidently bitching about Democrats "Demanding" that kids should have breakfast, lunch, dinner and the option of a snack at school.

Yeah, kids need to eat too, you dumbasses.

And yes, a lot of this mentality actually does come down to the Right wanting to punish anybody other than rich private-school kids for daring to get an education.

Consider time spent. Kids are already there six or seven hours out the day, often starting from early morning (very early in the case of rural kids riding a school bus, trust me.) Then quite likely, if they're in sports or some other after-school activities they might be there into the evening hours...more if there's a game or some event. It can add up to a nine, maybe ten-hour day. Routinely did for me when I was in Basketball and Football. Sometimes more when I was in various other stuff with my girl. We were neighbors and basically shared a car (Most often, mine) because she (despite her much more suburban affect) couldn't afford one. Her dad was a medically-retired cop who was on disability and the alternative was the school bus or his truck. She got some money from her mom and worked part time, but didn't make that much. Thus our respective jobs and school activities had to be more-or-less coordinated.

I'm here to tell you a crappy lunch and vending machine food doesn't cut it. We'd be pretty hungry by the time we got home (Or to work, since she was a hostess and I washed dishes in the same place.) So yes, healthy food, multiple meals at school? Yes, please.

But the thing is, none of that matters to those fucking people who think things like kids getting to eat, labor organizing, and worker solidarity are the rest of us stealing from the rich...and I'm here to tell you lots of poor "Conservative" chucklefucks view themselves as temporarily-down-on-their-luck rich people...and yes, they absolutely view literally owning their neighbors as a cure to what ails them. 

These fucking people literally view basic human rights...much less LGBT rights and racial equality...as the "Proles" stealing from them. They want a system of privileges and tradition that only they get to have and which they'll get thrills out of denying to others...even if it leads to their kids having to marry cousins and worse to keep power, status, wealth etc. in families.

None of that shit matters to people whose idea of the apex of human politics is submission to a dictator or a king and that political participation by us commoners (let alone ethnic and racial minorities) is somehow wrong.

And it never stops, the goalposts must always be moved, the level of insanity must be increased, just so a few people can feel "Special" and they need stronger drugs to keep the dopamine hits coming.

These fucking people don't want to live in America.

And that's absolutely what these motherfuckers are saying when they talk about raising the voting age, administering bullshit tests, or instituting service (or land-ownership) requirements for voting. His ideas violate at least 3 Constitutional Amendments and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts along with large swaths of existing Federal laws.

That's what they're talking about when the mob turns on Elon Musk because random something something Gazpacho. That's what these right-wing elites don't realize they're fucking with.

The whole reason these fucking people are willing to depend on some bullshit social contract with the wealthy for their existence (which they expect the wealthy to violate) is that they themselves fully expect to enforce mob rule whenever the "elites" don't do what they want.

Fuck privilege and tradition, what these idiots want is a system based on hate, which validates their petty grievances and hatreds.

How's that worked out, historically??

The reasons that 18 year old young people can vote, or for why there are not poll taxes or "literacy tests" anymore were written in blood, earned in combat in Vietnam or blood spilled on a bridge in Selma, Alabama. Vivek doesn't care about that. It wasn't his ass getting shot at or beaten. 

Fuck him. 

Vivek has precisely no chance at the Presidency because of the very same mentalities he's attempting to appeal to.

How fucked up is that??

Elon, likewise...as shitty as he is...is very likely soon going to get swallowed by the same beast he's been trying to feed for fun and profit...simply because he cannot be shitty enough and function in the modern society he literally depends on. The fact that he'd like to deny us that modern society because he thinks it's funny will boomerang on him. Republicanism has swung so far to the Right that it demands global submission to the Hammer And Sickle. 

Or maybe it's just all about the shitty authoritarianism and actual ideologies, policies, and principles haven't mattered since at least 1994. I'll note Republicanism has pretty much excommunicated all its former Presidents...except Trump.

Plenty of these fucking people openly support Vladimir Putin...and how's that working out, since the Red Army 2.0 has basically leveled down to a Reverse Stalingrad in Bakhmut.

Note: This is the nation that "Conservatives" have emphatically said should rule the world and which the EU, our NATO allies and the Ukrainians should all be thrown under the bus to appease.

And they cannot even defeat the Ukrainians.

And we're going to have to spend generations (again) specifically attacking this tendency towards crankery and conspiracy bullshit and edge-case reactionary overacting. 

It only took us 50 years after the downfall of McCarthyism and the exile into the political wilderness of the John Birch Society to make that horseshit go away the first time. 

And then that shit came right back, because a Black man ran for US President on a major-party ticket.

And thus these fucking people decided that they had to burn civilization and society to the ground, reject modernity in all its forms, and that "Every Man For Himself" libertarianism straight out of Ayn Rand's atheistic "Atlas Shrugged (with a side of white supremacist "thought" if you dare call it that) should be their guiding philosophy.

And they literally are not smart enough to see that their "movement" is the exact post-modern horror that conservative and Christian writers of 30 and 40 years ago were warning us about...except that those people all thought it would be the "Left" foisting this shit on the world.

Wrong. Metrically Wrong. A Singularity Of Wrongness. 

Thing is...that sol que put bullshit only really works for rich people. Just in the last ten years or so this shit has migrated from "Who Is John Galt?" to "Who is George Santos?"

All of this reactionary, religious and various other crap is literally being marketed to people. Motherfuckers did not independently decide to reject America and 250 years of the Enlightenment and political thought...if not every constraint on Power going all the way back to the Magna Carta in 1215.

This garbage is being literally marketed to people with an undertone of snide assumption that these fucking people will be the Lords and Ladies of a new neo-feudal aristocracy by people whose ideal "Society" is a mutant love-child of Idiocracy and The Empire from Star Wars.

Basically, they all think they're going to be Tucker Carlson if he really decided that he was Baron Von Fishsticks or something. And they don't realize that Tucker was selling them out the whole time, gossiping with the very people they hate, and hating Trump just as much as the rest of us do.

Hell, more than half of these fucking idiots' assorted "Leaders" don't believe a word they say, they're only pushing this shit for fun and profit. Both sides talk about "Culling the herd" and "Population Control." The elite fascists think it's funny that the mob buys it all. The mob fascists think they're going to kill the rest of us and then the elites.

Every last one of these selfish pricks basically wants to be God.

And again, all these assholes think this shit is funny. Cruelty really is the point.

Until the mob comes for them, and then for the rest of us. It's gonna be a big "Oh shit" for a lot of people like Elon Musk, too. Trust me, both sides will find out that it's on like Donkey Kong. But it's gonna go a lot worse for the mob. You don't really think the United States has a bigger defense budget than God because we're somehow afraid of Afghan goat herders and mustached Iraqi tin pot warlords, do you??

I mean, we're all watching Russia...our "Big Bad" throughout 50 years of the Cold War...implode yet again in real time despite bellicose threats to all and sundry. All this force and rage is gonna have to go somewhere. And that's ALL a lot of these sons of bitches actually believe in.

Preserving civilization against those who think dancing around a fire and shouting "Unga Bunga" is something to aspire to won't be any fun, it's going to be a lot of work. It already has been.

If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen.

And this ain't it.

This Empire of Self is going to fall hard and fast.

Nine

Слава Україна!

Son, come on son
Let me squeeze them titties
I been fiending for this freedom
I been begging for the beat
I been jonesing for the jump over the wall
But all I keep coming back to is them titties
Round and firm, for the vein burn
I keep bugging over the reasons
For this shit I yearn
Years in this piece got me
Wanting the shit that I unlearned
Got me wanting to block it out
Forget about
Erase it from my think.

~Arnold "Poet" Jackson, From the HBO series "Oz" S1, E6 "To Your Health." Subject: Addiction, Drugs

Who Is George Santos? (American Revelation XII: Eight.)

I coulda swore I seen the motherfucker in my cell, going through my personal effects

He fingers, fingering my cigarettes
Came out like nothing was happening whistling he tune!
So I mushed his ass, like, "Move, motherfucker, make room!"
"Hey, ain't that my cigarette hanging off the tip of yo' lip?"
Didn't even give him a chance for he confession
Just leveled his ass with all that aggression!
Lefts, rights, to the dolex
Foots to the chest
Uppercuts to the grill
I'm like "Kill!"
He's like "Chill!"
Take that for me even bein' in this place
Take that for that fucking CO baton across my face
Feel that for that lawyer who don't give two fucks about me!
And feel this, feel this! 

For me being enslaved by poverty! 

Motherfucker
Gimme them damn cigarettes
Oh, these is Marlboros
I don't smoke these.

~Arnold "Poet" Jackson, from the HBO Series "Oz" S1, E1 "The Routine."

Saw this last night.

George Santos got himself brought up on Federal charges, apparently for Unemployment Fraud.

I've asked this before, to the tune of Ayn Rand's "Who is John Galt?"

Who Is George Santos?

Is that even his real name?

Whoever...whatever...he is, this guy has for all intents and purposes become the GOP's new lowest-common-denominator Spirit Animal. Dude's like what Richard Nixon was for 50 years, or what Donald Trump was for four more...except he put in a whole lot less work than the former and couldn't bullshit as well as the latter. He didn't even have to...and that should scare you.

Long Island Republicans voted for his ass anyway.

And now Republicans are all in to defend George's ass.

Because the cruelty's the point, the dishonest buttfuck games are the point. 

This kind of shit is literally what Republicans think government is for. 

They think they're entitled to run the Ratfuck Olympics of Stupid Republican Tricks on a permanent basis at our expense. That's what they think the purpose of Power is...nothing more than to enrich and pleasure themselves and play games.

The fact that this shithead literally lied his way into Congress and the only people who said anything about it were Democrats and the legacy "Establishment" Republicans that the Base, the Fascists, the MAGA's and the populists hate anyway...is...the goddamned point!

And the fact that this dude was co-sponsor of a bill to reign in COVID-19 pandemic-era Unemployment fraud and he couldn't vote on the goddamned bill today because he was in court for committing the crime?

We gonna be goddamned lucky if Republicans don't run this motherfucker for President in the future.

Do you really think any doubts over whether or not he was born in America would stop them?!?!

Because if we've learned anything from how Conservatives in general...and Republicans in particular...have behaved in the last eight years or so, absolutely nothing matters. Hell, even being in Congress is simply seen as a gateway to more cheap internet fame. 

After all, what the hell else is Lauren Blowbert doing there?!?!

Republicans support the Constitution or Democracy or freedom about like they "Support" the Free Market or the Troops...right up until the second they are asked to do anything at all to show the reality of their alleged convictions.

And sometimes they get help. Apparently CNN's Trump "Town Hall" was basically Russian State TV level of bad.

And there was no reason for it, other than money and ratings. Some people really would destroy America for a paycheck, just like Ronald Reagan said way back in the day.

I don't think he expected it'd be the Republicans.

Reagan Wept.

It's all bullshit.

And I'm tired of it.

The question is, are you?

When are we going to do something about this horseshit?

Because if we don't...what the hell are we?

We don't just need to know "Who Is George Santos?"

We need to know how all these motherfuckers got into our politics, so we can get them out and keep them from coming back.

Seven

Слава Україна!

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times
I wear the black for those who've never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me
Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black.

~The Man In Black, Johnny Cash

Where Does It Stop?! (American Revelation XII, Seven.)

Standing in line, marking time
Waiting for the welfare dime
'Cause they can't buy a job
The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor old ladies' eyes
Just for fun he says, "get a job"

That's just the way it is
Some things will never change
That's just the way it is
Ah, but don't you believe them

Said, hey little boy you can't go where the others go
'Cause you don't look like they do
Said, hey old man how can you stand
To think that way
Did you really think about it
Before you made the rules?

~Bruce Hornsby and the Range, The Way It Is.

I saw this when I got up this morning.

Scott Walker saying to Bernie Sanders "We should pay for performance instead of time on a clock."

As if that, in and of itself, doesn't bring to mind every pre-New Deal labor rights horror story that I ever learned about in a high school or college American History class or from an old-school country music song about the dishonest Checkweighman or owing one's soul to the company store?

Fuck you, bro. What have you ever done?

What have Republicans done in recent history for anybody that doesn't make billion$, I'll wait...

And not only that, but what are you fuckers running on at all other than taking every single positive aspect of America as it is away and giving it to rich people in exchange for nothing more than giving angry white redneck assclowns the "right" to say racial slurs again and everybody else gets nothing but jackboots...if we're lucky??

"Give all the money and rights to the rich, give everything else to the Church and give absolutely jack shit to We The People unless we're slaves to one or the other" doesn't sound like a winning platform in any kind of society I've ever heard of.

Seriously who the hell (Other than rich Republicans) thinks they're going to get anything out of this garbage?? These fuckers are telling me that cutting my veteran's benefits by 22% is something I should see as a good thing...when they're not just lying right to my face and telling me the cuts don't exist at all!

What's Scott Walker's "performance" record RE: Anybody but the Koch Brothers and those U-Line weirdos, anyway??

Republicans seem to look at every inhuman fuckup, every injustice Humanity has ever perpetrated upon itself, every moment of Man's inhumanity to Man and think "Hmm, if we could go back to that, I wonder how much money I could make off of it??"

And that absolutely does include the abuse of women, blasphemous religious BS in the name of politics, child labor, genocide, war...you name it. If they could, they'd try it again. 

Because it might turn out differently this time and these kinds of forced social experimentations tend not to affect rich people very much. It's not going to be their corpses rotting in the killing fields...

At least not until the mob they have sozzled on hate and rage towards the Other runs out of Others to kill and turns on them...

And they think they can get away with it because they've got...basically the same 25% of the population they've always got...high as fuck off Trump's shitty fake populism and some bullshit idea that they won the argument just by being dicks.

As if we didn't just block most of them on social media and move the fuck on with life?

Basically, Republicans think because they have a few has-been celebrities now, they're unstoppable or some shit.

It's like they can't even see the actual reality of their worsening performance in every election since 2016...unless they're using conspiracy theories about it to feed the Civil War talk among the edgier edges of gun culture and their voter base.

They can't see that Russian bots don't get to vote in America.

Or maybe they just don't want to.

Investing tens of billions of dollars into stock buybacks and relatively paltry sums into everything else isn't just about creating some kind of bubble, or closed system floating on money for the rich.

It's about the cruelty, it's about knowing that there are people in America that struggle to buy food.

It's about scheming to import other problems like disease and war over here. You don't really think these fuckers support Antivaxxers and Vladimir Putin in the name of "Intellectual Freedom" or political contrarianism, do you?

They're doing this shit because they hate the rest of us. Yes, even you, normie Republicans.

Especially you.

These ass clowns are, in some cases, openly scheming to find ways to cull the population simply in the name of "Population Control" i.e. Fascism and they're doing it right the fuck in plain sight on social media!

And, especially in light of that, if you think these absolute motherfuckers are going to pay you fairly in any kind of performance-based system, you have another thing coming. These dumb shits are openly telegraphing their shots as if to display that their goal is to remove as many behavioral constraints from upper-class right-wing white men as possible...while passing all the burdens of Society (and the maintenance of it) onto the rest of us. 

And on top of that, they want your teenage daughter to have to work too, just so they can have her around to sexually harass in the workplace.

These fuckers idea of reaching for the stars is...taking some old lady's social security, or taking the health care of some veteran who'd be dead without it.

And they figure they can dole out enough of the opiates of racism and religion to the masses that they can get the people...at least somewhere...to go along with this horseshit and protect them from the rest of us! I suppose it's just unfortunate for them that the place they've gotten what they want so far is Russia and nobody really wants to live there.

(And if you don't think guys like Scott Walker are licking their chops at the idea that the Russians want to come here and bring their shitty country and culture with them, you aren't paying attention.)

Motherfuckers wanna party like it's 1893, bring back the absolute nadir of labor and race relations and support imperialism. They want it so bad they're willing to throw in with Russia because that's who's the ones doing the shit. 

I mean, hell, Trump his own self has been talking about how he wants gulags and labor camps, lately.

Do you really think you're going to get anything out of this?? If these fuckers could implement the Mark Of The Beast and make you pay for it...what'd stop them from doing so, at least in Red States?

Their Evangelical voter base?

LOL.

Cue up some "Own The Libs" garbage and they'd be lining up 'round the block to take the Mark.

Seriously, what'd we win, in all those civil rights, human rights, labor and women's rights struggles if we're still having to put up with this fucking horseshit?!?!

If you support Republicans at this point, you're either evil or you're insane. You can no longer claim to simply be unseeing. When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.

Why the hell do we keep putting up with these people?

Where does it stop?

I said what I said.

If that offends you, go fuck yourself.

Six

Слава Україна!

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times
I wear the black for those who've never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me
Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black.

~The Man In Black, Johnny Cash

 

Victory Day (American Revelation XII, Six.)

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom Of Fear (2004)

Today (Well, yesterday now) is VE Day, Victory Day in Russia and the former Soviet states...the day much of the world celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany. 

This is a picture posted by the mass shooter who killed eight people in Allen, TX over the weekend. 

So...why are we still stuck with these motherfuckers? Logically, there shouldn't be all that many people under like 99 years old in the whole damn world with Swastika or Waffen SS Tattoos.

But here we are. 

Conservatism and even churches are overrun with the shit, much less online forums. 

And this motherfucker was a US Army veteran who didn't serve his full time? Well, because I remember what the goddamned policies were, I bet I can tell you exactly what the motherfucker got discharged for.

And it probably wasn't mental health issues like I saw that somebody said, or under honorable conditions for that matter. In fact, racial extremism is specifically grounds for administrative separation. I'm going to guess this dude got those tattoos after he got out...because anybody who has that kind of shit doesn't even become a qualified military applicant in the first place.

The military learned this lesson in blood, the hard way. 

Racism undermines good order and discipline.

There were mutinies, riots, hell, actual battles fought over this bullshit before we got our act together and Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948.

And there were not a few such incidents after, particularly in Vietnam. 

Fuck this motherfucker.

And Republicans are proud of and covering for this son of a bitch.

In fact, I've caught a strong vibe of "There would be no crime or shootings if everybody would just be White, Christian, Conservative and Male...in about that order. There doesn't seem to be any understanding that this shit is impossible for a lot of people.

And here's a pro-tip, yo. In a white ethno-state it'll be white people doing all the crimes!

Fuck these motherfuckers.

Same basic fucking people yesterday were crowing about how much of a debt the Red Army is owed for the defeat of Nazi Germany...and many of them appear to be stuck on the fiction that the Red Army was strictly Russian. 

This is bullshit. The Soviet Army was not only multiethnic in terms of the Soviet Union...people of all former Soviet states and most ethnicities of Russia proper served in the Great Patriotic War, including Ukrainians....but genuinely multinational in that Communists from all over the world fought the Nazis, including in particular French and Mongolian Communists.

But yeah, there's lots of American and British "Russian Nationalists" out there, too. I was so disgusted by this earlier that I just logged off.

So what's it gonna be, Republicans?

The Hammer and Sickle, or the Swastika?

One of these things is fundamentally not like the other one.

But apparently the commonality that both ideologies hated America is all you need.

These fucking people would rather bow down to damn near anything than accept the Stars and Stripes if Black people or LGBT people or anybody else that they don't like gets to be an American, too.

So, it's Victory Day, is it?

What did we win, really, if this bullshit is still here?

What did we win?

Five

Слава Україна!

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan

Slaves Of The Caesars III (American Revelation XII, Five.)

 When I am dead, bury me

In my beloved Ukraine,

My tomb upon a grave mound high

Amid the spreading plain,

So that the fields, the boundless steppes,

The Dnieper's plunging shore

My eyes could see, my ears could hear

The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears

Into the deep blue sea

The blood of foes ... then will I leave

These hills and fertile fields --I'll leave them all and fly away

To the abode of God,

And then I'll pray .... 

But until that day I know nothing of God

Oh bury me, then rise ye up

And break your heavy chains

And water with the tyrants' blood

The freedom you have gained.

And in the great new family,

The family of the free,

With softly spoken, kindly word

Remember also me.

~Taras Shevchenko

I saw this when I got up this morning.

Probably in preparation for withdrawal the Russians have bombed Bakhmut with white phosphorous bombs. Incendiaries like Napalm and Willy Pete are banned by international treaty.

So I Retweeted it, figuring I'd write about it later.

It didn't take long at all for the Russian apologist to show up in my feed.

People have a right to defend themselves and fight for their freedom. When you start saying "People have a right to defend themselves except when it's against somebody that 'Conservatives' 'Like" then you're telling on yourself. 

Considering Republicans built so much of the rules-based international order the Russians are trying to upend, an order that, overall has benefitted them...I have to wonder what "Conservatives" think they're trying to conserve.

If you're sucking up to the Russians, it probably isn't White Supremacy, not really, because if you're not Russian...because if they win...even if you become Russified you'll never be "White" enough to be "Supreme" again.

When the only time you care about people observing the rules is when not observing the rules hurts your chosen "Side" what you're really saying is that you don't believe in freedom or rights or rules.

You believe in Power, and obviously you'll do anything to get it.

Except it's not really that, either, is it??

Tell me something, Republicans. Say we stop helping Ukraine and the tide turns some...enough so that the Orcs can break off enough of a piece of Ukraine leaving a rump-state uninteresting enough that they go gunning for bigger game, like Poland or say, Hungary?

Will Viktor Orban turn out to have been "Conservative" enough to be worthy of aid when Poland and Ukraine are already not?? ( This despite the fact that both Poland and Ukraine are, in dictionary-terms, conservative countries?) What about the Baltic States? 

And all these countries are NATO members. You realize that alliance is, fundamentally, an important part of America's power...right??

Whatever kind of "Nationalists" these people are they sure aren't American nationalists!

These fucking people would rather be Slaves Of The Caesars than be Free, so long as they get to be a better class of slaves than at least some of the other slaves.

And these motherfuckers hate the Ukrainians for fighting for their own freedom. They are positively enraged that the rest of us would protest their domination, their privileges, their wants.

They're mad as hell that whatever spell they had cast on the American body politic is broken, 

To modern Republicans, "Freedom" as a concept only exists insofar as it's a relative status vs. someone else's Slavery. Whether they were always really like this or whether they simply became bored, debased and stupid and devolved to this state, I don't know.

Yet none of these people has ever even had to be subject to domination by others, or to risk their freedom being taken away, nor even to witness what it's like to see another enslaved.

They think they would get a feeling of immense power from this, but I think the more likely response would be shame...yet they cannot admit to this because they have denied that shame exists, lest their own behavior be regulated or impulses governed.

Such a worldview effectively denies that Freedom or Truth, as concepts, even exists as more than an adjective on what they already want. 

They've denied themselves power to push back on others should they be overcome. And it will happen. Hell, it already has!

So in the "Conservative" mindset what's the difference between America and Saudi Arabia, or between Christianity and radical Islam? What was the difference between America and the Soviet Union?

What makes us any different from our alleged enemies, except we're "Us" and they're "Them?"

That's not enough for me. I need something more to stand for than "In-Group Status." I always have! What the fuck do you think this is, High School?

I'm damned near 50 years old. I'm too old to give a shit about that kind of thing.

What you forgot, Republicans, is that in an environment where you're a better class of slave than some of the other slaves...you're still a slave!

Remember that, because there's going to be a test later.

Four

Слава Україна!

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom Of Fear (2004)

The Blood God (American Revelation XII, Four.)

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

I saw this earlier this afternoon.

RFK Jr. blaming "Neoconservatives" for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I'm sick of this garbage. There's one entity (Russia) and very likely one person (Vladimir Putin) to blame here. The Ukrainians are defending themselves, as is their right.

If one powerful nation is allowed to simply arbitrarily decide that other, smaller nations simply don't exist and that they have some kind of "right" to conquer those countries...doesn't that make the world a lot darker, more dangerous and simply smaller of a place?

What happens if Russia, in such a scenario, decided that Europe or the United States should thus be colonized? I'm actually fairly sure the Russians already have decided this, they just lack the power to make it happen...and if things keep going as they are, they'll never have it.

Speaking as both a former Republican and a United States Air Force veteran, I'm rather suspicious of anybody whose train of thought involves ceding large areas of the face of the Earth and many countries that are, or should be, our allies...to America's enemies, especially when they use bullshit logic like "Spheres of influence" or whatever.

Pretty much nobody with a brain in their head actually wants to be under Russian rule, including one hell of a lot of Russians who went someplace the fuck else!

Of course, I get it. These motherfuckers, be they far-right Republicans or turncoats like RFK Jr. all hate America (and/or Civilization in general.) They would be more than happy to sell the United States out to Russia for pocket change and assignment as a little tin-pot Zampolit somewhere, or some shit.

And for whatever reason, they've decided they enjoy the idea of tasting Russian boot-leather.

I used to be a Republican and I just don't understand the impulse these people have to want to live in some kind of straight white Christian male version of North Korea where Donald Trump has replaced Jesus Christ and Antivaxxer woo is the new End Times Prophecy.

Whether it's giving up modern science for conspiracy theories, wanting the West to just surrender to Russia or trading freedom for some idea of medieval serfdom...these fucking people are just goat-eager to trade all type of things that we know work for things we know didn't work. 

Things, that in too many cases were cast off only in blood, lessons learned looking at piles of corpses. 

But, ya know, all this "Alternative" shit got to be a fad, or something, for no better reason than "Conservatives" are debased idiots and they got bored.

And/or they were simply petty psychopaths who want to hurt people the whole time, but until Trump they had the sense not to present that face to the Universe.

I don't understand why these idiots are so desperate to cast their pearls before swine in general, much less do it for Donald Trump and hatred of some random Other...and that so many of these sons of bitches think they're doing this shit for Christ and Christianity tells me that the Christians need to seriously reevaluate a few things.

Otherwise you fuckers are gonna "Own The Libs" straight into yourselves going to hell.

So yeah, might want to cut that shit out.

And if they won't do that, maybe we need to massively reconsider the social position of Christianity in this country...shouldn't be hard. Not that many people left who follow it left anyway, least of all the "Conservatives."

Or maybe, just maybe, if you're in government in any capacity you should leave your biases and your religion at home because you're supposed to represent everybody, not just the people that give you money or the people you "like."

This is America. 

There is such a thing as right and wrong.

And modern society came to be for a fucking reason.

If you want to go be a serf in the fields with some petty lord who fucks his cousin and a priest who looks gayer than Liberace telling you what to do all day and telling you what your purpose in life is...go find somewhere like that and fucking do it! I suspect Russia will get that way soon enough, or there's always Afghanistan, I suppose.

The funny part is, these assholes think they'd come out ahead living like that! You can get diseases in places like Afghanistan or Pakistan's northwest frontier provinces that just don't exist in the rest of the world anymore...or they didn't, until Antivaxxer woo woo became popular among Republicans in America.

You wanna live like that? Go ahead. I'm sure there's a Taliban warlord or two out there that'd like him some tight Republican butthole. Of course, Republicans don't want to be the bitch themselves, they want everybody else to do that while they go somewhere else and think they're just going to be rich and famous for no reason, or something.

They want others to have to live in hell for one simple reason; Cruelty.

Thing is, at least some of them believe in this shit so much, they're willing to be the goddamned sacrifice.

Fine, if you're that mean or stupid, go ahead. But, You ain't got no right to take the rest of us down with you or impose your bullshit on other people in the here and now. Nobody should have to put up with this crap, whether it's transgender people, Ukrainians or anybody else!

Modern "Conservatism, is no longer content to be a cult of death and wealth. Dis Pater didn't quite do it for them, I guess.

These fucking people are in the process of transitioning to straight-up blood-cult.

But it's your blood they want to shed in the name of their Blood God.

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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

Three

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

The Karenocracy (American Revelation XII, Three.)

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom Of Fear (2004)

I saw this last night.

Evidently a small group of Republican women has taken over the bench Rep. Zooey Zephyr was using, so that she doesn't have anywhere to sit.

Zephyr on the other hand, simply turned a nearby counter into a standing desk, and got back to work. Fight the Karenocracy!

Evidently, one of these old bags is the mother of the Speaker of the MT House of Representatives, in case you're wondering where these fucking assholes learned this shit from.

Cruelty's the point.

And evidently the shit don't fall too far from the cow.

If you don't want to believe me when I tell you these fucking people are Nazi monsters for whom the cruelty is the goddamned point, whose politics and religion are nothing more than Patriarchal White Supremacy, and for whom no one even the least outside of that framework will ever be "Conservative" enough (Since really all that even is to these people is just another magic word that means whatever they want it to mean) just listen to Republicans themselves. They're screaming it in your face and shouting it in the streets.

I don't much like Lawrence Jones, he's just another Fox-Bot with a side of Libertarian horseshit and Project Veritas dishonesty, who (almost certainly) unlike Tucker Carlson, probably actually believes what he's saying. If "Conservatism" actually was a meritocracy, Lawrence Jones almost certainly deserves to be there.

And from what I've observed of him he shovels the shit mostly the same way as Tucker Carlson does, too.

He just happens to be Black.

And Fox News putting him in Tucker's spot even on a temporary basis is thus "Affirmative Action" and "Virtue Signaling" and "Stoking Division?"

He's rather loudly one of your own people, for fuck's sake! He just happens to be Black.

And that is, in fact, all he needs to be for these racists to never actually see him as a person, much less one of their own. So, for that reason, he won't last.

America is supposed to be a place where you are not what you were born, but what you have it in yourself to be.

Which is exactly why people like Brigitte Gabriel and Lawrence Jones got into the kinds of positions they're in, too.

 But not if Republicans have anything to say about it.

Donald Trump is an old-ass con artist and drug addict who lives off fast food and shits himself regularly, but these fucking people want to see him as some kind of Super Commando or some bullshit!

As if the evidence that it's bullshit is not right there for anybody with eyes to see, with ears to hear, with the imagination to connect the dots.

Why? 

Same reason Caesars and Emperors had themselves declared "Gods" I guess, but with a great deal less of a moral code or requirement for some measure of competence.

Because White Straight fake-"Christian" Male Supremacy and some stupid belief in Fascist Supermen is their politics and their religion, as would be Bloodline and Social Class if they could get the fuck away with that bullshit. The Bourbons or Habsburgs or the Romanovs would have nothing on these sons of bitches. 

You think these dudes wouldn't fuck female relatives to keep the bloodline pure and the power and wealth in the family??

And more to the point, either the perverted Evangelical goons or the simpering American Catholic hierarchy that the "Conservative" side of is in all-but open rebellion against Rome would be more than happy to sanctify that shit, to sacralize perversion.

They're already outright telling us they would. They've been putting it on blast since Roe Vs. Wade was struck down and that shit's only getting worse.

Shit that would've had everybody from the cops to local churches and neighbors regarding a dude as a threat 40 years ago is just...normal...on the Right now.

Because to these fuckers, "Conservatism" isn't about anybody believing or doing anything...it's about everything looking a certain way and the "Right" people having everything.

Like, do these fucking people consider sex offender registries to be lists for candidates, now??

Are there even any goddamn standards left?

I suppose the answer is "No."

As long as these motherfuckers get their lizard-brain frills scratched just right, their society could consist of illiterate barbarians dancing around a fire shouting "Unga Bunga" and eating their neighbors while thinking the pages of the Word of God are for nothing more than wiping their own asses, and they'd be fine with that shit.

Just so the chief and the witch doctor look the right way and talk bad about the tribe that lives in the ruins near the sea.

And we're going to have to face the fact that this simply is what "Conservatism" has turned into...and for a hell of a lot of its voter base, probably always was.

I've been saying since 2016 that the actual number of political or religious conservatives was pretty small, the number of assorted social conservatives not much larger.

But there's a vast, vast number of people who'll claim all this stuff simply because it's an excuse to hurt people and marginalize groups they don't like.

Yet, at the same time there's not really "Enough" of those people...at least not in America and most of Europe. Even China seems to be on track to be not that much different from us in 20 or 30 years, this despite the various attempts at control and assorted depravities of the CCP.

It's places like Russia where there's both that national identity as an empire and where ideals like Western-style Christianity and Democracy did not leave much of a mark that are, overall, the problem. 

As jacked up as the UK is from Brexit...there still seems to be some limits enforced there. 

As much of a muddle as the EU or US Democrats are, we're not trying to wage genocidal wars against Republicans or Russians...no matter what these fucking people and their persecution complexes try to say about it.

But exclusion, hate, and ultimately genocide and war against All That Is Not Republican is what these assholes think they want.

And so much of this is being ginned up by robber-baron CEO's and political boot-lickers who'll absolutely never be "Conservative" enough, for the mobs of fanatics they've whipped up.

But sure, let's fight some more "Culture" wars.

The War Against Virtually Everything will consume the billionaires and the CEO's and the Republicans who thought they could ride the tiger of the idiotic, racist Republican base to power and wealth, just the same as it will the rest of us and don't you forget it. Shit, if anything Disney is the prime example, here.

And make no mistake about it, war is exactly what they think they want. I suppose they think they'll get AI Trump to fight it for them, but AI Trump isn't real.

As a veteran, I find the whole idea of these AI created pictures of Trump as a soldier to be ridiculous.

They literally want a war against anybody who thinks people have a right to live their fucking life without having to move four old-biddy "Conservative" Karens out of the way first. 

Of course, given these same fucking people's hostility to the military I'm not sure who they think would fight it unless the actual plan is to bury civilization under piles of bodies from mass shootings, see if the Russians can spare any Wagner mercs or whip up a horde of Orcs just like the Russians did...and how's that working out, anyway??

Trouble is, that shit is exactly the future "Conservatives" want. Not just for the Ukrainians, but for their own fellow Americans, too.

You either believe in freedom or you don't. 

And the day's coming where you're going to have to pick a side and live with the consequences of that belief. 

And the choice is going to be "America" or "North Korea, but Republican."

They might keep Trump as a granddaddy Kim Il-Sung but the truth is they want even worse people making the decisions.

Even Trump will not make the cut in the end, because the meme-Trump ain't the real Trump. Sooner or later that truth will obviously out.

My feeling is that's when things will get worse, not better, because sooner or later these fucking people are just going to collectively, blindly, lash out.

The rule of the Karenocracy will, one way or another, be short.

You either want to live in civilization or you don't.

Rights come with responsibilities. 

Somebody else's slavery does not equal your freedom.

Remember that. There's going to be a test later.

Слава Україна!

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

Two

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13

Empire Of Man (American Revelation XII, Two.)

"You were just babies then!" she said.

"What?" I said.
"You were just babies in the war— like the ones upstairs!"
I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.
"But you're not going to write it that way, are you." This wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I — I don't know," I said.
"Well I know," she said. "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.
So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: "Mary," I said, "I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.
"I tell you what," I said, "I'll call it The Children's Crusade." She was my friend after that.

~From the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 

I saw this the other day.

And I've been like "What the fuck?" ever since.

Some idiot MAGA Republican literally advocating for a Nazi-type "Final Solution" for Transgender people.

Fuck you, bitch. No.

I have friends who are transgender. I'm a United States Air Force veteran.

For the record a couple of the transgender folks I know are currently serving in the military.

You want to get to them you're going to have to go through me. Fuck you.

Assuming this is a real person, which the follower count and join-date kind of make questionable, I'm really starting to wonder just what the fuck is wrong with people.

But, hell, you ain't even gotta be transgender for these goddamned fascists to hate you, to other you, to think you should not exist.

You just have to be a kid ringing somebody's doorbell.

Fuck, these fucking people don't even want to live in civilization, let alone commit to the normal levels of human interaction that make the basis of civilization even possible.

Seriously, same people constantly ranting about how everyone should have to accept Christianity and obey the Ten Commandments? 

Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill??"

I used to be a conservative. The idea of shooting kids was never acceptable to me. When did this bullshit become a thing??

Is there even a solution for someone so vicious that does not itself involve a bullet in the head? Is it even possible to disarm, cage, cult-deprogram, possibly have to pump full of drugs and literally fucking emotionally, mentally and morally reprogram...what? 

20% of the population? 

I'm just going with that number because somewhere around 20% will identify as "Conservative" or vote Republican no matter how bad things get. I'm going roughly off Bush 43 approval ratings from like, September/October of 2008 here.

How would this even be logistically possible, let alone determining moral parameters, among other things.

But at the same time, they don't have the numbers to gain the kind of power and control they really want or would need to not face consequences from the rest of the world...if not the rest of America.

That scares the shit out of them. Oh, yes, it does.

And, if we're being honest, how long before the rest of the world just decides to stop putting up with our crap?? 

Given that the rest of the planet now has to count on Democrats having majority-control of government so they can expect...oh, I don't know, some level of basic morality or even consistent global engagement in our own interests from the United States, it's no wonder so much of the world will gladly do business with China, or that Russia had a certain level of following before they invaded Ukraine.

A hell of a lot of America is exactly the bored dilettantes that the fascists and Nazis of the 1930's said we were.

It's unfortunate for the fascists and Nazis and Putinist Neo-Commies of the 2020's that America's bored dilettantes are our fascists and Nazis, who are also more interested in scamming off the American Idiot than they are in actually doing anything.

But, on balance, I suppose that's fortunate for the rest of us.

We just have to make sure these fucking people never have power, ever again.

Thing that gets me is, who do these bored, debased, perverse motherfuckers actually think is going to fight their War Against Virtually Everything for them??

Because if I had to guess, they sure don't want to do it their own damn selves, and they've alienated or antagonized the shit out of anybody who might conceivably do it for them.

And these monsters seem to absolutely hate anybody who's actually serving in the military or fighting for anything that even resembles basic human values.

I suppose that's because they see Ukrainian soldiers or US Marines or various activists as a threat to the shitty shit that they want to do to the rest of us.

Probably with good reason, I am and have been a lot of things, some good, some bad.

But I've never been a fascist. That shit disgusts me, always has.

Communism has never had any appeal either, mostly for the same reasons, and I saw a bit of the wreckage of that, I did.

Guess I heard too many stories of what fighting against that shit was actually like, when I was a kid.

More to the point these miserable pinch-faced sons of bitches seem to absolutely detest anybody, in uniform or not, of whatever political persuasion or not...who just wants to do their duty, do their work, and go home to be with their family, play with their pets, or get some sleep...who has a life and a love and some form of happiness outside of the Party.

It all sounds very Orwellian to me.

I know these ass clowns perpetually think they're going to just snap their fingers and say "Jump" and somebody will answer back "How high?" 

But that attitude seems to have hit a point of vastly diminishing returns in recent years.

And of course these fucking monstrous people don't like that.

I'm here to tell you, if you don't think these goddamn fascists next step is going to be turning to AI and robots to kill us all because they can't get enough humans to just obey, you're probably not thinking far enough ahead. 

It's probably a good thing that Republicans have been turning themselves into superstitious barbarians with literal belief in magic and shit for awhile now. Barbarians don't build Terminators, so there's that.

The world is not producing enough angry white right-wing men for these people's goals. 

These assholes have been looking for alternatives for awhile now. Why do you think these fuckers so badly botched the American handling of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Because they wanted to use it to get their "Killing Fields with a Mall" ideal world. That's why.

That's also why they couldn't even process that a virus didn't care about their politics or who they were.

What "Conservatives" have become is bored, debased, wannabe courtiers who long to be in the service of some bloated god-man...and they've got a wannabe for that, too.

We are fortunate that they do not have anyone to Obey and Kill on their behalf in service of a godless ideology, the Empire Of Man, where Man's self-satisfaction is the moral purpose of his life.

You think the Cult of Dis Pater sucks? By nature such a thing still must contain some degree of Roman morality, at least.

But that's not the world these fucking people want to live in. And they're going to figure something out, even if they have to just keep trying to wreck civilization with endemic mass-shootings.

We'd best make this stop.

Otherwise, where does it stop??

One

Слава Україна!

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~Matthew 25:1-13