Rapture (Pride Month, One.)

Behold, I have told you before.

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

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and puts forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

~Matthew 24:25-34

I saw this yesterday, but I wasn't home.

I had to go up to my Mom's partner's house and put the mower deck on the tractor so my Mom could cut his grass and then I ended up making lunch and I got drafted to help plant a bunch of stuff in the garden, so by the time I got home my ass was tired. 

Well then this morning, I saw this Tweet by Prosperity Gospel Liar Lance Wallnau "Some people deserve to starve."

That's literally not what the Lord's Word says.

The Word says Love thy neighbor, and more importantly "Help thy neighbor" while otherwise teaching that we attain a good place in the Afterlife through Compassion, not Greed, through Love, not Hate.

But of course, a preacher of the Prosperity Gospel can't say that without making less money, can he?

And I'm here to tell you from personal experience that money...and a hunger for "Signs and Wonders" so they can get more money...is these fucking people's true God.

But then the Prosperity Gospel holds up Trump as its Lord and Savior, not Christ, and that's how you know it's a lie.

Being poor is hell, being rich is heaven, the cruelty is the point, and who knows what the fuck these people actually believe happens when you die, because their entire religion is bound up in those three things. It's all about this world.

But, being that it's source-code is still Christianity, even that shit has limits.

Ted Cruz Tweeted this yesterday afternoon about the "Kill The Gays" law in Uganda...which the Ugandan government has been fooling around with for going on 20 years now. It's their go-to distraction in an extremely poor, extremely Pentecostal country where the government can't or won't actually do anything much for the people that live there.

You have no idea how serious I am on that last point. Uganda is a very poor, developing country, and it's chock-full of people who believe in and practice Pentecostal Christianity and the Prosperity Gospel. Who prospers? The Bullshitters, that's who.

So they get by on using petty bigotry and religiosity for control purposes, it's just as well because Uganda doesn't have much of a military and the police are...well, just as corrupt and useless as the rest of the government.

And for the record, this garbage came about because of American Evangelical and Pentecostal missionaries stoking up homophobia to the point of ridiculous...mostly on an ideological and yes, for-profit basis.

It also exists because of leftover colonial "Anti-Sodomy" laws and attitudes forced on the country in the 19th century by, ya know, those famously straight Europeans (full sarcasm intended) and the Victorian morality (that nobody actually followed) that was prevalent back in those days.

If the Ugandans were serious about getting rid of homosexuality in their country they'd get rid of the cops and the government and a whole bunch of the churches, because it's the police and the politicians and not a few of the preachers that are the main people who use and abuse the many Ugandans (many of them young people, of both sexes) who can only support themselves through prostitution.

(I know a Ugandan dude who works as a teacher for a religious American NGO, fun fact, he's both extremely Fundamentalist Christian and a Socialist. No, he's not particularly homophobic, either. There, just like here, this shit has been and is being marketed by people with bad intentions.)

And then they can't even really enforce this shit anyway...

Because the Ugandan government would rather buy itself a squadron of Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker fighter jets they did not need (and per their own Central Bank, could not really afford) than spend those millions of dollars helping their own people or policing corruption in their own government, or even funding their Army or police properly.

And this is the kind of country some Americans want us to be. I'll never get it.

See also: "Conservatism" it's apparently the same wherever you go. Note: I say that as somebody that used to be a conservative.

It's all bullshit.

Just like how Ukraine is a mostly-white, mostly-Christian and mostly (small-c) conservative country, and MAGA and the Republicans don't care about that one bit, not least because the Ukrainians chose democracy when given the chance and stood together and fought when fate and the dictator next door decided that they should face the ultimate test.

And because these people are doing what American "Conservatives" have always said they would and fighting the invader (thus showing Putin to be a weak man and Russia to be a weak country rotted through with corruption and theft) it puts the lie to the whole damned mess, so MAGA hates them for it.

It's not even "Heaven isn't Heaven if everybody gets to go" or "Might Makes Right" with these fucking people anymore, if it ever was. It's "Project an image of transparently fake righteousness and strength to a certain kind of person so we can all steal in peace and the goobers will protect us, oh, and fuck that 'afterlife' shit, we don't really care."

And the trouble is, one can never go far enough with this bullshit, or maintain that Edge-lord hate-stance long enough for these fucking people. (Because eventually, even for a notoriously Christian, conservative and Homophobic corporation LGBT people became necessary for Capitalism to function. And/or we'll run afoul of the Law in ways that cost the company money.)

If Trump is their (Anti-) Christ and Putin is his (False) Prophet and cruelty, hate, and mass theft are in fact, the goals...I'm legit sorta curious...if as even these people claim the soul is eternal, I'd hate to see their idea of the Afterlife. Seems like that would actually be Hell, having to spend eternity with all that shit.

And do you really want to spend the Afterlife with a bunch of miserable assholes who can't get through the day without being butthurt about something??

There's no religion in the world that actually lionizes being a miserable son of a bitch, let alone a selfish bastard.

Doesn't it ever get old, being perpetually aggrieved??

Like who the fuck do you think really did you wrong, anyway, and for what??

What's even the damned point??

These fucking people say they believe in the End Times and the Rapture. Many of them say we're living in the former and they await the latter.

But when they say "Rapture" I, being an old video game guy, think of the underwater city from BioShock and when they start talking about Jesus, I think of the slicer by the fish market, singing "Jesus Loves Me, This I know" while he's chopping somebody up.

That's where this "Cruelty is the point" religiosity leads to.

And it's worth noting that the designers of that game based the premise of Rapture on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. 

If you know the game...well, that seems very much like the future certain people want.

If you know what I'm talking about, think about that for a second.

If you don't, do yourself a favor, look it up and learn something.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't. Either we're all in this together or we're not. Make up your minds.

'Cause I'll tell you why there even is such a thing as Pride Month, let alone why it's so widely observed.

Because one group of people stood together and all pulled in the same direction for equality and freedom.

Now imagine what the world could be like if even more...let alone most...of us would get off our asses and do that!

Likewise I find it telling that hatred has to be advertised for and marketed these days, like they can't find enough shitty little haters without it.

Trust me, I've known people who are no longer with us that would have been happy as fuck to live in today's world. 

That's part of why I decided to write this, because sometimes we have to put down our First World Problems, remember those who've gone before and get ourselves back in the fight.

Because together we rise, or none of us do. 

Because our society as a whole is only as strong as the least of these.

If I can say that, being an old straight white man, the least you can do is take the time to understand me.

And you'd better, because this "Trump is God" shit is how you go to hell, being gay or straight or Christian or otherwise has not one damn thing to do with it.

Last Post

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

...

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why behold thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in thine own eye? ~Matthew 7:1-3

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

Слава Україна!

Red State (Pearls Before Swine, One.)

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why behold thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes or thorns, or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. ~Matthew 7:1-21

Just saw this, apparently Tara Reade (Remember her?) Has defected to Russia.

So yeah, #MeToo #MyAss, at least in this particular case. Bitch just defected to a country where, at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church, marital rape has been decriminalized.

Think about that one, please, take all the time you need.

It was never about #MeToo or women's rights. Tara Reade was a Republican/Russian ratfuck operation. 

I remember, the Republicans and especially Fox News were desperate to run against Bernie Sanders to the point where they were already telegraphing the red-baiting and salivating over a chance to call Bernie a Communist.

Communism hasn't even been a thing since 1989. Vlad's trying to bring it back but it's not working...and if it was, Republicans would be all cool with the Hammer And Sickle now.

But even so, I also remember when in spite of Tara's bullshit, at the urging of Jim Clyburn and a few others, Black people in South Carolina came out in droves for Joe. In so doing, they may well have saved America in the process.

And by the way, I wrote about that at the time, too.

When White folks couldn't be bothered to get off the couch, Black folks mobilized. When White Leftists were saying they were too good to vote for just any old Democrat, that they wanted their damn Unicorn, Black Americans showed the fuck up and here we are.

Meanwhile, Russia is slouching back towards another Great October Socialist Revolution, but effectively with the connivance of the existing government this time and they're not even subtle about it.

Ukraine, meanwhile, being a "small-c" conservative and Christian country...is basing its war rhetoric in Christian terms and entirely on the ideal of homeland defense.

You'd think it'd be the conservatives who were terrified of the former and enthralled by the ideals of the latter, but that is not the case.

In fact, these Republicans seem utterly in thrall to and more to the point enthralled by the fucking KGB Agent in the Kremlin as does a much smaller percentage of the American Tankie Left.

Ukrainians are fighting the war against Russia now that so many American Republicans were convinced was going to happen in the 1980's...and more to the point, they're winning. With HIMARS and Javelins and outdated German Leopard I tanks, they're fucking winning.

Because somewhere along the way, Ukraine became steeped in Western military doctrine, and Ukrainians individually and as a people started giving a shit. 

And that's wrecked a lot of people's plans. Not just in Russia, but over here, too.

It just amazes me how awash the global "Political class" is in moral rot and Russian money, mostly but not exclusively on the right-wing side of the fence.

I remember when so much of America barely even took notice of the Maidan revolution and subsequently, the initial Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine and the War in Donbass. 

The Gamergate scandal, the infinities of the Benghazi hearings, pop culture dumb shit, and America generally being up its own ass with First World Problems was more important. I was there, anybody saying "If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen" was swimming against the tide.

That's the kind of situation Republicans would like the rest of us (Aside from their continually amped up Base) to go back to.

That's the way a hell of a lot of Russians live, literally not caring what's going on with their government and generally believing that Russian Imperialism is "Correct."

Global Authoritarianism, Inc. longs for having that disengaged America back, for the same reason that low-wage employers want the pre-COVID-19 America back, and it ain't in your favor.

That's why an idiot like Tara Reade thinks she can make a big deal of herself, and people (outside of Russia) will care.

That's why Republicans are stuck with making up salacious bullshit, even about somebody like David French who used to be one of their own.

Because that's all these fucking people have. 

More to the point it's all they want to have.

In a sense, they have in fact gotten that, except that it's people outside of the Republican Base mostly stopped listening to or paying attention to them. It's kind of understandable, most of us simply can't keep up with the crazy.

Oops.

Republicans long for a disengaged citizenry in which only their supporters pay attention and vote, why the fuck do you think they got the meme that the "Cool Kids" don't pay attention to politics so deeply stuck in the heads of a lot of the Hippie Boomers who didn't Get The Jesus and start voting Republican in the 1970's? 

Shit, these fucking people would love to have the kind of Rubber Stamp government that Vladimir Putin has!

Just so long as the President was "Their Guy."

In today's Republicanism that means...Trump

With DeSantis waiting in the wings.

In today's "Conservative" movement that means literally anything other than "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal..."

Anything other than "If you want a better nation, be a better citizen."

And more to the point there's no one these Republicans detest more than the people who vote for them. They openly treat their voters like the voters are stupid, and you know what? At this point, maybe they are.

Fuck No.

I'm tired of it.

If you want to cast your pearls before swine and emigrate to Russia, "Conservatives" have the fuck at it.

Shit, I'll help you pack.

I don't know why the hell you'd want to give up living in America or the West for some fourth-rate 18th century shithole like Russia, though.

But then having to live with LGBT people and liberals and people of Color never bothered me, I was in the military, I've worked for several major corporations. I've had to do so already as a matter of course, if not of basic survival. 

I mean, fuck, a casino in America will throw out enough food to feed a small African country on any given night. Russia can't even bother to feed or properly arm, equip and train the soldiers it sends into battle.

And this is the future Republicans want?

If you cannot imagine these motherfuckers, having broke off a neo-Confederate satellite-state sitting there drinking some 100-year-old Chardonnay plotting the next round of their perpetual Ratfuck-Olympics while American boys die in the mud from Hellfires and M31 rockets, with nothing but old AK-47's and ratty uniforms...fighting other American boys and girls with all those technological terrors we've wrought still at their fingertips in the kind of war where their quick defeat is prevented only by far more willingness to kill their own people than the other side has, you have another thing coming.

Not just the entire military budget of these idiots' "American People's Republic" would end up in some Russian bank account, probably most of the rest of its budgets, too...because that's what these jagoffs think that government is for. And buying that shit with a river of American blood is nothing to them.

So, the fuck do you think they'd do to our EU/NATO Allies, the Ukrainians, or anybody the fuck else? "LOL, Nothing Matters" is exactly what these motherfuckers think! 

So long as they get to keep living high off the hog.

But it's even better if You. Don't.

And they'd gladly live this way, while taking orders from KGB agents and United Russia "Political advisors" and subjugating and weaponizing Christianity and any other damn thing for their debased whims.

When I say "Reagan Wept" I'm legit not joking. I honestly think at this point the Gipper must be in whatever room in hell he occupies, just throwing shit at the TV and yelling himself hoarse.

I'll tell you what, "Conservatives" if you don't like America, you can leave. I'm not sure whoever coined the term "Red State" had a new Soviet Union in mind, but hey, have at it.

Just don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Last Post

Слава Україна!

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

...

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

$20 Jesus (Reagan Wept, Revisited, Five.)

From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root....If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly....Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. ~Ronald Reagan

...

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.

~Bob Marley

...

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

Saw this on Saturday night, after Biden and McCarthy reached agreements "in principle" on the debt ceiling.

And the Freedom Caucus immediately lost their shit. I mean, hell, it's been four days and it isn't getting any better.

These fucking people never wanted a deal, hell, they don't want a functioning government unless it's entirely theirs and nobody else gets a say in anything.

I have to admit, I'm vaguely curious about the username "Atlas Futurism" yet at the same time I was on break at work, so I didn't have time to check it out.

But it implies what I've been thinking we're dealing with, in that we're finally hitting the point where Randian Objectivism is reaching some kind of syncretic status with Trumpism. Note that this could only happen without the direct supervision of Trump himself, because Trump isn't going to worship even at any godless altar that's not dedicated in his own name.

In other words, like the Bible and Christianity post Paul's Damascus Road conversion, MAGA is shifting from being the politics of Trump to a politics about Trump and I'm really not sure that's much of an improvement.

Because the next step is probably some iteration of the whole Galt's Gulch thing on a wannabe-national scale for these idiots, but with even longer and more tiresome speeches. 

I mean, what do you think this "National Divorce" crap is?

And I've *Read* Atlas Shrugged, nobody wants that.

Also one of my posts of aggregated threads is getting swarmed by whiny Neo-Confederates crying about me blocking them. 

If there is to be another Civil War, it'll be short and they'll lose even worse this time.

Same fucking people have been melting down since the weekend over an article that David French wrote about traditional masculinity...and what that actually is and how it relates to actual traditional conservatism.

And the first thing Runaway Hawley does is link to his book with the tagline "Enrage the Left, buy my book."

Shades of the TV preacher saying "I know the way to Jesus, if you give me $20 so can you!"

But of course the "way" has to keep changing, lest the donations dry up, doesn't it? 

It's all Gnosticism and Hokum. These people's magical world simply does not exist.

I stand by what I said that all this modern "Conservatism" crap is bullshit and nothing but a big scam to make money off of angry gullible reactionary idiots.

For the record here's a snip of what David French actually said, which is that the most important thing is firm convictions and a level head...and this tracks with what I was taught about what conservatism is, also.

But of course, with that model of conservatism it's simply not possible to keep "The Base" amped up all the time, it's harder to get attention and sell dumb shit and that's all there is to it. You can't make nearly as much money off the truth as you can off lying all the time.

Chaos is easier to make money off of, good governance doesn't sell newspapers or online clicks, telling people to eat their vegetables, exercise and vote in their own interests with their principles at heart and still, some attention paid to the common good...like I was taught...is simply a lot harder to get people to have screaming hair-on-fire fits over, let alone click the donate button or write checks.

And clearly, on the Rightward side of our political divides nobody wants to hear that shit, anyway.

Were these people rational, I'd suppose they might wonder why they keep giving money, yet nothing ever seems to get any "better."

It's the same reason that an Evangelical, Fundamentalist or Pentecostal preacher will not usually tell you that if you believe the Nicene Creed, and have accepted Jesus via some kind of conversion experience (or even simply asking) and you make an effort to conduct yourself accordingly, you're good, you're going to go to Heaven per the terms laid out in the Bible.

Because if they did that, people might stop coming, might stop giving them attention and money. The truth don't put asses in the pews.

Trust me, I was part of a group that most of the members believed what the Word said over what Man said. We weren't like that, we didn't have...didn't need...a pulpit-screamer or some kind of public freak show. There was no money involved, we never once took an offering. We all contributed to the groceries for our weekly meal and we all helped each other out now and again, as needed. 

We'd meet at our nominal Pastor's house, eat breakfast, smoke weed and listen to music, talk Bible...or ya know, whatever else on Saturday mornings. Hell, sometimes like when God Of War III came out, we'd sit around and play video games all day while a couple of us held forth on Greek mythology whenever something relevant came up.

And if somebody agreed to specific beliefs because of it all...great! It wasn't required.

We were a community.

People got different jobs, people moved, a couple people died, as is only natural because things change.

We were in it for what we saw as what was true, not for how much money we could get out of it.

And all these right-wing grifters and liars and pulpit/truck screamers? They will never be happy anyway, not until every Church in the world looks like the one in this picture and serves as a spiritual locus of a totalitarian State. Only difference is each of these narcissistic goons expects to see their own face looking back at them from the paintings.

Because being happy, being right, hell even winning the argument they're so obsessed with...isn't the point let alone the Purpose of it all to them.

Money and worldly power is.

If you're on Twitter, look around. How's that working out, even for the one guy who allegedly has all this crap...without having the responsibility of being some kind of national leader?

And actually winning their glorious struggle is impossible as they are, because every last one of these idiots thinks they'll be the king, or the queen of some totalitarian empire. Truth is, only one person gets to be that, so they can never "Win" and all feel as special as they want to. If they won, the money might stop rolling in.

Then they might have to get real jobs and just live like regular people again.

No one knows more than those who believe it, let alone preach it, that the only ones who prosper from the Prosperity Gospel are the preachers of it.

Get a job? That's not the world these fucking people want to live in.

But belief in their $20 Jesus? That shit will send your ass straight to hell.

It's much the same with everything else.

And, Liberty is so much less fun for them that what they imagine Q-Berty might be like.

Reagan Wept.

Four

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We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

Ridiculosity Again (Reagan Wept, Revisited, Four.)

No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind as between the internal and the external threats of communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck. ~Edward R. Murrow

I saw this yesterday.

I have a question: Why in the hell is everything a goddamned grift, scam, or trawl for "donations" with these fucking people??

And why must every damn thing, no matter how long it's been around (Consider that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were incorporated in 1979, nobody outside of Southern California or the gay community seems to have noticed this until recently, though) be framed as hair-on-fire existential, no matter how innocuous or unworthy of comment it may seem to the rest of us??

It seems like it's only in the last few years that "Conservatives" bothered to take note of a changing world...and now?

Well, they'd be desperate to stop it, except that they seem to be far more desperate to make money off of it, while not making any effort to actually change anything, in any way such as changes could even possibly be made.

And are all these fucking people who give these scammers money just that dumb or hopped up on the perpetual outrage machine that they can't see that all this stuff is still here?

Same with all this "Own The Libs" and "Triggered" crap. Do these fucking people really think we care?? I see that kind of crap, my first response is to block the idiot on whatever platform I'm on, and move the fuck on with my day.

And then when somebody calls them out, they...hit back trying to simply use the same words, as if "racist" were simply an insult rather than a descriptive of a belief system or bigotry??

Seriously, nobody is going to stop being bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender or a liberal or a person of color or whatever because of the "disapproval" of "Conservatives." Just like nobody who doesn't already believe in it is going to bow before right-wing authoritarianism or White Supremacy.

By the same token, unless you're an already-conservative-leaning celebrity or somebody who's desperate for attention, money or to have that narcissistic hole in your soul filled up for a second or two, nobody's going to go out and change their life because of the approval of "Conservatives" either. There's simply no benefit in doing so, for the vast majority of us.

Unless you're just a scammer looking for a bunch of easy marks for a particularly unimaginative scam.

The only reason these fucking idiots are mad about diversity, inclusivity or "Wokeness" is that they're by definition not the only ones who get to have it.

Why the fuck do "Conservatives" and Republicans think the world revolves around them (or that it should) and also think that so many people out there are just dying inside waiting for their approval??

Simply put, the rest of us end up wondering why this overly-tattooed neckbeard MAGA "Rapper" that nobody's ever heard of or heard a song by is standing there looking so intently at boxes of tampons. And trust me, I see a dude like that...especially looking at tampons...the last thing that's going to cross my mind as a way to describe them is "Christian." I'm far more likely to think they're just a dude-bro picking up feminine supplies for a girlfriend or their wife, I'm sure not going to make a big deal of it. Happens all the time where I work.

And what, exactly, went "Viral?" I ask because I sure haven't heard it. This whole Target thing...like so many of the other right-wing moral panics...seems rather like a Tempest in a Tweet to me.  An awful lot of it seems to be not too much more than Benny Johnson trying to make himself feel important...which isn't hard.

Yeah, Target's stock prices are down, but they're down because the last quarter's numbers just posted and Target had a bad quarter, entirely before all this silly bullshit even started!! 

It's like the whole Bud Light thing, trust me, nobody's stopped buying Bud Light and if they did AB InBev (a global corporation based in Belgium) wouldn't care because they don't answer to American "Conservatives" anyway and have a diverse global customer base to cater to. 

The people bitching the most about this crap where I work?? They mostly don't buy beer anyway.

The real danger of all this sticky-fingered bullshit is that these fucking assclowns trying to make money off this shit rile up dimwitted violent goons, which has already happened in this and other cases.

In situations where, thanks to too much access to weapons, it only takes one person to perpetrate some horrible massacre...well it's getting to the point where I personally think these fucking people should be held accountable for incitement and corn-holed by the Law. 

I think all it would take is one or two of these little shits having to be really careful not to drop the soap for a few years and a lot of this bullshit would go away.

And the thing that gets me is, it's not like there isn't a lot more serious stuff that's going on in the world that should be tying up these people's attention.

I'll note after a steady diet of stories of right-wing BS from Poland a lot of that shit went away as soon as there was a real threat invading Ukraine right next door.

Or maybe it's just that, given a real opportunity to prove themselves, to protect their own freedom, to prevent being invaded and colonized (again) by Russia...the Poles saw a chance at greatness and took it, or saw a threat and reacted appropriately at least.

Yet in the face of atrocity, Republicans not only double down on the fuck-fuck games and political horseshit and the stealing, they by turn actively side with the invader or pretend that nothing untoward is happening while at the same time feeling liberated to openly profess their hatred of America and their retroactive love for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 

I mean, seriously, I was a kid/young teenager in Southern California in the 1980's. If you would have told me that in 40 years Republicans (of all the fucking people) would be screaming about the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence (Gay men in Habits, LOL, what...being my basic reaction at the time and I was a freaking Catholic) as if they were an existential threat while treating a re-Sovietized and violently aggressive and imperialistic Russia as a non-issue or even as an ally? 

I wouldn't have believed you.

I have to wonder what they'll do when it's America that Ivan is looking at through a gunsight. Why? Because Republicans, themselves, are singlehandedly ensuring the day will come. 

It's Republicans and their bullshit, that in the face of European solidarity and Ukrainian courage, make it likely that Vlad or one of his successors sees America as the weak link and comes at us directly.

And as long as Republicans were told they could continue their stupid grifts and ratfuck games I have no reason to suspect that they'd stand up and fight. 

In point of fact, I believe they'd simply surrender and outsource that fight to the rest of us and that's if they didn't directly take up arms and join the enemy. I legit wonder if...or more likely simply how much, they'd try and steal from the Russians, too?

I used to be a Republican and I seem to remember being taught that we had...at least different values than this.

But since a Black man said "Yes We Can" the entire Republican mantra and value system has become "No We Can't."

Everything since flows from that, and they're completely fine with exchanging greatness for laughable ridiculosity as a result.

They've gone from demanding that the Berlin Wall be torn down to demanding that America be walled off.

Motherfuckers couldn't be bothered to properly defend themselves against a virus, think about that for a second.

Reagan Wept.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. If you want a better world, you have to go out and make it better. Either of those things costs precisely $0.

Ridiculosity ain't the answer you think it is.

And don't you forget it.

Three

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We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

Survivor: Republican Politics (Reagan Wept, Revisited, Three.)

When day comes we ask ourselves, ‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade,’ the loss we carry, a sea we must wade? We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always just-ice. And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it, somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. ~Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb.

Somebody sent me this, early this morning (Or at least, before I was up, which was pretty late because work fucking sucked last night.)

The Mom who got Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb" shit-canned from a Florida school was at some point promoting the fake "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" antisemitic bullshit.

Tell me, something, "Conservatives;" Why does your alleged "Movement" these days, always come down to shit like this??

Like, fucking always, there is literally no point nor purpose to any of it but cruelty and hate.

And when you get called out on it, the general response these days is increasingly a shrug and "Yeah, so?"

And at this point even other people generally just accept that hate is what Republicans do.

Like it's not even an issue, it's just assumed. The hatefulness is implied. (And given the increasingly hateful, nihilistic and outright anti-American beliefs of "Conservatives" these days, I can see why people just figure all Republicans are ever going to do is crap all over everything.)

Seriously, Reagan Wept.

It's funny that the people who, early on in my life, instilled in me the idea of having a moral compass and a solid moral compass rather than a relativistic and situational one simply...lack that same thing themselves? 

Make it make fucking sense.

Or is it simply that having a "Moral Compass" or moralism as an idea was simply being used to cover for the fact that some Republicans were always hateful shitty people who could give a fuck about the Lord, His Word or anything else...so long as they got to disapprove of, hate and judge other people and feel "religious about it."

I knew people like that, and if you were a Christian or a Republican in past iterations of those things so did you, but generally speaking we always believed they were not the majority.

This is Meatball Ron's press secretary being heckled by some teenage Republican idiot, right here. I'm glad there doesn't seem to be very many "GOP Josh" types out there anymore.

I mean, I get that the DeSantis campaign "Launch" was in all respects a soup sandwich (I mean, look at it. Given that Elon was involved I'm not sure how anybody expected anything the fuck else.) But that's not what this CHUD kid is making an issue of.

And all it currently takes to instantly get "Voted Off The Island" these days is...running against Trump??

Yes, I will forever blame garbage like the Survivor reality show for the current state of the "Conservative" mentality and its obsessive selfishness.

I know this, this is my lived experience, it doesn't have to make sense to you.

But, I see your confusion, so I'll explain. Ever get a bad vibe off of something?

In 2000 when I got with my ex-wife, Survivor was then in its first US season. Mind you, my ex was even more outspokenly conservative than I was, and she was allegedly a devout Pentecostal Christian. (NOTE: She is not a Trump Supporter, so far as I know.)

When that show was on, my ex became completely enraptured by it. I'm not even talking like "ADHD kid staring zombie-eyed at the TV." No. That wouldn't have bothered me as much. She would watch that shit with an absolute expression of joy on her face. It was fucking creepy.

And it repulsed me, I literally got a bad vibe off that TV show. I can't explain it. It was just gross to me. Something in my soul just said "Ick." 

It just felt wrong. I can't explain it in rational terms or make it make sense beyond that. Watching all these people do all this stupid shit, and then voting to decide who to kick out based on some bullshit idea of "Performance" and shitty political ratfucking?

(In retrospect, it hits right at the very heart of what a lot of stupid people think "Conservatism" and "Meritocracy" even is.)

This was a source of tension, and once we got engaged and moved in together, I literally forbade her from watching it because...and I actually said this...I thought it was ungodly and I didn't want that bullshit on the TV in my house.

So she would go over to her (considerably less religious) sister's house and they'd watch it, since her sister was also a fan. At least her sister didn't watch it like it was some kind of ecstatic sacrament, though.

All these years later I note that this was all part of Mark Burnett's reality TV empire and that was a huge part of what gave us Donald Trump as a former President and still-extant political force and that's why I think the bad vibe was the correct reaction. 

And I'll note, all these years later, just how many alleged conservatives and Christians have bowed down before this godless altar...to the exclusion of almost all else except hate. And they've not only left everything else to the rest of us...but actively strove to impede the rest of us from maintaining a functioning society since then.

And more to the point, these fuckers have decided a functioning society is not what they want.

It's more fun to "Vote people off the island" or something.

Maybe it's just me, and maybe because I'm a veteran and I have a little more real life experience at an environment where things have to be done a certain way, the right way, every time or somebody doesn't survive (and I also lived through the worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic in which a third of our society simply refused to do what it took to not get sick, thus suggesting all this "Prepper" and pro-life shit has just been a LARP) I'm considerably less enthusiastic about living in that kind of world.

But I don't think that's the only reason:

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 divideth 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 was an hungred, 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 hungred, 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 was an hungred, 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 hungred, 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.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

~Matthew 25:31-46

I guess I was just taught to see following Christ as a burden and a restraint upon the Self, as an anchor for the soul rather than as a source of worldly power or privilege or a thing to beat other people over the head with.

Consider this Catholic nut calling the "Sisters of perpetual indulgence" which is a gay men's protest group and charity an "Anti-Catholic hate group."

I'll believe that when I see gay men in campy outfits assaulting and killing Catholics and trying to make laws against them, bro, and not before. And plenty of "Christians" do shit like that to gay people all the fucking time.

More to the point, I don't see all that many Catholic priests trying to get their followers to stop abusing LGBT people...which seems like kind of a problem if you ask me.

And it's the same with People of Color. Most Black folks or Latinos are Christians, in point of fact many Latinos are specifically Catholic and yet too much of the American Church simply won't stand up for them, because the Cruelty Is The Point.

Now, we can either all keep playing Survivor: Republican Politics or we can act like a civilized goddamned society.

We cannot do both, and it's that simple.

Two

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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