Who Will Be Eaten First? (MAGA Zombie Land, One.)

 Why, why, why, why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't wanna fuck in the first place? Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you're just fine. Just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life... pro-life... These people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors! What kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do anything they can to save a fetus but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it? They're not pro-life. You know what they are? They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state. ~George Carlin

...

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

I saw these last night.

America is falling apart, right down to the entire basis of our legal system and literal core-text and First Amendment Constitutional Rights, India and Pakistan are at war (and here we sit with our head up our own ass) and Trade-war talks are collapsing (again) and all MAGA idiots basically want to do is see who can be the most ignorant religious dumb-fuck.

It's like the Walking Dead out there, but with idiots instead of Zombies.

And too many motherfuckers are basically cheering and making bets on who will be eaten first.

More to the fucking point, these idiots are blatantly fucking around with shit they know would eat them, too. 

They just either think it's funny or they outright don't care.

Let me give you an example: Republicans are trying to ban porn. It won't pass, for obvious reasons. 

But that's not the point.

Shit shouldn't even have been proposed.

That the proposal was made should have been career-ending by means either official or otherwise for whoever did it.

Somebody should be asking "What the fuck is wrong with you??"

And I mean that not only from a legal or moral standpoint, but from a practical and experiential one.

Speaking from experience here, since I used to be a Republican, pretty much every Republican that I've known for over 30 years is a porn consumer (including myself here, and much more when I was a damn Republican.)

 Generally speaking, the more outspoken of an Evangelical or Republican somebody is, the bigger the chance that they're either an absolute porn-freak (especially if Male) or (if Female) they have a collection of sex toys that'd make Dr. Ruth blush (and note: I did see Dr. Ruth Westheimer speak. She was hilarious) and generally the more uh, freaky they tend to be. 

That's the damn point.

Yeah, there's a few weird sexually-repressed prudes out there, and more than a few people where they're outwardly that way or really squicky about something but they're freaks behind closed doors when it comes to everything else.

There actually aren't very many Fundie-baby-voiced meek little housewives in the world, and usually you gotta actually be somebody like Mike Johnson to get one.

Here's the thing; With the election of an American Pope, I somehow see both MAGA and right-wing religion in this country going all-in on exclusivism to the point of stupidity.

But, What these fucking idiots claim to aspire to is literally not how any of this actually works for 99% of them. I was a conservative Christian when I was married. My ex-wife was a manipulative bitch.

The hypocrisy is going to end up destroying these fucking people.

All of these fucking people know this.

So why do it??

I mean, I get it, fundamentally they want to censor speech they don't like and kick out all the people they don't like, and they think somebody like Trump should get to decide who goes to Heaven and shit.

They think privilege will protect their habits and their persons, and no way in hell is it going to work that way. I mean, among other things this is literally the stated reason why we have a First Amendment.

I'm 51 years old and things have been the way they are pretty much my whole life. I guess the former Republican in me is asking "Why change anything??"

Seems like these fucking people don't realize that the next time they lose, or if there's a revolution, or whenever Donald Trump goes to meet that great Cheeseburger in the sky or whatever, there's going to be an accounting and all these banhammers they think are so funny to try and use on other people could very, very easily be used on them...and, if they exist, they will be...because all this bullshit is pissing people off.

And that's...before we get to the possibility of unexpected events like the possibility of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan or unintended consequences of malarkey at home.

Like, ya know, economic collapse because of supply chain disruptions and a trade war?

Let alone the very real possibility that people in a country with half a billion guns might decide they've had enough.

But it's really simpler than that. I mean it's a simple race against the clock, if you think about it.

NO ONE stays in power forever.

Least of all when they keep doing stupid shit and thinking too highly of themselves.

Especially while also doing the exact kind of shit that sparked our own Revolutionary War.

I mean this seriously, like damn near every Republican out there thinks they name is George III and they all crazy.

I mean, I get it, they're stupid...mostly because a lot of them have never had to be smart.

But seriously, these assholes have already flown too close to the sun, and the hubris and narcissism is still off the damn charts.

It's MAGA Zombie-land but there ain't one damn brain among them. These are D&D Zombies where you have to keep hacking away until the hit points are gone.

[Mon Mothma addresses the Senate chambers again]

Mon Mothma: Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries, I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I've spent my life in this chamber. I came here as a child, and as I look around me now, I realize I have almost no memories that predate my arrival, and few bonds of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct. This chamber is a cauldron of opinions, and we've certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come.

I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil! When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber's hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza! What took place yesterday, what happened yesterday on Ghorman, was unprovoked genocide! Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we helped create, the monster who will come for us all soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine!

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E9 "Welcome To The Rebellion."

Like, this is going to end badly, including for a lot of MAGA types if we don't stop it.

Repression always gets to you, eventually.

All one has to do is read a cursory history of humanity to know this.

Again, I don't know why this is so hard for people. I know Republicans like the idea of things being shitty, because they think other people will be hurt more...but I know where I live and I know that a lot of the most MAGA areas that I drive through, like when I go out to my Mom's house, are the poorest and most backwards places around here.

I know a lot of these fucking people think they wanna bring on American Revelation 'cause they think the plagues and shit will kill all the other people...but ya know, I've read the actual Book of Revelation many times and it doesn't work like that.

It's not a Just World out there, people.

Political loyalty to Donald Trump (or anything else) does not buy you protection from his stupidity.

And if these fucking people will arrest the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey (major city, population 300,000+ and part of the NYC-extended-metro area) for a few hours and hold him until public pressure gets too bad...what do you think they might do to somebody in a place like the county my Mom lives in, three small towns, population less than 10,000 where there's a lot of woods to disappear people into.

You think striking fear into people is a good thing, do you?? What happens when you are the target of that??

Things like Habeas Corpus exist for a reason and were thought up in a world that had a lot more wild spaces like way more than even where my Mom lives, where somebody might never find you.

The cops are as aware of that as anybody else, just sayin.'

So are all sorts of other people who are actual literal self-described bad actors, criminals and militia groups for example. There's a reason when I lived in the Black River area of Cheboygan County that I kept my shotgun loaded.

Law is often a fragile thing, or not right there when you need it, and that's at the best of times.

Civilization is, by design, not something one has to think about a lot until one is somewhere that doesn't have it for an extended period of time.

But when you've had to dig the hole you have to poop in out in the desert once or twice, you do think about it.

So why are "Conservatives" of all people actively trying to undermine both??

In Latin, the words Habeas Corpus literally mean "Show Me The Body!" 

When our founders had that enshrined into our legal codes, it was in a world of Despotisms and Monarchies and Sultanates and could very often and very easily literally did mean exactly that. 

Its purpose, legally, is to prevent people from being Disappeared and unlawfully imprisoned or killed.

Like, at a minimum, the State would then be required to produce the body if a person was dead.

That was a pretty huge thing, back in the day. Shit like that happened a lot, including here. This was literally one of the grievances listed in the Declaration Of Independence.

I'm serious.

One of the main reasons I believe we're heading into a Second American Revolution is that way the fuck too many people forgot the purpose or missed the whole damn point of the first one...or they got too comfortable or too stupid.

Donald Trump isn't the cause of this, he's a symptom. You want an honest take? I think the Republican Party started to slide into goddamned fascism the minute they let the fucking Southern racists into the Party, which was, of course, because they were seeking political advantage. Fast forward a few decades, and there was hardly anybody else left!

Reagan letting the religious nuts in later didn't help one damned bit. You think the Republican Party is hella fucked up?? You should take a good hard look at American Christian churches, especially the Evangelical, Fundamentalist, and Pentecostal churches...all too many of which are tiny theocratic one-man-rule dictatorships.

It got worse when scumbags like Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay started treating to other political party as some kind of goddamned battlefield enemy.

And don't get me started on the conspiracy theories and the racism when Obama ran for President.

The toleration of the conspiracy theories and racism is how we got Trump.

If it seems like these motherfuckers want to smash America...I think that's why, that right there. 

A Black guy got to be President, so now the White racists want to wipe the board and start over, and they don't give a shit who they have to hurt or kill to do it.

And it looks like they're starting to lose, not to mention the rest of the world is telling them to go fuck themselves.

So of course they're going to want to fight about it.

Like I said, either you believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight for it, or you're not.

Soon.

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

Last Post

Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other.

That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. 

In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. 

~Malcolm X, letter written following the Hajj.

In The One, One. (American Revelation Explained, Again.)

Donald Groves: Wait, Father, maybe I'm a convert. [Groves is a cannibal incarcerated for murder, who was in the Hole for sneaking into the Morgue, Again.]

Father Ray Mukada: You can't become a Catholic just to get out of the hole. Come on.

Donald Groves: No, no, wait. I've been reading a lot since I got here about different faiths and yours is pretty nifty.

Fr. Ray Mukada: Catholicism is nifty?

Donald Groves: You have that whole mystical transubstantiation bit going.

Fr. Ray Mukada: That's right. The Eucharist becomes the body of Christ.

Donald Groves: So you're actually eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Fr. Ray Mukada: That's right.

Donald Groves: Now how can I not get behind a religion like that?

~From the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin.'"

...

[Mon Mothma addresses the Senate chambers again]

Mon Mothma: Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries, I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I've spent my life in this chamber. I came here as a child, and as I look around me now, I realize I have almost no memories that predate my arrival, and few bonds of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct. This chamber is a cauldron of opinions, and we've certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come.

I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil! When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber's hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza! What took place yesterday, what happened yesterday on Ghorman, was unprovoked genocide! Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we helped create, the monster who will come for us all soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine!

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E9 "Welcome To The Rebellion."

...

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

So the new Pope was elected by the College of Cardinals yesterday. Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost, the first North American Pope.

Good for him, good for us, I guess? To me, he looks like "Meet the new Pope, same as the old Pope." He seems fairly standard issue on most things, although from what I hear he's pretty smart. He'll probably let the conservatives do their thing and the liberals do theirs, same as before.

And, apparently, even Trump thinks, to quote Simon Adebesi from Oz, that "Sometimes it is good to be human."

His followers? Not so much.

Not that I have the slightest idea what MAGA, let alone Laura Loomer (who isn't even Christian, let alone Catholic) was even expecting? Catholicism is a global faith and most of its followers aren't White Conservatives from the USA. The leadership of the Faith has to take that into account.

(Remember, the vast majority of the Latino immigrants the Trump Admin has such a hate-on for are Catholics.)

Honestly, I'm just happy we got one, although I'll be the first to tell you I have no idea what it means yet, not that anybody else does either. I do think that the Schismatics and the Sedevacantists will try and start something over it. 

I do not think this will go how they think it will. They're gonna lose.

Let me tell you why I think that;

My LT in the Air Force had her degree from USAFA in Mathematics, which Pope Leo has a Doctorate in. I've seen how fast somebody with that sort of knowledge can come up with a game-plan, on the fly, while running through a swamp in full battle rattle and carrying an M16. Change that out for a sedate walk in Priestly regalia and I suppose the figures and the logic and the plan might come faster? Mathematics is the grandfather of all the other physical sciences, and lends itself well to logic, which covers all the rest of them, pretty much.

More to the point, and I think it bears particular noting here, the Catholic Church has been doing Politics since long before the United States of America...much less MAGA...was even thought of. Push comes to shove, that'll leave a mark.

I looked Pope Leo up on Wikipedia last night before I left for work, I'd actually heard of this guy before, if only because I have ties to people who were in Chicago when he was the Cardinal there (or they still are) and a bunch of those people either are Catholic or were doing the Catholic thing at that time, for various reasons.

But it's both deeper than that and...no, not at all, really.

It's actually pretty simple, from a religious point of view.

Leo's motto as Pope is In illo uno unum, meaning "In the One (Christ) [We are] One."

Contrast that to the endless divisiveness of Trump and MAGA.

And the fact that MAGA Christians seem to judge themselves by if they have a personal relationship with Donald Trump, nowadays, rather than Jesus Christ.

Catholicism is a community that traces itself back to Saint Peter, who was the first Bishop of Rome. The Pope is considered the Vicar of Christ. That is, not an equal but a successor. Catholicism is a literally global community which has its roots in (for better and worse) the Roman Empire.

By comparison, most "Evangelical" churches in America might as well have been founded last Tuesday, and their emphasis on "Faith" and personal Salvation just seems small by comparison.

And it's the novelty factor in all this, in a general sense, that made these fucking people fall for Trump.

I've done the Catholic thing myself, but I started out as a Baptist. I spent most of my life as various flavors of mainstream Protestant...but mostly Baptist. Being politically conservative for much of my life and that time of it in particular, I just sort of fell into the End Times Prophecy movement when I was in the Air Force, albeit with a big assist from a late friend of mine who was only too happy to answer when I started asking questions, since my Christian education up to that point hadn't exactly emphasized Prophecy or the Book of Revelation.

Now? I think so much of that is just innovation and malarkey, made-up bullshit and self-serving interpretations, put out by narcissistic preachers to scare the churchgoers into submission, offering exclusivism as a drug in exchange for their freedom of thought. The truth is, it doesn't work like that.

You know how I figured this out?? I read the Bible, cover to cover, multiple times.

The fact that I got a real Christian education, with a lot of history and theology, helped.

That's the value of a couple thousand years, it's more difficult to have the mentality of a Goldfish.

Anyway I don't know if I just give off some sort of vibe, but several people this week have asked me if I think Trump is the Antichrist.

I think it most likely, if there really is such a thing, that he's simply a test run.

But even if it isn't a thing, enough people believe in it to make it one, if only after a fashion.

More to the point, the Christians failed the test. Whoever thought this up (IF I'm right) must be jumping for joy at that specific result of this whole mess.

In any case, Trump is certainly MAGA's Anti-Pope, and that's not what I think. Trump and his White House staff sort of made that decision for us all, as I said a few days ago. I believe MAGA will turn out to be an Anti-Christian movement, in about the same way as the Nazis were, and for the same reasons.

Because the whole point of all this MAGA shit is ANYTHING but "Love Thy Neighbor."

And Jesus said His two most important commands were "Love Thy Neighbor" and "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy mind."

Trump demands that people love only Himself.

Republicans, for years, have demanded that any Republican be a Republican first, that all other identities be regarded as secondary at best, including being a Christian. To their way of thinking, all must bow before the Party.

(Gee, where have I heard that before??)

It's not just that those things bring MAGA into confrontation with Christ and Christianity (and more broadly, religion in general) it's that MAGA's as people seem to relish the idea of every possible fight they might get into, in fact the fight seems to be all they want or understand. That's why they love the idea of a second US Civil War.

(Also; You don't have to win the argument if you think the other guy's gonna be dead.)

But also, these fucking people who couldn't get enough of End Times Prophecy before seem suddenly wary of the possibility of a Living God that might judge them, rather than a Dead Savior On A Stick.

Which is exactly why, when given the choice between Jesus and Trump, they will choose Trump.

Again, I read the Bible. I know how it says that turns out.

And that's where they lose. In fact, the Bible is rather exacting in its descriptions of what happens to followers of Antichrist, be it the concept in general or of some individual claiming (or assigned) the label.

Have fun in hell, idiots.

Personally, I think These Fucking People are cruising at flank speed towards "Fuck Around and Find Out." But then they'll want to fight about that, too.

But when that time comes, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

It's going to come down to a fight. The rest of the world seems to understand this. That's why the Catholics chose a leader.

We'd better get started, because where we stand on this stuff isn't just the question.

It's the only question that matters.

We are who we say we are, or we're not.

Remember that.

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

Last Post

And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. ~Matthew 24:1-13

Empire Of Lies (Beginning Of Sorrows, Ten.)

The Death of Truth is the ultimate victory of Evil. ~Mon Mothma, from Andor, S2.E9 "Welcome To The Rebellion."

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Behold, I have told you before.

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

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

...

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

I saw this on Sunday night.

I mean, really, it's just another stupid example of how Trump has to try and shove himself on pretty much everything, no matter how intrinsically hostile it is to him by its very nature, nor whether it has the slightest thing to do with his stupid ass.

And that's true whether it's the death of a Pope or the yearly Star Wars anniversary. 

Before long, I suppose any kid with MAGA parents has they Birthday go viral, and Trump's gonna try and make it about him. How long before he starts demanding other things besides attention??

Yeah, just stop and THINK about that, will ya??

Not to switch metaphors here, but what is this dude, the goddamn Borg, Enshittified???

Republicans, if y'all wanna have anything else in your world but Donald Trump, it's time to get the fuck out, now.

There have been many such dividing lines in the past, many times I've said similar things. I get the feeling this is going to be one of the last ones.

Soon.

Soon, this will flash over into probably the dumbest Civil War and/or Soviet-style national collapse this planet has ever seen, because this fucking shithead demands blood be spilled in his name. And you can't even tell me I'm wrong, at this point, can you??

Should America be lucky enough to get a second chance, or far more likely the non-insane or at least not-racist parts of whatever comes after are gonna have to have the means in place to keep bigots in general and narcissists and other people with Personality Disorders and shit in particular away from Power, and those who would enable them away from Service to Power.

There was a time when people who've become a majority of today's MAGA's were generally regarded as losers. If you're my age, you know it because you lived it. Unless you are/were one of Those Fucking People.

And you can't tell me this isn't about racism with a big side of narcissism. "Conservatives" are telling you exactly that and they won't shut up about it.

The impossible edicts delivered as "Executive orders," the random narcissistic outbursts, the rabid disrespect and hate for anybody who's done anything or believes or knows anything, and the violence against the innocent, the undeserving?? It will only get worse.

And both Trump's insatiable hunger to pour the whole world down that hole where his soul is supposed to be and the "Tread On Me, Daddy" affect and willingness of MAGA's and Republican Bootlickers to try to please this asshole will also only get worse.

These motherfuckers think they can ride this overstuffed idiotic Orange Tiger to ultimate Power. They know he's gonna eat them too. They just don't care.

They think they got promised, somewhere along the the way, to have their jackboot on someone else's throat before they die some horrible Apocalyptic death. And that's all they want or understand.

People were warned, that's like, basically all I've been doing to one extent or another for ten years now.

It's gotten old, it has. It contributed mightily to me getting old.

That said, I'm as prepared as I can be for what's coming, are you?

I hope you'll understand if I've decided to spend more time with my ferrets, play World of Warcraft and rebuild IRL relationships, sleep more and post and write less. This motherfucker wins, the more time the more people spend thinking about him. I'm gonna pick my shots so's I don't contribute to that in the wrong way.

I'm not gonna spiral out into Depression again, not for this motherfucker, and not for a country of people who refused to be Better Citizens when the time came.

It's somebody else's turn to be on the sharp edge of this thing, that said, I'll do what I can.

Your Word is either good or it's not. 

There's no middle of the road on all that, Zero.

I put in my time a long time ago as an Airman in the United States Air Force. My attempting to educate people and shit this way is only a continuation of that because I swore an oath.

And I'd at least like to think my Word means something, clearly, some other people's Word doesn't.

I suspect as this continues to blow up, we're going to see a hell of a lot of the exact same Omnicidal Willful Ignorance we saw during the worst parts of COVID-19.

Because too many people got too comfortable and have never had to face a real crisis in their lives. 

Too many people have never had to be smart or even have basic reading comprehension. 

And goddamn, but it shows.

There's a reason I titled this series "Beginning Of Sorrows."

For me, being able to read something and at least kind of understand it is as rote-muscle-memory as how to clean a rifle because I was taught that first and had to show basic responsibility, too. That in a house where my Dad made bullets for his muzzle-loader by melting the lead for the bullets on the kitchen stove It's as necessary as dumping a scoop of kibble and a cup of water in the ferrets' dishes every day or even making my own breakfast, and as required (Yes, sometimes distastefully so) as doing a cursory scan of the news and my social media or looking out the window now and again, or paying my bills or texting my Mom every morning.

Preventative Maintenance is a life skill, yo.

So is Situational Awareness, and that includes having to give a shit about other people.

If you don't feed your mind, and take care of your body not to mention the other things you have, you lose them. 

The same goes for any inner, philosophical or spiritual life one may have.

It's not for nothing that I include Bible verses, or other philosophical and religious quotes (not to mention movie quotes) and stuff like that in these posts. 

Feed your mind, because that shit is the one thing that nobody but age and your own biology can take away from you.

If the extent of your imagination is bowing to a gold statue of Donald Trump, you're going to be screwed when the need arises to think about anything else, and it will in fact, arise.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And if you don't have the freedom to believe in Truth, if you don't have Truth as a floor to stand on to push back against Power, what else do you even have, really?? 

What good is anything else??

But, ya know, something seems to be catching on. The other day, three different people...two of whom such was out of character for...asked me if I thought Trump was the Antichrist.

Short Answer: Yes. Longer? I think he's a test run.

And the Evangelical, Fundamentalist and Pentecostal Christians...and not a few right-wing Catholics, as well...failed the test.

A better social status (real or imagined) or a bunch of money in an Empire of lies is, itself, just another lie.

They may not care, but somebody's gonna have to.

Remember that.

It's going to be on the test.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

Nine

And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. ~Matthew 24:1-13

I Warned You

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

Donald Trump, Antichrist (Beginning Of Sorrows, Nine.)

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.

And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceive them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13, King James Bible.

...

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

I saw this a couple days ago.

Trump posted a picture of himself as the Pope.

Are you fucking kidding me??

This asshole mocks the Lord...and the death of the Pope...and the collective response of Evangelicals, Republicans, and right-wing Catholics is "Duhhh..."

I want you to think about what the collective reaction of These Fucking People would have been if Barack Obama had done something like this way back in 2013. Go ahead, take your time. I'll wait.

I'm just sayin' my ex-wife has a personality disorder. There was a point, very near the end of our marriage where she got it into her head somehow that she and I were supposed to be End Times Prophets or some shit like that. Basically, I think she knew the gig was near to up and was having a mental health crisis. But over breakfast at Big Apple Bagels in Petoskey, MI she vehemently refused my Mom's suggestion that she get proper mental health care.

Within a week after that the situation had escalated from "Silly" to Insufferable to "Fuck This, I'm OUT." It didn't help that she'd managed to both get hired at and fired from three jobs in the space of eight days. 

One of which, I might add, was food service at a local Catholic retreat center. She quite literally was fired for "Inappropriate behavior" or as I found out later, she'd been pestering her culinary staff co-workers (All of them older and rather serious Catholics) with her Pentecostal woo woo crap.

But then, Trump is beholden to various billionaires who are apparently advised by Curtis Yarvin, who apparently looks like a bargain-basement leftover 1980's stoner and wants to take the world "back" to some kind of strip-mall-storefront Dark Ages, but somehow keep enough advanced technology to control everybody's guns??

No. It doesn't work that way.

Bro, one of these things is not like the other one, among other things most people aren't in the Cult Of Dark Ages Crap With Warhammer 40K aesthetics and have certain expectations of life. I mean, poverty sucks...even the American kind where you still have stuff that somebody in, say, Burkina Faso, would probably kill for.

And I will never, never understand These Fucking People's hankering to live and die like medieval peasants, especially in a country that never had to go through that kind of crap.

I mean, why would you even want to??

I do understand that a lot of these idiots are petty, profoundly ignorant and uneducated, weird little Sadists who somehow magically think they're going to get to keep all their stuff while other people are reduced to the Stone Age, but I know enough to know, historically it doesn't work like that. Societal collapse spares few if any, and you ain't gonna be one of 'em.

Unless, maybe, you can get out. Ask an Afghan or Vietnamese person how much fun that is.

And that's if you have the connections or the money, the ties in some other place, or the will to even do it.

I used to be a Conservative, and honestly, that's part of why I don't understand the desire to burn down one's own country and home, thinking that it will somehow hurt some other theoretical person.

I mean, I fucking live here, don't you??

I don't get it. I confess (former Republican or not) to being a thoroughly modern person who was taught a dislike of bigotry and a rational theology, to having been raised to dislike idiocy and superstition and (in a religious sense) to check what somebody was saying against the Lord's Word.

More to the point, upbringing and life experience combined to show me what happens when Power and Religion and Wealth are unfettered by empathy, conscience or morality. 

When that CHUD shot up those two mosques in New Zealand and killed fifty people, and did it while playing a Bosnian Serb marching song? I saw the (by then edited and bearing every CW imaginable) bits and pieces of the fucking livestream, and I still had flashbacks and nightmares about the shit I saw in Bosnia for days and I'm pretty sure I didn't really see much of that mess compared to what some people did, and I sure didn't see combat, but it was enough to screw me up anyway.

Attacking our way of life, disappearing people, going after immigrants, wrecking the economy? It's all a prelude to worse things.

These fucking people are narcissists. 

Too many people don't get that yet, or what it means.

They're going to keep going until everybody has been forced to fight or submit...because they think either gives them the attention they crave...and if/once you submit, they will never stop piling more and more crap on you, more demands for attention and wealth and even worship, because that's the kind of fucking shit that people with personality disorders do. They're trying to fill a hole in their soul, and damned few get the help needed to do it.

They keep going until they break people, and evidently, we've got millions of these nuts.

And these fucking people want to turn this MAGA shit into some kind of a religion, fusing it with weird extreme Fundamentalist Calvinism, the Prosperity Gospel and Sedevacantist Catholicism. I don't know how that works but it'd probably require a level of bullshitting that would surpass the "Enigma Babylon One World Faith" from the Left Behind End Times novels...and still the only thing these motherfuckers agree on is Donald Trump as their Anti-Pope.

If not actual, Revelation-style Antichrist.

If it's a New Religious Movement, call it Wankerism. Wankology, maybe?? It's definitely Anti-Christianity, but it's also worse than that.

Like 75% of this bullshit is about insecure worthless impotent men trying to sate their lusts. The rest is just basic greed, hate, and stupidity

At a minimum, as I've said before, this fucker is a test-run for the real Abomination Of Desolation.

It's a test, mind you, that American Christianity, particularly on the Evangelical side, has failed rather badly.

These fucking people? They don't care.

And they want a Biblical level of bloodshed to start this thing off in the style to which they'd like to become accustomed.

Think about that for a second.

This is going to come down to a fight.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

[Saw Gerrera is standing next to Wilmon Paak, who is setting up the temperamental rydonium siphoning valves.]

Saw: I was younger than you are, now. I was a prisoner within a work camp in the jungle. No droids, no beasts, just men and cargo. Onderon jungle. Real jungle. Hot, wet, blistering jungle. Oh, men die fast. Just shot where they stood. When we came back the next day, there'd be nothing left but a bone or two where they went down. Our clothes just melted away! So they worked us naked. Two, three hundred men. Boys really. Back and forth, until the only thing they could remember was back and forth. Then one day, everyone started to itch. Everyone, all at once, even the guards. You could feel your skin coming alive. It was the Rydo. They had a leak. You could feel it before you could smell it. So they all panicked and ran away, but... it was new to me!

Wilmon Paak: It's done. I'm gonna open the valve now.

[The valve opens, causing rydonium fumes to spew. Saw rushes towards them.]

Saw: I have always loved you.

Wilmon: What are you doing!?

Saw: There it is.

Wilmon: How can you do that!?

Saw: Because I understand it! She is my sister, Rydo, and she loves me! That... itch, that burn, you feel how badly she wants to explode? Remember this, remember this moment! This perfect night. You think I'm crazy? Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane. Look at us. Unloved, hunted, cannon fodder, we'll all be dead before the Republic is back, and yet... here we are. Where are you, boy? You're here! You're not with Luthen, you're here! You're here, and you're ready to fight!

[Wilmon takes off his protective mask and begins to cough and sputter as he inhales the rydonium fumes]

Saw: We're the Rydo, kid! We're the fuel, we're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air! Let it in, boy! That's freedom calling! Let it in, let it burn! Let it run wild!

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E5 "I have Friends Everywhere."

Eight

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

No. (Beginning Of Sorrows, Eight.)

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

~Romans 8:17-18

...

[at the Sienar Fleet Systems Testing Facility 73, Cassian sees Niya getting worried]

Niya: If I die tonight, was it worth it?

Cassian Andor: You've done this before. You must have thought about it. This makes it worth it.

Niya: This.

Cassian: Right now. Being with you. Being here at the moment you step into the circle. Look at me. You made this decision long ago. The Empire cannot win. You'll never feel right unless you're doing what you can to stop them. [softly] You're coming home to yourself. You've become more than your fear. Let that protect you.

Niya: Thank you.

From Andor, S2, E1 "One Year Later."

I saw this Sunday night.

Look, I don't know who needs to hear this or even why, but Trump isn't God, he isn't Jesus, he isn't even a good man.

He's demonstrably not a competent evil man, either, that was (maybe) Reagan.

Note I say this as somebody who was a Reaganite Republican up until the first week of September in 2008. Sarah Palin was the last straw for me.

And as a former Christian, as a former Republican, as a United States Air Force veteran who swore an oath to the Constitution, and as a very-embarrassed former 1990's End Times Prophecy nut, this "Trump is Jesus" shit bothers me.

Like, that's how you go to hell, yo.

More to the point, the verse on the sign doesn't say that! I mean this as a literal truth, the plain text of the verse says entirely something else; That to co-reign with Christ (who is not Trump) Believers must also share in the sufferings of Christ.

These fucking people might allegedly believe Trump is some kind of deity, but they sure don't believe in that enough to say so without lying about it.

And if these motherfuckers will lie about that, what else are they lying about? That is the question.

The answer, so far as I can parse it, is everything, and for no reason...just because they can.

Because way too many alleged "Conservatives" are just plain idiots who think this shit is Football.

An increasingly weird blend of hard-ass Fundamentalist Protestantism, Sedevacantist Catholicism (never mind that these beliefs are incompatible, one of these things is not like the other one... PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!) and outright Trump worship seems to be becoming the new "Conservative" fake "Religion."

Yet These Fucking People are These Fucking People because they couldn't be bothered to obey the Lord they had, or appreciate their country as it was.

So I think it's less about actually wanting to live in the Empire from Star Wars and live under the endless Diktats of some Idiocratic Palpatine than simply craving the aesthetic of doing so while continuing to live in ways that mock the entire concept, much less everything else they claim to believe. 

They like the idea of mandatory, uniformed sameness...but most of them want to continue looking like something that just fell out of a Copenhagen chewing tobacco can. "Get a haircut and get a real job" is for everybody else. They like the idea of Trump-as-God because he lets them be their worst possible selves.

And they think belief in this shit will get them Wealth Without Work.

But not you, Not. You.

You can't run a religion that way, though, let alone a society.

Shit like that tends to end in Guillotines or Communist or Islamist revolutions and very, very rarely historically does it end with anything like the American Revolution. Not without outside influence, anyway.

Not if you want it to end with anything more than you in a hole in the ground for all of eternity.

The original point was that Hell is not some fiery place of Torment, but simply separation from God.

Which seems to be what these fucking people want, because they think they love the idea of misery or some horseshit. I can't make it make sense.

Imagine there's no Heaven, only an Afterlife spent glorifying Donald Trump while he shits on you. I wouldn't follow that crap if somebody tried to make me.

And in the end, awaiting the Judgment, I do not think the MAGA dead will rest well, either. It's not even the kind of belief system that wants to accept things changing in this world, much less that there's a next one.

Hell, they don't even want to accept that they might be judged for how they act in this life now.

And I'm being serious here, the disconnect between what these idiots say and how they actually conduct themselves is getting worse as this goes on.

Just sayin' based on the MAGA dudes that I know, well I don't think they make Stormtrooper armor that big, although actual-vs.-alleged levels of weapons proficiency would be about spot on. All these MAGA dudes that want to talk like they're the second coming of the Knights Templar...but imagine trying to stuff a bearded Jabba The Hutt into Full Plate Armor and then get him up on a horse?

(And mind you, it's 2025, not 1096. Do. The. Math. More to the point, remember that in 1096 the Muslims could do the math and the Crusaders couldn't.)

Eventually, that's gonna leave a mark. When it comes down to a fight, and it will, it's going to end badly.

For These Fucking People.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

Start saying "No."

Make our politicians and rich people and their hangers-on understand that word again. Anything else will not suffice.

And it ain't just Republicans that need to hear this, neither.

Just one, small word.

"No."

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

Seven

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