Traditionalism, Reason and Insanity (Reason For The Season 2025, Six.)

Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism — which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful. ~Hunter S. Thompson, "He Was A Crook" published June 16th, 1994 in Rolling Stone magazine.

...

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

...

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

I saw this (again, I'm pretty sure) last night.

I'm increasingly convinced (and to a degree I have been for decades) that a lot of this "Fascist" bullshit is less actual belief in the tenets of Fascism or even of Nazi shit than some kind of weird post-modern sexual fetish born out of playing the Fallout games too much and thinking the Enclave was the fucking good guys.

Seems like that's the only way one could arrive at idolizing the 1970's Station Wagon and some weird-ass fetish for (and interpretation of) the 1950's farm-girl housewife and throw in some freakish bullshit like "Breast-milk ice cream.* 

I mean, the entire concept makes me wanna throw up. I say that specifically as a former conservative Republican who's from a rural area and who likes Boobs.

I'm not joking when I say that, the space between the town I lived in when I was a kid and the town next door where my partner grew up a decade later was all farms when I was a kid. My Mom did the house-wife thing a bit but also had a business doing craft shows (and quite often made more money than my Dad.) I was raised going to church. I know the whole "Trad" thing.

And it ain't This.

Like, nobody wants to do any of this shit but these weirdos.

And that's not what Statue Guy wants, either, he wants Fetish Porn, but as his life.

Real life is, by definition, not like that. That's why it's Porn.

Seriously I was a kid in the 1970's and 1980's, a lot of the cars were junk, nearly all my friends Moms worked, and nobody who'd lived through them really had anything good to say about the 1950's either. A shit-ton of the stories I grew up hearing from people in my parents' peer groups were from Hippies, Vietnam veterans and Vietnam veterans-turned Hippies. 

Plus, I was raised on music like Johnny Cash, John Denver, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.

At the end of the day what these nuts want, honestly, is for the world to be creepily even more freaking Man-centered and if they're that way about cars and sex, their theology is probably the same. Think about that.

Oh, right, it is.

These dudes don't give a damn about Jesus or traditional culture, even in specifically (and possibly especially in) the "White" American sense.

They each, one and all, think their Schwantz is God.

Speaking as a former conservative Christian, it's funny how most cults end up with exactly that, sooner or later.

And they pretty much want to be hooked up to a world turned into an IV that pumps narcissistic fuel right straight into their veins and that basically just gives everybody else shit.

Worse, they think that somehow because Something Something Gazpacho, the rest of us are just supposed to take it and like it.

We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. ~George Orwell, 1984

No, bro, none of this works like that.

As regards the screenshot above, I'm an addict, my partner's an addict, we have both kicked habits the freaking hard way. I don't wanna go back to that life. She doesn't either. That life cost me a career and nearly cost me living. I'd rather die than live in a world where she gets drugged into being a housewife.

I mean, come on, what the fuck is (or was) wrong with people??

Perhaps I'm wrong in saying These Fucking People's ideal end-state is "The Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with an Applebee's and a mall and shit."

Perhaps it needs to be updated to "The Poppy fields of 1990's Taliban Afghanistan, but with a Church, Cryptocurrency and a Station Wagon, set in some Levittown-style neighborhood."

Speaking of the 1970's this sounds weirdly like some sort of Twilight Zone rerun like routinely scared the shit out of me when I was a little kid.

Man: Why don't we get some kind of battering ram?

Frank Henderson: Yeah, we could go over to Bennett Avenue, Phil Cline has some heavy pipe in his basement, I've seen it.

Man: No, no, that would bring him into the act too, and who cares about saving him? No, if we do that, we'll let all those people know we have a shelter on our street. We'll have a whole mob to contend with, with a whole bunch of strangers.

Mrs. Henderson: Sure, and what right have they got to come over here? This isn't their street, this isn't their shelter.

Jerry Harlowe: Oh, this is our shelter, and on the next street that's another country. Patronize home industries, you idiots, you fools, you're insane, all of you. 

~ The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episode 3: The Shelter, 1961 (Quoted from the Stonekettle Station post "Bomb Shelter.")

Like, what the fuck is wrong with these people??

Among other things, it's supposed to be the holiday season.

And they can't even take a break from being shitty for that.

The thing about people like Valentina Gomez is that she'll keep at it and be tolerated for as long as she keeps appealing to bigotry and male ego, like a more-malevolent Sarah Palin with an accent.

And she doesn't care that These Fucking People would rather worship devils and idols of gold than just *Checks Notes* Love Their Neighbors, like the Lord's Word says to do.

This, effectively almost an Anti-civilization, is what the Far Right calls "Tradition."

This isn't tradition, it's insanity.

It's not gonna work out the way they think it will.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

Five

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

Devils And Idols Of Gold (Reason For The Season 2025, Five.)

I am the way into the city of woe.

I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love and ultimate intellect
Only those elements time cannot wear are beyond me,
and beyond time I stand.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.'
~Sign above the gates of hell (variant translation) Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.

...

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

...

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

I saw this the other night (and the second screenshot yesterday.)

It's an understatement to say that after a decade of this bullshit, I'm tired of this "Trump is God" crap.

It's been going on long enough that people have certainly gone to Hell because of it. There's people that I know personally, alleged "Christians" who Believe way more in Donald Trump than they ever did in Jesus Christ.

And most of them can't, or simply won't, even tell you why.

They'll even say that with idiotic smiles on their faces, like they think it's funny, or some great secret in and of itself.

I mean, I get it really. The authoritarian social memes created by Evangelical, Fundamentalist and Pentecostal forms of Christianity are more important to them, their greed, their racism, their want for wealth without work, and the xenophobia all means more.

Note it's an and not an or for a reason, I'll come back to that in a second.

But first you have to make sure these idiots can't even admit to themselves that they're bigoted or greedy or simple-assed shitty little cowards.

Now, You can't stop at any point or it all falls apart. You have to buy the whole hog every time...and yet eventually either this shit becomes unsustainable anyway or these motherfuckers come after you or somebody or something that you care about or you just plain get cast aside anyway and you're gonna hit that wall no matter what. Especially if you're not that kind of person that I described above, but just happen to be conservative.

It's meant to be self-destructive and unsustainable.

You are intended to marinate yourself in Apocalyptic thinking, then destroy yourself, and pay the preacher for the privilege.

I remember what from about 2001 to around 2011 or so was like for me, it was rough. I look angry in all my early pics on social media.

Even if you were never all the way in it, this crap is hard to get yourself out of, and back when I did it there was no support and damned few people who even knew what I was talking about.

It's like I've long said about Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism, the only person who really prospers is the Preacher.

It's the same way with this bullshit, the only person who really benefits from Trumpism and the only person this horseshit won't eventually fuck over or throw out is Trump.

But the thing is, enough Evangelical Christians and "Movement Conservatives" have made this bright-blue supergiant star of Narcissism the center of gravity in their moral universe, their politics and their religion that, very likely, when he goes they go. When Trump dies of old age and too many cheeseburgers or something otherwise happens to him in a supernova of confusion as one moment he's looking at all these slobbering gobshites who he detests for their adoration of Himself and the next he's looking Allah, Buddha, Jesus, and The Great Pumpkin in the face and wondering what the hell happened? 

Yeah, at that point, dude becomes a Singularity of Consequences.

Oops.

AND the whole idea here, as with the stock market, tech and sub-prime mortgage bubbles, the Great Recession, the Obama comeback, Trump 1.0, the Biden Economy and now this crap *Is* "Everybody hopes they can cash out before it all comes crashing down."

But they get addicted to the easy money, to the fight and the narcissistic fuel, the rush, the scam, whatever. It's not just that they're bad people or marks, it's that they're like gambling addicts and shit. These are the kind of people who end up in a conservatorship and with somebody else's name on their checking account.

But it's politics and not real life and so America tolerates this absolute fucking dumpster fire! At least, we do until it fucks up too many people's real lives and I think we're there already and people are starting to see it.

But there's a certain part of these people that this is what they are now. No, there never was a "who." You have to be human first, for that.

Of course those fucking people are gonna forget the "Cash Out" part, because this fucknuggetry is their entire being now. 

Oops.

And they end up denigrating and dismissing real shit (like the fact that Ukraine is a genuinely religious, majority-Christian and old-school conservative country...but one that consciously and with intention and a will chose democracy and freedom and was willing to fight for it) in favor of Putin and Russia and the Scam.

With a side of cruelty and no, they don't give a damn that Russia has over a million combat casualties now, either.

Really, that's just the paranoid shitty side of Republican ideology talking. I mean, if everything sucks, they're right in being terrible people, right? 

That's before all the leftover Nazi-ideation.

And yes, this is the underlying premise of some Republicans at least since Richard Nixon. But since at 2008 this crap became self-lobotomizing 

It's like the name-it-and-claim-it Word Of Faith bullshit my ex-wife looped herself into for a long time. The most insidious thing about that brand of Pentecostal garbage is it functionally addicts you to your own brain chemicals and dopamine hits, and honestly fighting with somebody who's in the throes of all that ends up being pretty addictive itself not least because whatever you're looking to score...people like that are pretty easy to score on Because They're Stupid. It's fun...for awhile.

And I'm here to tell you there is no more Godless people in the whole Universe than the motherfuckers at the top of that system. If anybody in the world really believes that there is no God, it's them.

Not least because one way or another, for or against, you basically become your own God.

I'm increasingly convinced that the Evangelical/Fundamentalist/Pentecostal conceit of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the root of the whole damn problem.

And when you say "Nah, bro" if you're still caught up in the mentality, that can still be the same way.

But eventually that shit starts to have bad effects on everything else, wrecks your other relationships, etc. until it becomes all you have...until it uses you up. I got out, moved away, inadvertently found a job that helped me deconstruct a lot of this bullshit and entirely by accident found myself a life-partner who inoculated me from ever going back to that shit and eventually and very succinctly made herself the freaking solution to the whole mess by making me see the world just a little differently.

But a lot of these fucking people refuse #1 to see women as people #2 they don't want to even accept the possibility of such an unlikely guardian angel. #3 They care more about the scam than they do about being lonely, in real terms.

And, really, a lot of these motherfuckers would just rather serve the Archangels of Dis Pater, like Andrew Tate, Donald Trump and Elon Musk on the principle of Literally Anything but Love Thy Neighbor.

'Cause they think just being around such people for a few minutes will somehow have some magical effect on their lives, or some such bullshit.

None of this works that way.

Trumpism is a Christ-less Christianity without the rules and without repentance or sacrifice, it's the Prosperity Gospel, secularized.

This crap is Antichrist.

Again, despite having been a member of the End Times Prophecy movement, I always wondered how people could look at angels, demons, fire falling from the sky, monsters rising up out of the sea and all that and just dismiss it.

Well I guess now we know?

You can either worship whatever God or other entity out of the Holy Books and world religions that you want...or you can worship this crap. 

There's no middle of the road, one of these things is not like the other.

There is a reason for the season, and it ain't Donald Trump.

Where are we, who are we??

I don't want to live in that kind of world, that's who I am.

I'm not a Born-Again anything and I don't want to bow before Devils and Idols of Gold.

And I don't want my partner or her kid to have to, either.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

That's where we're at.

Now what are we going to do about it?

Слава Україна!

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

Four

We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. ~George Orwell, 1984

Telling On Themselves (Reason For The Season 2025, Four.)

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

...

[Supervisor Heert updates Major Partagaz and Director Krennic on his hospital investigation of Kleya Marki]

Director Orson Krennic: [referring to closeup hologram of Kleya] Supervisor Heert, you will put this image out as wide and deep and far as it takes until we find her. You'll search every comms and transit point. There will be no horizon to the scope of your inquiry, nor will there be any limit to your effort. Failure will earn you a place in the ever-lengthening ISB death march, are we clear?

Supervisor Heert: [stammering nervously] The warrant. To be clear, what's the charge? Sedition? Or murder? All of the above?

Major Lio Partagaz: She's diseased. She escaped the hospital with an infectious condition that threatens everyone with whom she may come in contact. She must be found before thousands die!

Krennic: [sarcastically in Heert's ear] There it is. What are you still doing here? [Heert scurries from the room, leaving Partagaz and Krennic alone. Partagaz chuckles to himself]

Partagaz: [scoffs] "Death Star". What a prescient turn of phrase.

Krennic: I can't protect you, Lio.

Partagaz: You were supposed to be ready by now.

Krennic: You sound like Tarkin.

Partagaz: It's a miracle we've kept it quiet this long!

Krennic: We're moments away! Days! A few more tests, we're there.

Partagaz: [rolls his eyes] Save the sermon for Palpatine.

Krennic: Indeed. You have a 'plague' to stop, and I was due at Scarif two hours ago. [moves to leave, but stops at the door and glances back at Partagaz]

Partagaz: Best of luck to us both. [Krennic nods and leaves]

~From the Star Wars series Andor S2.E11 "Who Else Knows?"

...

Don't change the white man's mind—you can't change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America—America's conscience is bankrupt. She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience. They don't know what morals are. They don't try and eliminate an evil because it's evil, or because it's illegal, or because it's immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you're wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he'd straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man's mind. ~Malcolm X.

I saw this last night.

Pete Keg-breath, hawking some "Children's book" featuring a turtle shooting a Russian/Soviet RPG-7 at some kind of cargo boats, insinuated, I suppose, to be drug boats from aboard an old UH-1H helicopter.

First, go ahead and try that, see how it works?

Rambo: First Blood Part II ain't real life, exhaust gases and heat go somewhere. 

You want to burn or choke out your pilots and crash your chopper? 

Try that, seriously.

Second, and not for the first time on this blog; What the fuck is it with these people and Cold War-era Soviet battle gear and weapons?

(Aside from the fact that these fucking people can't help telling on themselves, that is??)

I also saw that it looks like the reason Trump pardoned that Honduran drug dealer ex-President was so he could run in that country's election this year in an attempt to save yet another failing crypto "Freedom City" project in Central America.

(By the way, Libertarians and rich people have been trying this kind of crap forever, and it always comes to nothing. Look up "Sea steading" sometime if you want to have a good laugh. That was their big plan in the 1990's, they even got Fundamentalist Christians hawking that shit back then, as they assumed these Bioshock franchise precursors would somehow be "Christian.")

Makes you wonder what kind of world that Keg-breath thinks he's leaving for all those kids, huh??

Do you suppose, in a barbaric former-US Successor State that one of his daughters might have to wear literal medieval-style plate armor to avoid getting groped while walking down the street??

Like we're, ya know, Afghanistan or some shit??

Some lady actually did that years ago, I guess.

The way I see a lot of dudes act nowadays, nobody should be surprised if something like that is the case in 20 years.

And the worst part is the only thing Keg-breath would likely see as wrong with illiterate handsy nasty Pashtun Chuds is that they're Muslim.

Who would Jesus grope??

There's a lot of dudes out there that could use being neutered if you ask me.

Again, I think the rot from all this Epstein files type shit spreads deeper and further out than basically anybody is prepared to deal with at this point.

But somehow that seems to be Okay for politicians and rich white guys, while the world reserves its scorn for bearded illiterate thugs in Afghanistan.

What's it gonna take, a global color revolution for women's bodily autonomy and rights to be respected??

Maybe we should, in fact, have exactly that, then?

You bet some media billionaire-ball-gargling hack would immediately tag such a thing the Pink Revolution or Utero-Maidan or some shit like that.

Okay, let's have it anyway.

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

And yes, I'm a Man and I've done things worthy of judgment, too.

A lot more shit than that is happening now, and it's not right. You shouldn't need me to tell you that.

I'm tired of this crap.

At the rate we're going it's gonna take decades to unspool and sort out the swirling morass of crazy sexual abuse stories I keep seeing and that's probably just the barest hint of all that's really going on.

Political authoritarianism of all kinds is (and always has been) wrapped up in Patriarchy.

And they wanna make it worse.

More to the point I'm tired of this A Republican Is A Russian Is A Transphobe Is An LGBT Hater is a Misogynist is Anti-Islam Is a Christian Nationalist is an Antisemite because somehow all this Russian-Nesting-Doll hatred bullshit and somehow Communism is "Conservative" now.

It never stops. Nobody says "Okay, I'll just take a little racism." Nobody ever doesn't just turn around and adopt all the other hatreds as they go along. 

Worse, and I'm serious, all this garbage always ends up in the same goddamned place, every fucking time; Some variant of White Christian Nationalism where nobody but rich, White, supposedly-Christian uber-Capitalist MEN has any rights.

Even when it makes no sense for the person to back Christian Nationalism: Think Stephen Miller.

It's all the same shit: Petty Hatred as a control mechanism.

And it's ALL bullshit.

And the heirs of US Cold War Victory seem perfectly fine with bashing the victors and their memory, and then with installing the grandsons of literal Stalinists as some kind of global ruling class. America's fine with being our literal enemy's bitch if we get to hate.

I can't make that bullshit make any sense.

These motherfuckers would put the Berlin Wall right back up to "Own The Libs" except it wasn't the "Libs" who won the Cold War.

Sure, they helped plenty, but it was the Center-Right that was in charge at the time.

Every once in awhile, the far-right suckers some black dude or white woman into co-signing on this shit, usually starting them off by bashing any memory of what conservatism or Republicanism once was or at least of when they kept all the bullshit out of sight.

Because apparently just saying that shit in the cigar-smoke-filled back room with your bros ain't a big enough dopamine hit anymore?

Reagan Wept.

And somehow These Fucking People always miss the point of basically everything.

Worse, because they're stupid, they want to burn the modern world down to the Earth's Mantle for narcissistic fuel because they think they're gonna have some kind of bullshit modern "Crusade."

Do I really need to remind people just how badly that shit worked out back in the day??

Did we learn nothing from Afghanistan and Iraq??

The West isn't "Christian." It's secular, it always has been. Governments historically just use religion to manipulate the people, and at the end of the day the religions end up wrecking themselves because they get wrapped up in a whole bunch of disgusting, wrong shit, and it turns out that way every time you run the experiment.

But all these narcissists and shit somehow think that won't happen to them.

Worse, they don't wanna go back to Iraq and try that bullshit again. That would be too much work.

Baghdad, Florida or Cairo, Illinois or Damascus, Maryland will suffice.

Or Detroit, or Minneapolis or New York City, for that matter.

These Fucking People don't care who dies, they just want to kill.

They're not interested in Civilization, Western or otherwise, and they could give a fuck about Christianity.

They think they're gonna get some mutant combination of the Mad Max movies and Neil Blomkamp's Elysium out of this, but it'll somehow be "White" and they think they can bullshit that into being "Christian." 

They don't care if they get to live on the shiny space station or not.

They also don't care if they go to Hell.

Just so they can take other people with them.

Jesus wasn't White and probably doesn't give a rat's ass if you are or not, especially considering those classifications didn't exist in His time.

He was born in a Pagan polytheistic Empire that rejected almost all the things modern people, much less modern Christians take for granted as morality, where I'm sure lots of men honored the Gods and loved women and lived productive, virtuous lives and where lots of women were opinionated and smart, also, but those ain't the ones that the histories tell us about and if you don't believe me go right ahead and look up homosexuality in the Roman Empire.

Weirdly, there's not much discussion of women at all in Roman sexuality.

(And that is the kind of world These Fucking People seem to aspire to.)

None of this shit that These Fucking People want is based on love or virtue, let alone Jesus.

They want that complex hierarchy of who can do what to whom, and damned little else.

But for all its might, that sort of system was greatly threatened and ultimately undone by a religion started by a homeless itinerant Rabbi that was born in a stable. Yes, centuries of Roman decadence and clerical intrigues replacing Imperial discipline helped that shit along, the point stands.

Remember that, this holiday season.

And I'd suggest we look at that history to see just where we might be going.

In the meantime, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

You can either believe in bullshit or you can believe in Truth.

One of these is not like the other one.

Light has no fellowship with darkness, remember this.

Слава Україна!

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

Three

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.