On Fire, For Trump (American Revelation XVI, Six.)

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

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We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. ~Gautama Buddha

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

I'm tired of living in a world where the Christian church is literally turning into a church of Donald Trump.

I'm tired of Trump, period.

And then I saw this on Friday, some nut literally self-immolated outside of Trump's trial in NYC. The person was later identified as Max Azzarello, an apparently-far-left conspiracy theorist (and strangely enough, registered Democrat) from Florida.

Without really learning much about the person until I looked him up when I got home after work Sunday morning, just bits and pieces here and there because I was working, I spent the whole weekend wondering how somebody could set themselves on fire for Donald Trump.

I mean, what's even the damn point, right??

Dude ain't exactly Thich Quang Duc, I'm just sayin.'

And I saw it pile up over the weekend, there's an awful lot of weird shit going around, this is more than just one guy's fatal mental breakdown.

I saw this yesterday morning, some preacher got kicked out of a Christian "Men's conference" for criticizing the fact that the opening act was a male stripper and sword-swallower. Now, full disclosure, I went to a fair number of those things back in the day, and I've never even heard of anything like that being on the program.

Well then, I started researching what happened and it turned out that the preacher in question was Mark Driscoll, the disgraced former Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. I saw him speak once, when he was just at the start of his fame, and I was at the tail end of my involvement with the last church I went to. I didn't like him. I was not impressed. In this particular case he was right but his own arguments that I saw were peppered with a strange combination of harsh legalism that seemed almost right out of Paul's letters and Word Of Faith mumbo jumbo.

I got my answers, I shook my head, I very much felt like there were no good guys there.

And that seems to be by design.

Likewise, last week a bunch of Columbia University students got arrested and suspended from school for protesting the war between Israel and Hamas, and the University leadership responded by sending NYPD riot police to arrest them, and then kicked them out of school and threw their belongings in an alley all because Congressional Republicans were demanding they "Do Something."

Fuck all that.

While I don't much agree with the pro-Palestine protesters or their tactics, and I despise their frequent antisemitism, I also think the University's response sucked. This  apparently has generated real blowback within the campus, which is probably a good thing. 

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

I mean, when you do a thing and the worst people in the world start acting like they've won a great victory because they got you to do it, it's probably a good time to start rethinking your life.

And there's a segment of American "Liberalism" that'd rather let the Far-right burn freedom to ashes than lose their Cocktail Party friends. See Also; Stephen Breyer.

Again, fuck all that.

To "Conservatives" Antisemitism and Israel and Palestine and all this stuff, it's all nothing but wedge issues they can use to advance their own increasingly shitty agendas. They don't give a shit about Israelis or Palestinians, they just want to spank the monkey to the "idea" of kicking all the "Leftists" out of universities...as if there'd be enough people left to run the place or enough students left to justify their existence without said Leftists??

I mean, who else even wants to go to an Ivy League university in New York City??

(I sure didn't, and some people thought I might be that smart back in the day.)

If these fucking people (by which I mean both far-right Republicans and the squishy "Liberal" cowards who keep enabling them) could bow before the Hammer and Sickle and get their power fix by being Communist Zampolits and turning Universities into nothing more than ideological indoctrination centers, they'd fucking do it.

Because nothing else matters to them but getting to go to all the "right" parties and shit.

And yeah, I know, sometimes free people do shitty things with their freedom. Taking it away ain't the answer.

I mean, come on, Leftists and protests and shit are...whether I agree with them or not...things I associate with Ivy League schools, and I always have. I don't say that as it's meant to be a negative. It is what it is. I've always seen it as those people have their place in the world, and that's frankly another reason their administrations toadying up to far-right bullshitters like Chris Rufo lately makes my skin crawl.

Debate and education and learning are the damn point, otherwise, what are you doing in a school, at any level?? I know right-wingers see everything as ideology, but sooner or later somebody's got to learn something. You can't fly a jet...or maintain it...on nothing but Political Science. 

And by kowtowing to these shitheads, the Ivy League administrations have basically created a Campus Civil War that they're going to end up losing while Chris Rufo and Marjorie Taylor Greene slink out the back door, turned something that would have blown over in a few weeks into a national issue that's going to keep on going and create further confusion, division and drama and the only people who profit are people like Chris Rufo and Vladimir Putin whose entire intention is to burn American (if not global) civil society and higher education to the ground for their fascist beliefs.

Again, there's no good guys here, and that's how the Right wanted to set it up. I think that's why Putin put Hamas up to attacking Israel on 10/7 in the first damn place.

So it would cause this kind of mess, and fire up the American "Radical Chic" Far-left in a way that would be useful to the neo-Soviets of Putin's regime...and inspire the absolute worst from nearly everybody else, too.

And Putin did it so he could distract the US and the West from helping Ukraine, and so that he could go on persecuting Christians in both Russia and Ukraine. See, in Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church is an arm of the State, effectively controlled by the KGB (Face it, there's no sense in calling it the FSB anymore.) The Russians can't imagine religious belief anywhere else is any damn different, 'cause they're stupid intellectually incurious pricks who think everybody else longs to be a harness bull or a spy for Power because that's what they aspire to be and do.

I'm not kidding, go ahead, read the article.

Freedom doesn't even exist, as far as those motherfuckers are concerned.

Because they're Motherfuckers.

And what does it tell you, that American Evangelicals can't even see this shit and side with Putin??

We are absolutely looking right at who'd be the people joining the False World System of the Beast of Revelations and who'd be lining up 'round the block to take the Mark Of The Beast and of course it's the same goddamned people who violently denied they'd ever do any such thing for almost my whole life.

For no better reason than they automatically assumed the "Antichrist" and his beliefs would be some variant of Liberalism, and they reacted accordingly, per their shitty worldview. But when it turns out the one aspiring One World Potentate is far-right?? 

O Ho! That's different! Not only are they fine with it, but all he has to insinuate (not even say) is "Own The Libs" and suddenly the Mark Of The Beast isn't so bad. Hell, Elon Musk even has a prototype! (And he's apparently not the only one.)

These fucking people would gladly light the world on fire, for Trump or someone like him.

And the worst part is, they can't even see what they're doing. Ring the bell, the dog drools, it doesn't even matter if he gets food anymore.

The incentive structure of people is so massively out of whack it makes no sense to me.

As a human being that God endowed with a mind; It wouldn't even occur to me to light myself on fire for conspiracy theories and/or Donald Trump.

As a pragmatic, barely-a-liberal former conservative, it'd never cross my mind to call in the jackboots on protesting students who are, like it or not, simply exercising their Constitutional rights. 

It'd wouldn't be a thing I'd even think about doing; To try to sell America to Vladimir Putin for nothing more than cheap internet fame.

You can't reason with this shit. You can only fight against it. It's funny how Ukrainians understand that and so many privileged Americans don't.

And more to the point, being fought against is basically the only thing the motherfuckers understand.

But we're gonna have to, Somebody's gonna have to stand up. 

Otherwise the sole message of this time, were it up to the elites, is "Be Motherfuckers. It's profitable and it gets you so much glory that people will light their own ass on fire for you."

And they want to create a world in which there's no "Good Guys" simply to justify themselves and their evil deeds.

I don't want to live in that kind of world.

Do you??

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

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test.

Слава Україна!

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.

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"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

Bottomless Pit (American Revelation XVI, Five.)

Hospitaler: One may stare into the light, until one becomes the light. I've done it many times.

Balian of Ibelin: [throws a rock at a bush that catches fire by the spark] There's your religion. One spark, a creosote bush. There's your Moses. I did not hear it speak.

Hospitaler: That does not mean that there is no God. Do you love her?

Balian of Ibelin: Yes.

Hospitaler: The heart will mend. Your duty is to the people of the city. I go to pray.

Balian of Ibelin: For what?

Hospitaler: For the strength to endure what is to come.

Balian of Ibelin: And what is to come?

Hospitaler: The reckoning is to come for what was done one hundred years before. The Muslims will never forget. Nor should they.

[the Hospitaler slowly walks away as a second bush several yards from the burning one catches fire. The Hospitaler is nowhere to be seen in the clear and open desert]

~From the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

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

I saw this yesterday.

Trump is having to sit there and listen to mean social media posts and see mean memes about himself from like 75% of the potential jurors. I guess it's not "Fuck your feelings" now, eh??

Suck it, motherfucker.

I'm tired of these fucking people and their cruelty and ignorant racist bullshit and that's all there is to it.

I'm tired of the conspiracy theories and the racism and the religious fanaticism that now seems shorn of anything I can even recognize as belief in God. 

And I'm tired of these ass-clowns accusing other people of the shit they do, and then flat out doing it right in front of our faces. Like they think we're stupid, or some shit.

Like this idiot, says Trump isn't a racist, and then launches right into the old Birtherism bullshit.

And I'm assuming it just doesn't register, as these fucking people have all the self-awareness of an old dog licking its balls in the front yard on a Sunday morning.

Motherfuckers need to hear of some Mean Tweets, I think.

Meanwhile Trump continues to strip the GOP for parts, now he wants down-ballot candidates to give him money if they use his image, name, etc.

And the reason he can do it is, again, because of all this same fucking bullshit! Trump gives them some kind of "permission" to be racist and be their worst possible selves and to buy into any old woo woo bullshit that tickles their ears...and to paraphrase Lyndon Johnson's quote, they'll empty their pockets, pull their pants down and bend over for the son of a bitch!

They have achieved their goal of a Christ-less Christianity, only to find out that even that doesn't go far enough, and on top of that, now they find out they're in thrall to far darker powers than their most inflated visions of their own selves. I have no goddamn sympathy, None. Zero. Fuck You.

They're the ones who can't stop blowing the goddamn narcissist.

And not only is Trump robbing them blind, but Republicans fucked around with all these MAGA fanatics and now they're gonna find out. See, I knew a lot of these people back when they were Fundamentalist Christians and shit, and nothing is ever going to be good enough for these fucking fanatics.

These fucking people have appointed Donald Trump to be their fucking God.

Like, how fucked in the head do you have to be, and what kind of sad-sack goddamned life do you have to be living to even have this thought process enter your brain-pan??

I couldn't do it, and I used to be a Republican.

I. Couldn't. Fucking. Do. It.

Like, I've always known Trump was a liar and a piece of shit.

And like, maybe all the bankruptcies and divorces and failed casinos were a fucking hint, people. I worked in a casino for almost 20 years and I'm serious...it must be some kind of perfect storm of goddamned incompetence that Trump could make a casino lose money.

But Republicans won't stop blowing the goddamned narcissist.

And now he's going to do the exact same thing to the Trump Republican Party that he did to the Trump Taj Mahal and a bunch of other casinos in Atlantic City.

And as things spiral out of control and they start to lose their ass, these fucking people are only going to get meaner. Here's Tom Cotton, who thinks it's funny to demand that his supporters do war crimes against their fellow citizens.

Note: This will only last until one of these Beard-O dude-bro crybabies who drives around in a big truck covered in right-wing rage-stickers and skeletal motifs gets a bullet hole in their big truck. None of this shit is taking into account that it's human nature to fight back, to resist, so do it.

These stupid idiots couldn't even be bothered to do something simple like stay their ass home in the middle of a deadly global pandemic. I highly doubt all that many of them are going to be Tom Cotton's Civil-War shock-troopers or right-wing Death Squads...at least not with any degree of effectiveness.

Not that Tom Cotton actually cares.

And the thing that pisses me off, is he's an Army veteran, he should know better than this shit. I had to.

I wrote about that.

For one thing too many of these shitheads don't know the difference between their penis and their rifle, and it'll be kind of awkward when some of them get caught charging into battle with their pants around their ankles, each with their hands clenched firmly on the wrong "gun."

If I had to guess, we're not too far from Darwinian evolution simply thinning the fucking herd.

Like I said, I used to be a Republican.

I used to be a Christian, too.

I'm a veteran.

And all my life, I've been hearing about how Republicans were still mad about this thing that happened years and years ago, in some cases, before I was born.

Vietnam.

Jane Fonda.

Watergate.

The Iranian Revolution.

Well, just so ya know, I'm 50 years old. This year I'll be 51. Vietnam and the whole Jane Fonda thing were before my time. I was less than a year old when Nixon resigned.

And of course, that's not an exhaustive list of all the shit that Republicans be mad about, it goes on...

But ya know what, Republicans? It's 2024, not 1974.

People can't make it on what you want to pay us, and don't want to (nor are we required to have to) live under your Domination. That's why that whole "Great Resignation" thing happened after COVID-19.

I mean, what was even the damn point??

A hell of a lot of the rest of us are moving on, adapting, changing, organizing.

And while you're busy blowing Trump and shoving every last dollar you got down that bottomless pit where Trump's fuckin' soul was supposed to be...we've gotten sick of your bullshit.

I can't say "Anything but America" because I live here and I've already contributed to this country.

I can't say I won't Love My Neighbor because I used to be a Christian and I remember what the Lord's Word says about that.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Either you believe in endlessly fellating Donald Trump or you believe in, well, pretty much anything else.

You idiots decided to make Trump your God.

Well, to dip back into my old school church background...

Time's coming where you better be right, 'cause if you're wrong there's literally going to be hell to pay when the bill comes due.

And it's coming.

And you fuckers emptied your pockets.

And gave everything to Trump.

You've poured everything you had down this Bottomless Pit of a small man.

And he still wants more.

Think about that for a second.

Come on, man, what the fuck are we even doing here.

Слава Україна!

Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora! Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā Ā, upane! ka upane! Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra! ~Ka Mate, Maori Haka (main body)

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'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Up the ladder, up the ladder!
Rise! The Sun shines.
~Ka Mate, English translation.

Note: The Maori Haka Ka Mate, is the story of a Maori chief named Te Rauparaha who hides in a well, fleeing from pursuing enemies of other tribes. He evades his enemies and is rescued by an unnamed man who puts a ladder down the well so he can get out. Made world-famous thanks to its use by the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby team, Ka Mate is a story of the triumph of life over death. You can get out of the Bottomless Pit.

Four

Bonus Content

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

American Abomination, Or Lazy-Ass Bitch? (American Revelation XVI, Four.)

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

I saw this yesterday.

Trump, at his Election interference/Hush money trial, falling asleep and looking like shit.

#1 I don't want to hear the words "Sleepy Joe" ever again, at least not in regards to Joe Biden.

#2 Seriously? At the rate Trump is going, he's gonna spend a night or two on Riker's Island just for Contempt Of Court alone, he's already being charged with it.

#3 Hey, Republicans, this is the dude you effectively have appointed to be your god.

This whole time...actually, for more of my life than I care to have, since long before Trump ever went into politics...I've been hearing about how on-the-ball, how smart and how tough Trump was.

I always knew it was bullshit, and he did enough dumb shit during his first campaign or while he was President that it basically became a meme along the way...but Trump still had that cult of fluffers and while he looked stupid plenty of times, and looked like shit more than once, he didn't necessarily look frail or weak, or...yes, human. Indeed the exaggerated inhumanity of Trump's cast of Mar-A-Lago ghouls, his menageries of freaks and his own personal lifestyle did seem perversely geared toward that end. Bumptious and preposterous? Absolutely! Did he look pathetic at times? Yes. Mentally or morally weak? Yeah, but the MAGA's didn't care about that.

But he usually managed, at least in public, to not look like a doddering old Grandpa-man who takes like seventeen naps in the course of the average day. Now I'm wondering how much of his Rally-image of vigor, virility and rapid-fire insult-"comedy" was just one hell of a lot of Adderall and Cocaine??

Now he's in court, for a criminal trial, and falls asleep in the first couple of hours, and then a couple more times, besides?? Not only is that "So much for the public image of Trump's mental acuity, but I know if it'd been me, I'd have been sleeping it off in a cell if I pulled that kind of shit.

And then I saw this, that Trump has some flunky following him around with a laptop and a portable printer, and has her print out bullshit happy stories from the internet. I mean, what the fuck??

Like seriously, the whole point of Fascism is that fundamentally unbelieving people want to be able to reach out and touch some kind of a transcendent State embodied in some Leader and a bunch of marching soldiers...and this is the best they could come up with?? LOL.

So much for Trump being the Antichrist, or otherwise having some kind of superpowers other than being rich and shameless. Kind of tells you what these idiots' real priorities are, doesn't it??

There's nothing Great about this dude. He's just a simple-minded lazy-ass bitch who can talk real big, and you fell for it.

Stop blowing the narcissist, Republicans.

He's a Narcissist, by definition you're not going to get anything out of it.

We live in a chaotic, messed-up world that's under some very real threats, but there are actually a hell of a lot of real heroes out there. People who are trying to make things better, or, ya know...just to survive.

And you're telling me Americans want to worship Donald Trump??

Speaking of real heroes; There's a 12-year-old Ukrainian girl who'll be running the fuckin' Boston Marathon with prosthetic legs, and there's people in America who'll try to tell you that Trump is tough??

LOL, fuck you. No.

Trump needed a golf cart to traverse a distance of like 800 feet. I don't wanna hear how tough he is when there's a kid, who shouldn't be in that kind of position, running a goddamned marathon using prosthetic legs because she lost hers in a Russian missile attack.

Yana Stepanenko is far more of a hero than Donald Trump ever will be.

And it you support the Russians who maimed her, rather than Ukraine, which is fighting for its right to even exist...fuck you.

As I've said before, if Russia can just spontaneously decide that Ukraine shouldn't exist, what's to stop them from deciding the same thing about America or any other country?? A whole shitload of weapons? Bro you have to have the guts to use those weapons and I'm not even sure all these Republicans who love the taste of Russian boot-leather would even fight back if the Russians came at us.

Especially when these fucking people basically believe in pretty much anything but America.

Well, I suppose it tracks, they already cast aside Jesus Christ for this punk-ass wannabe Antichrist.

The thing is, the problem here isn't Trump.

He's just a shitty opportunist who took advantage.

The real problem is we got a whole boatload of people who are so desperate to have something to believe in that they'll believe in any old thing, be it conspiracy theories, racism, or Trump.

Ya know, I think if America really was a "Christian Nation" or even wanted to be that or was trying to be that...or even had any other belief system or religion besides shitty, base greed and materialism, we wouldn't have this problem.

The thing about Trump isn't him, it's all these fucking people who were literally looking for any excuse, no matter how bogus, to be their worst possible selves...and Trump gave them that.

And when he falls...and he will, and I think we're looking at it...they'll just find another one.

When the Cult Leader falls and doesn't get re-elected or goes to prison or dies and fails to be swept up to Heaven on the Wings of Angels or some shit, they'll just rationalize. When this dude fails to be God, they'll just rationalize it and find another one, because motherfuckers wanna believe, and more to the point, motherfuckers wanna be motherfuckers.

You know how you beat that??

Be a goddamned Citizen, do your duty to the Republic, and vote these people the fuck out.

And when they come at you because they all mad about it, you fucking fight.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

This is America, we're a secular nation. We're not required by anyone's politics or religion or any other bullshit to just let our own country or the world fall to the Antichrist and assorted False Prophets.

Remember that. Because it's going to be on the test.

'Cause if ya don't? We live in a world where all that the Beast of Revelations would have to do to win all the White Evangelicals over is spew a bunch of racism and "Socially Conservative" talk and promise to oppress LGBT folk and women and they'd be lining up 'round the block to take the Mark Of The Beast.

And yes, it really is that fucking simple.

These fucking people don't really believe in anything.

That's why the rest of us are gonna have to.

Слава Україна!

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

Three

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

The Red Horse And The Orange Shitgibbon (American Revelation XVI, Three.)

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ~Revelation 6 (King James Version.)

At midnight on Saturday, Iran attacked Israel, launching around 170 Drones, 120 Ballistic Missiles and 30 Cruise missiles at various targets. There wasn't a lot of damage, because most of the weapons were intercepted or shot down by the IDF, plus the French Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Jordanian Air Force, US Air Force and US Navy. Also, the Saudis and the UAE apparently provided support.

Which seems weirdly contradictory to the various and assorted End Times narratives I've been hearing most of my life...and actually became a student of while I was in the military.

Arabs and Israelis working together to resist an attack on Israel? Hey, fuck you, Jack Van Impe.

That's pretty impressive, more to the point it ain't exactly caused Revelation, or WWIII, and since Biden has said we're not going to support an Israeli counterattack, maybe we'll get lucky and there won't be one.

In point of fact, there was only one person (a 7-year old Israeli Arab Bedouin girl) seriously injured. That really sucks for her, but as wars go, it could have been way worse. There were a few other minor injuries, and apparently a parked aircraft was also damaged.

My feeling is that the Russians put the Iranians up to this, because they need House Republicans to keep stalling on aid to Ukraine...not that the Russians have accomplished much despite a tenuous Ukrainian supply situation and assorted lags in the delivery of supplies and weapons. 

And I guess my thing about that is, the Russians have to know the Israelis could have gone all out in terms of their own response...they didn't, but they easily could have and I doubt a lot of their population would have minded a mushroom cloud or two over a couple of Iranian Air Force and/or Islamic Revolutionary Guards bases all that much.

Not to sound that way, but I for one would not have blamed them too much for hitting back, they apparently haven't yet...but one has to assume that option remains on the table.

So, the Iranians should know that the Russians consider the US Republican Party to be a more useful, valuable ally than they are...because let's get real, Israel could have responded in kind.

And, shall we say, certain Republicans would have gladly helped, if it'd been up to them. I bet John Bolton was up all night practicing his war-bluster and waxing his mustache.

No Red Horse and Beast with a sword for you, motherfucker!

(Also, since Trump, Republicans are just as willing to be Iran's bitch as they are to be Russia's bitch. That's why Bolton quit.)

So yeah, despite half the world being mad at Israel because of the Gaza war, Israel isn't an isolated pariah now and most of the world is looking at the Iranians like "Dude, what the fuck??" 

And while you could argue that the Iranians have mapped out Israeli air defenses and this and that, it seems like this was an awfully expensive way to go about doing it, if that is so.

In the end, I think it just comes down to one more attempt by the Russians and the rest of Authoritarians Incorporated to use some kind of big apparent action to try and distract and manipulate people so they don't do what it takes to help Ukraine.

And it's funny how money seems to be no object, since Iran and Russia are relatively poor countries, there's money for 120 ballistic missiles coming from somewhere, who's funding this shit??

(I get it, this crap is about Power, not money, and we're dealing with people-from little MAGA idiots to up to Putin himself-who'll piss away everything for some kind of relative status.)

While I'm at it, since Trump's hush money trial in the Stormy Daniels case has started today (and I'm getting ongoing updates on that) and he seems to be a keystone of all these fucking people's schemes, I have to wonder what other crazy shit is going to happen this week to try and distract from that and protect his ass.

I mean, the "Anything But America" crap seems to have taken a break, and they can't have that, can they??

Whether it's the Beast on the Red Horse with the great sword, or the Orange Shitgibbon with the Toad-Stool dick, somebody's going to try something.

The Price Of Liberty Is Eternal Vigilance.

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test, later.

Слава Україна!

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

Two

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.

The Cross, Or The Hammer? (American Revelation XVI, Two.)

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.

But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceeds out of their mouth, and devours their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.

And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. ~Revelation 11:1-12

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

I saw this last night at work, and a chill went down my back.

I've been told for most of my life that End Times Prophecy was very important and occasionally complicated, but that getting it right was some level of required.

But ya know, I was also told for my whole life that despite its long and complicated history and vast theological canon, that the essence of Christianity was simple, that it wasn't that hard to just believe in Jesus. So, I'm a use small words.

Hey, all you End Times-mongering Christians, guess what??

It's here.

In Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, all the Catholic, Evangelical and Protestant churches have been destroyed or shut down, by an aspiring World Power at the word of a single man.

That's basically what the Antichrist does, isn't it? That right there? Isn't it?? Oh, right. Not like that?

Well, too bad. It's exactly like that.

This is what all those conspiracy theories, excuses, false equivalencies, all the Republican horse-fuckery and stalling on providing aid to Ukraine and all the sucking up to Vladimir Putin mean. Next, somebody will try and tell me that Putin is a Christian.

Well, the image to your left here is from the Main Cathedral Of The Russian Armed Forces. Do you know what those men are, under the trio of Orthodox Saints at the top?? They're Soviet Soldiers, and they are pictured under arms.

Anybody trying to tell you Russia is some great Christian Empire is full of shit.

I'm an American...and a United States Air Force veteran with a Christian education and a church background...and my current agnostic viewpoint aside; I would no sooner accept the Christianity of anybody who tries to make Saints out of Soviet Soldiers than I'd allow myself to stay inside of a Church that allowed The Devil to preach from the Pulpit.

But I get it, to such people, religion is usually some combination of an expression of Power and rules to live by, and almost entirely to do with this world. It's less important to them that they're breaking bread with the Enemies of America than that said enemies have decided to cosplay as Social Conservatives.

But that's not what I was taught. I mean, among other trite expressions I remember learning that the word "Bible" could be used as an acronym: "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth."

Sorry, but the Putinists and the Trumpists (and, for that matter, the racists) seem to fail at that part, at least judging from how they conduct themselves. They think they're all religious and shit, but they're the ones who Jesus tells to go to Hell at the end of the great Judgment described in Matthew 25.

But the truth is, such people don't even care that they're being fooled, lied to and used. Their goal is to "Own The Libs" in This Life. (Whatever that even means.) They don't give a shit if it lands 'em in the Lake Of Fire.

You can't cheat and lie, kill and steal, or be a Fascist or a racist and then claim you did it all for Jesus. There's that whole Ten Commandments thing, for one. 

For another, Matthew 25 ain't exactly subtle in this regard.

But it's more than that, too. You can believe in a Christ-less Christianity all you want; You're still going to Hell. Vlad may well think himself Saint Vladimir The World Conqueror, Christian Tsar Of All Rus.

He thinks he's all that because he manipulated a bunch of dumbass politicians, including Trump.

Guess What? Jesus Christ, Jewish Carpenter, will not be impressed by that shit.

If you believe in that sort of thing; One is the King Of Kings, and did not aspire to Worldly Power, the other one isn't that and does.

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:  ~Matthew 25:31-41

And if you make the wrong choice regarding which is which, that's your fault. It's called Free Will.

We own the consequences of our actions, in the End. Even...especially when the stakes are Eternal.

You cannot claim both the Cross of Jesus Christ and the Hammer And Sickle, it does not work that way. One of these things is simply not like the other one. The Cross represents the Kingdom of Heaven according to Christianity. The Hammer And Sickle represents Earthly labor and politics and an empire of materialistic Atheism and made no bones about it, per volumes of Communist writings. 

Vladimir Putin made his choice like a good little KGB Agent.

Good luck, I guess. I'd watch that first step, if I was him.

So, right there, on the face of it; Do you want to be in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ...or the Kingdom of Vladimir Putin??

I'm not a Born-Again anything anymore, but that's what I was taught. It's simply What I Read.

And whether you're a Christian or some other religion or just a regular old secular person who believes that people should be able to worship God or whatever they believe in (Or Not) as their own conscience and heart dictate...or for that matter, be able to tell others about their beliefs (because if you think Putin is letting anybody other than State-controlled Russian Orthodox Priests/KGB Agents Evangelize in Christian terms...you have another thing coming.)

There is a reason Ukrainian Evangelical, Fundamentalist, and Pentecostal Christians are some of the most dedicated fighters against Putin and his crypto-Communist regime (Which, I think will probably not stay that way; Sooner or later Putin is going to desire that his name be right up there with Lenin and Stalin.)

Either you're willing to fight against this blasphemous anti-Christian (and anti-Freedom) horseshit or you aren't, it's really that fucking simple. And when MAGA's and Republicans don't do it...guess what??

They're telling on themselves.

Submission to Authority...and Authoritarian/Totalitarian worldly rulers...isn't how one goes into The *Next* World on good terms.

Again, literally whatever religion one believes in, or even for an Agnostic theist like me: One of these things is not like the other one. 

This really should be obvious to people; There's the fact of what such people do with their alleged beliefs and political Power, when they have it. There seems to be no limit to the perversion that Republicans will engage in these days...and from where I sit as a former Christian myself, the levels of depravity involved in certain State laws here are pretty much "Biblical."

Perhaps it should be equally obvious...and note I say this as a child of the 1970's and the 1980's who watched Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech from Berlin live in TV and who, a couple years later, watched the Berlin Wall be torn down by ordinary Germans live on CNN...that it's probably a good thing the Soviets didn't figure out sooner that all they had to do to defeat and easily enslave Republicans was pretend to be "Conservatives."

Are you fuckers really just that desperate for somebody's affirmation?? Seems like it'd just be easier to get a Dog.

Disgusted?? How's that for a word. 'Cause you bet I am.

You can either believe in an infinite God and a world and universe of infinite possibility, or you can believe in the White Man and his measuring stick. But it's one or the other, yo. 

If you believe God is the infinite Creator who created Everything...then that includes Black people and conservative Republicans and LGBT people and Ukrainians (and Israelis and Palestinians alike)  and all type of other stuff you may or may not "Like."

But you either believe God's judgment is higher than Yours, or you don't.

Seems like I read somewhere or other that putting your Self above God leads to a bad end.

But what the fuck do I know? I'm just a person who listened when I was taught this stuff and I didn't take it all as some kind of a code for Cultural Imperialism and Patriarchy and Power that tells me I can stick my penis in any person who has the correct biological hole and then insert Myself as a Main Character somewhere.

If you did? Well then, I have a proposition for you:

When we're both dead...and whether it's the End Times or not...how about we meet at the Place of Judgment and see which one of us ends up on which side, and we'll settle up after.

Deal??

Or is this another bit where it's "Not Like That??"

What are you, chicken??

The difference between you and me is there was a moment where I had to choose between the Cross or the Hammer, between spirituality and materialistic force, and guess what?

I did. And I'm not afraid of the consequences.

Now it's your time for choosing.

Choose wisely.

Слава Україна!

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

One

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

Glory Hole (American Revelation XVI, One.)

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

...

Through me is the way to the suffering city;
Through me is the everlasting pain;
Through me is the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and Primal Love.

Nothing was made before me but eternal things

And I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope - Ye Who Enter Here.'

~Sign above the gates of hell, Dante's Inferno.

....

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

I saw this earlier today, when I got back from the store.

Seriously??

"Trump parrots idiotic Southern redneck bullshit about Chik-Fil-A being 'The Lord's Chicken' and the Trump ball-garglers at RSBN about ejaculated all over themselves.

Who the fuck cares??

I'm sick and tired of Trump, I didn't like him 40 years ago when he was the gilded symbol of 1980's yuppie Capitalism...which was all one big lie by itself. I didn't like him 20 years ago when his main bit that I was familiar with was as a WWE wrestler, and I sure as hell didn't like him as President. I'm sick of this crap.

But somehow...this motherfucker, who's never made a goddamn honest dollar in his life, has become the very symbol of "Making Money" as far as the American Right is concerned. This fucking cowardly idiot who gets a boner every time a dictator looks at him and who's never taken a punch in his life...nor dished one out to anybody who could fight back...is their idea of "Strength."

And I'm here to tell you there's no honest reason any of these fucking people think this, either.

Everybody from the Chinese and the Russians to every goddamn scammer and media liar in America, not to mention a ton of Republican wannabe-fascists, wants this dude back because they know he believes nothing, he is nothing, and he loves nothing but his own damn self. And they know his boundless vanity and venality he is exceedingly easy to manipulate.

Billionaires and Republicans see him as a Big Butter Jesus-level figurehead for their ideas of a corrupt Mafia-state where they'll be the only ones who get to have anything, much less make money.

And religious idiots by the millions somehow think this motherfucker is Jesus.

Think about that for a second.

If you ever actually needed proof that it's all a lie, you shouldn't need to look much further than that.

At this point, these fucking people see art, science, any enjoyment of anything besides mass-produced mindless tripe, any expression of freedom or love, any religion outside of carefully-curated Prosperity Gospel or Trump-Cult Evangelicalism and pretty much anything else but dour wage-slavery for anybody who doesn't already have Billion$ as a threat to their profits.

And frankly, they're getting annoyed with having to say shit like "God told me..." or some shit and they long to just be able to say "Shut up, I'm making money."

Even if they're people who would never, ever, make a single cent in the kind of world that those who think an Eclipse is a threat to their profits are trying to create.

If the rest of us have anything going for us...it's that a lot of these fucking people are so stupid they think Trump is their Knight in shining armor...here to Save The World for Rich People. 

It's cute that they think he'd "Save" it for anybody but himself, and that he wouldn't put them up against a wall in a heartbeat, same as the rest of us.

And by the way there's millions of American Idiots who, while not necessarily "Conservatives" in any identifiable format their own damn selves...breathlessly repeat every stupid conspiracy theory that comes down the pike and they seem to want to live in that kind of world.

It's not that they want Trump...or even know what they want...I think, in the end, it's because they're bored and stupid and yes, uneducated. But more than that, it's that they've been conditioned to care more about dopamine hits than right or wrong or what's actually true.

Or even, for that matter, self-preservation...like the fact that if Ukraine, let alone our EU/NATO allies start to fall or even simply start to lose, it's very likely that Russian cruise missiles could end up raining down on Detroit or New York City or Washington D.C.

Or for that matter, if the Russians really want to turn the Republican surrender-monkeys into mewling bootlickers, they could just go straight to hitting Charleston and Dallas and Miami.

Too many of us couldn't handle simply staying at home for a couple weeks during the COVID-19 Pandemic...what makes anybody think those people are going to actually fight a war??

I mean, if politics doesn't go their way in November, I suspect they'll try. I also think they'll kill more people (including a lot of their own) by incompetence than they will by deliberate action. This shit will be the dumbest insurgency in the history of the world...and that makes it more dangerous, not less.

And I'm here to tell you, the American Idiots will go with whatever makes them feel "Special" in any given moment. If that breaks America or causes millions of deaths...they don't care.

These fucking people's idiotic selfishness is going to break America. It's not even the stark difference in values between Left and Right...it's that the Right no longer appears to have any values at all beyond dopamine hits, "Owning The Libs" and Trump.

It's that the incentive structures here are so profoundly warped that they don't even have anything to do with basic survival.

For example, some South Florida parent finding out the new local Banana Republic is making kids have to start learning Russian in school? Their thought process ends up being "Does it upset those NYC Liberals and/or Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney??"

Oh, sure, there's upwards of half of us who do care about basic things and our own freedom and who will fight...and yeah we'll probably end up with all the defense industries and international ties and most of the military, too...but 50% America won't be able to sustain that shit at current levels for very long.

And that's really what Putin is gunning for, avenging the Fall of the Soviet Union by causing the fall of the United States of America.

Look, y'all, the rest of the world is presently terrified that even if Trump doesn't win and turn the US into a North American federal subject of Russia in January of 2025, that then "Conservatives" are going to break America and turn the US into yet another hot-war front against Authoritarianism, Inc. or that we're simply as a People going to fall into the Abyss of our own stupid debased religiosity and idiotic tendency toward philosophical and theological navel-gazing.

Because drawing dicks on the wall of Plato's Cave is funny, or some shit.

The rest of the world is starting to plan around us, instead of on us, and that breaks American power too.

And trust me, when the EU becomes one united Nation (including Ukraine) simply to resist Russian aggression and America ends up being two or three (I figure three; a center-Left/center-Right bloc, a Fascist bloc and a "Progressive" bloc) because of the mere fact of it??

That will absolutely make the conspiracy theory bullshit and the amount of allegedly Bible-based stupidity worse instead of better. I became a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement when I was in the Air Force and I was one right up until the turn of the millennium. I couldn't sustain that shit after Y2K turned out to be a big bust...but the reason we're dealing with this shit now is the people who just kept going with it.

I had enough of a grounding in reality to believe what my eyes and ears told my brain.

A lot of these fucking people don't.

And we're like, one major event away from it being like The Walking Dead out there...but with conspiracy nuts instead of Zombies.

I wrote this four years ago, and things have not improved.

So there's that...or we could just stop putting up with all this bullshit.

It's not going to stop, until we make it stop.

Either you believe in freedom more than you believe in your next emotional ejaculation, or you don't.

Слава Україна!

"Life is sacred"? Who said so? God? Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death! Has been for thousands of years! Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians; all taking turns killing each other because God told 'em it was a good idea. The sword of god, the blood of the lamb, 'vengeance is mine'; millions of dead motherfuckers. Millions of dead motherfuckers, all because they gave the wrong answer to The God Question: "Do you believe in God?" "No." BAM! Dead. "Do you believe in God?" "Yes." "...Do you believe in my God?" "No." BAM! Dead. "My God has a bigger dick than your God!" ~George Carlin

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Our culture has forgotten what the founders knew;
The American experiment is a moral, not just political exercise.
~Chuck Colson