From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root....If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly....Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. ~Ronald Reagan
...
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.
I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran
So Trump is apparently reduced to attempted Red-baiting of Kamala Harris now? (Seriously, look on Threads, Republicans are going all-in on this idiocy.)
Trump wants to Party Like It's 1989.
Specifically, about exactly 35 years ago, roughly August 18th, 1989. The day before the Pan-European Picnic, which is traditionally considered the start of the opening of the Iron Curtain.
Motherfucker, Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989 (And Trump's biggest ally is Putin, who's trying to bring that shit back!) I mean it, I'm serious, I'm 50 years old and you have to be my age for Communism to even have been a thing that might've affected your life. Hell, even the Chinese haven't really been Communists since the 1970's when they started privatizing agricultural production.
Right under that on my feed there's a post about how Project 2025 aims to use the military against Americans. (As if that wouldn't likely backfire rather spectacularly after a very short period of time. Our military is supposed to be apolitical and not deployed for domestic law enforcement and shit like that. I mean, seriously, if you serve this is part of your training.)
Trump doesn't want the United States Armed Forces, he wants an American version of the Red Army, subservient to The Party, and to himself since he basically is the Republican Party now.
Since Trump slithered down the Golden Escalator in 2015 it amazes me just how freaking Communist the Republican Party manages to sound. They're all about building walls and political purges and throwing people in Gulags...and making sure only top-ranking members of The Party have anything.
If I had to guess, there's a reason all these MAGA's are walking out of the Trump rallies.
Also, now idiot MAGA "Influencers" are trying to threaten Tim Walz.
I'm just sayin' I know a fair number of guys like that, and Tim Walz does not seem like a "Call The Cops" kind of guy. He seems like an "Oh, there's a dude threatening me, I'm a be answering the door with a shotgun for awhile." type of dude. Might let the cops know...but he's not going to depend on them. Tim seems like the kind of guy who pretty well understands that sometimes if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.
Sooner or later one of these idiots is gonna try and gin up a mob and all they're gonna get is an ass whuppin' from the person they was trying to go after.
(Note: This has been a conservative point of view.)
It's very much starting to feel like Republicans are looking at the writing on the wall and thinking that the Party's Over.
They pushed too far, they pissed too many people off, the list goes on.
Now, They just want to make sure to get whatever hits in that they can before they go, and party it up a few more times before the World Ends.
In fact, I think what we'll see in the next couple of months is that doing those two things is literally all they care about. Oh, sure, they'll try something in November...or maybe January...but they also know it didn't work last time and they had control of the Executive Branch at that point.
Now they don't.
Think about that for a second, 'cause it's going to be a factor.
The only people trying to prolong this bullshit are Republicans themselves, and the people who profit off of the crazy.
People are sick of this shit.
Your move, assholes.
But remember, the rest of us get a say too.
And you probably ain't gonna like it.
Freedom isn't free, yo. Sometimes you have to fight for it.
This Project 2025 shit is these fucking people's game plan somewhere no matter what happens in November, even if they get the kind of electoral beat-down it's looking like is coming, they'll try it in whatever Red States they can pull that shit off in, or in some secessionist enclave, which is probably gonna be on the small side if that's the case.
'Cause it's not about Christ or conservatism, it's about the cruelty, it's about these fucking people trying to burn America down to fuel their own narcissism. They know the Party's over, but they're gonna force somebody to bow down to that Golden Idol of Trump a few more times even if they have to make them do it at gunpoint. Attaching the words "Project" and a number to it just makes it sound official. The Russians do that with pretty much everything.
You either believe in freedom or you don't.
Now what are you gonna do about it?
Слава Україна!
The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27).Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.
When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco
