Missing The Point Friday, 2025 (Beginning Of Sorrows, Three.)

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.
And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews. ~Luke 23:33-38

...

Sarah Connor: I need to go how Skynet gets built. Who's responsible?

Terminator: The man most directly responsible is Miles Bennett Dyson.

Sarah: Who is that?

Terminator: He's the director of special projects at Cyberdyne Systems Corporation.

Sarah: Why him?

Terminator: In a few months, he creates a revolutionary type of microprocessor.

[the Terminator and the Connors drive off]

Sarah: Go on. Then what?

Terminator: In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM, Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Sarah: Skynet fights back.

Terminator: Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia.

John Connor: Why attack Russia? Aren't they our friends now?

Terminator: Because Skynet knows that the Russian counterattack will eliminate its enemies over here.

Sarah: [sighs] Jesus. How much do you know about Dyson?

Terminator: I have detailed files.

Sarah: I want to know everything. What he looks like, where he lives, everything.

...

Here's a pop quiz: name the seven deadly sins. Come on, you saw that Brad Pitt movie. Lust, yeah, well, everybody gets that one, huh? Gluttony, sure. Greed, yeah. Envy, sloth, anger- or to be a little more technical, wrath. What else? What else? Let me put it this way: if you think you know the answer, and because of that, you think you're better than everybody else, then you're guilty of it! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1 E3 "God's Chillin.'"

I saw this yesterday.

As I've written about sporadically before, the Tech Bros think they're going to build themselves some sort of Machine God, and (don't ask me how) the Cult of this AI Crap seems to be fusing with Christian Nationalism. As if "One of these things is not like the other one" somehow doesn't apply here.

It's Good Friday, the day that (according to Christian Tradition) Jesus Christ was crucified.

Stop and think about that, for a second.

And here These Motherfuckers are literally trying to create a god in their own image, and supposedly they think they can do it in a year or so. (Tall order, from what I hear A.I. isn't even at basic human intelligence yet.)

But, it's like these fucking people never read Science Fiction.

(Yeah, I'm aware, a lot of them don't read.)

Or, ya know, that Bible they claim to believe one needs to follow every word of.

(And yet they don't read that either.)

Starting with "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor" which is also traditionally taken as "Do Not Lie."

Lying perverts the purpose of Speech.

Nobody voted for Donald Trump to "Save Humanity." They voted for that motherfucker because they thought they were gonna get something for it.

And it's only now that they're figuring out that they're not going to get anything that they're all afraid and penitent and shit, trust me.

Seems like maybe they didn't think any of this through, did they??

But then, ya know, on the other hand it seems like deep down every last one of these fucking idiots somehow thinks that in the end they're gonna be the one person that Donald Trump does right by, even if he screws over everybody else.

And yeah, some Republicans fetishize the idea of hierarchy, of bowing and scraping for profit, or they think think they're gonna manipulate this mess or screw for advantage in some unending Machiavellian political paradise and somehow, some way, the masses won't build Guillotines, or they won't get fucked over by some other political schemer or some such bullshit.

Ya know, maybe, just maybe, our political class has been there too long and needs to be removed and replaced, and then repeat the process every couple generations so the next ones don't let it all go to their heads??

(Yet at the same time a hell of a lot of these idiots are afraid of Donald Trump. I mean, what the fuck?? Dude backs down if you look at him harshly. He's a coward.)

Most of these fucking people seem more than content to let the rest of the world burn, so long as they get to keep their place in the Magical City. Never mind that it's the rest of the world and We, the People, from which they derive their place and their alleged Power.

I mean, why is this so hard for people??

And evidently, Nayib Bukele is pretty much cut from the same cloth as Trump. Senator Chris Van Hollen went to El Salvador and made a scene and got a meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia out of it. So now we know dude's alive. Let's get after getting him out and getting him home.

And of course the entire MAGA Right and Nayib Bukele and his administration are all trying to lie about it.

That right there should show you exactly how "Christian" and "Conservative" all these fucking people really are.

They ain't. 

It's all a big scam.

Before he lied his way into getting elected mayor of San Salvador (for the record at that point he was a member of the Leftist FMLN from which he was expelled for financial bullshit and poor treatment of women) and then the Salvadoran presidency and came up with "Gangs" as an excuse to forcibly consolidate power, Nayib Bukele was just a basic Business Bro with a history of financial scam-fuckery.

Yeah, that's right, not a one of these fucking people is really a doctrinaire conservative and fascism seems to be only a label of convenience, although probably an appropriate one. They're all basically just criminals, specifically con artists and thieves their own damned selves.

All this nationalist and violent fascistic bullshit is, is these guys trying to keep it so they can be sucking on that golden teat for longer.

And Bukele apparently thinks he can punch above his weight by allying with Trump.

But here's the thing, Trump is weak. Honestly, this is the kind of situation that on a smaller scale usually sees somebody get their attitude involuntarily adjusted, as my grandmother used to say.

For starters the armed forces of countries like El Salvador usually aren't worth a shit.

Honestly, I hope that little dickhead ends his days locked up in his own giant prison.

And let me tell you another thing.

I'm even more goddamned tired of people like RFK Jr. talking shit about Autistic people.

Maybe it's just the representative sample I was handed, but most of the Autistic people I know, I know from work in one way or another, with a few from social media sprinkled in...including people who serve in the military, or are veterans.

All those people have relationships, pay their bills and their taxes and work just like anybody else. Yeah, I get it, there's some that are on Disability or SSI or whatever...but I don't know any of those people.

Most autistic folks that I know contribute more to society and hell, to my own life more than RFK Jr. does!

Even if it's just a song that still gets stuck in my head every now and again. Yes, You fuckers know who you are and what you did.

(And even if they didn't do any of that, they are still people and worthy of life. I shouldn't even have to point that out. But that's what happens when you get too much free-range ignorance going.)

And yeah, a hell of a lot of those people can perfectly well defend themselves from the likes of RFK Jr. and all these eugenicist assholes we got popping up all the sudden.

I get the feeling they're probably gonna have to.

We all are, but they more than many of us will be targeted, I'm afraid.

Not just because they're Autistic, per se, bigotry, simple ass cruelty and all that. No, I think it's more than that, and worse. There's nothing these rich out of touch twerps hate more than somebody who genuinely thinks just living your own life, minding your own business, working and contributing to society, just being a person, is a worthy thing in and of itself.

The last thing all these rich flimflam artists want anybody to have is their own dignity, self-respect or sense of self because people who have that (Whether they're conservative, liberal, or other) are harder to lead around by the nose and manipulate. It's not an accident that MAGA is made up of gullible marks, thugs and toadies nor that so many of them appear to have no identity other than being Trumpers.

And they want to strip away everything that they can from everybody else because they're narcissists and think the rest of us will finally be forced to face their "Glory" and give them whatever they think is their due and/or have to beg them for whatever we need to survive. 

My ex-wife had a personality disorder and she tried to pull that kind of crap. Junior is the same, but unlike my ex he was born rich.

Money and privilege break people's brains, apparently.

My dude this is so not gonna work out the way you think it is.

I'm serious.

I think America is heading for a Revolution.

Soon.

Even the old Iowa Republicans are getting pissed off enough to yell at Chuck Grassley about it. Fuck, somebody got Tased at MTG's town hall the other day. 

Even plenty of Republicans ain't happy with this bullshit.

I mean, fuck, David Brooks...the conservative columnist...is advocating for nationwide general strikes and people taking to the streets.

And dude quoted from the Communist Manifesto while doing it.

Also, as a veteran who protested the Iraq War in 2003 I never thought I'd be on the same side of anything as Bill Kristol, but again here we are.

What I worry about is that when MAGA Republicans and all the shitty Trump enablers figure out that most people are against this shit, they are probably going to try and break a piece of this country off for themselves.

I think the odds of that are high, I think countries like Iran and Russia will protect them in this endeavor, and that will make North America another cold-hot-cold front in Putin's Second Cold War. I also think if that happens, you'll see that Ukraine and the Middle East suddenly ain't that important to Vlad because it was all about creating the circumstances to break us.

More so than we already are, and I mean that.

And more, I think the impetus for that shit is also coming from the inside, at least from tech bros and the wealthy.

You don't really think current American culture...or even Evangelical Christianity even in this debased state...would accept the worship of some sort of Machine God, do you??

Let alone being told that this is somehow something something Christian Nationalism.

I'm just sayin' I find it pretty hard to swallow that Florida Panhandle rednecks would even understand all that shit, much less do it.

Hell, I understand the concept and I think it's flat-out ridiculous.

Like I get it's Missing The Point Friday again, but how do you miss the point that hard??

I might be an Agnostic theist, but as I understand it the position of "God" has already been filled for quite some time, and He/She/I Am/It/Whatever, Just Wash Your Hands, OK? Ain't Going Anywhere.

Anything else these fucking people come up with will just be another Idol but with some flashing lights and maybe the capability to talk and some rudimentary intelligence. It might overawe the feeble-minded but it'll have been programmed by Man.

Can the Machine God create dirt?? Like, its own, out of nothingness??

Remember that part, 'cause it'll be on the test.

If you break the Machine God, will it reboot itself in three days?

I think not.

The whole point of all this stuff is that Man is supposed to look to something Greater than his own Self.

It's Good Friday, the day of Death.

The Resurrection is coming.

But to get to that requires looking outside of yourself. 

Transcendence, and ultimately the continuation of Life, means you gotta do the Work and maybe think of other people here and there. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

Faith is an action word. Without actions, without Works, it's dead. Be the change you wish to see in the world. And you have to believe it because you want to.

At this point you can either believe in God, the gods, the Divine Conversation in whatever way you understand it, or you can believe in the Tech Bros and their computer that they wanna build. One of these things is not like the other one.

Donald Trump is just a means to that end for these fucking people.

I've read Revelation, I know how that ends.

So do they. They just want to take other people to Hell with them.

(Which is precisely why things like the First Amendment of the US Constitution are important, freedom of belief, yo.)

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

It really is that simple.

Слава Україна!

Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverts the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:
No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore chastise him, and release him. (For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.)
And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison.) Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.
But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.
And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go.
And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. ~Luke 23:14-23

Two

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

We Are Legion (Beginning Of Sorrows, Two.)

But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,

And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.

For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.

And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.

And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.

And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. ~Mark 5:6-13

...

Here's a pop quiz: name the seven deadly sins. Come on, you saw that Brad Pitt movie. Lust, yeah, well, everybody gets that one, huh? Gluttony, sure. Greed, yeah. Envy, sloth, anger- or to be a little more technical, wrath. What else? What else? Let me put it this way: if you think you know the answer, and because of that, you think you're better than everybody else, then you're guilty of it! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1 E3 "God's Chillin.'"

...

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

I was over at my Mom's house for a couple days, where the internet is powered by a large Blaze ferret waddling on a treadmill, and because of the ice storm a couple weeks ago, her home Wi-Fi still isn't working. She got AT&T Wi-Fi back last week, power came back on over the weekend, but who knows when all the damage will get fixed.

I'll note, though, that she showed me a video put out by the Sheriff about the fact that workers of our local electric and gas cooperative have gotten death threats from people who don't have power back yet, and I'll note for the record we spent most of the last two days *Cleaning up* ice storm damage, which will still be evident well into the summer. My Mom is exhausted from picking up sticks and spending most of the last couple weeks without power.

And also, I'm pretty sure I saw one of our local Latino construction workers get deported in the small hours of Monday morning. It started out as a traffic stop out in front of my work and it ended with a Border Patrol truck pulling up, and then another construction guy and a lady from the company came and bought cigarettes. She was on her phone, apparently frantic both about the worker's safety and about finding a replacement for him.

Musk's crazy "We Are Legion" comment surfaced some time in the last few days. I'm not even going to ask if he's aware of the Demonic biblical connotations of that shit, I rather suspect he knows.

Same with his Neuralink wannabe Mark Of The Beast computer chips in people's heads shit.

One doesn't get raised in a place like heavily Calvinist Apartheid South Africa and not be made aware of such things...whether one wants to be or not.

These fucking people know what they're doing. They picked what side they were on a long goddamned time ago.

 And note I say that as a former Christian.

I'm not a Born-again anything, it's what I read.

If the Right, and all these Trump Supporters and shit, are not specifically of the Devil and deliberately trying to be the bad guys in their own alleged End Times narrative, they are deliberately and with malice aforethought aping that which is.

And I believe they're doing it deliberately. They know they have a cult and they want to see how far they can push. They know they're going to Hell, but they figure they can arrange for lots of company when they get there.

And they are doing all of this shit deliberately.

This isn't just fascism, it's Antichrist.

More, it's Antichrist in ways specifically laid out in the Bible as such and labeled as such in places like Revelations, and now we can add "Demonic" to the list of labels.

Now, as a current Agnostic I'm not sure if there's a God or a Devil, at least as such are defined in the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, etc. 

But I do know there are both good and bad spirits in the world. I've seen that shit, yo. And I figure there's enough cultures and religions around the world that accept the idea of a heaven and a hell that there must be something to it.

I've said many times that leading up to election day in 2020 I felt that the air was thick with bad spirits. I've likewise said that on election day, that feeling instantly went away...the air cleared like, that morning. It was noticeable, even my ferrets seemed to feel it.

Since then, I've come to believe that the bad spirits simply went into all these fucking dumb ass people who are under Trump's spell, and yeah, I think that's exactly what it is.

Trouble for him is it only works on one kind of person, basically on authoritarian racist assholes.

But, These Motherfuckers seem to think if they arrange a big enough feast of souls for Dis Pater, that they will be granted some kind of immortality or some shit. Or at least injunctive relief from the Big Fire Below.

Yeah, fuck that, none of this works that way.

I was taught that people are going to be judged according to their deeds and I still believe this.

Like, if you don't, what's even the damned point?? 

I mean, the entire "Conservative" Movement is largely slouching towards becoming Independent Fundamentalist Infernalism and doesn't even seem to be aware that it's doing so. 

I mean, nearly any careless, evil or stupid act seems justifiable because of bigotry, stupidity and Trump and many of the right-wing Christians are balls deep in trying to make it worse.

Would they bear tabernacles of Chiun and Moloch if they could do so and get power and worldly goods while still maintaining their "Conservative" aesthetic and pietistic religiosity??

The evidence suggests that, yes they would, so long as there was somebody at the top to whom none of their "rules" applied, who had Power, and they could seek favor with such a person and get things. That's basically what these fuckers believe in.

In fact, I think it's the only thing they believe in, political Power and the manipulation thereof.

Like, if you don't see a problem with all this shit that's going on...religious or otherwise...I can't help you, and I'm not sure I want to try.

There comes a point where after a decade of this...after in my case being loudly against all this kind of crap for decades even when I was a Republican...FAFO is the only thing people will even hear.

But, at least now, people are hearing it.

(How the fuck else would AOC and Bernie get a crowd in Idaho??)

More to the point, when this crap all blows up...and it will, of this I am certain...all these deluded idiots and their demonic manipulators will treat this shit as some kind of a religious war, and revel in all the savagery that goes with that.

The cruelty is the fucking point.

In fact, I'd argue, it's all they want or understand. MAGA is about being mean to people. They no longer care who.

But they'll cry like bitches when somebody even says something back to them.

Like, you can't tell me the people getting after Chuck Grassley at an Iowa Town Hall aren't basically the same kind of Republicans as he is.

They wouldn't get in the door otherwise.

But, as I've said many times there's nobody Republicans hate more than their own constituents. These assholes literally think they're too good to have to ask people to vote for them. They think they should just be given Power.

If you don't think these fucking people will abuse and kill people for believing in Jesus...or for rejecting all Gods including theirs...just look at how they treat Republicans who had a line that was somewhere north of "The Current Thing."

These motherfuckers don't want citizens, they don't even want subjects. They want wild-eyed fanatics with no life outside of Republicanism who'll raise their swords screaming "Banzai" and charge on demand.

Doesn't matter what for, only that the Party decrees it.

And again, I'll remind you that freedom isn't free. Sometimes, you have to go out and fight for it.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

It's really that simple.

I feel like we're about five minutes from the start of a particularly bloody civil war.

But here's the thing, a warning to all these assholes.

You can do all the dirty deeds and talk all the shit you want, Republicans.

But the rest of us?

We're legion too, if you wanna go that way, and there's more of us than there are of you, lest ye forget.

Nobody has to play this shit.

The rest of the world gets a vote.

And we intend to use 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

One

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

Abominations (Beginning Of Sorrows, One.)

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

...

There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. ~George Carlin

I saw this last night, via a conversation on Threads that I saw via a theologian that I follow on there.

And I'm a say the same thing here that I said over there; One Cannot be both a Calvinist (That's what a follower of Reformed Theology is) and a Catholic (no matter how Sedevacantist) anymore than CatDog from them OG Nickelodeon cartoons could be a real thing. One of these things is simply not like the other one.

As in, this bullshit doesn't make any more sense than some bearded hick pastor-bro from Texas quoting Latinate Crusader filth slogans to start with.(The real Crusaders would have taken somebody like Joel Webbon and found creative ways to kill them. They just wouldn't give a shit how misogynistic he was.)

Calvinism is a direct, contemporary spawn of the Protestant Reformation, a reaction to the corruption of the Catholic church in the late medieval/early Renaissance era first codified by Martin Luther (a theologian and university professor) when he nailed a document called the 95 theses, listing his theological grievances against the Catholic practice of granting Indulgences for Sin, to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517.

John Calvin was a preacher and reformer in Strasbourg, France and Geneva, Switzerland in the 1530's-1540's. I've written extensively about Calvinism on here, and love it or hate it, right or wrong, the shit stimulated European Christianity at a critical time and spawned numerous historically influential sects such as the Dutch and English Puritans and the French Huguenots, it influenced the ages of Exploration and Piracy and profoundly affected many countries and the formation of new nations ranging from being a causative factor in the English Civil War to influencing the Pilgrims to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

John Calvin is not a Saint, hell, John Calvin would have pulled a sword or a gun on you for trying to make him one!

Catholicism, throughout this time, basically fought to remain, well, the same old shit. Not only that, but the Church sought to destroy Protestantism, including brutally suppressing the Huguenots in France and many other such movements where they could...in the process subjecting Europe to a couple of centuries worth of Wars Of Religion.

And I'll note that this mostly broke the power of the Church, with later assists from the French Revolution and ultimately Garibaldi's secular Redshirts during the Unification of Italy.

There's no reason for this kind of fucking bullshit in the modern world. None. Zero.

The truth is, a lot of these motherfuckers just like how all the Latin sounds and like the idea of Church services that look like some bunch of dudes is opening an Oblivion Gate while wearing funny hats and gold jewelry and black robes and shit.

They basically want to turn Jesus into Bhaal, the Lord of Murder from the Forgotten Realms D&D setting, and turn slaughter into a sacrament.

If this bullshit isn't stopped they'll keep going until they burn everything down to the Earth's Mantle, including themselves.

And these fucking people seem to feel...in some sort of a really big way...that this kind of garbage somehow validates their cruel, misspelled stupid loser-dom.

Basically, these motherfuckers would rather worship literal Demons and lift up tabernacles of Moloch and Chiun and images made unto themselves than admit that Jesus told them to "Love Thy Neighbor." The Lord's Word called out this shit a long time ago.

And somehow they think Donald Trump of all fucking people makes that Okay.

Yeah, I said what I said. If you don't like it, fuck you.

I've had it with this bullshit, and if how it looks is what really is, then you don't want to live anyplace that this crap ultimately gains control of. It's fundamentally a fusion of all of Christianity's various historical fuckups mixed with all the historical fuckups of Capitalism and Colonialism. 

It's fundamentally the Prosperity Gospel on some kind of Meth-Steroid cocktail, stripped of Jesus Christ and replacing Him with either Donald Trump or Elon Musk and while I don't think there's a way to say "Unga Bunga" in Latin, that's where it'll end up and there you have it.

And I'll be honest, from where I'm sitting even that looks like it's too much work for some of these motherfuckers who'd prefer to simply venerate a gilded statue of a clenched fist with an upraised middle finger, and do it for basically no reason, because fuck you, that's why.

I mean, Jesus fucking Christ what the hell is wrong with these fucking people?!?!?!

It's basically...Early Aughts internet nihilism secretly hooked up with the same shit that I was dealing with on Christian BBS at the same time and now their dumb-shit kid is old enough to vote.

I am, a thousand times over, not kidding here.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to fight for civilization...or even your own life...or you're not.

The CHUDs that are the ones driving this whole mess now?? They don't care what happens to them, they just wanna watch you suffer and take you down with them.

They have basically decided two things:

#1 That this world is unfit to exist, pick a reason but it basically comes down to hate and/or nihilism.

and #2 They should profit from its destruction.

You're either willing to fight against that or you're not.

And they aren't going to give us a choice, because they're so wrapped up in their own hubris and narcissism that they can't even imagine how they could lose.

I'm just saying, the ancient world spilled a lot of ink, mythologically and otherwise...on what happens when people get like this.

Except that MAGA would take the Gods conniving against them as evidence of their own Rightness.

We have not one Antichrist or one Abomination of Desolation, but seventy million of them, and that's just in America.

That's how fucking warped this bullshit has become.

We allow this shit to continue at our peril.

Слава Україна!

Here's a pop quiz: name the seven deadly sins. Come on, you saw that Brad Pitt movie. Lust, yeah, well, everybody gets that one, huh? Gluttony, sure. Greed, yeah. Envy, sloth, anger- or to be a little more technical, wrath. What else? What else? Let me put it this way: if you think you know the answer, and because of that, you think you're better than everybody else, then you're guilty of it! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1 E3 "God's Chillin.'"

Prequel

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

Pride (Beginning Of Sorrows, Prequel.)

Here's a pop quiz: name the seven deadly sins. Come on, you saw that Brad Pitt movie. Lust, yeah, well, everybody gets that one, huh? Gluttony, sure. Greed, yeah. Envy, sloth, anger- or to be a little more technical, wrath. What else? What else? Let me put it this way: if you think you know the answer, and because of that, you think you're better than everybody else, then you're guilty of it! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1 E3 "God's Chillin.'"

...

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! [repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I think things are going to boil over, Soon.

If I had to guess and like I've been saying for awhile, pretty much at the first sustained stretch of warm weather, I think it'll start.

Last weekend, there were protests all over the country, in many major cities and many more not-so-major ones, including places that I know, like Manistee, Michigan that are not known for that kind of thing.

(And all a hell of a lot of comfortable White People managed to demonstrate was their own cluelessness.)

The effects of the economy crashing out because of Trump's tariff bullshit are already beginning to become visible.

The Right, of course, is in denial about this, just the same as they're in denial about Trump's tariffs and the effects thereof. Sunday night, I saw somebody crowing about Zimbabwe being willing to negotiate. Well, here's the thing, Zimbabwe is one of the poorest countries on Earth, starting a new currency after literally not having had one (they used the South African Rand and the US$) for many years...and they don't trade that much with us...but they can't afford a trade war, at all.

Crowing about "Winning" a "trade war" with Zimbabwe is about like thinking you're a bad ass because you found the Bonus Chest in Minecraft.

The Hubris of these fucking people is off the charts. 

Their accomplishments, not so much. 

Like, in a couple thousand years, we are going to be a mythological lesson to some other future people about not doing stupid shit.

I don't even know what else to say at this point.

Like, when I say "Hubris" I mean all these MAGA bros think they're going to own factories run by AI and staffed by robots or some shit.

Meanwhile, do any of these morons consider whether they or their neighbors might have jobs or enough food to eat?? It's simple facts of life that factories take time to build, and not everybody will get to own one. I'm sorry, but I think stuff like this shit will go down as the main long-term negative effect of shit like Cryptocurrency. It's convinced a bunch of CHUDs who work at Walmart and that have less grasp of economics than a common domestic ferret does, and no relevant skills, that they're all Billionaires-in-waiting.

Smoking marijuana, eating Cheetos, and masturbating do not constitute plans in my book. ~Walter White, Breaking Bad.

Look, at this point, either America gets over its narcissism and starts learning the facts of life, or it dies.

We live in a country in which facts and knowledge provided by experts are routinely discarded in favor of what people want to believe.

We got dudes that basically look like a pasty, red-bearded version of Jabba The Hutt who think having a rifle makes them a soldier and gives them the authority to threaten protesters for exercising their *Checks Notes* Constitutional rights.

Having been an Airman and sworn an oath to that Constitution, No. One of these things is not like the other one.

What you want to believe does not overrule reality, or for that matter, your own actual physical abilities, America. And too many of us are not the people our egos convinced us that we were.

It really is the case that a hell of a lot of Americans seem to have learned only the ability to hold out their hand and say "I want..."

And no, it's not the Black people, the Brown people, the liberals or poor people on welfare. It's not LGBT folks demanding special considerations, either.

It's the White Men.

And all these privileged American White People had best get a grip, because Trump and the Republicans and their billionaire enablers are coming for them next 'cause they figured out all "Those People" didn't really have that much money to steal from.

And it's going to come down to a fight, I'm serious.

More to the point, Republicans already don't want to have to live with the rest of us. As soon as they figure out that a majority of people (even MAGA's) are against all the shit they want to do, first they're gonna try and kill their way out of that problem...and then when that doesn't work they're going to engage in the time-honored Republican tradition of taking their ball and going home.

Except in this case, home is, like Florida and some other states with warmer weather and a compliant population. And they see themselves as taking that shit from the rest of us, and kicking out the people who live there that won't go along.

Just in case you wondered what these assholes trying to impose an ethnic and political monoculture on a diverse nation was about, well, that's how the Yugoslav Wars got started.

Republicans have decided they want to be Serbs.

They are basically looking at it like Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic were the fucking good guys in the Bosnian war. All this nonsense flows from that.

Sorry, but I was over there. No.

The tariffs and narcissistic bullying comments and reality-show-horseshit picking on immigrants and students all flows from that.

When other countries, and most of America is not impressed and does not bow down, these fucking people will react with violence. They will probably not do it well, and certainly not intelligently, but so many of these jerkoffs all think they're John Wayne...without realizing that even John Wayne wasn't John Wayne.

But people will still die, remember that.

These fucking people cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be trusted and will gladly fuck over even their own. They can only be defeated.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Privilege is only gonna get people killed.

These fucking people's idea of a Revolution doesn't give a shit about you.

So I'd suggest the rest of us stop putting up with this bullshit.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

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

Last Post

Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.
~Proverbs 16:18

Wine Of The Wrath Of God (American Revelation, Explained, Twelve.)

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb.

And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

And the smoke of their torment ascends up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receives the mark of his name.

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.

And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs. ~Revelation 14, King James Version

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.

I saw this yesterday.

Some idiot Republican made a meme celebrating the effective disestablishment of USAID.

And they used the meme of those dancing pallbearers from Ghana that was popular way back in 2017 to do it.

For the record, Ghana is a very Christian country, one that's in comparatively good shape for that part of the world, and it's a very religious country where the majority of the population is Christian, and most of the rest is Muslim. The same energy that made these guys from Ghana do what they do flows through African American Christians in the South, particularly around New Orleans and those kind of places. 

Oh when the Saints, oh when the Saints, oh when the Saints come marching in...

It's not just an idle line from a meaningless song. These fucking people are basically disrespecting Christianity and mocking the Lord, on top of their normal abominable behavior, and don't you forget it.

And yet these fucking idiots have the nerve to accuse others of hating Christians, basically for no better reason than those people *Exist* and cannot be forced to become bitter-ass White Republicans talking only of the glories of *Checks Notes* Donald Trump.

You want to know why, fundamentally, I think this whole mess will end violently...and much sooner than in 2029??

I think that because they want it to. 

These fucking people want a fight...because they somehow think they have all the guns (which they emphatically do not) and they think they'll win by the strength of their White Conservative Purity...which by the way has fuck all to do with Christianity at this point.

(Or, failing that, that they can somehow make things so bad that Republican Jesus will come and Save them-and only them. And that they would not get punished for this.)

And then they think they'll spend Eternity in Peace and Blessedness with Donald Trump. Goddamn, talk about how even if you win, you really lose.

And that's basically why these motherfuckers are acting like such priggish assholes and basically daring somebody to punch them in the face, so they can claim "Persecution" or some shit.

And they don't give a damn if it's *Does Double Take* Erick Erickson that does it.

'Cause right now, apparently if you don't have Donald Trump's Wang jammed so far up your ass that he's urinating out of your mouth, you're not a real "Conservative."

Note: I used to be a conservative, that's not what conservatism is.

And Erick, Son of Erick, got himself voted off the island a long time ago, along with anybody who had any morals and political or religious beliefs that were not somehow relative to Orange Caligula.

If this seems nonsensical to you, well, that's the state of things.

Under the radar, it's been that way for a very long time.

And I'm here to tell you, as a former Conservative Christian moderate Republican Air Force Veteran, that the level of woo woo bullshit driving this whole mess has only gotten worse since I got out, a little at a time, back in the Aughts.

In point of fact, they've basically kicked Jesus Christ out of His own End Times narrative and replaced Him with Antivaxxer Woo, Donald Trump, and Racism, all of it slathered over with an excessive, gaudy coating of fake American nationalism and Trump's ubiquitous spray-on gold bullshit...all that while they openly destroy America, it's standing in the world, and its own state capacity.

Like, if Trump wanted a fascist dictatorship, this is the wrong way to go about it. Those things require more State capacity and power, not less. Don't get me wrong, it's what they think they're trying to do...while outsourcing all the real work to El Salvador.

None of this even works that way. That simply isn't how you do this.

Based on my observations over the last decade or so, these idiots don't just think Donald Trump is America, they think he's God.

This is going to end badly, not just, but mostly for this fucking cult.

They don't understand anything, least of all themselves.

And all that this tariff bullshit is going to do is (further) impoverish MAGA and Red States in particular, I wonder if these poor redneck assholes will notice when all their little creature comforts and distractions start getting priced out of their reach??

I mean, for the record a pack of Marlboro Reds is already over ten bucks, and most of our tobacco is grown in the South (and yes, the price has gone up since November) so you'd think that would be a thing people would see.

But I'm here to tell you, one hell of a lot of them don't.

A fair number of these fucking people are blinded by the same fart-huffing politics-as-sport-ball bullshit that'd lead people from Alabama to think a Football coach would be a good Senator.

Most of the rest are just stupid or so hopped up on political partisanship that they'd vote for the Devil if he ran as a Republican...or both. Yeah, think about that for a second.

And these fucking people hate anybody they imagine is on whatever real or imagined "Other Team" which is starting to include most of the rest of the world and even a plurality of MAGA itself as those fucking people start to realize they're losing out too.

A lot of Republicans, and I use that word deliberately here, don't care if they lose. 

They just want somebody else to lose worse.

I'm here to tell you, just like a lot of Tea Party people were horrified and turned against Trump once MAGA got going, there's going to be more levels of this and MAGA will end up looking like moderates if not fucking voting for the other team come the next time there's an election where they live.

But for a lot of These Fucking People it's a combination of narcissism, nihilism, and bored rich-kid self-destruction as a political philosophy. Throw in a hundred-some years of Capitalism and Movement Conservatism being taught AS Christianity and on top of that, These Fucking People being told that they were alone in a lost and dying world and everyone but them was going to Hell, just in case you wonder how Republicans got so fucked in the head.

Basically the only things these fuckers still believe in are their own greed, hate and rage, and that somehow things should be as shitty as possible so they can get some kind of "reward" in the afterlife and justify their own selfishness and stupidity in this one.

That's their religion, basically, Trump is just a tacky gold add-on. Some of them were always like this.

They simply don't care if they drink the Wine of the Wrath of God.

More to the point, what they actually think is that if they can make you suffer by them drinking it, they should guzzle that shit like Bud Light.

They don't care if they got to Hell, just so they think they'll have company.

And I'm warning you, again, that it's probably going to come down to a fight to get rid of these assholes.

Prepare yourself.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

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

Eleven

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sits upon many waters:

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

The beast that thou saw was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits.

And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.

And the ten horns which thou saw are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

And he saith unto me, The waters which thou saw, where the whore sits, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

And the ten horns which thou saw upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou saw is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth. ~Revelation 17, King James Version.