We'll Cut You In, O Lord! (Rationalizing Themselves Into Revelation, Two.)

Priest: [To Balian, who is working on sharpening swords in the town blacksmith forge] The village does not want you. When the old lord is dead, they will drive you out. When the bishop is dead, it is certain.

Balian: And you take my property.

Priest: The Church.

Balian: You.

Priest: They would have taken you to Jerusalem... away from... all this. I arranged it. I swear to you... you will have no peace so long as you stay here. No man ever needed a new world more. Imagine your sin and pain erased. All. [Balian takes out a sword and starts malleablizing it] If you take the Crusade... you may relieve your wife's position in hell. I put it delicately. She was a suicide. She is in hell. Though what she does there without a head... [Balian notices priest's cross necklace, holds it up and impales him with sword throwing him onto the fire, Balian takes the necklace with the priest leaping out, igniting the forge.] ~From the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

...

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he strikes a man.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. ~Revelation 9, King James Version.

I saw this when I woke up.

A bunch of old white people, ridiculously angry about the fact that a new local burger place uses Halal meat.

For the record Halal is basically the same thing as Kosher, it even says so in Islamic dietary laws. Lots of the beef you find in the average American grocery store is Kosher by default.

It's not for religious reasons, it's Capitalism.

I also immediately thought of both my best friend from when I was in the Air Force...and his eventual wife, both of whom were amazing cooks.

And I remembered my Muslim college friend from Egypt and his wife (Well, girlfriend back in those days) and the fact that she made an amazing veggie Lasagna. Like, seriously when I got on Facebook in 2010 and found they were already there, I made a point of asking if I could have the damn recipe (and I got it!)

Honestly, I can't imagine living life without stuff like that!

I put no stock in religion. By the word religion, I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the "Will of God". I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. And goodness - what God desires - [pointing at his head then heart] is here and here. And what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man...or not. ~The Hospitaler, from the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

I mean, fuck, what joyless lives These Fucking People lead...and seem to want to. But then the next time I logged in, on my Laptop, the first thing I saw was the AIG post snipped above and trust me, you're not going to find very many people that define "Joyless religious fanatic" more than they do.

Well, except maybe for Pete Keg-Breath and all his Calvinist Theo-Bros, who think they're getting everything they ever wanted right now and they're still all getting shit-faced drunk in Pentagon restrooms and then trying to deny it to each other because they're all so "righteous" and shit.

What the fuck is wrong with men? I ask as a man, a former conservative Republican and as a veteran.

But then, I was never one of These Fucking People, these violent drunk fucking religious-bro narcissists and yes, we had them when I served. They ain't all that, especially by their own alleged standards.

Shit, as a Senior Airman and Staff Sergeant I was responsible more than once for guys like that facing disciplinary proceedings because they're stupid. 

Worse, for all their religious talk, if anybody can find a bag of Cocaine, a fifth of Patron, a foreign prostitute and an impressive selection of um, toys, in a place like Marquette, Michigan and then get caught with all that (and reported) by their pregnant wife who then goes from meek Christianized submissive to utterly righteously angry Feministic diva with a job at an LGBT bookstore (this in a time when such places were less common than they are now) in like 12 mind-shattering seconds??

Yeah, it's these idiotic motherfuckers.

Also, you think these knuckle-draggers are regressive? The Uniform Code of Military Justice when properly applied is, shall we say worse.

The funny/sad part here is dude got his ass busted down a grade among other things but somehow managed with counseling and rehab to weasel his way into keeping his career, an utterly Pyrrhic victory when he ended up paying like 3/4's of his check in child support and then spent the next 18 months of his life in Saudi Arabia and a few years later his career came to an utterly predictable bad end with a failed FITREP and loss of professional qualifications anyway. Followed by jail (repeatedly) for nonpayment of said child support.

So much for "Integrity Above All, Service Before Self, Excellence In All That We Do" huh?

I mean, more than once I've wondered aloud how Pete Hegseth had a career and didn't get himself shit-canned for God-Only-Knows-What before he ever made it out of the training pipeline. 

(Just kidding, I know why: In all cases, it's because some other idiotic CHUD-bro higher up in the commands structure who likewise once escaped accountability their own damn self goes to bat for them...but is then magically never themselves present when the bill comes due and everyone else ends up covered in sloppy shit.)

I'm just warning you now, America, some variation of this writ large is exactly what we're all in for.

Although I suspect in the case of Keg-Breath or Trump this ends with fleeing the country, exile, and a gilded palace in Saudi Arabia, probably even in the same neighborhood in Jeddah where Idi Amin stayed during his exile there. I'd have said Dubai or Qatar but I think these fucking people have burned up all their goodwill (and the Iranians have trashed a lot of what would have been their protection) among the Arabian Gulf states. 

If so, I can live with that, a gilded cage is still, in fact, a cage.

Honestly it looks a lot like some of These Fucking People are finding that out already. It's funny how these fucking people never think about stuff like that, then they do a bunch of skeevy shit in the public eye and then they have the nerve to wonder why they're constantly followed around by angry mobs of their former followers.

The thing is at this point there's basically three kinds of conservatives when people find out how much of this stuff is utter bullshit.

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

#1 There's those like myself or the one lady I described up above who get the fuck out and probably end up worse critics of all this horseshit than any liberal you can think of

#2 There's the "Simp Harder, Lie To Me More, Daddy" types that there are so many of online.

And no, I'll never understand that shit. There pretty much is no bottom, I guess.

And then #3 There's the people who do some degree of that shit who, increasingly and almost entirely because of Trump, see the world coming at them, greet it with both middle fingers upraised and a defiant "Fuck You!"

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Then they get what people like that get, get figuratively or literally punched in the face, figure out they don't like that very much, and retreat behind a Facebook page that beats everybody over the head with how "Christian" they are. This is the shit my partner's cousins did.

And maybe it's just me but I think a hell of a lot of the problem with Christianity in America is Christianity tolerates this bullshit! Most especially the basic-ass American Christian Nationalist Dispensationalist "Evangelical" type that constantly shouts about how "Jesus Is Coming!" but then somehow acts like He is never really gonna show up and judge them for what they do.

Like I said, awhile back, there's a reason that I think the true prayer these fucking people pray is "We'll cut you in, O Lord!"

Call it 'The Republican's Prayer."

Like they think Jesus is just as much of a scammer as they are!

And somehow these lying idiots get the idea that this is "Religion."

But they have no plan for if Jesus isn't like that.

In fact, they can't imagine He isn't just as dishonest and evil as they are.

The truth is they're wrong and hell-bound and I think deep down they know it. They just hope you don't.

Like I've said they regard their own joyless addicted perversion as the new Religiosity. They approach it with the same stolid dedication that their grandparents did tight-ass Cold War era Calvinism or that their parents did the 1990's and Early Aughts narcissistic Pentecostalism.

It's a joyless religious duty, they literally think they have to be like that or they'll go to hell.

The joke's on them because if they keep it up they're going to Hell anyway.

And like I keep saying, at this point, with These Fucking People laying all this out so obviously, at this point you either believe in freedom or you don't.

When is enough going to be ENOUGH?!

Слава Україна!

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

One

Valin Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them? 

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

Left Behind Is A Lie (Rationalizing Themselves Into Revelation, One.)

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 sits 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.

...

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

I saw this right before I went to the store.

Massive swarms of Crows in Tel Aviv...traditionally this is considered a sign of impending disaster.

Oops.

Well then, when I got home I also saw that Glenn Beck apparently thinks we're living in the End Times.

As I've said many times (especially lately) I pretty much believe the same thing. But I believe that it won't work out the way he thinks it will, at least not for him and his fellow "Believers" in the Right-Wing false religion. Jesus Christ wishes Republicans believed in Him as much as they did in Ayn Rand...and Ayn Rand got herself tossed off the fantail of the ship for *Checks Notes* Donald Trump.

But the Truth is a lot worse.

The true "god" of Christian Nationalism and Evangelicalism is (apparently) Baal.

And honestly, I believe the people who know that are gonna go public with it soon.

When, as abysmal as Trump's polling is, between 29% and 36% of Americans are just fine with all this garbage, with bullshit wars, the Epstein cult, rising cost of living and all that, why not??

What do they have to lose, really??

I'm not much of one for seeking after Signs And Wonders, but when it's just "What's on the News" that's a whole different matter.

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.

Does anybody actually find it likely that if their churches were suddenly festooned with golden idols to Baal and Mammon that all these Evangelicals...especially rich white Evangelicals...would suddenly have a literal "Come To Jesus" moment and tear that shit down and start over??

It's not just that a third of America openly hates the Lord's Word and anybody who actually preaches it. It's that those fucking people are the ones most loudly claiming to be the "Believers."

I'd ask that ya'll stop and think about that for a second.

A third of America would pretty much worship actual named Biblical-grade Demons to "Own The Libs" (Whatever that even means.)

I mean, if we're being honest there's very little that I've heard from James Talarico that doesn't mesh fairly well with what I was taught as a conservative mainstream Baptist back in the day and I *Was* pretty Evangelical or Fundamentalist-adjacent.

Not that I think either of those words even means the same things now as they did 40 years ago.

And it's not just that I think these fucking people have forgotten that. I think they wanted to.

More than that, I think it was pretty deliberate. I honestly think a lot of this bullshit is deliberate stupidity, people acting dumb so they can manipulate others and think they'll get what they want.

I'm not sure if it's hubris or yes, just plain stupidity but I think these assholes think they're going to try to lie to and manipulate God.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

I think at least a lot of them think they've found a new "Savior" in Donald Trump.

I not only don't think any of this works that way, I think Trump is (bare minimum) a test-run for the Antichrist of Revelation. Certainly he is Antichrist...although I doubt he is the Beast of Revelations (AKA The Antichrist) in the flesh.

Shit, maybe I just think God deserves a better class of enemies?

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 a lot of these people have fallen a pretty damned long way since I was being taught this stuff as a young person.

I think when, fundamentally, the basis of these fucking people's beliefs could be summed up as "Anything BUT Love Thy Neighbor" Republicans have a lot of nerve calling anybody else crazy.

I think these fucking people have brought God's judgment on this country.

Not "Are bringing it." No, have already.

Perhaps worse, I think they bumble-fucked their way into doing it. I think they had a plan...it may have been a pretty half-baked plain, but it was a plan...to do this in such a way that it might hit other people harder than it hit them.

But then I think they screwed that up, because they couldn't remember how to talk to other people anymore or stop mainlining Frank Miller's "300" long enough to remember not even everybody on their own side is impressed with that crap.

They fucked it up, saw that they fucked it up, and decided to just roll with it anyway.

And it's a safe bet...has been one for years...that a third of America will look at that and either just shrug or actively end up cheering for whatever happens.

In case you wonder why I think these monsters would gladly worship demons.

At this point, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

You either believe in your own right to have a life or you don't.

It's going to come down to a fight if you want to keep one or both.

And keep in mind, as I've been saying for almost six years now, all that "Left Behind" crap is a lie.

We're going to have to face this shit, and fix it, ourselves.

Слава Україна!

I put no stock in religion. By the word religion, I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the "Will of God". I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. And goodness - what God desires - [pointing at his head then heart] is here and here. And what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man...or not. ~The Hospitaler, from the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

Prequel

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he strikes a man.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. ~Revelation 9, King James Version.

Clankers Of Sin (Rationalizing Themselves Into Revelation, Prequel.)

I put no stock in religion. By the word religion, I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the "Will of God". I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. And goodness - what God desires - [pointing at his head then heart] is here and here. And what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man...or not. ~The Hospitaler, from the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

...

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

...

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

I saw this last night.

Literal "Christian Nationalist" AI Slop put out by a sitting Congressman featuring himself as a Knight Templar. Except, ya know, I've been to Nashville (his district is a part of the Nashville metro) and it's pretty often the sort of place where a lot of people look askance at obvious Catholics.

Not that the actual reality of anything matters to these assholes and their Great Baal-Worshiping Macho Bullshit Penis-Cult Of AI-Slop.

For fuck's sake, I was a 1990's End Times Prophecy guy. If somebody from the future would have come and explained "AI Slop" and what it meant to me, back then?? Well, to be honest I'd have assumed...that it was a Sign of the End Times and likely treated the person to an hour-long screed about exactly that.

But of course, none of These Fucking People care about that anymore because we're so far from the concept of Truth at this point that These Fucking People couldn't find their way to it with the light of a returning Jesus to guide their way. 

Yes, I'm being fucking serious here:

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

And honestly, that's probably literally the point of all this garbage.

Like I said on Threads; This crap is disgusting.

Woman has had the franchise in America for over 100 years. 

Our ancestors made this decision and these fucking guys lost, and that was in the context of a far more conservative America.

Women got the vote at the point of the absolute nadir not only of American but global race relations. You can look this up.

These Fucking People are not conservative. Conservatism is supposed to be based on revealed truth in the wisdom of the ancestors. Those are things these fucking people despise. More to the point, these CHUDs can have my mom's rights, my partner's rights, or my kid's future over My Dead Body.

Also I think it needs to be said that the sad reality is most of these guys would ejaculate themselves if a woman talked to them in a sexy voice...much less anything else.

I mean, we're talking there was a Lonely Island Song about this 20 years ago.

Maybe I'm just old, but I don't understand the point of hating the people you allegedly want to have sex with or possibly get other nice things from. 

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Of course, same people are all nice and submissive to *Checks Notes* people like Donald Trump.

Not just "Nice" but...nice in about the same way that I was all nice to my ex-wife back in the day when I was trying to get with her. on a serious basis. Nice like I was to my partner for about the first five days or so until she called me on my bullshit and told me I didn't have to be that way and we partnered up for real.

And without trying to do or be anything more than kind to the kiddo for the sake of "Goddamn but Shorty needs something nice too" I figured out what it really took.

I think they are perhaps telling on themselves.

Like, seriously.

It's not just the "Mar-A-Lago Face" hags, it's...there is a lot of weird homoerotic BS around Trump from certain MAGA's.

(Almost always from men.)

But then it's often weird to me who went MAGA and who didn't.

Again it's probably worth noting and a little scary that so far as I know even my ex-wife of all people Is. Still. NOT. MAGA.

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

My partner sure as hell isn't.

I have to wonder how much of that is these fucking people's harsh-for-the-sake-of-harshness religiosity and their escalating weird hostility to women.

It's like my grandma used to say you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Why is this so difficult for current republicans?

I'll never understand the Republican "Cult of being an absolute Son Of A Bitch" simply because it's been my actual experience lived experience that all that kind of shit generates is an ass whuppin' in real time.

Of course, I likewise don't understand how the fact that the financier of so much of this horseshit is a gay man isn't setting off a whole shit-ton of alarm bells with the Christian Fundamentalist Nationalist wannabe-Templar crowd.

But then, I spent most of my life as a conservative Protestant. Nowhere in my often extensive if too often near-Fundamentalist education in this stuff did I ever get the idea that the often-murderous, conspiratorial, spiritualist, usury-practicing, allegedly-magic using CATHOLIC Knights Templar (disbanded by the French King over alleged devil worship...a claim that was itself likely BS) who were on record for killing plenty of Arab Christians WERE THE FUCKIN' GOOD GUYS.

In fact the truth was pretty much the opposite.

Not just in religious terms either, ever played Assassin's Creed?? The Templars are the Enemy.

Same generally goes for Billionaires. Super-rich people used to be staple villains of Christian End Times fanfiction. It was in fact a feature of the genre in the 1990's and early 00's.

In fact, in the post-Left Behind Series add-on's where the authors were still trying to make more money off of that crap, one of the villains (also a minor villain in the original series) and a financier of the later-Antichrist was *Checks Notes* a heavily-insinuated-to-be-gay billionaire.

But then, lots of stuff has Billionaires and Corporations as the bad guys, Resident Evil for example.

These fucking people are telling on themselves.

And when Donald Trump doesn't turn out to be the King Of Kings arriving on a White Horse, they'll try AI Slop Umbrella Corporation Jesus.

With a CHUD Skynet "Holy Spirit" to back it up.

When that fizzles far more quickly than even their effort to turn the Iran War into an End Times thing?

I don't know what the actual next step is but my guess is that's about the time these motherfuckers start going public with their Baal-worship just because there's not any Christian supernatural stuff actually manifesting on their side.

Their whole bit is that Power is Power, they don't Care where it comes from.

The trouble is, that kind of Power-seeking Hubris is, in terms of mythology exactly how people destroy themselves.

And I think that's the point.

These fucking people don't care if they destroy themselves, in fact I think that's at least one of the goals.

Elisabet Sobeck: I remember yelling that I didn’t care. And that’s when my mother took my face in her hands and…spoke.

GAIA: Query: What did she say?

Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, “Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death.”

~From the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

They're in the process of figuring out that the only way they can ever have the "world" they think they want is AI and other artificial means.

But they've forgotten the rest of us don't have to go along with it.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either willing to make the effort and take the time to read the Lord's Word and all that for yourself or you're not.

It's really that simple at this point.

You can live according to the Truth in whatever way you understand it and stay grounded in reality and/or spirituality.

Or you can live in These Fucking People's increasingly artificial world.

It's not even the Man of Sin anymore, it's the Clanker of Sin.

One of these things is not like the other one.

And their shit will get worse.

These Fucking People are so fucking Godless they're trying to AI-slop their way into a New Religious Movement. 

Don't play theological Whack-A-Mole trying to engage with this crap like it's in some kind of good "faith." Just tell these people "No" vote accordingly, be prepared to fight if needed.

They're gonna Rationalize themselves into all the torments of Revelation just trying to justify their own bullshit.

The problem is they crave self-destruction because they wanna take everybody else with them.

Because they think we'll somehow get it worse.

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And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he strikes a man.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,

Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.

And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.

And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. ~Revelation 9, King James Version.

Last Post

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

 

One World Government, Inc.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I saw this yesterday.

Just some jerkoff billionaire running his mouth about dumping New York City's homeless population in Uganda.

I'm just sayin', people, if anybody's ever going to try to implement that "One World Government" that the End Times Prophecy Movement taught me to fear and hate even the idea of?? 

Yeah, it's probably These Fucking People.

More to the goddamned point, pitch it as One World Government, Inc. and most likely every damn Evangelical and Republican would try to buy stock in that shit, at the fucking least.

And they'd do it for no better reasons than to lower their taxes and so they could dump anybody they didn't like in some out-of-the-way remote place, just because they could. Like goddamn, even the Trail of Tears still led to a place on the same continent. Come on, what the fuck?!?!

Billionaires as they are currently constituted aren't the least bit compatible with the idea of freedom, not least because these motherfuckers seem pathologically incapable of leaving other people the fuck alone.

I'm just sayin' when I acted like that as a kid I got my ass beat and maybe had to go stand in a corner.

Sooner or later, all the rest of us are gonna have to reign this bullshit in. I'd strongly suggest we #1 take a bunch of these fucking people's money and use it to fix all the shit that allowing them to accumulate such wealth has caused us to societally neglect. #2 We treat these infantile motherfuckers like infantile motherfuckers. Send that dude to Uganda with eight bucks to live on, let him see how he likes it.

Give him a tracking device with a button to push for extraction, he pushes it, it costs him all but $1,000,000 of his money and he has to publicly apologize with accountability and admissions of wrongdoing.

Set that as the conditions? I'm willing to bet a lot of these absolute CHUDs will think they can make it back on pure bluster and bombast and the truth is I suspect nearly all of them are narcissists who'd rather die in the jungle than admit they did wrong.

It's going to come down to Guillotines, the National Razor, either before, during or after this shit gets worse.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

It's not just that these assholes don't care about anybody or know anything about anything (except making money) it's that they don't want to.

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

The only things that "Trickle Down" about any of this "Wealth" are the Evil, Hubris and Selfishness.

Well, that and the depravity, I guess.

And somehow way too much of the Church in America has gotten itself all mixed up in that shit.

I'm here to tell you I think that at this point the Evangelical religion can not be considered a part of Christianity anymore. It's about Selling Jesus, not obeying Him.

It's about the Power of Politics and social bonus points, not the Power of God.

When the Baal-worshipers go public a lot of these fuckers will switch sides.

And a whole bunch of the rest for whom any talk of "Interfaith" anything would have provoked a full-on Fundamentalist screed the week before will be very, very interested in interfaith cooperation and understanding.

In their mania for control, Republicans and the wealthy will, sooner or later, hit on the idea that "It's Not The Mark Of The Beast When THEY Do It!!"

Yes, Yes It IS.

The Demons are the true "gods" of "Christian" Nationalism...which in truth has nothing to do with either word that composes the name of the alleged ideal.

It's simply the worship of Power and the Self.

The Mark Of The Beast is simply the acceptance of the False world-system of Political Power and Wealth and that's been a thing...well, since John Of Patmos wrote down whatever he wrote down that got turned into the Book of Revelation, and I'm sure it was there before, too.

Dude wasn't writing about Future Events.* He was writing about Rome.

*A Prophet isn't some fortune-teller divining the Future, a Prophet is supposed to be a spiritual leader, who may or may not know or see things others cannot, *Technically* anyone can speak Prophetically.

Elisabet Sobeck: I remember yelling that I didn’t care. And that’s when my mother took my face in her hands and…spoke.

GAIA: Query: What did she say?

Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, “Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death.”

~From the video game Horizon Zero Dawn.

But you have to watch for the fruit of the Spirit, in what they do and what they say.

At this point, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

It's really that damned simple.

Слава Україна!

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

Last Post

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."