The Imperial Collapse Playbook

#81
https://www.globalresearch.ca/thoughts-false-dichotomy-between-western-liberalism-fascism/5832108

Twentieth century fascism/social cleansing advanced with overt, brutal assertions of power by way of invasion of foreign territory…

Twenty-first century fascism/social cleansing advances in sly, covert clauses in legislation that cuts vulnerable people off from resources needed to survive, as well as through military adventurism in the Middle East.

If it succeeded at anything, 20th century fascism succeeded most as a pioneer of commercial/corporate advertising.

Propagandist techniques piloted and mastered by the nazis were studied, absorbed and replicated by allied forces, who then deployed them for their own warped agendas.

In so doing the contemporary “liberal democracies” can be meaningfully described as fascist. I will continue to explain why.

The historical possibility of global fascist hegemony was explored by fantasy author Phillip K Dick in “The Man in The High Castle.”

Whilst his narrative differs from historical fact in that global hegemony was headed by axis powers in his narrative, rather than allies, it converges with historical fact to the extent that we certainly do live under a system of totalitarian global hegemony, completely lacking in meaningful freedom and liberty for citizens.

The moral case against the Nazis was that they aspired to a wrongful world domination, in which they would enforce oppressive racial hierarchies.

Such policies would — and did — dispossess and brutalise the diasporas created by modern imperialism, culminating in the tragedy of the holocaust.

The allied powers, although only in rhetoric and not in deed, invoked this moral responsibility to justify war against Germany.

In all truth the utter terpitude of the Nazis derived mainly from material factors, such as a domestic political economy incorporating corporations with the state, although the influence of ideational factors also influenced the political dynamics of Hitler’s rule, such as religious and occultist belief systems adhered to by the Nazis.

After the conquest of Hitler the mood in the west was joyous and buoyant.

Seemingly, good had won. But beneath the facade of western moral victory was the apparent internal rot of imperialist systems.
For one, the victory was partly predicated on the use of nuclear weapons on Japan, an absolute aberration from humanist values that ought forever stain the reputation of the west.

Also, and less publicly recognised than the horror of nukes, is the fact leading Nazi scientists were absorbed by NASA and the CIA. Let that sink in. This occurred under the auspices of intelligence programs.

Under the policy parameters of the “War on Terror,” the US – and NATO forces subsumed under it – have established something resembling a caliphate in Middle Eastern territories, having invoked a moral panic in the wake of 9/11, the subtext for military adventurism in the region.

A point of interest in these adventures is that they were the first historical occurrence of a war fought with more private contractors on the ground than traditional soldiers.

The result was that public utilities and domestic infrastructure of Middle Eastern countries were dismantled and absorbed into the portfolios of transnational corporations, who operate with impunity, cloaked behind the terms and conditions of opaque corporate governance, which destroyed the soul and substance of Arab civic society.

Though western powers cite an absence of liberalism as a reason to invade, the post-invasion reality is an even starker absence of liberalism, rendering such justification invalid. In all truth the major motive for occupation is likely the boon of oil and drug resources.

Regional guerillas, such as ISIS, have, despite the current opposition to them in the west, been actively employed by western powers in the past, because they were perceived to be useful to western agendas and susceptible to manipulation.

Their role in destabilising the Middle East was the explicit intention of the West.

With the disclaimer that this is pure conjecture I personally suspect the reason Assange was indifferent to being perceived as a bedfellow of Trump was because Clinton armed ISIS in Libya.

Crimes against humanity are the hallmark of modern despotism and whilst the Holocaust was a uniquely evil event, the tactics and protocols which enabled it are evident in western foreign policy.

It is industrialised slaughter on a global scale made possible by the invention and trade of weapons, heinous use of force and humanity’s technological capabilities against innocent civilians.

These are committed at the behest of hypocritical governments, vainglorious and callous elites who take the insult even further by shamelessly appropriating the rhetoric of humanitarianism to cloak themselves in glory.

US crimes against humanity are not a small handful or a rare mistake, they are endemic, within both domestic society — in the form of brutal institutional racism — as well as within foreign policy, externalising and protecting white supremacist ideology — “American exceptionalism” — on the world at large.

In comprehending and understanding the histories and legacies of our societies, the virtue of intellectual honor calls upon us to condemn our rulers just as we condemn Hitler, for, as I hope to have demonstrated, it is objectively true that these systems of power are relative and comparatively similar.

***
Makaveli Rise
 
#82
The Elite’s 5,000-Year War on Your Mind Is Climaxing. Can We Defeat It?

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”– Steve Biko, South African freedom fighter, beaten to death in an Apartheid prison cell in 1977.

it is important to understand the Elite’s ‘Great Reset’, with its fourth industrial revolution (technocratic), eugenicist and transhumanist programs, as simply the latest manifestation of this 5,000-year war on Homo Sapiens during which Elites (local, ‘national’, ultimately global) have used a range of policies to contrive ‘great events’

orchestrated wars and famines;

slavery; human sacrifice;

imperialism and colonialism;

economic exploitation through contrived financial crises (including depressions);

‘natural’ disasters, revolutions and ‘medical’ crises to name the most obvious – to distract attention from and facilitate profound changes in world order, to kill off substantial proportions of the human population and enslave those left alive while obscuring vast transfers of wealth from ordinary people to the Elite (whether local, ‘national’ or, ultimately, global).

This includes, for example, the Elite-orchestrated war in Ukraine which is nothing more than another manifestation of this policy – see ‘The War in Ukraine: Understanding and Resisting the Global Elite’s Deeper Agenda’

– and, for example, it is consistent with this program that depleted uranium (DU) weapons have been deployed by Britain in Ukraine, the explosion of which threatens citizens across Europe.

– see ‘Britain’s Decision to Send Depleted Uranium Munitions to Ukraine Will Have Grim Consequences’ and ‘The British Gift that Keeps on Giving: Uranium-irradiated Wind and Rain for Poland, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and London too’

– and that the United States used a nuclear weapon to destroy the Nordstream Pipelines, in this case inflicting a ‘first strike’ nuclear attack on Russia and Germany, a range of adverse environmental consequences on the populations of Scandinavia and Europe, and effectively a knock-out blow to key economies of Western Europe (by depriving them of a crucial source of energy). See ‘Nordstream – Anatomy of Dante’s Explosion’.

Both of these nuclear attacks are readily identifiable as measures consistent with the explicit Elite program to kill off a substantial proportion of the human population.

Thus, while I have previously identified four fundamental shortcomings in the efforts of anti-war activists over the past 100 years, which together account for the movement’s failure to have any impact in undermining war as an institution

– see ‘Rage Against the War Machine: What Rage? “When will they ever learn?”’

– it is also clear that another very old threat, now being embellished by new and more pernicious forms, is being ignored too.

So, as I have become increasingly aware over recent years, there is another entire dimension of war-fighting that is only being discussed at the margin and must be considered and addressed not only by those committed to ending war but by anyone who values human life, identity, freedom and free will.

Because, as is manifestly obvious to those investigating more deeply and as captured in the title of this article, there is a battle now being fought in the technocratic realm and it is being waged against all of humanity simultaneously, not just a particular population.

In essence, this battle is the final battle in the war being fought to control your mind.

To put this another way, a primary battlefield of what many now call fifth-generation warfare (5GW) is your mind and who controls it.

5th Generation warfare is ‘being waged at all levels, not just the mental.’ and any review of the ‘Great Reset’ plans demonstrates the extraordinary breadth and depth of the control now being imposed.

Nevertheless, control of our minds is central to the war being fought and any successful defense in this war requires that we identify the threats to our mind and defend ourselves adequately against them. Otherwise we are poorly placed to identify and defend against all of the other threats.

Of course, using less invasive but still very effective weapons, the war to control your mind is ancient and it is this component on which this article is focused both because it is extremely advanced and is necessary if other components of the Elite plan are to be fully implemented.

human societies everywhere are essentially populated with adults who are easily scared into uncritically obeying Elite directives, conveyed through a variety of its agents, as the past 3.5 years have graphically demonstrated. But because the fear is largely unconscious, most adults can easily be led to believe they are acting out of their own free will or, at worst, following ‘reasonable’ orders ‘for the good of the community’.

Moreover, this can occur for a number of reasons. Denied safe opportunities to focus on feeling their fear and terrorized out of expressing their anger and other feelings during childhood – the logical response to ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ or ‘utterly invisible’ violence inflicted by an adult – the child ‘learns’ a range of ways to suppress awareness of these feelings, almost invariably unconsciously, which is why their fear, anger and other feelings are not necessarily obvious to the person or those around them.

A variety of psychological mechanisms such as denial – denying the existence of a reality that frightens/angers in order to feel safe – and delusion – constructing a delusion in relation to a frightening/infuriating reality that cannot be denied or suppressed in order to feel safe – are everyday occurrences for most people. But these two psychological mechanisms are not the only ones. For one discussion of several key ways in which fear manifests but is unconsciously psychologically concealed by the individual,

But another outcome of suppressing awareness of how one feels – including angry – also denies the child the awareness and capacity to defend themselves against violence and other injustices. As a result most children – even those who learn to ‘bully’ – end up acting very powerlessly in the face of violence and injustice as they grow up.

And this continues into adulthood. Having ‘learned’, under threat of violence from parents, teachers and other adults, not to defend themselves against their parents, teachers and other adults as a child, the child grows into an equally powerless adult.

Thus, in the current context of threats posed by the Elite program – the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ with its fourth industrial revolution (technocratic), eugenicist, transhumanist, political and economic components – even among those who have been able to perceive the most obvious delusions being presented to them, the bulk of these individuals have proven incapable of doing little more than complaining powerlessly, begging an Elite agent to ‘go easy’ on them (by lobbying or petitioning a government or international organization such as the World Health Organization), cross-posting the latest irrelevant post from one social media platform to another, possibly advocating unspecified resistance (or strategically irrelevant action), or attending a protest demonstration.

Seeking out and applying strategic means of resistance to the ‘Great Reset’, or recognizing and acting on it when offered, has remained beyond them.

But while childhood terrorization is enough to immobilize most people into behaving powerlessly under threat, Elite agents have also invested enormous effort to work out how best to capitalize on this fear. And while fear isn’t the only psychological motivator used, it is the most powerful, with more gross or subtle versions used depending on the context. As the historical record demonstrates.

Continued
 
#84
https://www.voltairenet.org/article215855.html

At dawn on February 24, Russian forces entered Ukraine en masse. According to President Vladimir Putin, speaking on television at the time, this special operation was the beginning of his country’s response to “those who aspire to world domination” and who are advancing Nato’s infrastructure to his country’s doorstep. During this long speech, he summarized how NATO destroyed Yugoslavia without the authorization of the United Nations Security Council, even bombing Belgrade in 1999. Then he perused the destruction of the United States in the Middle East, in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Only after this lengthy presentation did he announce that he had sent his troops to Ukraine with the dual mission of destroying the Nato-linked armed forces and ending the Nato armed neo-Nazi groups.

Immediately all the member states of the Atlantic Alliance denounced the occupation of Ukraine as comparable to that of Czechoslovakia during the “Prague Spring” (1968). According to them, Vladimir Putin’s Russia had adopted the Soviet Union’s “Brezhnev doctrine”. Therefore, the free world must punish the resurrected “Evil Empire” with “devastating costs”.

The interpretation of the Atlantic Alliance is aimed above all at depriving Russia of its major argument: although Nato is not a confederation of equals, but a hierarchical federation under Anglo-Saxon command, Russia is doing the same. It refuses Ukraine the possibility of choosing its destiny, just as the Soviets refused it to the Czechoslovakians. It is true that Nato violates the principles of sovereignty and equality of states stipulated in the UN Charter, but it should not be dissolved, unless Russia is also dissolved.
Perhaps, but probably not.

President Putin’s speech was not directed against Ukraine, or even against the United States, but explicitly against “those who aspire to world domination”, i.e. against the “Straussians” in the US power structure. It was a real declaration of war against them.

On February 25, President Vladimir Putin called the Kiev leadership “a clique of drug addicts and neo-Nazis”. For the Atlantic media, these words were those of a mental patient.

During the night of February 25-26, President Volodymyr Zelensky sent a ceasefire proposal to Russia via the Chinese embassy in Kiev. The Kremlin immediately responded by setting out its conditions:

arrest of all Nazis (Dmitro Yarosh and the Azov Battalion, etc.)
removal of all street names and destruction of monuments glorifying Nazi collaborators during the Second World War (Stepan Bandera, etc.),
laying down of weapons.

The Atlantic press ignored this event, while the rest of the world, which knew about it, held its breath. The negotiation failed a few hours later after Washington intervened. Only then would Western public opinion be informed, but the Russian conditions would always be hidden from them.

What is President Putin talking about? Who is he fighting against? And what are the reasons that have made the Atlanticist press blind and mute?

"Make way, veteran coming through!"
 
#85
In his new article “Wherefore Israel? Governments of, by, and for the Jews don’t last long” Dmitry Orlov opines that the Zionist entity’s days are numbered, and suggests that Israelis consider moving to the real Jewish homeland: the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in eastern Russia. Excerpt:

“Now, in terms of what that does to American politics, well, there are two points to be made there, I believe. The first is, don’t even bother waking up the Americans. Just hand out some fentanyl patches and let them linger, convalesce, whatever it is they’re doing, because they’ve blown it as far as taking control of their government. They’ve just completely blown it. The republic is no more."

“And in terms of their support for Israel, well, how do you support Israel if you’re broke?And that’s another thing that Americans have a lot of trouble wrapping their brains around, is that their country is broke. Right now they’re still sort of running on fumes. The printing press is broken. The lending machine is breaking down as we speak. Every single auction has more of a tail than the previous one. And the interest rate on federal debt is going through the roof. The entire discretionary spending part of the US federal budget is getting swallowed up by interest payments."

“So where is Israel in that? Nowhere. It’s nowhere. And so we don’t really have to worry about anything. We have to just sit back and watch things unfold, because the trends are unmistakable.”
 
#86
>30,000 dead.

As war intensifies between Israeli regime and Palestinians, what is your general opinion about what is going on in Rafah?

Well, about one and a half million Palestinians are in Rafah. Many of them have been forced there by genocidal Israeli bombing of their homes and their life support systems. Now the Israeli regime’s leaders are saying they are planning to invade Rafah, and the American administration is responding by telling them not to, or rather discouraging it.

However, the American administration is continuing to supply the bombs that the Zionist regime is dropping on innocent Palestinian civilians, and that it will use if it attacks Rafah and invades Rafah as it’s threatening to. And rather than cutting off the supply of bombs — so far the Americans have supplied the Zionists with 20,000 bombs — the Zionists are now asking for thousands more.

And the Americans have agreed. The Biden administration is not even asking Congress, but going over the heads of Congress to supply the Zionists with thousands more bombs to drop on innocent Palestinians.

And the Biden administration has not threatened to cut off these bombs in the event of an all-out Zionist attack on Rafah. On the contrary, it has said that it will continue to supply the Zionists with these bombs no matter what. [And the US is now threatening to veto a UN ceasefire resolution.]

So it’s unclear whether the American administration really has any interest in slowing, much less stopping the genocide in Gaza. It says it does. It says it wants a ceasefire. But the US administration has not backed up its words with actions.

Emperor with no fucking clothes. $400 sneakers LOL. Fuck that shit.

Okay Another perspective.

They spent what? Millions and millions of dollars minus a few marines to protect their precious Super Bowl in Vegas from who knows what --- but in Kansas City - kids are shooting up kids. Fuck these elites and their million dollar suites. Hundred grand tax write-off? LOL Fuck Super Bowl and their 100 yard piece of shit flag and their pretentious celebrities and their billions or unearned dollars. They can seriously all burn in hell. :)

$$$
 
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#87
Pepe Escobar -Two Years After the Start of the SMO, the West Is Totally Paralyzed

...now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb, and blind that the destruction of the European economy has been a massive tactic, historic victory for the Hegemon – as much as the blitzkrieg against the Russian economy has been an abysmal failure.

All of the above brings us to the meeting of G20 Foreign Ministers this week in Rio. That was not exactly a breakthrough. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it very clear that the collective West at the G20 tried by all means to “Ukrainize” the agenda – with less than zero success. They were outnumbered and counterpunched by BRICS and Global South members.

At his press conference, Lavrov could not be more stark on the prospects of the war of the collective West against Russia. These are the highlights:
  • Western countries categorically do not want serious dialogue on Ukraine.
  • There were no serious proposals from the United States to begin contacts with the Russian Federation on strategic stability; trust cannot be restored now while Russia is declared an enemy.
  • There were no contacts on the sidelines of the G20 with either Blinken or the British Foreign Secretary.
  • The Russian Federation will respond to new Western sanctions with practical actions that relate to the self-sufficient development of the Russian economy.
  • If Europe tries to restore ties with the Russian Federation, making it dependent on their whims, then such contacts are not needed.
In a nutshell – diplomatically: you are irrelevant, and we don’t care.

That was complementing Lavrov’s intervention during the summit, which defined once again a clear, auspicious path towards multipolarity. Here are the highlights:
  • The forming of a fair multipolar world order without a definite center and periphery has become much more intensive in the past few years. Asian, African and Latin American countries are becoming important parts of the global economy. Not infrequently, they are setting the tone and the dynamics.
  • Many Western economies, especially in Europe, are actually stagnating against this background. These statistics are from Western-supervised institutions – the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD.
  • These institutions are becoming relics from the past. Western domination is already affecting their ability to meet the requirements of the times. Meanwhile, it is perfectly obvious today that the current problems of humanity can only be resolved through a concerted effort and with due consideration for the interests of the Global South and, generally, all global economic realities.
  • Institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the EBRD, and the EIB are prioritizing Kiev’s military and other needs. The West allocated over $250 billion to tide over its underling thus creating funding shortages in other parts of the world. Ukraine is taking up the bulk of the funds, relegating Africa and other regions of the Global South to rationing.
  • Countries that have discredited themselves by using unlawful acts ranging from unilateral sanctions and the seizure of sovereign assets and private property to blockades, embargoes, and discrimination against economic operators based on nationality to settle scores with their geopolitical opponents cannot be considered guarantors of financial stability.
  • Without a doubt, new institutions that focus on consensus and mutual benefit are needed to democratize the global economic governance system. Today, we are seeing positive dynamics for strengthening various alliances, including BRICS, the SCO, ASEAN, the African Union, LAS, CELAC, and the EAEU.
  • This year, Russia chairs BRICS, which saw several new members join it. We will do our best to reinforce the potential of this association and its ties with the G20.
  • Considering that 6 out of 15 UN Security Council members represent the Western bloc, we will support the expansion of this body solely through the accession of countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Call it the real state of things, geopolitically, two years after the start of the SMO.
 
#88
Girl Scouts Threatened for Supporting Palestinian Children

Guess who threatened them? The Girl Scouts of the United States.

Stories abound of retaliation against those who express concern overIsraeli ethnic cleansing – from censoring news reports to reprimanding faculty, mass arrests, and suppressing students’ right to protest. A well-orchestrated campaign against Palestine’s right to exist is spreading like Covid across the US. Now, it has hit a new low.

The national Girl Scouts are threatening legal action against a St. Louis troop for the crime of making bracelets to raise money for Gaza’s children.

A story in the Feb 23, 2024 St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Aisha Sultan documents that the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri and the Girl Scouts of the United States have written scout leader Nawal Abuhamdeh of her failure to follow proper procedure and “sent her instructions on how to leave the organization.”

For four years Abuhamdeh had coordinated the group’s cookie sales. But after witnessing what happened to her parents’ Palestinian homeland she brought the idea of raising money to the diverse group of girls whose families are from Somalia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and India.

Not just these countries, but most others around the world are horrified at the Zionist “final solution” against Palestinians.

With reports of IDF forces summarily killing captive Palestinians, Ralph Nader’s question of the scarcity of reports on Israeli POW camps becomes salient. Has Netanyahu given the order for “No prisoners” even after Palestinians have surrendered?

Though there are now reports of 30,000 Palestinian deaths, Israeli efforts to block food, water and human waste management means that death by starvation, thirst and infectious diseases may vastly exceed deaths viaweapon annihilation.

As of February 21, US representatives have stymied efforts to have the UN call for a cease-fire four times. While Biden calls for “restraint” by Israel out of one side of his mouth, the other side continues to order that weapons of mass destruction be sent.

The targeting of hospitals continues as the deaths of children mount. These facts are consistent with a Zionist goal of obliterating the future of Palestinians as a people.

These scenes are not lost on the girls in Abuhamdeh’s troop. Videos of the war crimes are highly disturbing.
One video shows a Palestinian father using a shopping bag to collect pieces of his slaughtered children. Another depicts a doctor who must amputate a leg of his 16-year-old niece on the dinner table without anesthesia. In one, viewers see that “A wailing 4-year-old tried to get up and look for his parents — both of whom were killed, and his own legs amputated.”

Particularly revealing are the comments published at the bottom of the Sultan article. Though most were supportive of the St. Louis scouts, several identified with Zionist disdain for Palestinians. A person self-identifying as “kuuindhater” wrote “Helicopter Mom with an article dripping in victimology.” “medi8r” added “I fear this sort of one sided propaganda leads to misplaced hate toward Israel and Jews.”

One called “billikenforever” exuded general dislike: “What a crock! The Girl Scouts have partnered with Planned Parenthood for years in promoting the elimination of innocent babies.”

The St. Louis scout troop had posted on social media that supporters could buy bracelets for $5 or $10, with the funds going to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). The Girl Scouts of the US then wrote to them that it was impermissible to raise money for “partisan politics.” Agreeing with them, “lucygirl” posted in the comments “Does the PCRF fund Hamas? The Girls Scouts are correct in not wanting their organization accused of having members donate to an organization that fund terrorist groups.”

Interestingly, the Girl Scouts had no problem with raising money for those injured in Ukraine. Abuhamdeh pointed out the similarity and the absence of reprisals for that effort. Defending this double standard, “MOgal2” commented that “This is a political war unlike Ukraine. Ukraine was invaded by an unprovoked army. They are fighting back on their own land. Israel was attacked in a heinous way.”

Yes, the propaganda machines control millions of minds in colonizing countries. Slicing through the Gordian knot of twisted logic, “zap973”simply noted “It’s obvious that Ukrainians are perceived as white westerners therefore deserving of compassion. Palestinians are not. End of story.”

$$$

RELATED: Navalny and Lira: A Case Study in Western Hypocrisy

The kids know!! Netandyahoo and his company are not semitic. Free Palestine! 14
 
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#89



No wonder these bitches in DC hate it. They've never been able to stand it! They've been destroying wonders in places like Egypt since the Roman days. RIP West. Word
 
#90
"Degree in engineering" lol it's all good, it's America!! This sweetheart can just mix drinks for us while I cook!! :D:D



edit

ahhHHHH btw, not to insult your intelligence but NO WATER with oil. Cover the pan, starve it of oxygen!! Keep extinguishers in the kitchen!!!
 
#92
Not that I'm complaining but it's not a good idea to cook in a hoochie dress! Small kitchens in urban areas can turn 130F in the summer, and it's absolute chaos at times.

I'm not a veteran but I earned my purple heart! Cooking is nothing to look down upon. I consider it life-giving, as important as doctors. :):):)
 
#93
Sick, and Sick of It All
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/03/edward-curtin/sick-and-sick-of-it-all/

Sometimes it takes our bodies to return us to our souls. And our little pains to remind us of the indescribable pain of the savage killing and dismemberment of innocent children and adults in Gaza and many other places by U.S. weapons produced in clean factories by people just doing their jobs and collecting their pay at “defense” contractors Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, etc. Abstraction is the name of the game as human bodies are torn to pieces “over there” and the obscene profits are transferred at the computer terminals day and night.

Living in a technological world of the internet divorces us from real life as it passes into inert, abstract, and dead screen existence. It should not be surprising that people grow sick and tired of the steady streams of “news” that fills their days and nights. So much of the news is grotesque; propaganda abounds. Stories twisted right and left to tie minds into knots. After a while, as Macbeth tells us, life seems like “a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

If I Must Die
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze —
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself —
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above,
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love.
If I must die
let it bring hope,
let it be a story.

Today’s ghosts are still from Hiroshima and Macbeth is still apposite, and the ghosts of all the many millions killed since then haunt us now if we can see them. Although their bodies have disappeared out the back door of the years – and continue to do so daily – true art is to realize their presence, to hear their cries and conjure up their images. While the word freedom is still bandied about in this new Cold War era where the sense of social lostness is even more intense..., it often comes from a nihilistic despondency... those who used atomic weapons, a belief that appearances and surfaces are all and behind them there is nothing. Nada, nada, nada.

A society that Roberto Calasso calls “an agnostic theocracy based on nihilism."
 
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#94
Words of Wisdom;

Anything the west says about human rights is noise. It went out the window decades ago. If anybody's curious, I can tell you about how both the red white and blue as well as the rainbow is worth spitting on, pissing on, shitting on and burning and scattering the ashes into a thousand pieces. WORD
 
#96
Capitalism depends upon everyone committing to imagining the future, and not just any kind of future, but a cheery, business-as-usual future. The promise of future profit, built on debt in the present, demands it. Trades in ‘futures’ promised prices for commodities that had yet to even be produced or delivered. St Paul would most certainly have disapproved.

The global banking meltdown of 2008 had sacrificed the world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable in schemes of ‘austerity’ to restart the cycle of profit. Meanwhile, the planet grew hotter and hotter. It was apparently harder to imagine getting rid of capitalism than it was to imagine the end of the world itself.

The exact calculation and the ordering of the millennium and the apocalypse were open to debate. In 1660, an anonymous writer going by the alias “Friend to the Truth” produced a complex calculation and explanation as to why the “Egge of Antichristianisme” would hatch its devilish beast in 1666. In just six years’ time God’s wrath would be unleashed upon the Earth in order to destroy the ghastly creature.

The London barrel-maker Thomas Venner prayed most earnestly for that year to dawn. He was a leader of the Fifth Monarchy Men, a follower of the biblical prophecy of a last, holy king to come after four ungodly ones. The message was clear for Venner and his followers: King Jesus was to replace Charles I. Even Cromwell – whose megalomania made him a self-crowned king – stood between history and the proper coronation of the Lord.

The Jews would be restored to Zion, and “wicked empires” in Rome and Babylon destroyed, all through an armed insurrection that started – and ended – in the streets and pubs around St Paul’s Cathedral. What happened on the streets of London had significance for the fate of the Earth – the very cosmos.

Apocalyptic and mystical cults flourished as the pamphlets and buboes spread, but so did science and invention. Perhaps unexpectedly, much scientific development during this time was also premised on a desire to bring about the Divine closure of history. Founders of the Royal Society of London – the pioneering academy of science – believed that the millennium would be marked, or accomplished, by advancing human knowledge to a godlike level.

Samuel Hartlib was one of these, a Polish emigré whose thirst for knowledge drank up agriculture, weaponry and more. Hartlib also dreamed of the end of humanity as his neighbours knew it. He pledged himself to a secret fraternity of like-minded men; together they aimed to reconcile all warring Protestant factions and start a utopian scientific community on a Baltic island.

He was fascinated by the “commonwealth” of bees, perhaps a model of the heavenly city that closes the book of Revelation. By helping to spread intelligence of the latest natural philosophy (science), Hartlib aimed to bring heaven on Earth.

While the Fifth Monarchy Men relished the prospect of violence and revolution to bring on the millennium of God’s kingdom, men of science in general did not. The fabulously wealthy natural philosopher Robert Boyle, in particular, had a great deal to lose if the world were “turn’d upside down”. He sloped into radical meetings to find out what the plotters were saying, on one occasion leaping to his feet to correct the “depraved” interpretation of the Old Testament that he heard offered as a vindication of revolution.

Boyle, a fellow founder of the Royal Society, was no less anxious than the radicals to see the millennium of Christ’s rule come. Unlike these, however, he saw the birth of the new age as comparatively easy, and something that would, moreover, leave his position untouched. Nor was there any need, as Hartlib thought, to escape to a distant isle to find it.

Boyle scribbled down a feverish list of discoveries that, if accomplished, would show that humans had attained a heavenly kingdom on Earth. “Attaining Gigantick Dimensions” was one ambition; so too were flying through the air and moving underwater. His precise ambitions look odd by today’s standards; perhaps they replicated the powers of angels (flying) or transcending the limits of earthly bodies.

The most striking of Boyle’s ambitions promised to undo the curse of humanity’s Fall. According to the book of Genesis, humans were cursed with hard work, with limits to their knowledge and, ultimately, mortality. Boyle looked to reverse the punishments: for tools to ease human labour, and for “Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination [and] Memory” to correct lapsed intellectual powers.

He even looked for “the recovery of youth” and “the Prolongation of life”. This set of ambitions, and its millennial purposes, helped to bond and motivate the members of the new Royal Society that grew from Hartlib and Boyle’s circle.

Many technologies that have been proposed as solutions implicate imaginaries that continue to embed capitalist inequalities. Carbon capture – an as-yet-imaginary technology at scale – is nothing more than a sticking plaster for a broken system, a clean-up mechanism that will enable business as usual. (Despite its unproven status, the British government's decarbonisation strategy relies upon it.)

Our millennial predecessors had a huge framework of theology around which to construct their scientific dreams. Perhaps before we dream up new pieces of planet-fixing tech, we need first to find an equally compelling spiritual or philosophical framework for our imaginary – and one that puts climate justice and the intrinsic value of nature at its centre.

https://wellcomecollection.org/series/YeUt6xAAAIAWMs9o
 

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