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anotherkindofmindpod · 5 years ago

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I just read both interviews, Part 1 and 2 of Jann Wenner's Rolling Stone Interview of 1971. It sounds as though John and the other Beatles DID have a realistic gripe about Paul taking over, directly projects, handing out musical assignments, etc., etc. and I'm sure he had the ego by this point to match! I would probably have become irritated by Paul as well. And no hints or even reading between the lines of John being emotionally hurt by Paul with regard to loss of intimate relationship.

Hello and thanks for writing in, Listener!First, I’d like to point out that we haven’t reached the Lennon Remembers portion of our Break-up Series, and will dig into it much more thoroughly in a future episode (stay tuned!).

Presumably this ask isn’t in response to anything we’ve actually discussed on the podcast, in which case I feel that I should explain that what we do on our show is reevaluate conventional wisdom and contextualize public statements within the realities of actual behaviors. In other words, not taking things like Lennon Remembers at face value is AKOM 101.

If what we were doing on this podcast was as easy as simply reading the most infamous interview John Lennon ever gave (the one upon which the conventional story of the Beatles break-up is founded), it wouldn’t be much of a podcast or a very groundbreaking analysis, would it?

Second, I’d like to mention that listeners/readers can hear the entire (3.5 hours!) interview on You Tube. Very evocative with audio! Wenner’s editing in the print versions often make John sound more coherent and less vitriolic towards everyone but Paul than the audio reveals (i.e. the shitty comments about Paul are always printed but the ones about George, Brian, etc often aren’t).

Next, we’d like to state the usual disclaimer (which everyone is probably already aware of but is a good reminder anyway!): John later disavowed this interview. In fact, he was so angry at Jann Wenner for publishing it as a book, it apparently created a permanent rift between the two. You may choose to view/value this interview as John being super honest, but please consider that in this allegedly “truthful” book/interview, John:

claims George is musically/creatively inferior to John

declares the McCartney album “rubbish”

reveals his belief that he and Paul’s confidence levels are intrinsically, inversely related to one another

says George was so aggressively rude to Yoko that John wished he would’ve punched him over it

proudly admits that he “maneuvered” the other Beatles to get Klein in as manager

bemoans the fact that everyone says Brian Epstein was so great “just because he’s dead” and that Brian cheated and robbed the Beatles

makes derisive comments about “fags” at least five times in the printed version alone and calls Lee Eastman “a wasp Jew, man, that’s the worst kind of person on earth.”

admits to lying in interviews and deflects accountability on the basis of being “just a guy” who mouths off about stuff

As for Paul, John is admittedly all over the place, swinging fairly wildly from nostalgic (reminiscing about having “a good mind like Paul’s” on his side and co-writing with their “fingers in each others’ pies”) to bitter (”Paul thought he was the Beatles,” etc).

As for the accusations that Paul was tyrannical, we’ve addressed these before (particularly in Break-Up Episode 2). Just as Geoff Emerick, Michael Lindsay Hogg and Doug Sulpy (and even John, when he was feeling more generous) have articulated, we too feel that Paul stepped up and led the band in a time of need and deserves unequivocal credit for that. We believe much of the subsequent complaining from the other Beatles is akin to the kind of griping one directs at a colleague who gets promoted (“who died and made you king!?”) and while some of it was likely based in genuine irritation at Paul’s communication style, much of it was probably petty. This is why we are looking at the situation from all angles, to get a better sense of what is reality v. spin. In any case, we don’t dispute that there were power struggles within the band.Any reader is free to choose John’s side in any/all of these battles. But our overall takeaway from this particular interview is that John was unloading a lot of pent-up rage; against teachers, fans, Aunt Mimi, his mum, critics, Paul and anyone else who didn’t properly recognize his genius and praise him for it.

“That’s what makes me what I am. It comes out, the people I meet have to say it themselves, because we get fuckin’ kicked. Nobody says it, so you scream it: look at me, a genius, for fuck’s sake! What do I have to do to prove to you son-of-a-bitches what I can do, and who I am? Don’t dare, don’t you dare fuckin’ dare criticize my work like that. You, who don’t know anything about it.”

Based solely on Lennon Remembers, one could reasonably believe John didn’t like anyone but Yoko and Allen Klein (of whom he also speaks with reverence). Fortunately, John gave a million other interviews in his lifetime, so even though this one is given a disproportionate amount of weight (probably b/c it is the most inflammatory and “raw”) we can compare John’s comments, behavior and art over a broad spectrum of time. We feel this gives us a better, more thorough and more authentic portrait of John’s POV. This is a good idea with ANY public figure, but especially important in John’s case, since, by his own admission he has a tendency to say what he feels in the moment and doesn’t necessarily stand by his own statements afterwards.

John in 1976: “I get a bit absolute in my statements. [laughs] Which sometimes get me into deep water, and sometimes into the shallow.”

To your other point, our overall impressions about John’s feelings regarding “loss of an intimate relationship” with Paul certainly do not hinge on Lennon Remembers, nor have we ever suggested they do. In fact, LR is commonly used as the primary proof-point by McCartney detractors and Lennon/McCartney deniers (those who willfully and sometimes passionately ignore and/or deny the deep love between John and Paul, as described by John and Paul themselves and everyone in their lives) that Paul was a tyrant who destroyed the Beatles with his massive ego.

We have never disputed the existence of Paul’s ego. But consider this: John refers to himself as an egomaniac REPEATEDLY throughout this interview. Why is there a loud faction of people who consider John being an avowed egomaniac perfectly reasonable (sexy even!), but find it unforgivable that Paul is the same way? Consider these excerpts from Lennon Remembers:

Do you think you will record together again?

I record with Yoko, but I’m not going to record with another egomaniac. There is only room for one on an album nowadays.

How would you assess George’s talents?

[…] Maybe it was hard for him sometimes, because Paul and I are such egomaniacs, but that’s the game.

Who do you think is good today? In any arts…

The unfortunate thing about egomaniacs is that they don’t take much attention of other people’s work. I only assess people on whether they are a danger to me or my work or not.

[Tangential]

But the Beatles were artists, and all artists have fucking’ big egos, whether they like to admit it or not […]

Yes, John rants repeatedly about Paul’s ego during this interview- while he simultaneously declares his own genius and artistic superiority over others. We find it mind-boggling how this irony continues to evade some people, but there it is.

George Harrison has repeatedly complained about BOTH John & Paul’s egos (and their shared ego IRT “Lennon/McCartney”), but again, this is often ignored in favor of singling out Paul as the villain.

Furthermore, it’s helpful to bear in mind when consuming Lennon Remembers that John and Yoko had received training in media-messaging by this point and were very savvy at Public Relations. We know from people close to them that they drafted their stories in advance before offering them to the public. This fact, combined with Lennon’s tendency to “mouth off” means we have the right and responsibility to question and examine John’s claims rather than simply parrot them mindlessly.

If you are genuinely interested in our take, we recommend our Break-Up Series. We think you will find it well-researched and thoughtful, even if you disagree with some of our conclusions.

Or if you simply dislike McCartney and find him “irritating,” that’s fine too. Not everyone has to like everyone!

For additional discussion/analysis of Lennon Remembers, I recommend any of several threads on Erin Torkelson Weber’s site, the Historian and the Beatles.

the flawed lens of Lennon v. McCartney

Jann Wenner’s bio

how Rolling Stone shaped the breakup

discussing a podcast appearance

Thank you so much for this ask! It is always a pleasure to share information. Have a wonderful day.-The AKOM crew

#Lennon Remembers #John and Paul #jann wenner #anotherkindofmind podcast #Beatles #HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

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isakblu · 4 years ago

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The Takeaway from The Plague by Camus

2020 has hit people with a myriad of dreadful events, and COVID-19 is one of them. The pandemic first was announced in January and started from Wuhan, China, and then the virus spread later on around the world and became a massive crisis from March till now. COVID-19 not only purloined thousands of lives of people, taken away their ordinary day and replaced it with lots of requirements such as mask out on the street, and quarantine with social distancing lifestyle. It also questions people based on their actions and thought with multiple themes that have to deal with their status where they still try to figure things out from physically to mentally and emotionally their existence in this pandemic. However, the idea that most connect people together is the acceptance and revolt in the face of absurdity. It’s phenomenal in what manner the novel The Plague by Camus sketched a magnificent deep volume of the epidemic raging the characters in the books and the obstacles they have to face. I believe Dr. Rieux, one of the essential roles from the book, has been expressing his perception of absurd in these chapters of the book. Through this novel, people are going to find themselves being aware of humanity, and both The Plague and COVID-19 remind them that in the universe they are living in, death can be the last stop, but it can’t deny the fact that the dedication and enthusiasm people have for this life .

The idea of absurdity reflects the perspective of how people looking through the rumination on the parallel view between the side of living and dying. The Plague by Camus took place in Oran, Algeria, along a coastal town in North Africa, somewhere in the 90s. The author starts the novel before the bubonic plague even happening and becomes a critical event in the story where following by lots of narratives and character involved like the doctor, Rieux, the journalist, Rambert, the wanderer, Tarrou, and many more that show their characteristics and define the absurd and revolt in their term. From my perspective, Camus and the character Rieux both retain a strong relationship in their descriptions of the absurdity, and the readers can find out that Rieux has represented some part of Camus's thoughts all over the novel, even showing the opposite. Keith Nelson has distinguished the face of absurdity through Camus's point of view by the following quote: “Human beings are absurd because they have neither metaphysical justification nor essential connection to the universe. They are not part of any divine scheme and, being mortal, all of their actions, individual and collective, eventually, come to nothing.” Camus finds the meaning of life is bound to the words death, and worthless where he describes why people have to work so hard with all the blood, sweat, and tears they pour out while in the end, all left is grass, ground, and grave. Humans must lose and sooner or later die in nothingness behind their loved one's grief or no one, but some say difference. The rebellion, the people with hopes and dreams carry the actions, thoughts which make life more meaningful, revolting against the face of absurdity. People who believe that their darkest hour comes before their dawn, the one who enjoys the yellow come from life and the red they receive even if it turns blue, and nobody can symbolize both the acceptance and revolt of absurdity than Rieux, the luminary.

No one is perfect, and they can be fallible, but learning to change and fight for what right and wrong make the mortals human. In the town full of negativity, the soulless people, and the sorrow sky, Rieux seems to be the only one who sees as the days pass with the views as another painting and sound as another orchestra when he draws out his canvas “ The doctor was still looking out of the window. Beyond it lay the tranquil radiance of a cool spring sky; inside the room, a word was echoing still, the word "plague." A word that conjured up in the doctor's mind not only what science chose to put into it, but a whole series of fantastic possibilities utterly out of keeping with that gray and yellow town under his eyes, from which were rising the sounds of mild activity characteristic of the hour; a drone rather than a bustling, the noises of a happy town, in short, if it's possible to be at once so dull and happy.”(Camus 124) The meticulous details he gives showing how he is amused by the being, the existence of life, and acknowledging it. It's fascinating by the virtue of Rieux seeing things as it speaks to him, although the calamities have not come yet, came, and gone, he still finds the beauty and delight in each event as his vivid description passes on. The readers can figure out the point where Rieux shows the revolt in most of the parts in the novel, which explains how he loves to be pleased by seeing the world. He is also the first man in the frontline when the plague starts to hit Oran and spread all over the town. Announcing the news, organizing groups of sanitary, experiment vaccines, influencing others, treating and helping the patients, Rieux doing his best to be the cure against this deadly epidemic where it took so many lives from this place. He is the doctor where he can think that the death of people is a must thing and what moral is, but the facts that he tries to battling this disease exhibit that Rieux is a rebellion against what absurdity all about and a faith denier.

The acceptance is not always easy especially death, but before the eyes start to close and the heart stops to beat, the flashback of every moment and memory oozing back letting the person who listens to the last sound seeing how all the splendid things they do or give as happiness lies down with them. For the few left pages, before the final period place the last dot, Rieux has altered and become more aware of the reality where he accepts the absurdity as the suffering, the sadness he went through as the quote illustrates “But there was at least one of our townsfolk for whom Dr. Rieux could not speak, the man of whom Tarrou said one day to Rieux: "His only real crime is that of having in his heart approved of something that killed off men, women, and children. I can understand the rest, but for that, I am obliged to pardon him." It is fitting that this chronicle should end with some reference to that man, who had an ignorance, that is to say lonely, heart.” (Camus 302) Imagine after Rieux loses his best friend, Tarrou, he then receives news that his wife has also passed away, the ultraviolence he got is hard to compare. It’s unpredictable and how ironic is through this bubonic plague gave him the hero definition since the myriad of lives he had saved, but, at the same time, when calamity dies down, he left nothing but just a person with blackbirds on both his shoulders. The reality when he sees that all the stamina he works so hard for his people, friends, and beloved one, all vanish in the last breath. He accepts it, but the readers can’t contradict how Rieux knows that people will have to take an eternity sleep, he still hauls his body and mind to face the pandemic until it is all gone. I think that is the lesson I learn from this novel about how people should never giving up and put effort into their life. COVID-19 is a horrendous mess, but so many people have been doing the best to make the worst seem better, such as all the nurse and doctor wrestling their life to help patients. I think no matter how small the action is like just wearing a mask, it still contributes to my community and my family health as revolting against the face of absurdity rather than waiting for the death to come.

COVID-19 seems to be an unreal event, as shown in the pandemic from The Plague by Camus portrait. People tend to have hope in the pitch-black time of how many times it strikes them just to make the actions stronger where the victory they celebrate lies among the falls of the dead one. All things will have the last stop, and it's the same rule with humans and the plague in which the cure is going to found, where life describes the moment people have, and death is the proof of people's existence. The takeaway I found in the novel through the character Rieux is always battling for my life even though it short, I can make it meaningful. Absurdity is something someday I have to accept, but before that, I will keep seeking purpose, meaning, and happiness in this universe.

Work Cited

Camus, Albert. The plague. Vintage, 1948.

Website:

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=a8LBjVImeO4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA2&dq=the+plague+camus&ots=DZh_dqjcDA&sig=JXM5oavWf83xNB9Sgjis6sVoJfc#v=onepage&q=the%20plague%20camus&f=false

Neilson, Keith. "The Plague." Masterplots, Fourth Edition, edited by Laurence W. Mazzeno, Salem, 2010. Salem Online.

Website:

https://online.salempress.com

Thank you for reading <3333333

Khang V Sun

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sonipanda · 5 years ago

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Now let’s be creating some little statements with a new brand! This company got in touch and wanted me to test out their products. At first, I thought they were a little different to what I was used to (mainly because they’re a thicker denier with different designs) but I really had to give them a go.

I have to say their whole brand is pretty quirky – and it’s something that is right up my street as long as I can style them right!

Oh and this is also Blog 1 of 2 – I have another one coming up for you all tomorrow 🙂

About 77Denari

77DENARI is an Italian line of tights & socks of Italian manufacture produced in limited edition.

The line has an experimental and at the same time ancient character: the tights, of an elastic nature, are in fact printed according to the original artisan method and with water colors, a technique in use for “still” supports of natural origin.

Every single graphic element has changed to a frame, thus becoming an absolutely prized piece, a unique piece, and the ethical-aesthetic choice of using water colors alone makes the product complex and innovative; therefore the study of colors, designs and print media are the result of a combination of ingenuity and magic, feasibility and disruption of the rules.

77denari was born in 2012 and is composed of 8 tights / stories per collection; starting from 2018, 77news grows and launches the Socks collection, and the “STRIPPANTI” Other Line.

The entire creative and printing process is carried out by the two founders of 77denari, Simona Berardi and Carla Armillei, and is inspired by the crude vision of geometric elements typical of the instinct of Nature.

77denari also boasts the collaboration of various artists working in the field of graphic design and illustration, photography, music, video and styling. Each of them supports the project becoming an integral part of the creative process; their participation opens the circle of possibilities towards still unexplored and seductive alchemies, and they contribute to creating, for the 77DENARI project, an imprint that is renewed over time.

The idea on which the project is based is the desire to give “beauty” an extra value, in which harmony and proportions of the parts go beyond the absolute, of time and memory, and focus on the “Physical soul” of intrigued consciences. In this case in fact the work is worn and moves: it walks, runs, dances and lives stories, reinterpreting the proposed contents with its own voice, and in the meantime creating a new identity.

Tights – talisman therefore, capable of breaking the classical scheme of gender and form and of ruffling with wonder.

A special thanks goes to the “DUEC Calzificio” and to our consultant Renato Altimani.

– taken from their website

The Spec

Colour: Cream

Style: #55

Size: One Size

Denier: 60

Materials: 85% polyamide, 15% elastane

Price: N/A

Website: 77Denari – A/W 18-19 #55

My Outfit

Instead of creating something loud, I thought I would incorporate the tights into my outfit. I wore my cream bodysuit paired with my teal skirt and added my mustard boots to finish off the look. You could easily pair any other colour footwear with them to create a colour block, but I wanted to fuse it altogether to create a piece 🙂

My Deets

Bodysuit: Pull & Bear

Skirt: H&M

Tights: 77Denari

Boots: New Look

The Review

From The Website: 77denari, for autumn-winter 18/19, explores the vast world of feelings, and the multiple points of view they can generate. Thanks to the senses, the body in fact receives information from the interior and exterior environment. They are accessing the world itself within us. Each of them has the ability to form a perceptual opinion before the action of intelligence.

We have been taught that there are five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, and that is anatomically, but also admits that we have a thermal sensitivity, and we know how to recognize the sense of well being, pain, or discomfort of the organism as a whole.

For this reason 77denarians have explored various currents, which have identified from 9 to 21. We have embraced 12 of them; precisely 7 more than the 5, through which we think we can fully experience our perception, and then transform us into what surrounds us, to try to increase that degree of cooperation, according to which individuals build together a reality and a shared truth.

– 100% made in Italy: the basic pantyhoses and socks are made by Italian manufacturer DUEC Calzificio located in Goffredo Castiglione;

– 100% handmade screen printing: no use of printer;

– composition: 85% polyamide and 15% elastane;

– one size fits all: the basic product is extremely elastic for sizes S-M-L;

– drawings only with water colors;

– limited edition: max 100 pieces for model;

– high resistance and durability of the design: hand washing at 30 degrees is recommended.

The Packaging: now I have to say how impressed I was with their packaging. They were sent in a super padded envelope, in 2 small boxes.

Very simple, but they are certainly different and I love it. Even though there isn’t much detail to them in terms of model, sizing, blurb about the hosiery etc, they still aren’t bad at all.

Getting Them On: now as the pattern is symmetrical on each leg, I took my time doing the scrunch and roll up the legs making sure I pair it as evenly as I can so I don’t have to do it again later.

These were fine rolling up the legs, and going over anklets. I had no issues at all – if anything they were super soft and so easily to glide right up.

On The Legs:

well all I can say is how funky are these?!?!?!

The quality of these are really good I have to say. They are such a gorgeous fit on the legs; even if they are a one size pair! They have so much stretch to them and really do hug the legs well. I expected them to be slightly loose, but in actual fact that is not the case!

They look like they are a block cream colour, but if you stretch them (like how they stretch on my thighs) they do go slightly lighter. You still do get really good leg coverage overall, but it’s something to note if you want a true opaque block colour.

The design is super awesome; I have done something similar a while ago with a Jonathan Aston pair (called Dynamic) which was black sheer with a black design and they really rocked. I love how they have worked the black and goldy-yellow colour at the side of the legs, which gives you the opportunity to actually pair up colours easily with it. As I mentioned, I kept with my mustard boots, but I could have easily done purple or blue (with a different skirt too) and it would just enhance the colour and design even more.

The only downside I had was that the print was a little off on the left leg; it’s like it got stuck and slightly peeled off a little. It’s nothing major but if I’m going into the nitty gritty details, that is something I picked up on when I got them out the packaging.

The fit of these are great; as I said for a one size pair, these are fab. I do feel it could fit up to a large size but you would be looking at a sheerer cream colour than a block opaque.

The feel of them are super soft and so nice on the legs. They’re smooth (both inside and out), they’re soft to touch and they really do caress the legs.

The Toes & Ankle: are also great. I expected some chunky seams around the toes creating little bumps around the ends but nothing of the sort. They fit and shape to the toes really nicely so you get a smooth looking finish. This also carries around the foot and up the ankles too.

You will find these will wrinkle slightly around the ankle due to the higher denier, but nothing too major.

I do think these are reinforced – and I will say that as the denier is quite thick so it would be pretty hard to create holes in these!

The Waistband: is so soft and so comfortable I don’t wanna take these off! I love the way they sat on the waist and actually just moved with me. They don’t fall down or move out of place once you set them, and they certainly don’t lose elasticity quickly either no matter how many times you pull them down and back up again.

It’s a proper comfort band, and I really like it!

My Thoughts?

I gotta say I really loved being in these. They were such an experience. I know most higher denier can be a hit or miss, but these are a pair which I would class as a luxe pair. I say this purely because of the way they are made, how they feel on the legs and the quality is just lovely. Trust me when I say when you roll these on, you instantly tell what they’re gonna be like for the next 10+ hours!

I am so looking forward to my 2nd pair I get to try out!

77Denari A/W 18-19 Cream Printed Tights Now let's be creating some little statements with a new brand! This company got in touch and wanted me to test out their products.

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fanfic-scribbles · 7 years ago

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On the Run: Chapter Five

Chapter Five: “Trial by Fire” or “Yes It Goes On and On My Friends”

Masterlist Here

Overall Story Facts:

Fandom: MCU Avengers; MCU Captain America

Adventure/Romance – James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes/Reader – Female Reader

Warnings: Violence, language, eventual romance, reader character with sassy/abrasive personality

Chapter Summary: A close encounter gives you a different insight into Bucky’s mindset. Also, maybe the Avengers are what they’re cracked up to be. Except for Captain America. He’s still the biggest little shit you know.

Special Chapter Warnings: Violence (not graphically described), emotional turmoil.

Words: 5169 (weeps)

A/N: I am so sorry for the length of this chapter. Every time I tried to edit it, it…just kept going longer. And longer. I have to take my hands off it or it will never end. I mean, it was definitely fun to write, but damn… Other than that, not much for notes this week. Please enjoy. Oh! Wait, I lied, I have a note: I have made a loose timeline and am going to start noting when the flashback chapters take place (or thereabouts). The Reader flashback (chapter two) is about two years before the beginning of this story, and the Steve Rogers one (chapter four) takes place about a year before the beginning of this story. What happened in between then? That will come out in future chapters. For now, just enjoy the ride.

Chapter : “Trial by Fire” or “Yes It Goes On and On My Friends”

You. Are. Bored. And tired. And maybe a little bit cranky.

“Aren't there Geneva Conventions against this?”

You can see Steve roll his eyes in the rearview mirror. Thankfully, Captain Caffeine-Denier is driving so you aren’t stuck next to him. As fun as it might be to test the limits of Captain America’s patience, it’s much better to do it where he can’t wrap his hands around your throat.

“It’s almost nine,” Steve says, taking the time to glance back at you again. “When will you stop needing coffee?”

“When I get some.” Duh. “Eyes on the road, Captain Car Accident. If I end up in “Red Asphalt” number 500 I’m gonna haunt your star-spangled ass for eternity.”

“It might be worth it for the wails of agony whenever I walk into a Starbucks,” he mutters.

You snort. “You go to Starbucks? You’re killing me; your fake glasses say ‘Brooklyn hipster douche’ but in reality you’re more of a faux-hipster douche.”

“Okay, hipster and not-hipster,” he says like he gets it (fat chance). “But why does ‘douche’ carry across both? You can get more creative than that.”

“Yeah but your honest personality carries through no matter what you wear.”

“Maybe you’ll feel better if you eat something,” Sam interjects and digs in a duffle bag. You don’t care if he makes a stupid fucking ‘eat a Snickers’ joke because your stomach grumbles at the mere mention of something edible. But what Sam holds out to you is…is…

Your stomach goes silent and you can only stare at the granola bar in his hand.

“You okay back there?” Steve asks. “You stopped complaining.”

You blink. “Okay…” you say and press your back up against the window, pushing back as far away from that thing as you can get. “Okay, I give; what do you want to know? Just–just take it away, please; I’ll cooperate.”

Sam laughs but, mercifully, puts it back. “It’s a granola bar, not a taser.”

“You’re trying to turn my insides into shrapnel. Nuh uh; I’m not falling for that shit.”

“You mentioned cooperating,” Steve says, sounding more like the wretched morning person you just know he is. “How did you meet Bucky?”

Hah. What a loser. “Who names their kid Bucky? Like, do parents never consider all the terrible nicknames that people can make from that?”

Steve rolls his eyes again and goes back to scowling at the road. That’s definitely not a bad thing; you rest your head against the window and watch the pavement pass by.

“Buchanan.”

You have to think on what that little non sequitur is about. Steve is stealing glances at you again. “His middle name is Buchanan. James Buchanan Barnes. That’s where ‘Bucky’ comes from.”

“Okay.” You know bait when you smell it so you leave it floating for a much dumber fish. “By the way, where are we going?”

“A safehouse Barnes has used in the past,” Natasha says.

“Ah.” That means exactly nothing to you. “And you’re hoping to…find him there?”

“Or a lead on his direction,” she says and that is that for the next ten hours.

Okay, so not literally. It might even still technically be morning when Steve pulls down a street in an under-construction industrial district. The car goes slow, as if this is a neighborhood with a really bored cop just sitting over yonder. But Steve is silent (thank heavens), Natasha is sitting up straighter and even Sam, chill as he is, is at attention. You…sit there and look pretty. Because unless they need someone squinting at building numbers, there’s nothing else to do and you don’t want to distract them.

Mostly you don’t want to distract them, but once you’ve parked you’re bored again as they rifle through the back and load up on weapons. Well, Natasha at least grabs some weapons: a couple of guns, a knife or three, and some little silver things you don’t get a good look at. Steve grabs his shield but doesn’t change out of his ‘normal’ clothes. Sam grabs…a backpack. It’s a nice backpack, you have to admit; hard, futuristic–

“Ooo,” you say when you realize what it really is and you swing behind him to look at it. “Is this where your wings are?”

“You know about my wings?” he says, sounding amused.

“I’ve read a newspaper within the past five years. I know some stuff.” You walk next to him because, despite flying possibilities, right now it’s just a backpack and you doubt that’s going to change anytime soon. Natasha and Steve are walking ahead and aside from him glancing back on occasion, they don’t pay you much attention. That’s…fine. Doesn’t help the atmosphere, though. Benign as the unfinished office building looks– tall, wide, with brick overlay and sheets of plastic blowing lazily in the breeze. The surrounding area is so quiet that it’s creepy. Also, weird. The inside is unpainted, not carpeted, and from what you can tell the entire building has frames but no windows. And yet Natasha goes to the elevator, punches in a code on a little pinpad, and it works. The doors open.

“Uh…” you say and hang back.

“It’s all right. It’s safe,” Sam says and gestures for you to go in.

Yeah, because being in a small space with grumpy Captain America, stoic Black Widow, and srs bsns Falcon is a safe, grand old time. You suck it up before one of them can decide to do it for you. The doors shut, the elevator moves, and it is…slow. Natasha actually sighs as you make your way up to whatever ridiculous floor you’re going to. You forget all sense of self-preservation and start humming. Muzak, eat your heart out.

“‘The Song That Never Ends’? Really?” Sam says but, again, more amused than annoyed. You flash him a smile but continue to hum as you stare at the back of Big Blond Eagle’s head. Less than a minute goes by when Steve suddenly slams his hand on the button to stop the elevator.

You are not ashamed of the fact that you find yourself clinging to the one and only Sam “Falcon” Wilson like he is your own personal lifeline. To be fair, his wings probably can’t do much in an elevator shaft, let alone the elevator itself, but you’ll tackle Natasha to the ground before you willingly wrap your arms around Steve.

“What was that noise?” Natasha asks you, smiling, while Sam tries (poorly, the bastard) to hide his laughter.

Not. Ashamed. And you’re not even going to acknowledge her question. “Can we please get out of the suspended steel deathtrap?!”

“In a moment,” Steve says, preparing his shield. It’s enough to make Sam stop laughing (mostly) and wipes any sense of amusement off Natasha’s face. Sam shuffles you behind him into a corner and there’s a tense second, after Steve forces the doors open, where he pokes his head out and you hope he doesn’t get shot in his stupid face because he might have denied you coffee but you don’t hate him that much. (Yet.)

Thankfully he pulls his head back in, sans lead, and lightens the straight line of his shoulders. “Clear,” he says and you all leave the tiny metal box. You walk down the hall and when you come up at another intersecting hallway they all treat the corner with just as much care and concern.

You don’t have the mental energy to panic at all of these so you just watch Steve bear his shield and Natasha hold her gun at the ready. Once the coast is declared clear and all three are more relaxed as they glance at the rooms you slowly pass, you ask, “Hey, Captain Coffee-Block, why don’t you have a gun?”

He glances back at you, like he’s surprised you’re talking, and then he looks forward with a grimace that implies he’s remembered who he’s dealing with. “I don’t need one.”

You beg to differ. “You take a vow of non-violence or something?” Wait; he had dropped as many bodies in your living room as Natasha had. “Or a…vow of non-lethal…violence?”

Steve flashes you a smirk. “How articulate.”

Brat. “Hey, you’re the one that vetoed a morning essential.” You wave your arms. “I won't speak for anyone else here but some of us mere mortals require a little boost when we have to get up at ass-crack o’clock.”

Steve mutters something you can’t hear but it makes Natasha smile (before she quickly goes back to being too cool for school) so it probably isn’t very flattering. You mock an exaggerated gasp. “Captain America, are you making fun of me?”

Steve looks at you again, his face almost a straight line. “Do you get more or less annoying with coffee?”

Sam laughs and Natasha rolls her eyes, but she looks at you like she expects an answer. “Definitely less,” you say. You all stop by a door. It looks like any other door you’ve passed so far but Natasha breaks the doorknob and she and Sam case it with their heads on swivel sticks before entering and doing a more thorough search. It’s a…big room. Empty. Boring. Despite that, Steve, Sam, and Natasha look in every corner (all four of ‘em) while you hang back and watch from the hallway. Whatever they’re seeking they don’t find, and soon you’re all back to slinking down the hallway.

“How do I know you’re just not saying that to get coffee?” Steve asks, looking right at you even though he’s still walking. You hope he trips.

“Wha– oh.” You snort. “Buddy, think of it in practical terms. Coffee means I’m drinking, not talking.”

“Ah,” he says as you all stop at another room. “I’ll make it a priority then.”

You clasp your hands. “A man after my heart.”

He’s standing on the other side of the door across from you while Sam and Natasha check out the inside. His big blue eyes go wide and hopeful. It is grossly adorable. “Oh? You mean you have one?”

You clutch your chest. “Oh! The cruelty! Someone fetch the smelling salts!”

He rolls his eyes, losing all pretense of innocence. “I was born in 1918 not 1818.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Natasha, are they flirting or do they actually hate each other?” Sam asks as they rejoin you. “I can’t tell sometimes.”

Laughter bubbles up from somewhere inside you that’s safe from your cold dead heart. Flirting. With Legal Blond Eagle. You cross your arms over your aching stomach and grip your sides. You actually fall on your ass as hilarity knocks you off balance.

“Not flirting,” Natasha says.

“Are you kidding me,” you wheeze as Sam helps you up. You wipe away tears. “Oh my g–”

Contrary to what the good captain might think, you are not dumb, nor are you actively suicidal. So when Steve puts his hand up and Sam goes silent, you also shut up and stop. You stay next to Sam as he pulls out his gun. Steve moves closer to the window frame, shield in hand, and leans against the wall on one side while Natasha makes herself as flush as a painting on the other side. There’s no glass, it’s all open; open to the bright, late morning sunshine and a warm breeze that flows past you. The wind makes you flinch; makes you realize how exposed you are.

You try to take a step back but Sam’s hand presses firm on your lower back so you stop. You look from Sam to Natasha to Steve and decide that maybe a shield is a perfectly fine thing to have after all.

There’s a faint but still all too close explosion outside that makes you want to both jump out of your skin and hit the deck, so you freeze. Steve looks down and spits out a curse that is, unfortunately, drowned out by Natasha’s string of them just before she kicks him back out of the open frame. Gunfire sounds in distant pops that become louder as the bullets start hitting the side of the building and the wall behind you.

Sam shoves you flat and you curl up as he rises just slightly to start firing back. Action movies are so much better when you’re flipping past them with a remote, you think. A flash of movement down the hall makes you un-hedgehog and you can see two black-suited people with nasty-looking guns taking aim in your direction.

You don’t think, you just grab the fabric of Sam’s sleeve and yank him down. He swears at his own misfire but before he starts to yell at you, you just point down the hall and he goes on guard immediately. Sam gets the guy who’s starting to aim at you first, and then the other one that’s already firing at him. While they fall, though, three more come from the corner behind them and pick up the slack.

Two firefights two days in a row. This shit is tired.

Your ears are ringing from gunfire and Steve’s shouts aren’t quite loud enough to pierce the haze, though you do try to make out what he’s saying. You hear him shout “GO!” just as something explodes and the hall fills with gas. This is very familiar. Greatest hits or a shitty lack of creativity, it’s the same stuff as before and you scramble on all fours, trying to get away from the wisps already burning your eyes and making you wheeze. A hand grabs the back of your shirt and helps you with that.

‘Helps’ you by throwing you into a stairwell so hard your head smashes into the railing and you lie there, dazed, as the door slams shut, muffling the sounds of the fight. Unless your resident elder statesman is taking more offense to you than he’s letting on–

“That her?”

“Yeah.”

Aw, now this is some bullshit. You play possum, shutting your eyes and deepening your breathing just in case they come to check. Cold concrete isn’t the nicest thing to rest on, but it does provide good contrast to the hot, pulsing pain near your temple and accompanying trail of blood.

“Reload. We won't have any other time to do it,” Assface says.

“Has there been any sign of him?” Douchewad asks.

“No,” Assface grunts and something clicks loudly. “All right. Move.”

One of them grabs you and drapes you over his shoulder. It’s uncomfortable– there are a lot of stupid pokey bits digging into your soft and tender stomach. Briefly you debate the merits of you, an unarmed person without a deathwish, taking on both Grunt #1 and Grunt #2, both armed. The deliberation ends with a resounding ‘fuck that,’ so you keep playing dead. They carry you down a few levels, go back inside the building proper and walk in the opposite direction of the fighting upstairs. They then enter into another echoing stairwell, where they meet up with a group of their equally violent friends.

Yeah, ‘waking up’ seems like a real bad time. Thankfully you are laid upon the ground and ignored while they talk plans and placement. The group disperses with their orders and you are left once more with Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum.

“This is ridiculous,” Douchewad says.

“What do you propose?” Assface asks.

“Shoot her and drag her out. They won't fight so hard over her corpse.”

Words and thoughts cannot express just how not in favor of this plan you are.

“Idiot; she has to be alive. Orders are orders.”

Yes; overruled, Douchewad. ‘Orders’ though. That’s…concerning. But you put it on the backburner for now. You have enough to worry about.

“Dragging her out of here alive is going to be impossible. Black Widow will cut her losses if it gets to be too much.”

“She won't. Her ‘Captain’ won’t let her and she’s his faithful little dog.”

Oh, you are so going to tell Natasha about this. Then she is going to beat the shit out of them and you are going to watch and feel bad not one whit.

“Just because he used her for a safe house doesn’t mean he’ll come back for her.”

…What?

“Oh, he’ll come.” Assface laughs. “We were in loose contact with the cell in Ohio–”

‘The cell in Ohio’ do these people ever listen to themselves or are you really living out a piece of shitty Tom Clancy fanfiction?

“–and they found out he’d been hiding in that dump–”

Hey, asshole, that ‘dump’ was home.

“–and he burned them down. Razed everything. Almost did the same to the base in Tennessee. Normally he leaves something for the Fed pigs to find.”

“And they’re sure it was because of her?”

“Mm hm. Before he went and joined his ‘Superhero Pal Squad’–”

Buddy. Leave the demeaning and derogatory nicknames to the professionals. That was pathetic.

“–we had no record of him, aside from the places he was taking out. Everybody assumed he just kept moving too long. But no, he just erased his tracks too good so he could go back and play house. We have better records of him when he’s on the road with Widow and Hawkeye, for fuck’s sake. Once we did track her down we kept a loose eye on her; figured she was just a crash site. The tape, though? They finally got something out of it just a few days ago. One of the agents was asking about her and the Soldier made threats about if anything happens to her.”

That…that’s…

Something.

It’s a lot easier to lie still after that. After Bucky had left you had hoped for a phone call, a letter, a note, a fucking pamphlet or napkin scribble, just something from him, to you, to let you know he was okay, that he hadn’t…forgotten you. All this time you’ve thought he’s taken your advice to ‘forget about it’ with gusto. But it turns out that ignoring you like a regrettable Spring Break hookup is just his (demented) way of protecting you.

Once you’ve railed him out for his terrible taste in best friends, you’re going to have some choice words about that.

Shots fire but it’s a testament to just how much that fucking raccoon upends your world that you barely notice at first. Asswad and Doucheface or whatever shoot back and you curl up to protect your ears and make a smaller target, but the two numbnuts drop and you flinch as footsteps approach.

Natasha sighs. “Are you going to lie there all day?”

You unfold and use the railing to get up. You’re a little unsteady at first– your legs don’t want to work and your head sways a bit, but when Natasha sizes you up your nerves are what almost bring you down. “Are you all right?” she asks, looking at your head.

You touch it and– fuck, ow, you forgot about that, but the dull headache is back to remind you and that dried blood is going to be hell to get out of your hair. “Yeah, fucking aces,” you grumble.

She gives a curt nod. “Follow me,” she says and starts down. At every landing she stops a moment, listens by the door, and then goes. You never get to stop– she’s moving quick and light and you’re clambering behind like Lurch.

When you catch up she asks, “Why didn’t you run?”

“What?” you ask even as you're trying to get a working breath again.

“From those two idiots,” she says and motions up with her head.

“Wait…” You stand and take a deep breath. “From the guys wielding guns bigger than some children I’ve seen? Really?” She lifts a shoulder and you roll your eyes. “Lady, you need some normal friends. Ones who don’t get their kicks from driving into warzones.”

She stares at you. It’s unnerving. You are not a fan. “Did they say anything?”

You shrug as casually as you can. “Apparently they’re trying to take me alive.”

She rolls her eyes. “I could have told you that.”

Anger flares up in you. “Could you have? Interesting. Because you haven’t told me shit.”

She doesn’t get to say or do anything, thankfully. Not so thankfully, it’s because a door slams somewhere up above and you can hear people running down the steps.

Natasha opens the door and you realize you’re at ground level and the first thing you see is a small group of Bad Guys with, surprise, guns. They don’t notice you at first though and that’s enough time for Natasha to shoot two of them, order you to “Go!” with a firm shove, and engage the last two standing.

You stumble over your feet but run out the side door– and immediately press yourself back against the building behind a decorative outcropping at the sight of more guys (do they ever end?) running around the front to go for Natasha. As soon as they’re gone you bust your ass and run.

You push your body well past its limits, take a few turns, and end up gasping for air in a parking garage. Once you get past wishing to die already, you look around. It’s devoid of people, nearly empty, and so much more exposed than you want to be. But no one has followed you, you’re alone, and there are a few scattered cars. And since your ride has been blown to smithereens…

You try a couple of cars before you find an older Cadillac with a busted back door lock. Within a few minutes (during which every distant sound is making you jump; thanks a lot for the possible PTSD, Captain) you have the car hotwired and ready to go.

You’re planning out how to get back to the building (you cannot get lost, you will never live it down), and how to fit Steve “I’ve never met a gym I don’t like” Rogers in the car (no fucking way is he allowed to sit shotgun. In fact, if you’re driving, can you get away with stuffing him in the trunk?) when you have the sudden, striking, dizzying thought that…

…You don’t have to go back. If you want, you can just leave. Sam, Steve, and Natasha are all Avengers and they will be just fine without you. You can get away from guns and explosions and–

You think of Steve, putting his shield behind you and covering you bodily when you ran out of your home. Sam, who put his hand on yours when you started shaking during the drive after and who just straight up killed a guy who had aimed at you. Natasha, who had come after you and forced you to run while she covered you. All of these people who are Bucky’s friends and who are currently bugging the shit out of you because they’re worried about your favorite (by default, you swear) trash panda.

“Motherfucking conscience,” you snarl and tear out of the parking garage. You take your anger out on the accelerator. “Do you have any idea how much easier my life would be without you? No Trash Panda, no Grandpa Freedom, no– oh, wow.”

Natasha has somehow done a mid-air somersault with some dude’s head in her thighs, and he goes flying past the front of your car just before you pull up. She’s still on guard so you motion for her to get her ass inside the vehicle.

As soon as she’s in you’re off. “What was that you said earlier?” she asks. “About having ‘normal friends who don’t drive into warzones’?”

“Shut up,” you grumble, driving around and searching for Sam and Steve. Are they out of the building? They better be out of the building. “Shut up. You wanna go back? I can drop you off.”

Natasha is primping in the visor mirror. “No thank you. I’m done.”

There’s something about her tone that you really don’t like, but before you can ask, there’s a minor explosion (seriously what is your life) from where you just were. Natasha hasn’t even glanced back, even now that she’s done fixing her hair and wiping away blood and dirt. She’s looking out the windshield, but does spare you a glance and a shrug. “They blew up ours. It’s only fair.”

“You,” you say, fixing your eyes ahead, “Are scary.”

“Thank you,” Natasha says and points upward. You follow the line and–

Falcon is flying. Dodging something, probably gunfire, but he’s taking hairpin turns and diving and–

“Turn right,” Natasha says and you scramble to turn the wheel before you run into a wall and head onto a small road. It leads to a dirt-covered construction site where Fa– Sam has landed and he and Steve are talking in the midst of unconscious-or-dead Hydra jerks and broken weapons.

Natasha rolls down her window. “Hey boys,” she says and it’s pretty funny to see them jump. “Need a ride?”

Sam grins and he and Steve hop in the back. That is also satisfying, watching Steve hunch up behind Natasha like he’s ready to start ringing bells in Notre Dame. But, too bad for hilarity, good for Steve and Sam, Cadillacs aren’t the smallest of cars, and they get themselves sorted out comfortably.

“Thanks for picking us up,” Sam says.

“Yeah, well, cash, grass, or ass, no one rides for free,” you say just as lightly. Sam chuckles.

“Where did you get the car?” Steve asks.

“Good question.” Natasha looks at you and smirks. She says your name like she’s anticipating and delighted by the trouble you’re about to get into. “Where did you get the car?”

You scowl at her. Snitch. “Parking garage,” you mumble, hoping they can’t hear you.

Of course, Steve has to say something about it. “Did you st–”

“Oh no, I do not want to hear about morality from you!” you snap. “Grand theft person is way worse than grand theft auto.”

Captain Asshole is unrepentantly smug. “If you say so,” he says mildly as you get on the freeway. “Both felonies, though. So welcome to the club.”

Traffic is light enough that you shoot him a glare. Sam is ‘coughing’ and Natasha is smirking, while Steve is black to blue-eyed innocence. You roll your eyes back onto the road and sigh in disgust. “Great. I’m on a scavenger hunt with Double-Oh Red Scare, Captain Kidnapper, and Techno Icarus.”

“You willing to go along for the ride now, Patty?” Sam asks.

“Guess so, now that I’m a fugitive too.” You mean for it to be a joke but it comes out dour. Now that ‘fight or flight’ are not your only two options, the adrenaline is fading and you can feel every aching muscle, every throb of pain in your head pulsing steadily worse. The others all fade to quiet which is both a blessing and a curse– less annoying, for sure, but there’s also nothing to distract you, other than the road.

“Do you want me to drive?” Sam offers.

If Sam drives then you’ll be stuck in the back with Steve and you can’t. You just can’t. “No,” you say and grip the wheel so tight your hands hurt. It’s all you can do right now to consciously keep a measured weight on the gas rather than press it to the floor. What if all of this is for nothing? What if…

You want to put it into words, maybe make a joke to lighten it and piss off Captain “Can’t Keep a Fucking Eye on His Own Best Friend” Rogers, but the words don’t come. Your mouth is open though and you can feel Black Widow staring at you. “Um, guess I should…probably ask where we’re heading, though.” Go you, it sounds almost normal.

“Keep going. We’ll get some distance,” she says.

“Cool.” ‘How do you know he’s alive’ still sounds too blunt. ‘He didn’t leave a note, did he?’ is too oblique or, if they get it, inappropriately morbid.

Natasha says your name gently. “Did those two…gentlemen…say anything to you?”

Ooo, points for phrasing. “No,” you say and swallow a lump of tears. ‘Do you think Bucky can handle an evil organization going after him this hard’ is too wordy and dumb. The three musketeers wouldn’t be after him if they thought everything was hunky dory. Unless they just worry too much and everything really is fine.

But what if it’s not.

What if he’s not.

What if you never get to yell at him for the tragically hilarious contradiction of being thoughtless because he thought too much?

What if…

Natasha says your name again, firm, and you want to vomit. So you do. In a metaphorical sense.

“What if he’s dead?” you ask, feeling as pained on its release as you would of actual stomach acid. “What if this is a wild goose chase? What if…” You can’t say it again, so you don’t.

They’re silent. Someone leans in, and at first you don’t know who, but it’s Steve who says, “He’s not dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that,” he insists. His tone isn’t Captain America and it isn’t Steve Rogers. It’s hard but…kind. You don’t know what to make of it. “Bucky has lived through so much. More than anyone should ever have to, more than anyone else can ever take. If he was dead Hydra would know it. We would know it.”

You’re not sure you believe him. You want to, though. You sniffle and realize that, ugh, you’re crying in front of relative strangers. Trash Panda would mock you forever if he could see you right now, and the thought makes you rub your face almost hard enough to peel skin.

“We’ll talk about it once we all get some rest,” Natasha says. “You were right, before…we haven’t told you anything but we’ve been asking questions nonstop. It’s not fair. So, once we can take a breath, we’ll tell you what we know.”

You wait for her to add about you returning the favor, but it doesn’t come. And for some reason, you don’t care as much about holding back anymore. “Mmkay.”

She nods once. “Pull off on the shoulder and we’ll switch.”

You listen to the rhythmic ticking of the blinker and come to a slow stop in the dirt. You take a moment to get your body in order. Steve takes the opportunity to lean back in next to you and say, “Shotgun.”

It turns out that Steve being his little-shit self is all it takes to make you feel almost normal again and you glare at him. “In your fucking dreams, Flag Boy,” you say and get out of the car.

Before you leave your side you hear Natasha tell him, “If you try to take this seat I will break all your bones and shove you in the trunk,” and you actually smile. She may be fucking scary, but Black Widow is a-okay by you.

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#bucky x reader #on the run #avengers fanfic #captain america fanfiction #avengers reader insert #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #sam wilson

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pope-francis-quotes · 6 years ago

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1st November >> (@zenitenglish) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis’ Video-Message to 3rd World Meeting of Young People, Organized by #Scholas #Occurrentes ‘We are witnesses, writers and readers of our life, and we’re not the only authors: we are what #God dreams for us...’ @InfoScholas @josemdelcorral

Pope’Francis’ Video-Message to Participants in 3rd World Meeting of Young People, Organized by “Scholas Occurrentes,” Underway in Buenos Aires

‘We are witnesses, we are writers and readers of our life, and we’re not the only authors: we are what God dreams for us, what we tell ourselves, what we tell ourselves again, what others tell us, so long as we are faithful’

Here is a ZENIT working translation of the text of the video-message that the Holy Father Francis sent to the participants in the 3rd World Meeting of Young People, organized by the “Scholas Occurrentes” Foundation together with World Ort, underway in Buenos Aires, Argentina from October 29 to November 1, 2018.

* * *

The Holy Father’s Video-Message

Dear Young People of Scholas, gathered here today:

I want to celebrate with you this feast of encounter — encounter of persons: each one of you is a person. <It’s> an encounter of different creeds, countries, languages and realities, an encounter of different identities, because to encounter one another, one must be sure of one’s identity.

You can’t negotiate your identity to encounter the other; you can’t make up your identity, you can’t disguise it, because life isn’t a carnival; it’s something very serious. And an encounter must be serious, with much joy, but serious from the heart.

The word identity isn’t easy. And it’s the question: “Who am I”? And it’s one of the most important questions one can ask oneself: before oneself, before others, before God, before history. Who am I?

It’s the question that goes together with the question on the meaning of life; who am I and what meaning does my life have? However, be careful, it’s not a question to shake off, or to answer rapidly or to forget. It’s a question to have always, always. And to keep it open, to keep it close: Who am I?

Our identity isn’t a fact that is given, it’s not a factory number; it’s not information that I can look for on the Internet to know who I am. We aren’t something totally defined, established. We are on the way; we are growing, and that nucleus of identity keeps growing, growing, and we are walking, we are growing with our own style, with our own history, with our own nucleus of identity. We are witnesses, we are writers and readers of our life, and we’re not the only authors: we are what God dreams for us, what we tell ourselves, what we tell ourselves again, what others tell us, so long as we are faithful. Faithful to our personal integrity, faithful to our interior nobility, faithful to a word of which people are afraid: faithful to coherence. There are no laboratory identities, there aren’t any. Every identity has a history and, having a history, it has belonging. My identity comes from a family, from a people, from a community. You can’t speak of identity without speaking of belonging. Identity is to belong, to belong to something that transcends one, something that is greater than you.

The danger, so present in these times, is when an identity forgets its roots, forgets from where it comes, forgets its history, doesn’t open to the difference of present-day coexistence; sees the other with fear, sees him as an enemy, and war starts there. Suffice it to pick up the newspaper each day or see the news on television: a small war at the beginning, almost imperceptible, but great and terrible at the end. Therefore, for identity not to become violent, not to become authoritarian, not to become a denier of the difference, it needs permanently an encounter with the other, it needs dialogue, it needs to grow in every encounter and it needs the memory of its own belonging.

What are my roots? From where do I come? What is the culture of my people? There are no abstract identities. Well, there is one, which is one’s identity card, which is a paper, but it’s no good, it doesn’t make you grow. At most, it will leave you calm when someone from Security asks you for it: “OK, fine, go.” There aren’t any laboratory identities, or still identities. Who am I? Let each of us ask himself again. Let us be recreated on the way, let us grow on the way, with the memory, with dialogue, with belonging and with hope. And thus, we will enrich ourselves more every day.

Identity is belonging. Please, take care of it; take care of your belonging. Don’t let yourselves be conned. Take care of your belonging. And then, when we see people among us who don’t respect anything . . . How often we hear it said: “Don’t trust him, he would even sell his mother.” Each one should ask himself: Do I sell my belonging? Do I sell the history of my people? Do I sell the culture of my people? Do I sell the culture and what I received from my family? Do I sell the coherence of life? Do I sell the dialogue with a brother, even if he has different ideas, or do a feign dialogue? Don’t sell that which is deepest of us, which is our belonging, our identity and <the fact that> on the way different identities are encountered to enrich us mutually. Fraternity is built.

I want to thank all those who made this meeting possible: each ones’ parents and docents, for permitting and accompanying it; Authorities, for opening the door and making the experience possible; the Bort schools and all the Religious Communities for enriching, from diversity, the story of this meeting and of each one. And I thank you, young people of Scholas, for letting life <write> you a new chapter with each step. Don’t be afraid of that, of having the courage to mix your languages, of opening your stories without renouncing them, of letting yourselves be re-written by the other, by the different one, by the unknown one — always, always different and, at the same time, being increasingly more yourselves, and making of your identity, of that belonging that you received, a work of art. It’s what I wish for you.

And, please, don’t forget to pray for me. Thank you.

[Original text: Spanish] [ZENIT’s Translation by Virginia M. Forrester]NOVEMBER 01, 2018 15:40

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5mincolumns · 3 years ago

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+ One Question

for Michael E. Mann

Martin: Congratulation on writing an amazing book. I was surprised that climate war is currently happening mainly on the language and discourse level. Simplifying, your book is an analysis of various narratives around climate change and its impact on reality. What’s was the original inspiration that you helps you to focus on language? What’s role did American (J. Searle, N. Chomsky) and European (M. Foucault) philosophical tradition played in your writing?

Michael: Thank you for the kind words about the book. You’re exactly right — the new climate war is really about polluters manipulating our discourse, using social media as a weapon to divide us, and introducing a lexicon of action-laden words like “adaptation”, “resilience” and “innovation” that may seem soothing but in fact reflect hollow promises and business, as usual, disguised as action. And then there is the use of doomist language to lead us down a path of disengagement, diverting climate advocates to the sidelines when they need to be on the frontlines, demanding action and change.

As for the inspiration for this framing, I would like to claim I am learned when it comes to the rich literature on critical theory (a term I’m only familiar with from an ex-girlfriend who was a sociologist) and the philosophical underpinning of historical and modern social movements (and I do happen to know Noam Chomsky personally, and perhaps to derive some thoughts about what it means to be a public intellectual from him). But the honest truth is, much of what I describe is from personal experience, having been on the frontlines of the climate wars since I first published the “hockey stick” cure more than two decades ago. You might think of the book as field notes from my decade-long battles against climate deniers and climate inactivists as I’ve watched them morph and change their tactics in a clever ever-adapting effort to keep us addicted to fossil fuels. I hope that my experiences yield insights that will be helpful to readers as they too try to navigate this fraught space and, hopefully, join those of us already on the frontlines in the defining battle of our time.

#climate crisis #michael mann #environmetalists

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apollonian Jan. 9, 2020Don’t under-estimate Brian–he’s extremely clever. And Brian is actually a brilliant historian, understands Western Christian culture and philosophy, only coming at it all from his amazing Buddhist point of view–which absolutely throws those dumb kikes who hardly know what to say, think about it all. Most and best of all, Brian values and respects the Christian TRUTH ideal (= Christ, Gosp. JOHN 14:6)–see above notes by me. Only criticism I’d have of Buddhism is its too easy endorsement of non-existent “free” will which couldn’t exist in an objective, hence determined reality, which objectivity is agreed for both Christianity and Buddhism.Poet Samuel • Jan. 7, 2020What I notice about Brian’s work – He will inquire and investigate everything for himself in pursuit of his own personal / empirical insights and conclusions. And he will happily weather everyone’s judgement and scolding for doing so – Left, right, up, down, nobody can stop or correct a born truth-seeker from annoyingly examining every stone (lol). Keep on waltzing through the tidal waves of scorn and judgement from all alliances, Brian. Truth is king.

The Brian Ruhe Show Poet Samuel • You nailed my view, Poet Samuel! Thank you dearly. My Dresden survivor advisor describes me as a true intellectual. I just want to know the truth!

The Outsider

My Friend Brian Ruhe by American Buddhist monk, Venerable Paññobhāsa Mahathera Posted: 16 Oct 2019 01:17 PM PDTThe purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge. —Adolf HitlerIt is better to make a mistake than to do nothing. —Adolf Hitler My Friend Brian RuhePosted: 16 Oct 2019 01:17 PM PDT No doubt some of you have noticed that I’ve begun doing weekly Skype interviews with the notorious Brian Ruhe, the “Nazi Buddhist,” president of the Thule Society (an organization that endorses the worship of a deified Adolf Hitler), and lord and master of the Brian Ruhe show, recently censored and banned from YouTube but still available on Bitchute. In fact some of you have started reading this blog because of seeing me on Brian’s show—after all, Herr Ruhe evidently has a larger following than I do, though that’s not saying very much. So I suppose I should explain why I am associating with such a notorious fellow, what I have learned from this association, and why I now consider him to be my friend. Our first contact was back in 2011 or 12, and was brief and uneventful. I think in those days neither of us was fully red-pilled, so to speak, and we were more or less “normie” western Buddhists, though still rather unorthodox and weird by mainstream standards. Anyway, upon returning to the USA after many years in Asia I sent out emails to many of the teachers and Dhamma organizations in the general area (mainly the state of Washington and southern British Columbia in Canada), and in those days Brian Ruhe was a reputable, more or less mainstream Dhamma teacher. Anyway, after offering my services to any Dhamma society that was interested, Herr Ruhe wrote back saying that he was pretty much a subsistence Dhamma instructor and lacked the resources to support outside teachers, and that was that. Several years later, after both of us had been “radicalized” by the Information Age and the Internet, a supporter of both of us suggested to Herr Ruhe that he should interview me for his show (the Brian Ruhe show, then still on YouTube), and so he contacted me. Not only did he ask me to be on his show but he further asked me to be the spiritual director of the Thule Society, which latter honor I declined for reasons laid out in a previous post. But we did the show, and it went rather well, and so we have continued with it. No doubt there are some people out there who think that a Buddhist monk associating with a devout Nazi—or National Socialist, as Herr Ruhe prefers to call himself—is somehow necessarily inherently wrong and reprehensible. On the contrary, I don’t think so at all. Some of Brian’s views are very different from mine, with regard to politics, the heroism of Adolf Hitler, the origin, ancient history, and current state of the human race, and also with regard to Theravada Buddhism—though ironically he is more of a scriptural fundamentalist than I am, at least with regard to cosmology and his belief in the texts’ authenticity and authority in general. So although I know the texts rather better than he does, I am also more skeptical, while Brian, bless his heart, is endowed with more of the Will to Believe. (In other words, going with the terms of Buddhist philosophy, he is more faith-oriented and I am more reason-oriented.) Regarding politics, I am not a Nazi or a fascist by any sane, non-hysterical reckoning. I see myself as more or less of a classical liberal, and consider the libertarian system set up by the founding fathers of the USA to be about the best so far devised and put to the test. The farthest I would concede to the fascists would be to say that, at this stage in the game, if I were required to choose between Marxism/socialism and some form of not-particularly-violent fascism, I’d almost certainly go with the fascists. Socialism sucks, and Marxism is historically, objectively worse than Nazism or small-f fascism in general, going with such objective criteria as numbers of corpses generated by each system. So, although I’ve been called a Nazi sympathizer, my Nazi sympathies are very limited and conditional. I do have sympathy for Brian Ruhe though, mainly because he’s a nice guy, and a sincere one. For that matter I am willing to hold a discussion in good faith with anyone capable of a sincere and more or less courteous exchange of views. Hell, I’m even willing to have a discussion or reasoned debate with a neo-Marxist, though most of them seem too hysterical or ignorant to discuss their views rationally, especially if there is feedback from someone who disagrees with them. (Objective rationality is, after all, a tool of white patriarchal oppression.) I have been hoping to have a discussion with some advocate of politically correct Social Justice on this blog, but again, most of them are adverse to having their views challenged. But I am willing, just as Herr Ruhe also is willing. So, a primary reason why I do weekly Skype sessions with Brian is that he is willing to converse and exchange views in good faith, even though we don’t agree on all points. We’re not overly concerned with changing each other’s views, either. And I must say that the conversations can be interesting, for us at least. Also of course the videos have increased the readership of this blog. I mentioned that Brian is more orthodox than I am in his Buddhism, at least sometimes. He’s literally a devout Buddhist Nazi, or rather a devout Buddhist National Socialist—“Nazi” was originally a derogatory slur, and Herr Ruhe tends to avoid the term. (I persist in using the term “Nazi” simply because it’s shorter and easier, and National Socialists ought to be tough enough to hear words they don’t like very much. Besides, it’s used so much that it’s hardly any more of a slur than “National Socialist.” It’s sort of like the term “Pagan,” which also began as a slur but was later reclaimed, and even accepted with pride by faithful Pagans.) Anyway, with regard to Brian’s devout Buddhism, it is interesting that he was actually ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk for several months back in the 90’s, in Thailand, I’m pretty sure. Later he was a more or less mainstream teacher of Buddhism and meditation in the general area of Vancouver BC, until he was red-pilled and then ostracized by intolerant or fearful leftists. So Brian is a Buddhist first and a Nazi second. He takes Buddhist ethics very seriously, including the stuff about compassion and nonviolence. He understands Dhamma better than do most western Buddhists, and probably practices it better as well. Some people might assume, and reasonably too, that a Nazi would necessarily endorse militarism and even genocide. Nope! Brian simply denies all of it. Not only does he not endorse genocide, he firmly disbelieves the very idea that Hitler’s Nazis favored or perpetrated it; all that stuff is just propagandist lies promulgated to vilify the Führer. The Nazis were the good guys, even by Buddhist standards, according to him—there was no genocide of “subhuman” races, and Hitler was a peace-loving man, an inspired visionary who preferred designing buildings to bombing them, and who was forced into WW2 against his will by establishment warmongers spurred on by globalist Jews. Thus, among other things, Brian Ruhe is a sincere Holocaust denier. (Personally, I feel that although many of the stories against Hitler are probably exaggerated to some extent—just consider the stories against Trump lately—Hitler’s notion of Lebensraum pretty much implied an eastward invasion sooner or later, and I very much doubt that the Slavs were simply going to donate their territory to him. Also, preemptively dividing up Poland with Stalin’s USSR was certainly not persuasive evidence of his peaceful intentions, and his annexation of Czechoslovakia was an arguably predatory and shitty thing to do. But I suppose the “Hitler did nothing wrong” folks have their own explanations for all of this.) Ironically and maybe counterintuitively, as anyone who watches his videos can see, Herr Ruhe in his actual conduct is morally superior to the hysterical leftists freaking out at him on the streets of Vancouver. Most people who walk past Brian as he peacefully holds up a sign bearing a pro-Hitler slogan (or something equally politically incorrect) just ignore him, or glance at him and continue on their way; but some people curse him to his face repeatedly, bellow at him in a state of outraged anger, hatred, and self-righteousness, and sometimes even physically assault him. No doubt they feel perfectly justified and virtuous while doing so. Brian is almost saintly in his potentially self-destructive desire to peacefully wave Nazi signs in the midst of crowds of leftist activists. It is peculiar that the lefties going hysterical at Brian are literally more intolerant and more hateful than a Nazi. Let that sink in for a moment. But not only that: I would go even farther and assert that many Social Justice leftists, possibly even most of them, are more intolerant and more hateful than a Nazi, at least this Nazi. In a recent video of Brian’s one guy actually observes that Brian Ruhe isn’t a “real” Nazi simply because he isn’t hateful enough. Again, I assert that I am not a Nazi or a National Socialist, or even a run of the mill fascist, and I do not agree with a lot of what Brian promulgates, even though he is a nice guy and we have some interesting conversations. A good example of ideological disagreement would be our respective attitudes towards Jewish influence on western civilization. Adolf Hitler once said,The art of leadership…consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention….The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belong to one category.It seems plausible to me that the Führer walked his talk in this case by using Jews as the unifying adversary. No doubt he really loathed them, but still it does seem plausible that they were also a convenient political tool for unifying the militant righteous indignation of the German people. Nevertheless, Jewish influence on western civilization is much more profound than most people realize; and anyone who reads Kevin MacDonald’s The Culture of Critique is bound to become at least a little antisemitic (which is why it’s the only academic work banned by Amazon.com). Some Jews really are behind much if not most of the pernicious social phenomena running rampant throughout the postmodern west, including multiculturalism and the various forms of Marxism. The Holocaust may very well have been exaggerated (for propaganda purposes) for all I know; and with regard to Herr Ruhe’s theories about reptilian space aliens collaborating with powerful Jews, I suppose the less said the better. It seems to me that the greatest Jewish influence on western civilization was the advent of Christianity, originally a Jewish reform movement, although relatively few Goy Rights Activists place much emphasis on that particular point. So, Brian and I disagree on some things and agree, more or less, on others. Considering that we are both Theravada Buddhists, there is naturally quite a lot of agreement on basic doctrines of Buddhism and Buddhist ethics, and I even happen to share some of his weird ideas derived from ancient Indian Buddhist cosmology. Regardless of the objective truth or falsehood of his beliefs, Brian Ruhe’s conduct is morally superior to most of the people publicly bashing Nazism, including the outrageous hypocrites virtue signaling on cable news outlets. News announcers and commentators on pretty much all of the mainstream media pose as moral guides to the masses, yet they, unlike Brian Ruhe, are certainly not operating in good faith. These people are calmly, self-righteously, and cynically attempting to destroy anyone who threatens the narrative that they are paid to disseminate (and yes, they are paid by globalist Jews), regardless of actual guilt or innocence. For me, the mainstream leftist/globalist media’s ruthless, cynical attacks on Brett Kavanaugh were the absolute last straw; the guy is a totally vanilla, nerdy Christian white rich guy who obviously has never been a sexual predator, yet almost the entire political left in the USA were declaring him a serial rapist based on nothing but unsubstantiated accusations made by leftist activists. When he became upset and indignant at such sleazy attacks these same people cynically attacked him for being emotionally unstable. Their conduct towards the Covington High School kids, or for that matter towards President Trump, have been no better. Such “moral guides” are vastly morally inferior to the likes of Brian Ruhe the “Nazi Buddhist.” If I were ever to be interviewed by someone like Morning Joe, or Cathy Newman in the UK, they would certainly not be conducting the interview in good faith as Brian does, intent upon an actual exchange of views, and I would feel contaminated by the process. Not that they’d ever want to interview me. As it turns out, I am one of the only monastics of Brian’s own professed religion who is willing to associate with him in public since he publicly began endorsing National Socialism. A few others are willing to communicate with him privately, but otherwise keep their distance. This is understandable, but whether this avoidance of Brian is based on missionary diplomacy, cowardice, or something else would depend on their own mental states, which I surely don’t know. Anyway, I’m no Jesus of course, but even the Christian Messiah was criticized during his lifetime for hanging out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other unsavory riffraff. And so, to sum it all up, Herr Brian Ruhe has got some very weird ideas (some of which may be true for all I know), but he’s a genuinely good guy, as far as I can tell. I suppose his girlfriend could describe a side of him that I haven’t seen, but then again she’s his willing consort and presumably loves him—but of course that’s none of our business. Thus far I have enjoyed our Skype interviews, and I don’t give a damn about political correctness hysteria, so I’ll keep going with them for the foreseeable future. Brian’s Bitchute channel is here. The website for the Thule Society is here. (insert 30s-era German military music here)P.S. At Brian’s request I am including here a short video of Brian characteristically offering up a Nazi salute in the midst of a crowd of protesting lefties, while fortunately being protected by a few police officers: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Fg7mLXklitO8/?list=jAwYD9IBVY8E&randomize=false

(insert 30s-era German military music here) You are subscribed to email updates from The Outsider. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.Email delivery powered by GoogleGoogle, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States Previous Next Sept. 22, 2019 Dear BrianJust wanted to shoot you a quick email to let you know how I appreciate you posting your views and interviews on “alt” dhamma. You’ve revealed to me that there are people who can benefit from sharing encouragement to strive on in this wilderness. the internet truly has great potential to reorient ourselves and bring our existing culture into focus by use of right view.After holding my own intentions under the microscope for some time, your example has encouraged me to make my own mini contribution in the spirit of friendship. So I decided to create a Bitchute channel and share the videos I’ve created for myself to encourage and inspire energy and devotion in my own practice.If you get a chance, please take a look. I am always very pleased to receive constructive criticism, thoughts and feelings by my elders in the dhamma. Please show me no mercy :).My hope in creating this channel is that we fellow wanderers can find some encouragement and inspiration to follow the buddha’s “pali line”, not the “party line” of present sectarian (special interests) dhamma.I believe it is our responsibility to implement the buddhadhamma as perfectly as possible in our individual, cultural, social and historical context. And I’ve found it helpful to start with what we have now (Western culture) and to “train” it in line with the dhamma. So I’ve been gradually “culturally appropriating” our popular movies, poetry etc and using it to develop propaganda to inspire pursuit of the dhamma. Here’s the link if you get a chance (Ministry of Cultural Appropriation)Anyway, thanks again. Your gifts, your offerings, your sacrifices, all appreciated as ever, my friend.Hope you are well! 2019-09-19 6:06 a.m., Hugo wrote:You are one of our heroes, Brian.Hugo o-d-i-n.net Molo_Tulo The Fuhuer sits in Valhalla with Wotan. He was the greatest man to walk upon Midgard! You rock, Brian! Keep up the cause!***Great video Brian! I posted the following comment…If you were wrong, someone would have debated you at length instead of people just repeatedly rejecting you and swearing like sailors. It’s very good to hear you explain the existence of the Transfer Agreement, AKA the Haavara Agreement that Hitler had with the Zionists. The Jewish author Edwin Black was one of the first to explain this in detail, and concludes that there should be a statue of Adolf Hitler in Tel Aviv because without him, no Jews would have been safely transferred to Palestine prior to the outbreak of war at the hands of the British and French.***Wow! They sure are triggered. There is no crime in standing on the street. If they can’t articulate an injured party (person) or (property), then there is no crime. Here’s some of what I’ve discovered in my search to expose the truth. In a Gallop poll in 1941, 83% of the USA was against blowing up Germany. Stay safe and thanks for the links! Peace,Robert Hiker1 Patex321 As an fellow Germanic i like to salute you for being/becoming awake!Patex321 As a german I thank you for your courage.RemelRemel Bloody hell. Good on you Brian for daring to tell the truth to the public. The guys complaining is just your typical brainwashed idiot. They can’t debate, just (((shut it down))). Funny how this idiot said you’re racist too. What a complete moron. Hitler was NOT racist.whitey333 The balls on you are enormous. Best Video I seen in forever.https://www.bitchute.com/video/sVJhWQ38k6O5/JimB Brian, you’ve got more courage than most of the big, puffed-up he-men “pumping iron” in all the gyms around the world. And patience! You’re a prime example of Buddhist tenacity.Bloody hell. Good on you Brian for daring to tell the truth to the public. The guys complaining is just your typical brainwashed idiot. They can’t debate, just (((shut it down))). Funny how this idiot said you’re racist too. What a complete moron. Hitler was NOT racist.Seekerofsanity Brian: I am new to you but really like what I have read so far. Saw the ridiculous shit that the renegade tribune wrote about you in march; pathetic slanderous lies if you ask me. Total cowardice. Look forward to more of your work!Western-Celt-UK More people need to do more of these vox pop billboard discussions in public in the big cities across the World and upload them, what a great way of getting truth across.Re_World I respect you brother, keep doing what you are doing.TheWestIsBeingDestroyed You are a patient man, Brian.aboutthetruthmedia TheWestIsBeingDestroyedHe seems like a friendly, approachable guy.anarchore Brian needs a volunteer security detail. Maybe with matching shirts. 😀rambetterIt’s about time that people learned the Truth about Adolf Hitler. Brian, thanks for having balls.Handsome Truth 6 MILLION POINTS IN STREET CRED BRO!!!CarlSyerforest Brian Ruhe…King of Cool

Kid_Dynamite If you keep displaying that sign I’m going to “try” to take it from you. Even that guy isn’t sure he can do it.CarlSyerforest • 4 days agoBrian Ruhe…King of CoolKid_Dynamite • 5 days agoIf you keep displaying that sign im going to “try” to take it from you. Even that guy isnt sure he can do it.−

The Brian Ruhe Show Kid_DynamiteI told him I was taller than he was

aboutthetruthmedia Very brave, very approachable Brian! It was good to watch. gingerj the brain washed sheep , this guy just refuses to listen and i think brian keeps his cool well, if it was me i think he would be on his way to a and e room.anarchore You rock Brian! Thanks for being a truth beacon.Jeffrey88 • 3 days agoWow! Great work standing your ground to that white knighters! That’s why I support the Brian Ruhe Show!Charley Howard I have to tell you, Brian you’re a considerably braver individual than I could ever be so hats off to you. If you wouldn’t mind a suggestion perhaps you could gently tell people about the slaughter of the Ukrainian people at the hands of the Jewish commissars prior to the outbreak of the second world war in the Soviet Union. I think they be quite interested to hear that the Jews had slaughtered far, far more Christians at the hands of their barbaric socialist system than ever were presumably killed in any kind of death camp. I doubt they’ll believe you, but perhaps in a light a fire in their mind and that will make them more inquisitive as to what the TRUE HISTORY is compared to what the Hollywood version of history that we have been fed. Once again, kudos to you for your efforts, stay safe! longdistancerunna We should be out there with Brian. Just imagine even 100 people walking alongside these men with similar signs against 2 jew defending “heroes”. It would be very interesting to see what would happen. Do you think something similar to the Munich Police shootings of the NSDAP’s march in 1924 that landed Adolf Hitler in jail for a year? Keep in mind that is what really caught the eyes of the German people who came to realize that they were being lied to about Communism. The Nazi parties election seats grew enormously after Herr Hitler was released a year later.

whitershadeofpale longdistancerunna • 4 days agoFair point, but I think if it got to the stage of 100 more people,standing side by side,would get attention from the authorities. A better approach would be to have smaller break-off groups working incognito. This is a very inspiring work from Brian though all the same.Sept. 18, 2019Hi Brian,these interviews were very interesting. To his credit, Armin at least approached the discourse with some semblance of balance and was far more restrained in denying you a chance to express yourself. The other guy…not so much. These guys are either incredibly naive (and/or ignorant of factual history) or they’re willingly denying the truth, so as to fit their Marxist dogma. I believe that many Euro-Canadians, Euro-Australians, Euro-Americans etc are coming to the stark realization that the fifth column Marxists have so corrupted our media and education, that they’ve damaged our young people, way more than we care to accept. If Trump’s presidency achieves nothing else, the exposure of the true size of the Zionist inspired Communist threat, will be achievement enough.Well done with your recently published David Duke interview. Dr Duke is one of the best around at exposing criminality of the Sabbatean/Frankist “death cult” that is Rothschild Zionism.– Chaz the Advocate On 2019-08-30 5:17 a.m., wrote:Hi Mr RuheI just wanted to let you know I really appreciate your courage to share your views and to take the initiative to interview Ven. Pannobhasa.The interviews on corruption in the sangha, alt-buddhism in the West and Mind Control I found really intriguing.Very encouraging to hear your friendly voices in this wilderness!Wishing good things for you.Thank you kindly Tristan,I am passing your message on to Venerable Pannobhasa. “Wilderness” is an excellent word to describe this world, eh?Hi Brian Amen, brother. An encouraging thought that the Wilderness is the most honest place to learn the true value of friendship. Feel free to share my gratitude, but not my name or contact details, as I am trying to tread lightly. There are snakes. 🙂 From YouTube commentsNov. 12, 2017And Roid 20 hours ago (edited)Hi Brian I’ve turned my attention to doing mediation more regularly and learning Buddhist teachings due to your influence. I think there’s a lot of suffering and lack of mindfulness among the truther community so you may be a person who’s in the right place at the right time. I honestly would probably never have heard of Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Sona (let alone listened to Dhamma talks) for an indeterminate amount of time had I not been drawn to your interviews (I think it was the ones with Andrew Carrington Hitchcock and Dennis Fetcho that pushed me over the edge into looking into your work further). For people who love to learn and become a better person I think Buddhist teachings/practices are a great way to relieve the monotony of the “doom and gloom” content the majority of alternative media (or our personal lives even) seems to consist of. And if we feel like modern life is too much, some knowledge of existing support structures (such as forest monasteries) could be useful information.Brian Ruhe 9 hours agoWhat a testimonial, And Roid!! May I copy and paste this for others? I deeply appreciate your specific story, thanks! You make my job worth it.Oct. 2017 Alex Seferiades2 weeks agoBrian, your reverence for the German soldier brings warmth and happiness to my heart. Greetings from Ontario!! You are doing a great job covering what many are afraid to talk about but know in their innermost core to be the truth. It is most likely that you are a reincarnated official or soldier from the Third Reich era. Only you would really know that for sure though. You have my best wishes… Keep fighting the good fight! Brian Ruhe1 second agoThanks Alex! That makes my day. I was a Luftwaffe pilot killed in a crash about fall of 1944. I have discussed this in a few videos. My current girlfriend was my 13 year old daughter at that time and with her hypnosis session, she remembers far more about me than I remember. Read the full article

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