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archiveposter · 3 years ago

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#Girlboss: Scarlett O’Hara and the Cult of True Womanhood

Much like death and taxes, the judgement of women by American society is a constant of life. The standard by which the female sex is held is ever-changing; what might be the ideal woman in one decade could be considered an insult to femininity in the next. In fact, for some, the desire to be akin to Venus herself can reach a fever pitch. America experienced such an obsession in the 19th century, particularly in the South. During this time period, the concept of “the Cult of True Womanhood” emerged. The ideology was relatively simple, yet extraordinarily taxing. In order to be the perfect woman, one must possess purity, be submissive to their husbands, be pious, and be able to maintain the affairs of her household. Christian theology was laced generously throughout the Cult of True Womanhood; according to Barbara Welter, the goal was to become “another, better Eve” (152). It is important to note that membership to the cult was applicable to only a subset of Americans: wealthy, white women. White women of lower class and women of color were excused, or rather excluded, from obtaining the title of the perfect woman. As with any popular facet of society, the Cult of True Womanhood started to become present in the literature of the time. When thinking about a character that conforms to the ridiculous standards of the elite, Scarlett O'Hara may come to mind. This thought has merit, at least on the surface. After all, the infamous O'Hara is the exact type of woman that the status of “true woman'' is built for: white, rich, and beautiful. There is little reason, according to the ideology, that O'Hara shouldn't be able to be Eve incarnate. However, throughout Gone With the Wind, the opposite occurs. Despite being an ideal candidate, the character of Scarlett O’Hara repeatedly exposes the contradictions in the Cult of True Womanhood.

Essay below the cut

The overarching theme in the Cult of True Womanhood was women being dedicated to their husbands, households, and children. The whole system was driven by the abstract notion of honor--not just the honor of the women who were subjugated to the high standards of perfection, but also the men in their lives (Faverty 17). When diligently filling the role of wife and mother, women were protecting their own honor, as well as that of their husbands and even their fathers. If a woman were to resist the role offered to her by society, it “threatened her reputation and both her individual and familial honor” (Faverty 18). However, providing for a family and continuously subscribing to the notion of protecting one’s honor--or the honor of male family members--is often in conflict with one another. This is especially true when considering the concept of honor in the Confederate South, which dictated that rich white women were not to engage in manual labor or violence. Scarlett O’Hara demonstrates the conflict in Chapter 26 of Gone With the Wind, when she kills the Yankee soldier that dared to set foot in her beloved Tara. When the Yankee is first detected, O’Hara has a choice: preserve her honor by fleeing, thus not engaging in any “unladylike” behavior, but leaving the other residents of the plantation undefended, or protecting her family and violate the honor of her late husband, father, and herself. While in the first moments of panic, the heroine thinks to “hide in the closet, crawl under the bed, fly down the back stairs and run screaming to the swamp, anything to escape [the soldier]” (Gutenberg), she ends up shooting the Yankee with her late husband’s gun. How this violates her own honor is simple: she engaged in violence, thus directly rejecting the role of passive female. How the action violates the honor of her late husband Charles and her father is a little bit more complicated. Mitchell takes care to note that Charles’ gun had never been fired, at least by him; she describes the pistol as something he had “worn, but never fired” (Gutenberg). By taking the pistol and using it herself, O’Hara is taking a symbol of his masculinity and appropriating it for her own purposes. Additionally, if a man never found a reason to shoot his own gun, his wife doing so would be a direct insult to his competency. As for her father, O’Hara does not even attempt to call for his help or even alert him to the situation. The male is supposed to be the protector, and by taking matters into her own hands, she is deciding that her father is not capable of helping his own family. While this is true, as her father has become senile following the death of his own spouse, it is not supposed to be a decision that O’Hara makes. In protecting herself and loved ones, Scarlett O’Hara condemns the men in her life.

In addition to the incident described in the previous paragraph, there is a second instance within the text of Gone With the Wind that displays the glaring discrepancies within the ideology of the Cult of True Womanhood. While visiting the Fontaines, O’Hara mentions that while there is cotton in the fields of Tara, all the field hands are gone, rendering the crop virtually useless to her and her family. When Grandma Fontaine points out the fact that O’Hara is perfectly capable of harvesting it herself, the younger woman is taken aback and exclaims “Like a field hand? Like white trash? Like the Slattery women?”(Gutenberg). O’Hara’s reluctance highlights two different problems present within the Cult of True Womanhood rhetoric. Similar to the first incident described, the novel’s heroine is caught between providing for the current residents of Tara and preserving her perceived “role” as a distinguished southern woman. Both are required in the Cult of True Womanhood; however, in order to do the former, the latter becomes impossible. On the other hand, in order to satisfy the latter, Scarlett O’Hara would allow for a critical element in restoring a semblance of normalcy to her beloved plantation to go to waste. It becomes a dilemma of reputation versus survival. To modern readers, such an internal battle may seem unnecessary and even borderline silly. However, the importance of being an esteemed Southern woman in Civil War Georgia is proven by how long O’Hara struggles with the decision. While she finally succumbs to working in the fields, thus making the decision to abandon--at least temporarily--the elitism that is associated with being a “true woman”, the conflict that she experiences demonstrates how the standards of the Cult of True Womanhood can not coexist.

A final conflict in the Cult of True Womanhood that Scarlett O’Hara exposes revolves around the concept of piety. According to Laurie Bonventre, “women were supposed to have an especially strong religious side and it was supposed to be natural for them” (33). O’Hara shows a modicum of religion throughout the novel. For example, after things started to improve at Tara, “she thanked God for the pale-blue sky and the warm sun, for each day of good weather put off the inevitable time when warm clothing would be needed” (Gutenberg). However, any inclination towards true piety is overwhelmingly dashed by both the context of the prayers and the decidedly non-Christian attributes of O’Hara’s character. She prays almost solely for her own gain, rather than for the benefit of those around her. She is vain--she marries her first husband, Charles, out of revenge and not love. Such a union violates the Christian concept of marriage, which dictates that a couple must be bonded spiritually and not for earthly reasons. Finally, in killing the Yankee, O’Hara commits a mortal sin. While arguably an act of self-defense, the action directly goes against the Sixth Commandment (Britannica). Gone With the Wind’s lead heroine is far from taking advantage of her “divine right” (Bonventre 20) of religion, and yet would be considered a true woman by many of her contemporaries. Thus, the concept of piety in the Cult of True Womanhood is not a deep one, but a performative version. As long as a rich white woman adheres to the basic traditions of a Christian life, she may qualify to be a true woman.

As established previously, the features of an ideal member of the female sex are as follows: piety, committment to family, purity, and being submissive to their male spouse. The first two qualities were most certainly found in enslaved women. Religion played a critical role in the lives of the enslaved. While some attempted to stay true to their heritage, many slaves converted to Christianity upon arriving in the United States. It was a source of hope for those who were subjected to the dreadful conditions of plantations; oftentimes, the Bible was used by abolitionists to justify rebellions. (PBS). In addition to this, enslaved women were dedicated to the health of their families. In the South, “ [enslaved] women cooked, cleaned, sewed, and washed for their families'' (Oxford Handbook) while men hunted. The concept of submissiveness to men is a problematic topic to discuss in regard to enslaved women. Sexual coercion was common, and not just by white plantation owners. High-ranking male slaves were encouraged to procreate with the women of their choosing, which led to interactions of highly questionable consent (Oxford Handbook). The idea of purity is nebulous; Scarlett O’Hara qualified for purity, however, after marrying twice and pursuing a third lover. Therefore, many enslaved women should also meet the standard. The truth, though, was that women of color were not considered true women by southern society. Therefore, for all of its requirements, the Cult of True Womanhood mainly cared about two things: the color of a woman’s skin and her family’s pedigree. The fact that O’Hara would qualify even after her abandonment of the culture’s core values displays the hypocrisy.

The idea of a perfect woman was revered in the American South during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was in this society that the Cult of True Womanhood emerged. The concept was theoretically defined by piety, submissiveness, purity, and a dedication to family. However, in Gone With the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara consistently exposees the conflicting nature of the Cult of True Womanhood. Ultimately, it was not the attributes that made a woman perfect, but her family name and the color of her skin.

#analysis #literature #gone with the wind #Scarlett o'Hara #English

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ladynestaarcheron · 5 years ago

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Hello hello hello! This is not chapter nine of Like Pristine Glass, I know, but that should be coming later this week! In the meantime, here's my submission for day three of the @acotarauweek, which you can check out and read lots of other new AU fics!

you can read this on ao3 as well!

Nesta's sisters are throwing a mandatory Hanukkah party, and she is dutifully (if begrudgingly) on her way when her car breaks down. Her sisters know Nesta can't be an in enclosed space with strangers, so an Uber or the subway is out of the question, so Feyre sends her friend Cassian to pick her up.

Nesta may be a grinch, but at least she's not an imp.

---

It is just her luck, Nesta thinks bitterly to herself, that the year Hanukkah falls neatly into the two-week Christmas break her firm has is also the year her sisters decide to gang up on her and host an extended family candlelighting night and the year her shitty 1973 Toyota finally decides to die.

On the side of some street in Brooklyn she’s never been to before. Of course.

It will be the very coldest day in New York City before Nesta Archeron takes the subway. She won’t. So instead she texts Feyre and Elain her situation and starts to look up the number for AAA before Feyre calls.

“Relax, I’ll get an Uber just as soon as AAA gets here,” she says in lieu of a greeting.

“No, no, you don’t have to!” Feyre says, voice loud over the chatter of their family at her and Elain’s shared apartment in Brooklyn. “I have a friend driving and he can pick you up!”

“I thought this was a family thing?”

“It’s a family and friends thing. It’s a togetherness holiday.”

“It is not.”

Nesta can hear Feyre smile. She groans inwardly, bracing herself for her least favorite joke of the season.

“Don’t be such a grinch, Nesta.”

“Don’t be such a grinch, Nesta!” Elain shouts in the background. She can hear laughter ringing, too.

“Who is this friend? When’s he going to be here?”

“I’ll text you his number. Send him your location. His name’s Cassian. He’s Rhys’ friend.”

Rhys, Feyre’s boyfriend of a few months whom Nesta has not yet met. “He has a car?” She sounds doubtful. She knows why she keeps a car in the city, but she still thinks it’s odd when she hears of other people who do. Especially men.

“Yes, and it’s a good one,” she teases. “Anyway. See you soon!” And she hangs up, before Nesta has a chance to shoot back at her for berating her car.

So instead Nesta texts the number Feyre has sent her her location, with a Hey, it’s Nesta, Feyre’s sister and calls AAA, who inform her that they will be there in about half an hour.

Nesta doesn’t want to wander around the street--she’s never been here before and it’s bitterly cold outside--so she sits in her broken-down car, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, and waits for Feyre’s friend to text her back.

He doesn’t. Instead, he calls.

“Nesta?” he says, as soon as she answers. “It’s Cassian. Feyre’s friend. I’m right behind you.”

Nesta looks up and sees a car that has pulled up behind her in her rearview. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” he says. “Stay in your car. I’ll come out.” And he hangs up.

She is slightly miffed at being repeatedly hung up on, but she unlocks the car anyway to let Cassian in.

“Woah,” he says as he slides in her passenger side. “This is old. I didn’t believe Feyre. Hi,” he says, turning to face her with a crooked grin. He stretches out his arm. “I’m Cassian.”

“Nesta,” she says, decidedly less excited than he is. She takes his hand gingerly and she’s very grateful he doesn’t squeeze too hard and lets her go after a few seconds.

“So, how long have you had this piece of crap?” he asks cheerfully.

“It is not a piece of crap,” she snaps. It is, but she hates when anyone else says so.

“Right, except for breaking down,” he says, grinning wider.

Nesta’s mood sours even more. “It’s just the cold,” she says. And it’s not, but she doesn’t care. She loves this car.

He laughs. “Sure. So how long have you had it?”

“Three years,” she says.

“What year is it?”

“Seventy-three.”

He whistles low. “Well...I guess it lived a good life.”

“It’s not dead,” she says. “They’re going to fix it.”

He shrugs, the smile never leaving his face. “All right, then.”

Nesta looks at her window, drumming her fingers on the wheel again. AAA should be here soon, only seven minutes or so.

“So, how will you be getting back home? You live in Manhattan, right? Feyre said you never take the subway....”

“I don’t. Uber. Until this is fixed.”

His lips quirk upwards. “Well, I can drive you home.”

Nesta bites her lip. She has at least another twenty minutes with this man in a car, and then a few hours when she has to be under the same roof as him, and she’s already snapped at him once. “No thank you,”she says through gritted teeth.

Now his smile fades. “I just meant...I never like Ubers, and you wouldn’t have to pay me, so...” he trails off.

“Oh, they’re here,” she says, gesturing to the tow truck that has appeared in the rearview mirror. She leaps out of the car and rushes over to them and she can hear Cassian behind her following.

“Good evening,” she says to the man getting out of the car.

“Hi,” he says. “Which car is it?”

Nesta shows him her car and launches into an explanation of what happened. The man tells her where her car will be taken to and that they’ll contact her if she’ll be able to pick it up.

“What do you mean, if?”

He looks the car over doubtfully. “It’s...kind of standing on its last legs.”

“You haven’t even looked at it yet!”

“I mean, I’m seeing it in front of me....”

Nesta bites back what she wants to say. “You have my information?”

“Yeah, the company already has it.”

“Excellent. Good evening.” She turns on her heel and stomps to Cassian’s passenger side.

“Listen,” he says, sliding in next to her. “About earlier. I really didn’t mean...any harm. Just, like. If you want a ride. You’re my friend’s sister,” he adds.

“Yes, I know,” she says, snapping at him again. Then she stops herself and looks out the window. Now she feels too awkward; she shouldn’t have snapped at him but she doesn’t want to apologize, so she just presses herself into the back of her seat.

She hates this. Being locked away with people she doesn’t know well. She can barely stand being alone with people she loves, so this is a nightmare.

He notices. “Hey,” he says, looking over at her, real concern in his voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she says, pushing harder against the chair.

“You want me to pull over?”

“No. Thank you.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Are you sick?”

Of you, she thinks immediately, but bites her tongue. “No.” She’s firm enough that he’s quiet again.

“If you’re sure,” he finally says.

They’re quiet for about another minute. Then he says, “So, how come you don’t live with Feyre and Elain?”

Nesta opens her mouth to say None of your business, but for Feyre’s sake, she grits her teeth and says tightly, “I need my space.”

“Oh,” he says. He laughs, for the second time, and Nesta notes how his deep voice sounds a bit higher pitched when he does. “So am I infringing on your alone time in your car?” He laughs again, and Nesta thinks he’s mocking her, but then he winks.

“So, you’re a lawyer, right?”

So much for respecting her alone time. “Yes.”

“Criminal law, Feyre said?”

“Yes.”

“She said you’ve put a lot of bad people away.”

Well. She has.

“Don’t like to discuss work on the holidays?”

“It’s not the holidays,” Nesta says. “The only major holiday in December is Christmas.”

“It’s also Hanukkah,” he says.

Nesta rolls her eyes. “I know that,” she says. “But Hanukkah’s not a major holiday. It’s not even a holiday. It’s a festival.”

“Oh,” he says, looking over at her, surprised. “I didn’t realize there was a difference.”

“Well, there is.”

“What is it?”

“It’s,” Nesta says, and she struggles to find the right words in English. Not that she’s fluent in modern Hebrew, but discussing Jewish culture is normally something she’d do while throwing at least a bit of Yiddish around. “It’s mostly the prohibitions on work.”

“Oh. So you can discuss work on Hanukkah.”

Nesta rolls her eyes again and he laughs. “I’m kidding. So if Hanukkah’s not a big deal, why are your sisters throwing a party?”

“It’s not that it’s not a big deal. It’s just...not on par with Christmas in Christianity. We have holidays that justify month long vacations. This isn’t one of them. And anyway...it’s...fun.” She grimaces as she finishes.

He laughs at her again. “You seem very into fun.”

“It’s assimilation,” she grumbles. “There are Jewish ways to have fun.”

“I’m sure there are,” he says.

She turns to look at him. “What are you, anyway?” she asks. “Protestant?”

He glances sideways at her. “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t most Americans Protestant?”

“About half, yeah.”

“Well. There you go. You’re not Jewish. Obviously.”

He laughs again and she’s not sure why. “You know, some might say that’s a bit rude.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says, snapping for what feels like the tenth time. “We’re going to my sisters’ Hanukkah party. I’m at perfect liberty to ask you your religion.”

He gives her another crooked grin. It’s lopsided and lazy and easy and she doesn’t like it. “Good point,” he says. “And I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“What religion I am,” he says. “I don’t really have one. I didn’t grow up with my parents. Rhys’ mom took me in. And she was just...festive. We had non-holiday holiday parties every few months.”

“Wait. You’re Feyre’s boyfriend’s brother?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. We’re here.”

He turns off the car and gets out, shutting the door behind him. She scrambles with her seatbelt and opens the heavy door, and he’s already on her side to offer her a hand down.

She blinks when she sees him. “How is he?”

“Who?”

“Feyre’s boyfriend.” She knows he can hear how impatient she is, but she wonders if he can detect her concern, her worry.

She thinks he can because his eyes soften a bit. “He’s a good person.”

She puts her hand in his. His skin is warm even through their gloves.

“Non-holiday holiday party?” she asks as they walk up to the door of the apartment building.

He laughs--he laughs so much, it’s ridiculous. “Yeah. Solstice times, equinox times.”

Equinox times? Who celebrates the equinox? What are they, Pagan?

He opens the door for her when they reach it.

“So,” he says. “I’ve never been to a Hanukkah party before. What can I expect?”

“What do you know about Hanukkah?”

“Oh, lots,” he says, following her into the elevator. “For starters, it’s widely misrepresented as a major Jewish holiday, when it’s actually a minor festival.” He shoots her a grin.

She rolls her eyes, but it’s more to hide her own slight smile than out of real disdain.

“And I know about the candles. And Feyre mentioned the foods.”

“There’s a story behind it,” she says. “But yes, here we’ll be lighting candles and eating fried foods. There are games. It’s...”

“Assimilated fun,” he says, winking.

She doesn’t do a very good job at hiding her short laugh. “Right.”

The elevator dings with Elain and Feyre’s floor, and Nesta doesn’t bother knocking at their entrance and just lets them both in.

The party’s already started. A gaggle of Elain’s friend Nesta vaguely recognizes, some of Feyre’s art schoolmates, some cousins (Nesta knows her father is here somewhere, as well), and four people she assumes are Feyre’s new...friends.

“Nesta!”

Nesta turns to the sound of her name automatically and is knocked backwards a few feet with the force of Elain’s hug.

“Hi, Elain,” she says, slightly muffled, trying to unhook herself.

“I’m so glad you made it! Are you okay! Is your car okay? Was the ride okay?” Elain’s eyes move over indiscreetly to Cassian, who is talking towards a blond woman Nesta does not know.

Nesta can feel a slight flush redden her cheeks. “It was fine.” Her sister’s sweet to care, but it was fine.

“I can take an Uber back with you.”

Cassian, more discreetly than Elain but not slick enough that Nesta doesn’t notice, cocks his head towards them.

“I...don’t know if I’ll take you up on that,” she says. She hates that she can’t be alone with strangers and she hates to ask it of her sister, but she might not need to. The ride with Cassian was...fine. And she trusts Feyre.

“Hey!” cries the sister in question, coming into the room. She stretches the syllable out. “Hey, Nesta, you made it! Hey, Cass.” She stops to give him a quick hug and then walks over to Nesta and squeezes her tightly. “Was the ride okay?” she says, lowering her voice.

She hates this. Hates it. “It was fine. Have you started cooking yet?”

“Oh. Yes! We have food and...Hanukkah drinks! Martinis!”

Nesta stops. “That’s the brilliant Hanukkah cocktail you came up with? Martinis?”

“They have olives in them,” Feyre says, defensive. “And we were supposed to have this gelt cocktail, but someone forgot to buy Goldschläger.”

“I thought you said you picked it up!”

“I have texts, Elain...”

Nesta relaxes a bit while listening to her sisters bicker. She’s missed them. She likes being around them. In small doses, maybe, but she does wish they had more frequent meetings.

“We should light soon,” she says to them, after listening to them chatter on about the lives for ten minutes or so.

“Daddy’s not here yet,” Elain says.

“And you haven’t met Rhys! Come, come.” Feyre grabs her right hand--her left is holding her oh-so-festive martini--and drags her back into the front room, where Cassian is sitting with the people she didn’t know from earlier.

“Everyone,” she announces, “this is my big sister Nesta. Nesta, this is Az and Mor and Amren and Rhys.” She looks back at Nesta, beaming.

Her heart cracks a little--she looks so proud, so happy, shining like the unlit chanukiyot are already blazing inside her--so she smiles and nods even though it feels so unnatural for her. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says.

Her eyes linger on Rhys.

She immediately doesn’t like him. He’s too tall. He has too many tattoos. He wears nice clothes but she doesn't trust how expensive they look.

She doesn’t know what Feyre has said about her, but she can tell Rhys doesn’t like her either, from the way he looks at her.

Whatever. She doesn’t need him to like her. She’s the sister, the constant. He’s the one who needs to prove himself to her. That’s just how it goes.

You’re off to a rough start, she thinks bitterly at him, and brings her martini to her lips.

“Did you all know,” Cassian says, throwing an arm back around the chair next to him. “That Hanukkah’s not actually a holiday?”

The one Feyre called Az turns to face him, but the small woman, Amren, scoffs and says, “That’s not exactly classified information, dimwit. It’s been a festival for two thousand years.”

Nesta likes her right away. She sits down at the table.

“Criminal law, right?” Amren says to her.

Nesta nods.

“Don’t ask her about work,” Cassian interjects. “She’s on vacation.”

“Private firm or for the DA or what?” Amren says, ignoring him.

But she doesn’t mind her questions so much, and she answers them. Amren tells her she works for Rhys--they all do, which she doesn’t like. It feels too much like a cult to her and she doesn’t want Feyre mixed up in that.

She hisses so to Elain, under her breath, and she laughs at her. “You’re being ridiculous,” she whispers. “They’re nice!”

“You think everyone’s nice.”

“It’s not a cult, it’s just having friends. You know? Friends?”

“Oh, hush. It’s time to light.”

“Daddy’s not here yet. We’re waiting for him.”

“Where is he?” Nesta leans back and crosses her arms. “Have you heard from him, Feyre?”

“Oh,” Feyre says, turning around and looking at the clock across from her. “Ten minutes, I think.”

“Why do you need to light the candles now?” Cassian asks her.

“We’re supposed to do it before eleven,” she replies.

“Hmm,” he says. Then he hesitates. He says to her, lowering his voice so only she can hear, “You...want me to drive you home after?”

Nesta bites her lower lip. She brings her glass to her mouth and takes a sip.

“Yes,” she says.

“Okay,” he says. He hesitates again. Then he reaches into his jacket and takes out something--a business card. “I...know you can’t take the subway or rides with people you don’t know,” he says, and Nesta can feel her throat grow tighter but he doesn’t take his eyes off her face. “I’m head of Rhys’ security. I can make sure you can get around safely. I can do it myself. If you ever need.”

Nesta takes the card from him and it’s so weird, because sometimes he’s teasing and sometimes he’s sincere and she doesn’t like when people are a mix of things. It makes everything harder.

But she appreciates it. A lot. So she nods slightly and slips the card into her own pocket.

“And you know,” he continues. “I can probably...help out. In that area.”

Nesta blinks. “What area?”

“You know. The...unsafe...area. With...whatever it is...whoever it was....” he trails off, but still, his eyes do not stray from hers.

Nesta blinks again. Is he...offering...to kill Tomas?

No. Because that would be insane.

So she just says, “Right.”

He nods and she doesn’t like the way he’s looking at her, like he’s studying her. But then he smiles and says, “So, are you going to come to our non-holiday holiday party next week?”

Nesta scoffs. “No.”

“Why not?”

Nesta rolls her eyes. “Because it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of.”

“I came to your Hanukkah party.”

“It’s not mine, and I didn’t invite you.”

“Well, I’m inviting you.”

Nesta grimaces. “One holiday party is enough for the season.”

“All right,” he says. “What about dinner?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Dinner?”

“Dinner,” he says, grinning. “You must like me enough for another car ride. You’re talking to me and none of your cousins. You like food. Dinner with me is a fantastic combination.”

Perhaps it’s the second martini. Or her sisters’ assimilated holiday cheer rubbing off on her. But she shrugs and says, “Maybe,” which, for her, is a ringing endorsement.

Cassian knows it, too, because he leans back and grins wider.

“All right, who’s up for some more latkes?” Elain says, coming in holding a platter.

“Now, really, Elain, you two said ten more minutes. Where is he?”

“Okay, you know what? I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, but since someone’s being such a grinch...he’s actually picking up the Goldschläger.”

“You’re such a grinch, Nesta!” Feyre says, cheering.

“You’re such a grinch, Nesta,” Cassian says, laughing along.

Nesta rubs the back of her neck. The one good thing about a non-holiday holiday party, she supposes, is that there can be no grinch.

Perhaps it’s not so ridiculous after all.

#lizo writes #acotar au week day 3 #day 3 christmas/holiday au #acotar au week #nessian #hope you guys like this!!#this was fun to write!!

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apptowonder · 5 years ago

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“Scribbling in the Sand” -- CCM and Liturgical Catechesis Pt. IV: Steve Taylor

Go to Pt. III Go to Pt. V

From the 1980s to the early 1990s, Roland Stephen “Steve” Taylor emerged in the CCM scene as a unique, prophetic and rare satirical voice. Dubbed the “Clown Prince of Christian Rock”, Taylor’s work is known for its topical themes, emulation of various musical styles, and biting but insightful critique of...pretty much every meaningful target for a Christian musician to comment on. Without going into too much detail, Taylor’s work particularly towards the end of the 90s fell victim to what is known as “the satire paradox”, in which satirical media is often only properly recognized as such by people who are already aligned with the message or ideology of the satire. Many conservative Christian media curators were put off by his work, particularly when he tackled such topics as abortion. This eventually led to his disillusionment with the Christian music scene (though he remains a devout Christian and has in recent years returned to CCM as a collaboration partner). He formed the secular band “Chagall Guevara” in the 90s and eventually returned to writing Christian music when he produced songs for the Newsboys, as well as a couple of solo projects with Peter Furler once the latter left the band.

Taylor is an interesting example to talk about, because his music is very decidedly non-liturgical for the most part. He doesn’t write “worship music”, and while his world-focused commentary is in some ways similar to Petra, he is much more topical and specific. In this respect, he does actually embody I would argue one aspect of liturgy: the lifting up of the needs of the world to God and for the community to see. In a way, his music resembles an irreverent litany.

A sample of his titles should give a sense of the tone of much of his work: “Steeplechase,” “Whatever Happened to Sin,” “I Blew Up the Clinic Real Good” (his critique of militant pro-life activists), “Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel A Lot Better”.

The song I want to examine, however, is atypical of Taylor’s satirical work but falls more in line with the later work he would do producing for the Newsboys and co-writing songs with their frontman, Peter Furler. The song is a haunting, poignant piece entitled, “Harder to Believe Than Not To”.

The song opens with an achingly beautiful sample of a choral piece by Rachmaninoff. The title and concept of the song itself are taken from a letter by Flannery O’Connor in which she responds to critics who were surprised that she was a woman of faith, critics who referred to faith as a “crutch”. O’Connor responded in her letter that it was “harder to believe than not to believe.” One beauty of this song is the way it weaves in other works of art and culture in an organic way that contributes to the song’s message. In this way, Taylor offers a blueprint for building upon a kind of Holy Tradition, something that more contemporary Christian artists could stand to emulate. We all exist in a context, whether we know it or not, and Taylor draws on the talent and thought patterns of faithful Christian artists while making the song his own.

“ Nothing is colder than the winds of change/Where the chill numbs the dreamer till a shadow remains/Among the ruins lies your tortured soul/Was it lost there Or did your will surrender control?”

The song then moves to the plaintive chorus:

“ Shivering with doubts that were left unattended So you toss away the cloak that you should have mended Don't you know by now why the chosen are few? It's harder to believe than not to”.

This song is both a critique and an exhortation. We are encouraged to consider that the life of faith will be costly, and that discipleship is not easy. But we are also encouraged to carry on boldly and bravely, understanding that enduring and persevering through trials (without inviting them) is a sign of faithfulness, not failure (as secular society and some prosperity gospel preachers claim).

Taylor also subtly but insightfully names the forces both inside and outside the church that seek to keep us from Christ our goal:

“ Some stay paralyzed until they succumb Others do what they feel, but their senses are numb Some get trampled by the pious throng Still they limp along “

Before flowing into the final chorus, Taylor offers a sly but gentle jab at those who think faith is for the weak:

“Are you sturdy enough to move to the front? Is it nods of approval or the truth that you want? And if they call it a crutch, then you walk with pride Your accusers have always been afraid to go outside”

This is a laugh at the expense of the darkness, and the words of a faithful person who knows that though the battle against evil and suffering rages on, God has already won the war. It is indicative of the “upside-down Kingdom”* of God’s economy, where weakness is strength.

In this piece, Taylor offers a liturgical prayer infused with kenosis, the emptying of the self in order to receive fullness from God. Brilliantly, the song not only provides a compelling formative model for self-emptying, but also frames such kenosis as, in its own way, revolutionary. Many CCM songs talk about humbling oneself before God, but it is sadly (particularly in American evangelicalism) done in a way that equates to self-loathing. Here is a perfectly poised counterbalance to that attitude, a song which rejoices in the foolishness of the Way of Jesus in the eyes of the world while simultaneously framing faithfulness as a source of spiritual strength. Contemporary churches would do well not to shy away from the prophetic, kenotic elements in their liturgy, and to employ gifted artists and musicians who have this kind of “iconographic vision”, a vision that sees all human endeavor not in worldly terms of power, prosperity and influence, but in Kingdom terms of weakness, humility and love.

*to borrow a phrase from Donald Kraybill, Anabaptist author and theologian.

#hot takes #Scribbling in the Sand #Steve Taylor #CCM #liturgy #music #theology of media

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back-and-totheleft · 4 years ago

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Stone, cold sober

Re-telling the story of September 11 with a measured hand and lightness of touch hithertoo unhinted at, director Oliver Stone proves a more serious thinker than his paranoia-soaked canon would suggest. Here, he explains how his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam framed his outlook on life and art.

The introductory handshake comes with an additional squeeze of the wrist and a roguish smile.

“You’re Irish. I can tell.”

No. Your correspondent hasn’t been transported back to a disco in the 1970s. Instead, she’s in New York’s Regency Hotel meeting Oliver Stone. That twinkling opening gambit has brought about a Proustian rush of wayward tabloid headlines. I remember that idiotic book on the making of Natural Born Killers, with its scurrilous tales of loose ladies, psilocybin mushrooms and cocaine abuse. I recall that story about the director commandeering the Warners corporate jet to do peyote in the Mexican desert while making The Doors. I remember too how the set of Alexander reputedly became an extravagant saturnalia. Sure enough, I can effortlessly picture this man partying down with Colin Farrell, a duel study in swaggering Dionysian charm.

Though Stone insists his appetite for debauchery has been greatly exaggerated, he’s always owned up to unruly habits. Yes, he does have a fondness for marijuana dating back to time spent on the frontline in Vietnam. He has also ‘expanded his consciousness’ with the occasional psychedelic. But driving offences from last year and 1999 have, he claims, more to do with pre-diabetic medication unwisely knocked back with alcohol than exotic marching powders.

Still, it’s an impressively scandalous record for a man of his years. Stone is 60 now, though you’d say he were a decade younger if you suddenly spied him on the street. In person he’s imperturbably casual, far more relaxed than the ‘madman’ headlines might lead one to suppose. His glowing tan is offset by a bright yellow polo shirt and he sits way, way back in his chair holding your gaze all the while.

Accommodating and easy in his manner, you’d be hard-pressed to identify this individual as Oliver Stone – Controversial Filmmaker. That is, nevertheless, to whom we speak. Stone boasts a fearsomely uncompromising reputation as a screenwriter and director. Throughout the ‘80s when the post-classical frisson of counter-cultural Hollywood had fizzled and poachers died off or turned gamekeeper, only Stone kept the faith, authoring politically conscious cinema at a time when the Academy was honouring Driving Miss Daisy.

His screenplay for rapper’s favourite Scarface set the frenzied pace and ultra-violent tone that would later characterise his visual style. But Stone was too engaged with the world to become the new Brian De Palma. Salvador, his first major film as director, probed the gulf between the ideals of American foreign policy and realpolitik. Platoon, Wall Street, JFK and Nixon would further confirm his interest in micro and macro conspiracies and establish him as an outlaw auteur.

Though he’s now rueful about being stereotyped or “pinned like a butterfly”, he was a good sport about it, appearing as a conspiracy nut in Dave and Wild Palms.

“You know, I’ve never really regarded myself as a political filmmaker”, he tells me. “I consider myself a dramatist. I always get involved with people more than the politics. With the movie JFK, for example, the book by Jim Garrison had a lot of theory. I was more interested in making him part of that story. And Oswald fascinated me. If you watch that film it is really a trail of people played by great actors. Nixon, despite the whiff of conspiracy, is truly a psychological portrait of a man. Many people in the right wing thought it would be a hatchet job but I really made him apathetic. I refuse to be pigeon holed. I am not a political guy. I don’t go to rallies. I am not an activist. I don’t have the time because I’m busy being a writer.”

He may deny the role of agitator, but his opinions, both off and onscreen suggest otherwise. His most recent work in the documentary sector includes Persona Non Grata, an examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and two features about Cuban president Fidel Castro, Comandante and Looking for Fidel. (Stone has described himself as a friend and an admirer.)

He has, before now, referred to the events of September 11th as a ‘revolt’ and expressed an interest in the work of Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism advisor whose book Against All Enemies accuses the Bush administration of ignoring the al-Qaeda threat, then linking the group to Iraq, contrary to all evidence.

“We Vietnam vets, in particular, found it very difficult”, says Stone. “We had the backing of the world in Afghanistan. We were rounding up the main suspects. Then we go into Iraq with no support. Militarily, it was stupid. It was overreaching. And any American who travels can tell you how the rest of the world is resentful. What the hell are we doing in Iraq when the enemy was 4000 al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan?”

When it was announced last summer that Stone would direct World Trade Centre, a film focusing on ‘first response’ police officers trapped by the Twin Towers collapse, many eyebrows were raised. “To allow this poisoned and deranged mind… (to recreate 9/11) in the likeness of his vile fantasies is beyond obscene,” raged one conservative commentator. But World Trade Center, it transpires, is Stone’s least obvious work even by his own consistently innovative standards. The towers do not fall back and to the left. There is no grand plot or secret ruling elite. “This is not a political film in any sense”, insists Stone. “It harks back to Platoon in that respect. In Vietnam, we didn’t sit around talking about LBJ. And the truth is, I don’t think we can say for sure what happened during 9/11. We spent more investigating Bill Clinton’s blowjobs than the destruction of the World Trade Centre. Whatever was going on in the background, if you look at the forest through the trees, it seems to me that what has happened since is far worse than what happened that day. So the politics and conspiracies behind that day, whatever they may be, are not as relevant as where we are now.” Completely eschewing polemic, the movie instead offers a heartfelt portrait of ordinary fellows on the front line. Stone’s traditional constituency are, needless to say, horrified, and assorted doublespeak statements have been issued attacking World Trade Center as “non-conspiratorial lies.”

John Conner, a leading voice in the Christian branch of the 9/11 Truth Movement, went so far as to ask the following– “Was Stone used by the Illuminati as an unknowing pawn to whitewash the 9/11 conspiracy theories to the masses? Was he approached with the project and coerced into a commitment to occupy his time in attempts to thwart any other 9/11 angle from being used? Is Stone a pawn in the game? Perhaps Stone didn’t know at the time, and found out too late.”

Oddly, however, like Paul Greengrass’ United 93, Stone’s film has found champions from either end of America’s bipolar political spectrum, often the same folks who had previously dismissed him as a pinko malcontent. L. Brent Bozell III, the president of the conservative Media Research Center and founder of the Parents Television Council — a latter day Mary Whitehouse in trousers — called it “a masterpiece” and sent an e-mail message to 400,000 people saying, “Go see this film.” Cal Thomas, the right-wing syndicated columnist and contributor to The Last Word, wrote that it was “one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.”

“I just felt this was a great story dying to be told,” explains Stone. “It may not be like anything I have done before, but Heaven And Earth wasn’t like anything I had done before. Nor was U Turn or Natural Born Killers. I do jump around and each film is a different style. This isn’t like United 93 which was a brilliant piece of vérité. This is more like a classic John Ford, William Wyler or even Frank Capra film. Against tremendous odds this rescue takes place. This has the traditional Hollywood tropes of emotional connection to four main characters from the working class.

"I would love to bring Hollywood back to that, making films where people actually work for a living, not sit around making things happen with a remote control like that Adam Sandler film. Born On The Fourth Of July was blue-collar. So was Any Given Sunday. Although it’s about elite athletes, it was about work. They had to punish their bodies for their lifestyle.”

A marriage of disaster movie and combat zone drama, World Trade Centre follows Port Authority officers Sergeant John Mc Loughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) on a doomed rescue mission into the Twin Towers. On September 12th, they were among the last survivors to be pulled from the rubble. Though the original script by newcomer Andrea Berloff read like a relocation of Beckett’s Endgame, Stone has widened the remit to include the rescuers and the anxious wives at home. As a director noted for working within a decidedly masculine milieu, was it a challenge to represent domesticity, I wonder.

“Oh yes,” he admits. “That was a big challenge. On the surface this is a very simple story of catastrophe and rescue and heroism. But if you go beyond the cliché it is very fresh. Everything the rescuers did was dangerous. We assume rescues just happen, but it is hard work. These men really crawled into places where they thought they would die. It took hours to get them out. I tried to show some of that digging. But an even bigger cliché in these circumstances is the waiting housewife. Actually, it goes further than that. Each of these women died that day. They sit there as the hours pass and the only news is no survivors. You knew no one would come out of there. The buildings were so pancaked. So it was like death for them. I wanted to portray that. I wanted them smelling the sheets from the previous night where they had slept. Again it’s a cliché but the idea was to take the cliché and make it fresh.”

Another subplot concentrates on Staff Sergeant Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon) a Christian marine in Wilton, Connecticut, who watches events on TV and tells his colleagues that America is now at war. Once he decides that God wants him to go to New York he heads to Ground Zero with a flashlight and eventually hears the two cops in the debris. A postscript before the final credits informs us that Kearns has since served two tours of duty in Iraq.

“It’s a remarkable and weird story,” Stone admits. “But that’s how it happened. I also think Kearns represents a significant sector of the American population when he says, ‘We’re going to need some good men to avenge this’. For many people, revenge was their first thought.”

And there you have it. For all the pigeonholing as a conspiracy theorist, facts are of paramount importance to Stone. He spent two-and-a-half years researching JFK. He spent three years immersed in Persian history for the much-maligned Alexander. It was a labour of love and the ill-tempered critical reception seems to have cut to the quick.

“I’m a historical dramatist,” he explains. “I wasn’t a Kennedy assassination junkie at the time, nor was I a 9/11 junkie. But I love the past. It hurts when I read someone claiming that I’ve fabricated something. But then you make a film like Alexander and scholars say you have it right, but critics say it’s all wrong.”

Similarly, while Stone has been at pains to represent those involved in the World Trade Centre disaster as faithfully as possible, he has not been able to quell dissent completely. The widow of Dominick Pezzulo – a cop portrayed in the film - has accused Jimeno and McLoughlin of cashing in on the tragedy by selling their story to Paramount. There have also been mutterings about the film being too soon.

“I know,” nods Stone. “But I honestly think it is the right time. The Killing Fields was made five years after those events in Cambodia. During World War II, Hollywood made propaganda films. Casablanca, made in 1941, takes a very anti Nazi position even before we declared war. The Vietnam movies took longer to make, but life goes faster now. I would say to you the consequences of 9/11 are so bad that we better look back now and understand what happened on that day. When you leave it too long, events become mythologized. Watching Pearl Harbor, you’d think we won that battle. This is the epicentre of 9/11, but there are many stories that still need to be told.”

Though personal and more modest in scope than the $63 million budget might suggest, the director does hope that his intense focus on McLoughlin and Jimeno has a wider relevance.

“They did not have a clue as to what was happening,” he says. “They knew it was a terrorist attack but there was no discussion of politics. They’re cops. They are far more likely to talk about pop culture, whether it is Starsky And Hutch or GI Jane. It wasn’t Bergman down in that hole.

So I am not claiming this movie will answer all the questions. But let’s say you go to a psychiatrist and all your life you have been repressed because you were raped when you where 14. Perhaps the psychiatrist says, ‘Let’s go back to that day’. They make you remember that day and it changes all the defences you had built up. So perhaps by undoing the screw, the secret at the beginning, you can take some of the armour off.”

The events of 9/11 may be difficult to disentangle, but no more so than the filmmaker himself. Born in New York City to a Jewish father and Catholic mother, William Oliver Stone was raised Episcopalian by way of compromise. His parents divorced after his father, a conservative Republican, conducted various extra-marital affairs with family friends. Young Oliver spent much of his subsequent childhood in splendid isolation between private schools and five star hotels - ‘a cartoonish Little Lord Fauntleroy’ by his own account.

Still, Stone needs neither bullfighting nor marlin fishing to confirm his Hemingwayesque credentials as an artist. He attended Yale and dropped out twice before enlisting to fight as an Infantryman in Vietnam. Mixing with the lower orders and smoking pot soon transformed the spoiled youngster into a military hero. He was wounded twice in action and received the Bronze Star with ”V” device signifying valor for “extraordinary acts of courage under fire,” and the Purple Heart with one Oak Leaf Cluster.

Soon after the war, he was arrested at the US-Mexico border for possession of marijuana. His father bailed him out but the experience served to radicalise him. Later, meeting understandably embittered veterans such as Ron Kovic pushed Stone further to the left.

He has, however, wooed Hollywood despite the often overtly political nature of his films. He won his first Academy Award as the screenwriter of Midnight Express and has been further honoured for directing Platoon and Born On The Fourth Of July.

Now, after World Trade Centre, has attention and lavish praise from the likes of Bill O’Reilly turned his head? Not bloody likely.

“People are people,” he tells me. “I think people have to take care of themselves and their families first. But there are bigger questions now. The ecological movement want us to clean up, but how can that work when there is always the issue of jobs? It’s a very selfish world and avarice triumphs over the green imperative. After Katrina, there was a tremendous outpouring of help. That was also true when the tsunami hit Indonesia. People are very generous in America and there are some very fine Americans. Unfortunately, a lot of them don’t have passports. Most of them don’t know where Iraq is. And a lot think al Qaeda and Iraq are the same thing. There’s a problem with the education levels. American television keeps people trapped. The news is very superficial and mostly filled with advertisements and rapes and murders. If you travel in the country and you stay in the smaller places you find very limited resources. If America spent the same amount of money as we spend on embassies and CIA stations around the world on our major cities with the goal of helping bring those cities to a way of life that was democratic and economically viable, we would have a tremendous success in this country. Instead, we have an international presence and I don’t know if it is worth it. All we are doing is promoting a system which is now suspect all over the world. We have broken our constitution repeatedly since 2001.”

He smiles cynically.

“I don’t think pictures of soldiers pointing their naked dicks in Abu Ghraib has helped us at a local level either.”

He’s still got it.

-Tara Brady, “Stone cold sober,” HotPress, Sept 19 2006 [x]

#oliver stone #World Trade Center #hotpress #dui #arrests #iraq #Iraq War

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thesparkjournal · 7 years ago

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REMEMBERING THE GREAT OCTOBER REVOLUTION & ITS ENDURING LEGACY

By Greg Godels

[V.I. Lenin. Detail from Bolshevik poster. (Public Domain)]

Despite the demise of the Soviet Union, it has left us a rich legacy. Thanks to its more than seven-decade existence, we have many notable achievements to celebrate, and many signposts to a just, peaceful world free of capitalism.

***

“TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!

The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.

The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of a democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the land, labour control over production, creation of a Soviet government-- that cause is securely achieved.

LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!”

Military Revolutionary Committee Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies

Proclamation (Nov-7-1917)

(from Ten Days That Shook the World, John Reed)

THE Bolshevik Revolution-- the Revolution of “workmen, soldiers, and peasants” was the signal event of the twentieth century. Over the last century, no other event shaped the fate of the peoples of the world as decisively as the rebellion of the peoples of Russia and the aftermath of that rebellion.

Literally for centuries, working people-- those creating society’s wealth-- longed for a time when they could share the wealth as well as the work with their overlords, with those appropriating the results of their labor. From ancient times, the creators of wealth resisted, even rebelled, against their masters. The slave revolts against Roman domination, the peasant risings of the Jacqueries and the cohorts of John Ball and Jack Straw, the middle European rebellions of Hus and Müntzer, the radical stance of the Levellers and the Diggers in the English Revolution, and the frequent actions of workers in the nineteenth century culminating in the heroic, but short-lived Paris Commune of 1871, were all historical landmarks in the never-ending yearning of working people to control both their destiny and the fruits of their labor.

Sympathetic to the cause of poor and working people, a host of writers wrote of a world free of the bondage of worker to master. Early Christians like Jerome and Pelagius and the anonymous author of On Riches understood that if you “get rid of the rich you will find no poor.”

Medieval preachers like William Wycliffe discovered, when written Christian texts became available, that the message of Jesus was less one of fire and brimstone and more one of social justice. Visionaries, like Thomas More, foresaw a time when property would no longer be held privately, and where equality would reign.

“The Bolshevik Revolution-- the Revolution of ‘workmen, soldiers, and peasants’ was the signal event of the twentieth century.”

The industrial era brought a flurry of writings addressing the ravenous appetite of the owners of capital for greater profits and the consequent desperate impoverishment of the workers. Early socialist writers like Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen took up the cause of exploited workers and called for a new society based on egalitarian principles. And of course, the nineteenth century spawned the great collaboration of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the two giants who constructed a comprehensive science of society and rationally established the demise of capitalism and its replacement with socialism.

So, the Revolution in Russia was not a historic anomaly; it was not the accident, the rare unpredictable event that its detractors would like us to believe. Instead, it was the culmination of a long process, an evolution in the thought and actions of working people to bury – once and for all – the exploitation of labour and its crushing weight on millions of people in the distant past.

It was an audacious move. On November 7, 1917, a “raw, chill day,” in the words of author John Reed, the members of the Petrograd Soviet took the step that would set them on an unprecedented, perilous course. They were embarking on an experiment unlike any in history and one that all of the world’s great powers were determined to quell.

The people of the Russian empire had suffered indignities for centuries. The non-Russian people of the vast empire were under the harsh boot of a tyrannical royal family that lived in splendor with its entourage, courtiers and other hangers-on. The majority of the people were tied to the land under conditions of semi-feudalism. The Russian peasant existed, little more than existed. Peasant life was bleak, poverty-ridden, and oppressive, held in place by the Russian Church and the Czar’s whip.

Capitalism had gained momentum in Russia over the previous several decades before World War I, but lagged behind the other great powers in many areas. Nonetheless, the workers were restive. The “dress rehearsal” for the 1917 revolution – the failed 1905 revolution – brought 440,000 workers into the streets-- on strike-- in the first month!

The outbreak of war in 1914 only brought more despair and discontent. With corrupt, sycophantic generals, inferior equipment and weapons, the workers and peasants of the Empire were bled dry by a war that had little to do with their lives, except for universal tragedy.

It was in this fertile ground of discontent that the seeds of rebellion grew. But it took a political organization and fearless leaders to nourish their growth towards a new and decidedly different society. From a host of political parties representing every social class or stratum, only the Bolshevik Party, the party of Russia’s Communists, representing the most politically advanced workers, properly gauged the revolutionary potential of the moment. Only Vladimir Lenin and a few of his comrades fully envisioned breaking with the old and constructing something entirely new— a socialist society, free of exploitation and devoted to peace and social harmony. As Rosa Luxemburg acknowledged in 1918:

The party of Lenin was thus the only one in Russia which grasped the true interest of the revolution in that first period. It was the element that drove the revolution forward, and, thus it was the only party which really carried on a socialist policy.

It is this which makes clear, too, why it was that the Bolsheviks, though they were at the beginning of the revolution a persecuted, slandered and hunted minority attacked on all sides, arrived within the shortest time to head of the revolution.

Of course, November 7, 1917 was a watershed, an unforgettable date signaling the fall of an old government and the establishment of a new one. But revolution is a process and not a mere event. New institutions, new government bodies, and new rules must be constructed. New people must be trained and organized to lead a government built on the ruins of the old. Food, shelter, jobs, and security must be found for Russia’s 130,000,000 people.

But before those tasks could be vigorously pursued, the new Soviet government had to contend with counter-revolutionary armies bent on restoring the old order. In addition, the new-born Soviet Union was invaded by forces from 14 different countries bent on smothering the baby in its cradle, to paraphrase the reactionary Winston Churchill.

It should come as no surprise that the capitalist powers sought to destroy the Soviet Union. As Stepan Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the “Russian Rockefeller,” explained to John Reed on October 15, 1917:

“Revolution,” he said, “is a sickness. Sooner or later the foreign powers must intervene here-- as one would intervene to cure a sick child, and teach it how to walk. Of course, it would be more or less improper, but the nations must realize the danger of Bolshevism in their own countries-- such contagious ideas as ‘proletarian dictatorship,’ and ‘world social revolution’...

This hatred and belligerence towards the Soviet Union continues to this day. It is easy to underestimate how violent anti-Communism was a persisting backdrop throughout the following decades of the Soviet Union’s existence.

“...the people of the Soviet Union achieved an enormous feat by 1940: industrial production was 750% of that of 1913! A war-torn, backward country had become an industrial powerhouse in a span of 19 years...”

With the defeat of the counter-revolutionaries in 1921, the Soviet Union began the daunting, unprecedented task of building socialism. Since the beginning of the World War, there had been 14,500,000 deaths and the Soviet economy was reduced to one-seventh of its prewar output. Nevertheless, the Soviet people embarked on an ambitious program to not only rebuild the country, but construct an economy with the power to repel the many hostile capitalist countries threatening its existence. This had to be accomplished at breakneck speed, requiring great sacrifices and enormous energy.

Meeting the challenge, the people of the Soviet Union achieved an enormous feat by 1940: industrial production was 750% of that of 1913! A war-torn, backward country had become an industrial powerhouse in a span of 19 years, a triumph enabling the first socialist country to resist and defeat Nazi Germany and its allies assembled into the greatest invasion force in history.

While achieving an unprecedented growth in production, the Soviet Union was empowering its working class with free, universal education, vast new housing construction, full employment, free healthcare, cultural immersion, the promotion of minority national identities, and new institutions of self-governance. The first steps were taken towards building the workers’ state that millions of oppressed, exploited working people had only imagined.

Mikhail Kalinin, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union put it succinctly on May Day, 1938:

“We are not a land flowing with milk and honey. We are a workers’ state. Our state started from a beggarly existence. Perhaps we are making many mistakes. This is possible. Perhaps, sometimes we are not doing what we ought to do; this is also possible. But I would like to tell you one thing-- we are building a proletarian world.”

The successes of socialist construction were many and impressive; the effort and sacrifices of the Soviet people were heroic; but many mistakes were made as well. An enterprise as daunting as the complete reconstruction of society on a new social, political, and economic basis could not but endure mistakes, lost opportunities, failings, and accidents. The fervent, unwavering defense and preservation of the gains could not but invite excesses. Such is the history of all epochal change. But socialist morality and socialist legality must concede that in the throes of these great changes, tragic, avoidable errors were made that cost far too many lives and brought harm to far too many honest participants in the socialist project.

At the same time, it must be noted that the enemies of socialism-- the capitalists, the lapdog politicians, the security services, the academic hirelings, and the media mudslingers-- are united in unswervingly demonizing the history of the Soviet Union and presenting, often in a caricatured way, only the failings of the Soviet Communists. Since the revolution, distortions, innuendos, and outright lies have fed the great anti-Communist ideological machine. Ruling classes understand that a real, historically viable example of socialism imparts confidence and vision to the working-class movements of every country. They do everything to quash any positive example. That is why a defense of the achievements of the Soviet Union is vital to any movement for radical change, any movement for socialism. It is an illusion to believe that radical change can be won while siding with capitalism in wholesale rejecting the Soviet legacy.

The Second World War left the Soviet Union devastated. Nearly 27 million Soviet citizens gave their lives in the victory over fascism. Much of the heavily populated, industrial sector of the country was destroyed by the Nazi invasion. And within a few years, the United States and its capitalist allies initiated a resource-draining, peace-threatening Cold War that multiplied the hardships of reconstruction.

But the Soviet people again sacrificed to rebuild the country while also defending the homeland of socialism against NATO and the other military pacts organized to surround and threaten the Soviet Union and its socialist allies.

A little more than ten years after the end of the war, the Soviet Union stunned the world with its technological advancement by launching the first artificial satellite.

Despite the fact that the Soviet Union continued to advance economically, politically, and culturally in the following decades, anti-socialist forces were growing in size and influence, particularly with the development of a second, private economy parallel with the socialist economy. Keeran and Kenny’s invaluable book, Socialism Betrayed, contains estimates as high as 20% for the portion of Soviet economic activity conducted illegally and semi-legally. They argue that this was the material basis for the demise of the Soviet Union:

“The Soviet counterrevolution occurred because the policies of Gorbachev set in motion a process by which social groups with a material and ideological stake in private property and the free market eventually overpowered and displaced the formerly dominant socialist economic relations, that is, the planned, publicly owned, ‘first’ economy.”

It was this betrayal of the bold Soviet experiment that temporarily delayed the struggle to once-and-for-all emancipate the world from the rapacious grip of capitalism. But that struggle will continue with the lessons learned from the Soviet legacy.

***

[A mass meeting in the Putilov Works in Petrograd during the 1917 Russian Revolution. (Public Domain)]

DESPITE the demise of the Soviet Union, it has left us a rich legacy. Thanks to its more than seven-decade existence, we have many notable achievements to celebrate, many signposts to a just, peaceful world free of capitalism:

We know now that a society dedicated to ending labour exploitation, a society free of capitalists is possible.

The Soviet experience shows that a country can grow and prosper without capitalists. During the Great Depression, when the capitalist world was on the brink of collapse, the Soviet Union attained extraordinary growth. While millions were idled, and impoverished by capitalism, the socialist system enjoyed full employment and rising living standards. When capitalist managers and financial parasites were leaping to their death in desperation, Soviet workers and peasants were learning the skills to run the rapidly growing and newly created socialist enterprises.

The Soviet experience taught that a modern socialist society could function well, guided by workers and peasants and without professional strata of managers and politicians from the idle class, without consultants and marketers, without advertisers and sales hucksters, without financial managers and insurance sellers.

In a mature socialist society, the creation and stimulation of false needs are eliminated with the effort and resources redirected to satisfying real needs. Brand duplication and model changes are dictated by popular demand and scientific improvement and not by marketing schemes and costly advertisements. The capitalist profit-driven “services” of finance, insurance, and real estate are handled through efficient, fair, and transparent government agencies without the distorting, corrupting influence of systematic personal gain.

We have seen that public ownership can replace private ownership and competitive markets and it can be rational, efficient, creative, and motivated.

Soviet Communists expropriated the appropriators. The owners of the productive assets who exploited the labour force were “invited” to join that labour force; their assets were given to the people collectively. While capitalist apologists argued that public ownership without markets would inevitably result in the inefficient and irrational allocation and usage of resources, the Soviet Union proved that a modern economy servicing the third or fourth largest population in the world can grow at unprecedented rates while providing its people with an equitable and ever growing standard of living. By those standards, it was certainly more rational than its capitalist counterparts.

Contrary to naysayers, the Soviet people proved more than able to create their own way forward. Denied the technological innovations developed by their capitalist counterparts, Soviet scientists and engineers nevertheless modernized the socialist economic engine apace with its adversaries, many times advancing well beyond the levels achieved in the West.

The Soviet experience showed that a planned economy could match, often dramatically exceed, the performance of a competitive market economy. The fetishism of markets that is a pillar of capitalist ideology denies that human forethought and calculation can produce better results than the anarchy and waste (the so-called “creative destruction”) of competitive markets. The apologists for capitalism ignore the vast misuse of productive assets in product duplication, the enormous waste of resources produced by mindless model changes, and the crude manipulation enacted by the promotional and sales industries. Capitalist “efficiency” reaches its zenith with zombie-like consumerism.

If planners were today armed with the fruits of the modern computational revolutions, they could easily conquer the complexities of the most sophisticated, complex economic interactions and demonstrate the superiority of planning over market uncertainties. Unfortunately, Soviet planners never had the technical means to do so before the demise of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet century demonstrated the possibility of a consistent commitment to peace, national liberation, and internationalism.

Before the Soviet Union, no government embraced and codified the doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of other nations, a doctrine sorely missing in the international relations of our time. Lenin elevated the right of national self-determination to the highest tier of human rights and fought for its basis in the molding of sovereign nations into the USSR.

The Soviet Union saw the right of self-determination as the touchstone of its peace policy. In an era of predatory imperialism, the fight for national liberation and independence is indissolubly tied to the fight for peace. There can be no enduring peace with imperialism. The fight for peace is the fight against imperialism. A lasting peace is the absence of imperialism in all of its forms. At the same time, the Soviet Union sought to eliminate the threat of global, catastrophic war between differing social systems.

This doctrine formed the basis for the Soviet concept of internationalism-- the duty of Communists and all progressive forces to support and aid the victims of imperial design and aggression. No moment better demonstrated the Soviet commitment to internationalism than its mobilization in the 1930s behind the young Spanish Republic in the face of counterrevolution and fascist aggression. An entire generation of revolutionaries drew inspiration and understanding from that selfless initiative.

Soviet material aid to anti-colonial, national liberation struggles was a consistent feature of nearly the entire history of the USSR, a vital fact of history ignored by many “left” critics of the Soviet Union. Soviet solidarity was a critical factor in struggles in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The map of the world would be vastly different without the Soviet commitment to independence and social justice.

Those who are determined to bury the Soviet accomplishments would like us to forget the victory over fascism in World War II and the liberation of Eastern Europe. They wish to erase any memory of the role of the Soviet Union in leading the fight to eliminate colonialism in the post-war world, especially in the construction of the United Nations Charter. They willfully forget the generous and unconditional aid to emerging nations at a time when the Soviet Union was itself rebuilding from unimaginable devastation.

***

ANY twenty-first century project bent on escaping the clutches of modern capitalism that fails to objectively draw on the Soviet experience is doomed to abject failure. It’s a fool’s errand to strive for an answer to the ruthless reign of state-monopoly capitalism without heeding the lessons-- both good and bad-- from the building of the first workers’ state.

Yet today, twenty-six years after the demise of the Soviet Union, far too many have succumbed to the easy lure of capitalist triumphalism-- the idea that revolutionary socialism, decisive rule and ownership by working people, and a rational, humane economy is beyond reach. Far too many surrender to pessimism and the notion that only modest reforms are possible.

A recent article on the popular website Counterpunch illustrates the commonplace, easy dismissal of the Soviet experience:

Revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, the one party state, centralized state planning and much else is dead. It was tried. It didn’t work. It was an historical/practical shambles. Furthermore, the Marxist heresies of Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism were outrageous and ultimately deadly caricatures of Marxism. They did everything they could to earn themselves the name “Red Fascism”.

Quite simply, what does not serve to enhance humanity should, at any time, be unceremoniously jettisoned and that goes for much of past socialist doctrine too.

(Rethinking Socialism in the Twenty-First Century, Dan Corjescu, August 30, 2017)

Sadly, this cavalier rejection of the entire Marxist-Leninist tradition and the scoffing at the dedication and sacrifices of millions of militant workers is far too prevalent among today’s activists. Of course, it is born from ignorance, an ignorance produced by a massive capitalist ideological campaign that followed European socialism’s fall. It reflects the loss of the unswerving determination maintained by generations of workers to remove the unbearable weight of grinding exploitation and create a better world. It reflects a jaded vision that cannot see further than the return to a mythical lost, more humane capitalist past. It too easily accepts the inevitability of the capitalist slogan “There is no alternative.”

By denying the legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution, would-be leftists are left with faith in a bankrupt social democracy. In Corjescu’s words:

“I think once we give up premature fantasies of Capitalism’s imminent demise (after all it has survived for approximately six centuries!) we can fruitfully pick up the work of the reformist Social Democratic parties of the late Nineteenth, early Twentieth centuries…”

Of course, this is the reasoning behind the reinvention of social democracy in Europe. The collapse of support for the traditional social democratic parties has spawned the birthing of new ones, (SYRIZA, PODEMOS, Five Star Movement, La France Insoumise, etc). But with no radical alternative challenging it, capitalism is not inclined to grant the concessions to social democracy that it did during the 1950s and 1960s when socialism presented an existential challenge.

The future of a left alternative to capitalism, the future of a genuine movement towards socialism lies in building organizations-- Communist organizations-- that defend the legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution and draw the lessons that the Bolshevik legacy offers.

***

Greg Godels lives in Pittsburgh. He often writes under the pen-name Zoltan Zigedy.

#TheSpark #Russian Revolution #October Revolution #Soviet Union #USSR #Lenin

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ramajmedia · 5 years ago

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Midsommar: 10 Hidden Details Everyone Completely Missed

Ari Aster's latest film, Midsommar, is a carefully disguised break up movie hidden in the clothing of a folk horror film. Taking place over roughly half a year, it follows college student Dani who, reeling after the brutal death of her family, joins her boyfriend and his friends on a trip to Sweden to take part in a midsummer festival.

The film has been a definite hit, not least for its very well-written characters and original storyline and setting. However, part of what seems to be playing to the film's success is its layers and layers of detail. Lots of films will have hidden meanings with the intention being that you notice more and understand more about the plot with each viewing. This list will look at ten of the hidden meanings in the film and how they might change what we think of the movie as a whole—spoilers ahead.

RELATED: 10 Folk Horror Films To Watch If You Like Midsommar

10 The Opening Tapestry

Midsommar opens with a decidedly creepy tapestry marking the changes between winter and summer. At first, it appears that the tapestry is depicting the passing of the seasons with two scary faces marking the middle of winter and summer.

However, upon closer inspection, characters from the film appear in each stage of the tapestry, acting out what they will do at various points in the film. Before the plot has even begun, we are given a sense that everything has been pre-planned, as though everything that you are about to see is as natural as the passing of the seasons.

RELATED: Will Pouter, William Jackson Harper, and Vilhelm Blomgren Interview: Midsommar

9 Mirrors

As the film is, at its core, a break-up movie, it naturally requires it's lead, Dani, to do a lot of self-reflection. One of the most effective ways the movie does this is through the use of mirrors.

We first learn of her parents' death by seeing their bodies reflected in a mirror. Also, the closest the movie gets to a traditional jump scare is when Dani sees the shadow of someone reflected in a mirror. The film deals a lot with the nature of reality and being able to 'truly see' the world around us. It seems that Aster uses mirrors as a way to reveal reflections, not of the characters themselves, but their inner thoughts and fears. There's definitely more to be spotted so keep your eyes out for mirrors.

8 Flower Crown

One of the key element's to the film's success is the way it manages to build a sense of dread and expecting the worst to happen. Perhaps, on first viewing, like the opening tapestry, it's not immediately clear that the main characters may not be in control of their actions. After all, Dani only really wants to come on the trip because the death of her parents has left her feeling very alone and vulnerable.

That is until eagle-eyed viewers spotted a flower crown next to Dani's dead parents. Shown early enough in the movie that the audience doesn't get the context and placed subtly enough that they may forget about it by the time Dani gets to Sweden. However, it all but confirms that Dani's family's death may not have been an accident.

7 Christian's Drink

Many people will have noticed that Christian's drink, in the last act, was a different color from everyone else's. With hindsight it couldn't be clearer why; he'd been selected for the traditional mating ritual.

However, on second viewing, the dark red color of the drink has different meanings. A lot of the rituals in Midsommar revolve around fertility and the menstrual cycle. When Christian found a pubic hair in his food it, was a more obvious warning than what now must clearly be seen as the blood mixed into his drink.

6 Faces In the Woods

There are a lot of drugs in Midsommar. Of course, they are part of the process of seeing the 'true' nature of the world, but, even so, the main characters do spend a lot of their time-tripping and hallucinating. Director Ari Aster shows the effects of the drugs by having plants and flowers move as though breathing and form impossible shapes.

However, as the film progresses, the screen is filled with hidden images as a result of the drugs. In one sequence at the end, an entire forest takes on the shape of a glaring face. When you watch it again, see how many images you can spot.

5 Use of Subtitles

Although it's set in Sweden, most of the film is in the English language. Some of the characters, however, do speak Swedish, but, interestingly, their lines are not subtitled. This is a deliberate decision to further isolate the Americans from their European hosts, but it also has an interesting effect on the audience.

We feel as isolated as the main characters, but, also, any hope we may have of gaining some knowledge about the hosts as we start to suspect them is taken away by the lack of subtitles. We are trapped, forced to watch the events unfold as they happen without any means of protecting ourselves. It's a simple but effective way of building dread.

4 Right-to-Left Tapestry

In one sequence, the camera pans from right to left as the main characters explore their surroundings. The shot ends as it passes over a series of tapestries depicting a ritual. The tapestries each depict one aspect of the ritual playing it out as though in a comic book. However, they are also hung and therefore presented in right-to-left reading order, suggesting that in this place time may not be what it seems.

The guests are already confused by how late the sun stays out, and effects like this are just one of many ways the film plays with a non-linear perspective of time.

3 Numbers (8 & 9)

Another way the film creates a sense of the preordained and non-linear time is it's repeated use of the numbers 8 and 9. Flipped on its side, the number 8 makes the symbol for infinity and is present in much of the architecture in the Swedish village. Also, in a brief moment of explanation, one of the hosts details elements of their culture, particularly the idea that they see their lives split into four main sections—like the seasons—which are made up of a number of years that are all multiples of 8. Death comes to the villagers at 72, the number you get when you multiply 8 by 9, and the ceremony we see happens once every 90 years.

2 Repeated Use of Symbols

The most obviously repeated symbol in the film is the figure of 8. It's seen in the buildings, and also in the design of a large dining table. While there are other symbols, they each have the same effect; they have to mean something, but we're given no clue as to what.

Instead, we're forced to come up with our own explanations, using these hidden details to explain other hidden details we've spotted (like the number 8 or the reflections in the mirror). It's a highly effective trick for keeping our brains in engaged with the guesswork, but we're still in the dark when it comes to what might happen next.

1 Two Types of Death

Ari Aster has described this as a break-up movie, and usually, that means watching someone live through a breakup and come out changed at the other side. The way this works is very on par with pagan attitudes to a liminal death. this was basically the idea that someone dies, then their body must be prepared for their new life in the society of the dead, effectively they die twice.

Taking in the whole structure of the film, we see this idea played out in two very different deaths; the violent death of Dani's family, and the ceremonial death of her friends which mark the beginning and end of a change in Dani's life.

NEXT: Midsommar Ending Explained: What Happened And What It Really Means

source https://screenrant.com/midsommar-hidden-details/

#screenrant

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antoine-roquentin · 8 years ago

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On the surface, the massive street protests surrounding the April 19 gubernatorial election have arisen from opposition to Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese incumbent governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok. As a result of pressure from the well-funded, well-organized demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — to Jakarta’s streets, Gov. Ahok is currently standing trial for religious blasphemy because of an offhand comment about a verse in the Quran. On Thursday, the day after he hears the results of the very close governor’s election, he is due back in court for his blasphemy trial.

Yet in repeated, detailed conversations with me, key protest figures and officials who track them have dismissed the movement against Ahok and the charges against him as a mere pretext for a larger objective: sidelining the country’s president, Jokowi, and helping the army avoid consequences for its mass killings of civilians — such as the 1965 massacres that were endorsed by the U.S. government, which armed and backed the Indonesian military.

Serving as the main face and public voice of the generals’ political thrust has been a group of what Indonesians call preman — officially sponsored street thugs — in this case, the Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI (Front Pembela Islam). Originally established by the security forces — the aparat — in 1998 as an Islamist front group to assault dissidents, the FPI has been implicated in violent extortion, especially of bars and sex clubs, as well as murders and attacks on mosques and churches. During the mass protests against the governor, FPI leader Habib Rizieq Shihab has openly called for Ahok to be “hanged” and “butchered.”

Joining Rizieq at the protests atop a mobile command platform have been the FPI’s spokesman and militia chief, Munarman, as well as Fadli Zon, who is known for publicly praising Donald Trump and appeared with the candidate at a press conference at Trump Tower during the opening days of the presidential campaign. Fadli Zon serves as the right-hand man of the country’s most notorious mass-murdering general, Prabowo Subianto, who was defeated by Jokowi in the 2014 election.

Munarman, who has been videotaped at a ceremony in which a roomful of young men swear allegiance to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is also a corporate lawyer working for the Indonesian branch of the mining colossus Freeport McMoRan, now controlled by Carl Icahn, President Trump’s friend and deregulation adviser. Although the Trump connections appear to be very important for the coup plotters, it is unknown whether Trump or Icahn have any direct knowledge of the Indonesian coup movement.

The FPI demonstrations in Jakarta, officially shunned by the country’s top mainstream Muslim groups, have been endorsed in messages from Indonesian ISIS personnel in Syria. The FPI, for its part, has waved black ISIS flags at Prabowo rallies and has officially endorsed the call of Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri for Al Qaeda and ISIS to pursue their common fight in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere....

One intelligence report asserted that the FPI-led protest movement was being funded in part by Tommy Suharto — son of the former dictator Suharto — who once served time for having a judge who displeased him shot in the head. Tommy’s financial contributions were also affirmed to me by retired Gen. Kivlan Zein. Kivlan, who helped the FPI lead a massive November protest in Jakarta, is currently facing the charge of treason (makar) for allegedly trying to overthrow the government during the recent protest drive. He is also the former campaign chair for Gen. Prabowo, who was defeated by President Jokowi in the 2014 presidential election.

Another report asserted that some funds came from Donald Trump’s billionaire business partner Hary Tanoe, who was repeatedly described to me by key movement figures as being among their most important supporters. Last Friday night, when I sat down with a roomful of such figures — none of whom requested anonymity — they expressed excitement about their closeness to Hary and his personal and financial relationship with President Trump, who along with his son Eric welcomed Hary to Trump Tower and the inauguration. They said they hoped Hary, who is building two Trump resorts in Indonesia, would serve as a bridge between Trump and Gen. Prabowo. Manimbang Kahariady, an executive of Prabowo’s political party, said he had met with Hary three days before. He and others at the meeting were convinced that Hary is telling Trump about the need to back the movement and remove their adversaries, beginning with Ahok....

New-Style Communism, or Komunisme Gaya Baru, abbreviated “KGB,” is a concept whose menace is framed with sketches of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler — and appears to be broadly enough defined to include any critic of the army anywhere.

Referring to such purportedly communist policies as “free health care and education programs,” the document denounces “idealizing pluralism and diversity in the social system” as a specific “KGB” threat now rising in Indonesia. Using threat assessment techniques drawn from Western intelligence doctrine and texts — excerpts from which are used, sometimes in English — the document warns of the communist enemy “separating the army from people” and “using human rights and democracy issues while positioning oneself as victim to gain sympathy.”

The statement about human rights victims is an apparent reference to figures such as the brilliant social justice advocate Munir Said Thalib, my friend, who was assassinated in 2004 with a massive dose of arsenic that caused him to vomit to death on a flight to Amsterdam, or the victims of the 1965 slaughter of perhaps a million civilians, carried out by the army with U.S. backing in order to consolidate power after an attempted coup.

The 1965 massacre came up when I sat down with retired Gen. Kivlan Zein, who said that if Jokowi refused to accede to the army’s wishes, similar tactics could be deployed again.

Like many officials I spoke with, Kivlan said that the current army-backed street movement and crisis began as a result of the Symposium, a 2016 forum organized by the Jokowi government that allowed survivors and descendants of ’65 to publicly describe what had happened to them and to discuss how their loved ones died. For much of the army, the Symposium was an intolerable outrage and in itself justified the coup movement. One general told me that what most outraged his colleagues was that “it made the victims feel good.” The Symposium, of course, had nothing to do with Gov. Ahok or with religious questions of any kind. It was about the army and its crimes.

“If not for the Symposium, there wouldn’t be a movement now,” Kivlan told me. “Now the communists are on the rise again,” Kivlan complained. “They want to establish a new communist party. The victims of ’65, they all blame us. … Maybe we’ll fight them again, like ’65.”

I was taken aback by that and wanted to make sure I had heard correctly.

“It could happen,’65 could be repeated all over again,” he repeated.

And the reason?

“They are seeking redress.”

In other words, Kivlan was raising the specter of new mass slaughter if the old victims did not learn to forget. Kivlan then went on to detail why the ’65 coup was justified. He said that the ousted president, Sukarno, who was by then the army’s virtual captive, had given an order for the army to take over. The army “was handed power” by the congress.

Could that happen again now, I asked?

“It could,” the general said. “The army could move again now, like Suharto in that era.”...

Although privately movement leaders and their sponsors spoke incessantly of the army, evading justice, and seizing power, on the streets outside the theme was decidedly religious. Walking among the huge crowd at one action at the Istliqlal mosque near the palace, it was clear to me that although the protest movement was fronted by the FPI, it had drawn a wide swath of people, many of whom were demonstrating simply because they were conservative or felt aggrieved.

The proximate cause of that grievance was Ahok and his allegedly blasphemy in suggesting that non-Muslims could lead Muslims. (Ahok is also justly criticized for his evictions of the poor.) It was therefore quite illuminating to hear the leaders of the coup movement privately minimize those themes.

Kivlan surprised me when he remarked offhandedly that Ahok had given the movement a “gift” with his “slip of the tongue” regarding the Quran.

The required public stance of movement leaders was to claim to be forever wounded by Ahok’s remark asking people not to be deceived by rivals trying to use a Quranic verse against him. But here was one of them — with a small smile — acknowledging that strategically Ahok’s statement was welcome, because it had enabled the FPI and its sponsors to shift the balance of power inside the state, elevate themselves from street killers to theologians, and alter the cultural climate to boot. And here he was, accepting that the fateful remark was a “slip of the tongue.”

With that, he not only appeared to be conceding that the blasphemy criminal case against Ahok was bogus — as we spoke, Ahok’s lawyers were arguing in court precisely that he had just spoken loosely, intending no offense — but also that the coup movement’s sole big public issue was something that, in private, they did not take seriously.

related to this is the indonesian artist who was recently fired by marvel for placing anti-christian and anti-semitic messages in his work

The numbers 212 and 51 might not mean a lot to most people, but to those closely watching this year's race for Jakarta governor, they represent political turmoil. Indonesian artist Ardian Syaf has been accused of sneaking coded political references into the latest "X-Men Gold" issue after an outcry by fans online.

The codes are references to two contentious points swirling around the Jakarta Governors race. The number 212 represents the December 2 protests in Jakarta, which saw millions hit the streets to demand the resignation of Jakarta's current governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama or Ahok, after accusations of blasphemy were leveled against him.

The number 51 references the Quranic verse of Al Maidah 51, which some have tried to use to convince muslim voters to only elect muslim candidates and not the incumbent and christian Ahok.

Those aren't the only coded and somewhat odd references in the issue published last Wednesday. In a scene where the Jewish character Kitty Pryde is making a speech about becoming the new leader of the X-Men, the "Jew" part of "Jewelry" is seen next to her head. A somewhat anti-Semitic panel for a company and franchise that was created by two Jewish people, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Ardian stated “But Marvel is owned by Disney. When Jews are offended, there is no mercy”.

#trigger #anti-semitism #i changed the headline cause the trump framing is lame

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blockheadbrands · 5 years ago

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What Cannabinoids Would Jesus Do?

Caitlin Donohue of High Times Reports:

A Christian website makes its case for CBD.

“One thing Christians are often accused of is being narrow and judgmental,” says GodsGreenery.com editor Natalie Gillespie. “I think that’s because we’re afraid to even learn about something that we think might not be good for us.” Though she had never been a big cannabis user before she got the job, the longtime Tallahassee-based journalist has populated the faith-based CBD educational site with health and scriptural findings, many conveniently aggregated into features like “Top 10 Scriptures that Could Give Christians a Thumbs-Up for CBD.”

Gillespie is part of a growing wave of Christians promoting cannabis. Her contemporaries include anti-porn pastor Craig Gross, who has gained acolytes hyping, in his words, “a conversation about the emotional, physical and — dare I say? — spiritual effects that I’ve had with this controversial plant” at SoCal’s music fest Coachella in May. Gross promotes his own “coming soon” line of marijuana products, including mints called “People.” (From the product description: “the perfect aide to help you turn your eyes outward, so that you may love your neighbor as well as you do, yourself.”) The ex-porn crusader told Vice that, “inside the Christian world — and it’s the thing I hate about it — you have to have your own products.”

Perhaps this is all a bit confounding for those who remember the dire anti-drug sermons that have roared from the gullets of Christian television preachers throughout the decades of the prohibition era. But times are changing. Recent polls show U.S. residents are more concerned about e-cigarettes than Reefer Madness — and 65 percent of the country identifies as Christian.

Even so, the nerve of a faith-based site sending a press release to such a decidedly heathen publication as High Times would seem forged of Jesus’ finest stainless steel. One line from the God’s Greenery communiqué stood out (indeed, it was in bold text): “God’s Greenery has a visionary plan to monetize the use of CBD as a tool to assist churches in combating the massive decline in their parish numbers.” The line raises its share of questions, and the press release suggests we interview Gillespie to learn more.

The editor jumped on a quick three-way phone interview with the GG press representative, during which she spoke of her recent Biblical studies with all the enthusiasm of a new convert, which she is. “I really learned about the CBD oil and CBD industry and the science and the medicine of it on this same journey with my reader, with my audience,” she says, sunnily. “It’s kind of why I think that they thought I might be the perfect editor, because my knowledge of CBD was not deep.”

Albeit brief, her journey has led her to many scriptural teachings that apply specifically to CBD. Gillespie cites God’s Genesis 1:29 creation of “seed-bearing plants,” and she is not the first Christian to identify those words as God’s go-ahead for cannabis consumption. A Texas-based Christian medical marijuana organization founded in 2010 was named after the very same verse. But Gillespie bridles at that group’s conclusion that access to THC could be part of His plan.

Apparently, the key to Our Heavenly Father’s CBD-only approval lies in the Thessalonians reference to “sobriety,” a word that could mean “thoughtful” and “considerate” in ancient Greek, but which Gillespie and other scholars have deciphered as “drug-free.” “If it’s benefiting the body, mind, and spirit that’s one thing,” she says. “If it’s taking away from our passion and purpose that God created us to be able to do, then therein lies the line.”

She is not the only person who has seen fit to disassociate CBD from full-spectrum marijuana products. Indeed, it is commonplace in the marijuana industry to refer to the cannabinoid as “non-psychoactive,” even though CBD is often prescribed to treat the symptoms of psychological conditions like anxiety. (God’s Greenery’s Toronto-based parent company Miraculo also operates cannabisMD, a consumer education platform that includes information on the benefits of THC and full-spectrum cannabis products.)

“God’s Greenery is specifically on hemp-derived CBD,” says Gillespie. “That, through a faith lens, doesn’t cause any controversy — well, ‘controversy’ is not the right word. It doesn’t cause — I guess — an unsettled feeling in people’s spirit.” Surely it doesn’t hurt entrepreneurial Christian sensibilities that CBD is commercially available in 14 states that ban all other cannabis products.

Question Of Monetizing CBD

When asked about the GG press release’s mention of the “monetization of CBD” to save her faith, Gillespie tries. “In 2020, I think you will see God’s Greenery release a line of CBD products,” she says. “We are in independent third party testing right now to make sure that it’s working, that it absolutely does have the CBD that it purports to have and that it does not have any ingredients that it should not, and that it will pass muster every single time.”

But how, we pressed, will such products reverse downward trends in church attendance? The PR person who is also on the line jumps in. “The plan is to market actually inside a church. So imagine a church bake sale? It’s going to be more like a church CBD sale,” they said. Later, they sent an email to amend the comment, looking to shift the focus to Miraculo, Inc.’s cannabis educational offerings; “I’d say God’s Greenery’s goals are a bit bigger than bake sales.”

Later, Miraculo CEO Michael Klein — a former VP of programming and content strategy for Condé Nast Entertainment who has also worked at the Travel Channel and MTV — sends a qualifying email. Ten percent of the CBD line’s sticker price will be funneled into “donations to institutions, churches and other causes important to our audience,” he says. Klein is not ready to specify what those groups would be or what kind of CBD products will drive this philanthropy, and is certainly not committing to the idea of any multi-level marketing scheme involving churches and CBD bake sales. “We are still in the planning stages,” Klein concludes.

Surely, not all Christians have seen fit to promote cannabis access solely through the lens of personal consumption or financial gain. “Given the proven racist intent of the war on drugs and the criminalization of marijuana, it’s time for Christians to think critically about this issue and not just default to abstinence,” said Christian rapper Jason Petty. It stands to mention that Petty is Black, and has a cousin who served a 25-year sentence for a nonviolent drug offense.

But one might hope that Christian nature would extend to the thousands of individuals currently incarcerated for possession or distribution of that same godly family of plants.

Gillespie demurs when asked if people should be in jail for marijuana-related charges. Instead, she delivers a line that serves as the most perfect example of — let’s call it multi-level reasoning, if only to avoid the word hypocrisy — from a would-be CBD purveyor, partially-prepared faith journalist, or any combination of the two, that has yet to be delivered.

“That’s not a God’s Greenery question, honestly,” she says.

Even to a non-believer, selective contemplation of cannabis’ sanctity sounds like a leap of faith.

TO READ MORE OF THIS ARTICLE ON HIGH TIMES, CLICK HERE.

https://hightimes.com/culture/what-cannabinoids-would-jesus-do/

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eddiejpoplar · 6 years ago

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I Just Unearthed the First Column I Ever Wrote—from 1978

For reasons I can’t recall, I promised that I would share one day soon, if I could ever find it, the very first car column I ever wrote. In part because it shared its name—Gears this Week—with this online column, but also because it is now a piece, albeit decidedly a minor one, of ancient history.

The year was 1978, your reporter was age 20 and the outlet was the Columbia Daily Spectator, the school newspaper of record around New York City’s Morningside Heights and also, as our T-shirts insouciantly proclaimed, “New York’s eighth or ninth largest daily.” Such was the long-lived paper’s utter lack of interest in automobiles, that to the best of my knowledge, I was its only ever car columnist. Also, I am the only one who knows this, cares, or I suspect ever thought about it.

The Spectator would be even higher up the city’s hierarchy of daily newspapers today, what with the demise of so many of them over the last few decades. Except that the Spec itself no longer appears in print—it’s only online now. Curse you, technology-driven change. But one good thing to come of my old school newspaper’s embrace of the new paradigm was that the paper’s now digitized archive miraculously made it possible to find my long-lost debut, when I’d lost track of my only record—a frail, yellowed newspaper copy—two or three house moves ago.

Now that I’ve found the column, however, I wish I could remember what I was thinking when I thought it would be a good idea to share this manifesto of a young motorist with you. Today, it seems shrill, smug, opinionated, and brittle. At least it had that going for it. It also marked my first experience of writing about cars for an audience that theoretically didn’t have much use for them, which is, of course, not this audience, but not unlike some others I’ve been asked to address. No one cared about cars? Well there were a few readers, including my fellow undergraduate and neighbor on W 113th St., Bob Eisenstein. He showed up from Omaha to attend school in the big city with a Stage 1 GS455 Buick Skylark convertible. My, the tires we roasted in the shadow of Grant’s Tomb. I borrowed it once to drive one winter’s day to the big anti-nuke convention at Wyndham College in Vermont, where it made an amusingly distinct counterpoint to the other vehicles in the parking lot.

So here you are, then, the very first Gears this Week, including the original lead image. For me, finding it is akin to a baseball player being reunited with the first ball he ever hit in the majors. Except that the hit wasn’t a home run or extra base drive, but rather a heartfelt pop out to the third baseman. Ah, the memories.

Now without further ado:

It was either G. Lloyd George, British minister of power and fuel speaking during the energy crisis of 1938, or Alice Cooper, the pop star and minor genius of a few years back (the accent on minor, please), who first noted that cars suck. In a big way.

I can’t recall offhand which of these distinguished statesman uttered this inalienable truth but, for our purposes, it is enough to remember that cars, like money, are irrevocably evil.

While the automobile industry, the highway constructors and their mighty lobbies would have us believing otherwise, there are better ways of transporting human beings and their goods from one place to another swiftly, safely and efficiently.

One need not attend an over-priced Ivy League university to understand the profound and disturbing effect which the automobile has had upon our culture and environment. Quite literally, what we see, where we go and what we do when we get there have all been shaped, for the worse, by that sickest of post-Christian artists, the internal-combustion engine.

It’s a safe bet that the idea of having a Burger King, a McDonald’s, a Dunkin’ Donuts, and a Hardee’s on the same street never even occurred to the Indians [Oof—JLK]. Our America, however, is the embodiment of the anti-culture, the melting pot in which the cultures of France and America gloriously fuse to create Franco-American spaghetti: bland and non-nutritious to the extreme, devoid of spiritual content.

We have placed no premium on efficiency and we have no use for natural beauty. We have created a purpose for our automobiles beyond their function.

Americans live and die in their cars. Lacking faith in their neighbors and themselves, they often believe in their cars. And, sometimes, they even love them. Which, in my book, is almost as diseased as an economy and culture dedicated to a never ending supply of new cars.

This said, it is somewhat embarrassing to report that I am one of those who is amused by these dangerous and vulgar instruments. I, like many of my fellow Americans, possess a near insatiable feel for the wheel.

I often pause to reflect on what it is about locomoting my Semitic humanoid tissue around in an open steel projectile that turns me, so to speak, on.

A substantial body of literature has already been devoted to the psycho-sexual connotations and functions of the automobile. I do not deny the inherent eroticism of the downshift nor will I quarrel with those who would suggest that the heel is one of the body’s primary erogenous zones. It remains, however, that as a substitute lover an automobile is no better than a prostitute. The relationship is essentially economic and, as such, cannot begin to offer the spiritual rewards that one might find with a member of the opposite sex who is of compatible neurotic disposition.

It has also been thought that it is power or, more precisely, the expression of power which attracts people to motoring. Certainly, the power hungry motorist can kill pedestrians, fellow road users or himself with nary a moment’s notice. Unfortunately our motorist can also fall victim to other plain folks expressing their will to power. If I cared more about power, I think I would go hunting with a gun. As a rule, animals don’t fight back.

Finally, it isn’t a love of raw speed that has driven me to driving. Airplanes, which go much faster, bore me. In fact the only thing I find interesting about America’s crack new jet fighter, the F-15 “Eagle” (maximum speed: Mach 2.5, weapons payload: 15,000 lbs.), is that the Carter people say dealing a bunch of them to the Saudi Arabians will advance the cause of peace in the Mid-East. Who said the White House lost its sense of humor when LBJ left? You should apologize right away and be sure to see Cy Vance when he plays Lake Tahoe.

The Utilitarians, if I remember my philosophers correctly, used to wonder whether a tree falling unwitnessed in the forest made a noise. Similarly, one might ask whether a car rotting in a garage was really a car. Frankly, I don’t care. I am not a philosopher and as for Freud, I think he was a nice man who had a lot of problems. My Marxist friends accuse me of being a tool because I express my class consciousness by driving cars. They think I should be re-educated. But I tell them to leave me alone.

You see, I am an athlete. I motor for sport and for exercise. When I need to go someplace, I take the train. But to keep my physical and psychic tone up, I drive. On a cold morning there’s nothing more invigorating than getting up early, hopping in your car, turning the heater and the tape player way up, and just plain motoring.

I know we live in an unusual age but I can’t help wondering how people managed to stay in shape before there were cars.

Thanks to the Columbia Daily Spectator. Follow Jamie on Instagram and Twitter.

The post I Just Unearthed the First Column I Ever Wrote—from 1978 appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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jesusvasser · 6 years ago

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I Just Unearthed the First Column I Ever Wrote—from 1978

Now without further ado:

I can’t recall offhand which of these distinguished statesman uttered this inalienable truth but, for our purposes, it is enough to remember that cars, like money, are irrevocably evil.

We have placed no premium on efficiency and we have no use for natural beauty. We have created a purpose for our automobiles beyond their function.

I often pause to reflect on what it is about locomoting my Semitic humanoid tissue around in an open steel projectile that turns me, so to speak, on.

I know we live in an unusual age but I can’t help wondering how people managed to stay in shape before there were cars.

Thanks to the Columbia Daily Spectator. Follow Jamie on Instagram and Twitter.

The post I Just Unearthed the First Column I Ever Wrote—from 1978 appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

from Performance Junk WP Feed 4 https://ift.tt/2JeCYFH via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Performance Junk WP Feed 4

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jonathanbelloblog · 6 years ago

Text

I Just Unearthed the First Column I Ever Wrote—from 1978

Now without further ado:

I can’t recall offhand which of these distinguished statesman uttered this inalienable truth but, for our purposes, it is enough to remember that cars, like money, are irrevocably evil.

We have placed no premium on efficiency and we have no use for natural beauty. We have created a purpose for our automobiles beyond their function.

I often pause to reflect on what it is about locomoting my Semitic humanoid tissue around in an open steel projectile that turns me, so to speak, on.

I know we live in an unusual age but I can’t help wondering how people managed to stay in shape before there were cars.

Thanks to the Columbia Daily Spectator. Follow Jamie on Instagram and Twitter.

The post I Just Unearthed the First Column I Ever Wrote—from 1978 appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

from Performance Junk Blogger Feed 4 https://ift.tt/2JeCYFH via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Performance Junk Blogger Feed 4

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valiantchildstudentme-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Indonesia Election Results 2014: Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo in Nail-biter

New Post has been published on http://gampangqq.link/indonesia-election-results-2014-joko-jokowi-widodo-in-nail-biter/

Indonesia Election Results 2014: Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo in Nail-biter

When Joko Widodo—a 53-year-old former furniture salesman and current governor of Jakarta—announced, in mid-March, that he was running to be Indonesia’s president, his actual election was treated as all but inevitable. Widodo—popularly known as Jokowi—was a new type of Indonesian politician, a media-savvy populist who mingled with the poor. As soon as Jokowi received his party’s permission to run, media immediately crowned him “Man of the Moment”; think tanks pronounced him “almost certain to win.” Early polls showed him ahead of his nearest rival, Prabowo Subianto, by more than 30 points. Kevin O’Rourke, the principal of PT Reformasi Info Sastra, a prominent political risk analysis firm focused on Indonesia, said, “Jokowi should win the Presidency with ease.” Political pundits iterated new ways to describe Jokowi’s meteoric rise in Indonesian politics. He was “the Jokowi phenomenon”; his aura was the “Jokowi Effect.” Andrew Thornley, elections program director for the Asia Foundation, reflecting back on March, told me, “Jokowi was almost mythical, then.” Such effusiveness, plus a manufactured controversy over Jokowi’s religion and ethnicity, inspired predictable Obama comparisons in Western media.

When election day began early Wednesday, Jokowi appeared decidedly mortal. Polls consistently showed that the difference between Jokowi and his opponent, Prabowo, was within the margin of error. What had once been a meteoric rise looked likely to be a meteoric fall. Prabowo was the former head of Indonesia’s special forces under late-dictator Suharto and is widely accused of having attempted a 1998 coup. He has emerged from disgrace and developed into a formidable nationalist candidate. He has vast campaign resources and powerful supporters, though many worry about his statements indicating that, if elected, he would roll back crucial elements of Indonesia’s post-1998 democratic reforms. “The Black Campaign”—a sordid and well-funded smear campaign alleging Jokowi is a Chinese-descended Christian, not a Javanese Muslim—put Jokowi on the defensive, and his campaign organization has been too disorganized to respond effectively. With early results still coming in Wednesday, “quick counts” of representative samples have Jokowi maintaining a narrow lead over Prabowo. Jokowi’s campaign declared victory; Prabowo responded by also declaring victory, based on polling from two media outlets whose owners back his candidacy. The day ended uneasily, with both candidates having declared themselves the winner. Jokowi, who looked likely to win the presidential election in a landslide just a few months ago, now will have to brave two tense weeks before the country releases its official count. How did this supposedly transformational candidate let it get so close?

Jokowi was a phenomenon new to Indonesian politics. A plain-speaking small businessman from central Java, he was elected mayor of Surakarta (Solo), a city of half a million, in 2005, and transformed it. Solo was plagued by congestion, in part because street traders crowded in the city center had refused to move. Instead of calling the police to move the traders, Jokowi visited the area frequently and developed an alternative covered market for the locals. Ferry Sutariamon, a Solo trader, said, “If you ask Jokowi the names of the traders here, he can tell you … his approach is that he goes to the people, he asks what the problems are, and he solves those problems.” Jokowi established universal healthcare for residents, and, emphasizing Solo’s deep Javanese history, transformed the city into a tourist destination. During his first run for Mayor he won a plurality with 37 percent of the vote. Five years later, he won again with 90 percent.

According to Oskar Adityo, a Jakarta business consultant I spoke with, Indonesian politicians often adopt a pompous, “semi-militaristic” affect. Adityo has no connection to Solo, but like many Indonesians I spoke with, he followed Jokowi’s exploits there closely. “When he was mayor of Solo, I realized that this guy is different from other bureaucrats,” Adityo told me. I asked him what he thought was Jokowi’s most iconic achievement. “When you go to Solo now,” he said, “you’ll see that when you apply for a business permit, it’s all computerized. Before him there was no mindset like that. Bureaucrats who tried to do what he did, they always failed to carry it out.” The reverence with which Indonesians treat these mundane-sounding achievements can seem almost comic to outsiders. But Indonesia is a developing country hampered by inefficient bureaucracy and extraordinary corruption. Jokowi was unimpeachably non-corrupt, and galvanized the local bureaucracy. His can-do spirit (punya gaye) and bottom-up approach made him enormously popular, and won him a slew of national and international good-governance awards. Pingkan Irwin, co-founder of Ayo Vote, a youth voter engagement initiative, told me, “He is seen as down to earth, humble, he visits the slums. There has not been anyone like him during our history.” Kevin Evans, a longtime Jakarta resident who runs Pemilu.Asia, a website focused on Indonesian politics, told me, “Jokowi proved that it is possible, as a local leader, to actually be effective.”

His image was steadily burnished by the media. In an interview with Australia’s “Inside Story,” Jokowi said, “We go to the poor people, to the riverbank for example, and this is sexy for the media. If you interview in the office or shoot television footage in the office it is not sexy.” Television is the primary way that Indonesians get their news, and Jokowi skillfully made himself into a TV star.

In Indonesia, there is one city where emerging stars go to prove themselves. Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, is the country’s commercial, cultural, and political center. It has 10 million people, is one of the world’s most polluted cities, and is ringed by slums. It is the world’s largest city without a metro system, and suffers from major congestion. When Jokowi ended his second term as mayor of Solo early, in order to represent his party, PDI-P, in Jakarta’s 2012 gubernatorial elections, many were skeptical that his blusukan style of politics—of visiting people and collectively finding solutions for their problems—would work in a city 20 times the size of Solo.

And though he won his election handily, Jokowi was an odd fit for Jakarta. The Jakarta political elite tend to come from august Indonesian political families; Jokowi’s dad, by contrast, was in the furniture business. The local media called him a Ndeso—a Javanese redneck—and he still maintains his deep central Javanese accent. There was something of Mr. Smith goes to Washington in Jokowi’s attempt to tame Jakarta. He stuck with the same approach he had perfected in Solo, visiting government offices early in the morning to check that local bureaucrats were doing their job, and consulting with slum dwellers he wanted to move from flood-prone areas. Jokowi’s legend continued to grow. Though he has served as governor for only a year and a half, his style of politics was effective in Jakarta. He cleared congested areas and moved slum dwellers on the riverbanks to permanent housing elsewhere, allowing him to widen canals and lessen flooding. He has developed public transit for Jakarta. Evans said, “The MRT [Mass Rapid Transit], the idea’s been around for 25 years, my god, now it’s happening. Well that didn’t happen under anyone else. The thing that sustains his popularity is that he actually delivers. ”

In 2013, pollsters began including Jokowi on the list of potential presidential candidates. In late 2013, surveys recorded him with as much as 40 percent of the vote, with no other potential candidate approaching half that. Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia’s first female president, was the chair of PDI-P. Though unpopular, she was believed to covet the party’s nomination for president herself. She delayed her decision about whether to select Jokowi until just before the April legislative elections. Finally, she brought Jokowi to visit the grave of her father, Sukarno—Indonesia’s first president—and announced that Jokowi would represent the PDI-P in the presidential elections. There was little question, at the time, that Jokowi would win.

The first shock came during the legislative elections in April. How PDI-P fared would be an early test of the power of the Jokowi Effect. Polls had shown PDI-P gaining over 30 percent of seats in the legislature if Jokowi was selected as the party’s presidential candidate. Instead, PDI-P won only 19 percent. Though the party became the largest party in Parliament, the vote was a major disappointment. Jokowi wasn’t on the ballot, but he had asked his supporters for a landslide legislative election, and had very little to show for it. Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at the Indonesian National Defense University, wrote in a blog post at the time that Jokowi’s “aura of invincibility is broken.”

The disappointing results only increased the tension between Jokowi and Megawati. Megawati was worried that Jokowi was using the PDI-P institution as a vehicle for his personal political ambitions, and that she and her family were being sidelined. According to M. Taufiqurrahman, the national editor of the Jakarta Post, she responded by trying to have her daughter placed as Jokowi’s VP, a suggestion that Jokowi rejected.

Megawati is not a person to accept political marginalization quietly. She publicly lectured Jokowi, “I made you a presidential candidate. But you should remember that you are a party official, with a function of implementing the party’s programs and ideology.” Prabowo’s campaign naturally seized on this and similar comments, and has repeatedly accused Jokowi of being “controlled” politically. Prabowo plays off of Jokowi’s rustic image to argue to voters that as hardworking and well-meaning as Jokowi may be, he is ultimately Megawati’s puppet.

The campaign’s inefficiencies have made it difficult to respond to Obor Rakyat, a splashy, well-funded tabloid that purports to provide evidence that Jokowi is a Christian of Chinese descent. Jokowi is a Javanese Muslim, but the charges stick because he is proudly pluralist and many of his most prominent supporters are Chinese or Christian. The paper is most widely circulated in East Java, a key battleground area that Prabowo will probably need to take in order to win the election. Jokowi’s campaign has, by all accounts, responded sluggishly to the charges. Weeks after the allegations started appearing, Jokowi released his birth certificate, showing that he was born Muslim, in Indonesia. The Birther controversy has not died, in part because Jokowi and his campaign proxies respond to the charges with great restraint. Puan Maharani, Megawati’s daughter, and a PDI-P representative, said of the charges, “Jokowi’s racial and religious backgrounds are clear. He is Javanese and a Muslim. However, if he was not, so what?” It’s not clear that this was an effective response. Adityo told me that many of his friends—including “highly educated ones who studied abroad”—continue to quote from “second-rate news sources” in support of the allegations about Jokowi being Chinese and Christian.

Taufiqurrahman, of the Jakarta Post, sat down with me the day after the paper, for the first time in its history, released an editorial endorsing a candidate—Jokowi—for president. He worried that the democracy he had fought for, as a student activist in 1998, would be rolled back by a Prabowo victory. He said he began to learn about the Jokowi campaign’s ineffectiveness when he dispatched reporters to cover Jokowi and Prabowo campaign rallies. The reporters covering Prabowo were invariably met at the airport with air-conditioned busses and served catered meals. The reporters covering Jokowi often ended up stranded at the airport for days.

Taufiqurrahman marveled at Jokowi’s change in fortunes. “It’s astounding, really. It doesn’t make any sense. Three months ago Jokowi still had a 60 percent approval rating. Since then, Jokowi’s numbers have been down all the time.” I asked him to tell me the word that best summed up how he was feeling, a few days before the election. “I think the right word is despair,” he said.

This has been an incredibly dynamic campaign. Despite the partisanship of the media, and the Black Campaign, the election has featured five televised debates, and prompted serious discussion about the qualities that Indonesians want in their next president. The election has the same extravaganza qualities as American elections, with celebrities hosting concerts in favor of their preferred candidates, and legions of café patrons debating whether Jokowi could still win if he loses East Java, or which way North Sumatra will swing.

But there remains something dark about it. Gladys, an Indonesian of Chinese descent, was a child in 1998, when Prabowo made a speech blaming the Chinese-Indonesian community for Indonesia’s troubles, and Chinese-Indonesian homes in Jakarta were ransacked. She told me about how, in 1998, her mother had purchased dark foundation, so that her complexion would appear more ethnically Indonesian. Gladys wondered whether, if Prabowo won, sooner or later, she would also have to wear make-up to avoid looking too Chinese.

Fears about a Prabowo presidency are based on his past statements and actions, but also promises he has made during the campaign. Dave McRae, senior research fellow at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, worried that Prabowo would unwind Indonesia’s democracy. In an e-mail, McRae said Prabowo “has clearly stated his opposition to the key pillars of democracy. He opposes direct elections as costly and out of step with Indonesian culture, whereas they are the main way elected officials, the president included, are held accountable by the public in Indonesia. … There is no guarantee Prabowo would be able to achieve these changes if elected, but the fact that he is saying these things openly is cause for great concern, and hasn’t received the scrutiny it merits within Indonesia.”

I spoke with retired General Subagyo Hadi Siswoyo, former Army chief of staff, and chair of DKP, the military committee that recommended Prabowo’s dismissal from the Army for his role in the 1998 kidnapping of young democracy activists. Siswoyo said, “Much of the military today may be behind Prabowo, but the generals who know how insubordinate he was—the generals with four stars—they could never support Prabowo. He is too unpredictable.”

The race’s tightness means there is a greater risk of electoral violence, from supporters of both candidates. Andreas Harsono, an Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told me he worried “that different polls will show different vote counts and that in the next 24 hours after the election either one or two will claim to be the winner. The margin of error is going to be bigger than the difference [in vote total].” There is a two-week period between when the vote is held and the central election commission announces the winner. It could be a messy 21 days. Taufiqurrahman, the Jakarta Post editor, said, “If the margin is within 2 or 3 percent, this is going to be a tinderbox for conflict.”

He added, “We wouldn’t be worrying about any of this if Jokowi had run a better campaign.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Andreas Harsono’s last name. And it will be two weeks, not three, before the official results are announced.

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newsnigeria · 7 years ago

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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/iran-economically-socialist/

How Iran got economically socialist, and then Islamic Socialist

by Ramin Mazaheri for Ooduarere

“Ramin Mazaheri, a foreign correspondent for Iran’s Press TV, posted a blog accusing the World Socialist Web Site of betraying its ‘socialist principles’ and aiding imperialism, because we welcomed the working-class opposition to Iran’s capitalist government…”

From nearly the beginning of the WSWS’s 3-part rebuttal to my criticism of them is the refusal, or inability, to understand that Iran’s government cannot accurately qualify as “capitalist”.

I don’t mind when people don’t understand the nature of the Iranian republic and its modern democratic structure, as these are always complicated, but Iran is SO SOCIALIST economically that I am appalled there is such ignorance about it.

Of course, many leftists don’t understand economics at all.

Certainly, fake-leftists have absolutely no idea, as they are too timid to openly call for economic redistribution (and they appear to often fear the certainty of math, in general).

Regardless, economic issues are the single most important issue for anyone to understand about Iran because the West’s siege against Iran has been economic since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988.

There are six fatal flaws when it comes to Western leftists’ understanding of Iranian economics:

– They view Iran’s economy in Western terms, which is impossible due to Iran’s totally unique (revolutionary) economic structure. Iran was even structurally unusual pre-1979, which few appreciate as well. This article will explain these historical and current facts.

Continue reading after the page break

– Apart from their clear lack of data on the Iranian economy in general, they also have essentially no data on any of the leftist aspects, because these are never relayed by Western capitalist media (of course). These facts will be relayed in this and the following article.

– They don’t understand that the Principlist camp (conserving the principles of the Revolution, often called “conservatives”) they love to openly detest are also strongly associated in Iran with promoting classically leftist economic ideas centered around redistribution. This is the inverse of the West’s conservative parties. On the other side of the aisle, the current Reformist (moderate reforms of the Revolution) government is pursuing economic rapprochement with Europe; for this they are absurdly and inaccurately being called “neoliberal capitalist” when many of them are certainly more committed to economic justice than most Western leftists. Indeed, when it comes to economics both Iranian mainstream parties are leftists on the global political spectrum because the 1979 Islamic Revolution was decidedly anti-capitalist.

They are confounded in their understanding of an economy where moral concerns actually play a key role, as this defies secular Western logic and experience. I do not naively say that morality alone guides Iranian economic policy, but it is undeniable that moral & religious concerns are often the only explanation for many aspects of Iranian economic policy.

They continue to exaggerate the importance of the bazaar: this is as if Iran still has a pre-industrial economy, and as if the Iranian government doesn’t own, control and operate the vast majority of the economy in the 21st century. This emphasis on the bazaar’s economic dominance is outdated by many decades. The WSWS and others persist with this analysis, because they are so out of touch with the facts, structures & ideological motivations of modern Iran, I assume. Bazaari do not play the key economic role they used to because Iran does not live in the 19th century. Have you heard there was an oil price boom in the 1970s….?

Some Western leftists, in their dogmatic rigidity, cannot see that Iran – like China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea or any other socialist countries – practice “socialism at home, mercantilism abroad”. This is in order to survive and to care for their People. The only socialist group which decry this would be the “socialist universe NOW” Trotskyists (like at the WSWS), who have made the fewest gains of any socialist doctrine. Many Western leftists thus refuse to even investigate possible examples of socialism in the Iranian economy, and thus they do not understand it properly today.

Add these six fatal flaws together and it explains why you get almost total nonsense when it comes to Westerners and their uniformed economic pronouncements about the nature of the Iranian economy.

Some of these flaws cannot be remedied due to wilful blindness. However, there are at least four mistakes which can be – and must be – remedied with simple data, and will be over this two-part sub-series on Iran’s economy:

They do not appreciate that an anti-capitalist stance reigned in 20th century Iran even during the time of the shahs.

They do not realize the enormous extent to which the Iranian economy is state-owned and state-directed, which is the economic component of socialism.

They do not realise how very little privatisation – sale of government properties to private individuals, whether domestic or foreign – has actually taken place, despite the constant talk of it.

They have no idea about the bonyads (state charity co-operatives), or other poorly-named “Third Sector” entities for which there is no Western equivalent, and which play a major part in the economy.

All of this ignorance means that Westerners cannot appreciate the situation of Iranian economy in 2018, thus cannot realize Iran’s tactical capitalist overtures to Europe, and thus do not support Iran in violation of their own humanity and their own ideals.

We must remember that capitalism tolerates no competition – “there is no communism in China” is but one example. But many on the left, especially Trotskyists, tolerate no competition or individualism either – “Islamic socialism is a sham“, to quote the WSWS, is another. “The Western model is the most advanced,” is another. Therefore, Westerners have never had any real interest in unearthing the actual policies and structures which compose what can only be called “Iranian Islamic Socialism” because they competitively feel it will only undermine them. They are trying to “win”, not “succeed” or “flourish”.

Many wonder what’s the point of trying to sway the dogmatically rigid? The truth, which is rarely reported by any of the aforementioned groups, is that economic war has, like for Cuba and North Korea, caused horrific pain, suffering and death to innocent Iranians. Therefore, this two-part sub-series – which is part of an 11-part series on Iran – aims to clarify the obviously hugely socialist nature of Iran’s economic structure.

Hopefully this will engender more Western leftist support. I view Western rightists as essentially Christian Party Democrat racists, Islamophobes & globalist capitalists: if they admire Iran’s nationalism, they certainly work against it; if they want to do business with Iran, they have a funny way of holding up their end of a bargain (at least so far).

In the 21st century socialism is undoubtedly present in varying forms around the world in every country – I will show that Iran is as economically socialist as any of them. If one supports efforts to destabilise Iran, one is supporting the toppling of a socialist-inspired economy and socialist-inspired government.

The 20th century shahs: Terrible, but at least they weren’t neoliberal globalists

Iran is very much like Thailand and Ethiopia in that they have a fair claim to have never been colonized. Iran has almost always been run by Iranians.

(Egyptians, however, were ruled by non-Egyptians from the end of the Pharaohs in 30 BC until Muhammad Ali in the 19th century (not the boxer). Ali was not actually Egyptian and the last several centuries of pharaohs were foreign puppets, but don’t tell any of this to Egyptians.)

What we can say with certainty is that colonialism was never strongly present in Iran, and certainly did not alter the existing class structure. Iran was never India.

“Colonialism” in Iran meant “zones of influence” by the Russians and English. Before they could even think of subjugating what is now modern Iran, they had to first hack off parts of Persia – which they did. However this was a very short era in Iranian history and certainly, if we are comparatively speaking, in humankind’s colonial era. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) lasted less than 50 years. In contrast, Algeria “was France” for 132 years – under complete subjugation: political, economic, religious, linguistic, cultural, etc.

Furthermore, the imperialist exportation of oil is far less societally-damaging than, say, the imperialist exportation of cotton – that requires deep, strangling tentacles into every area of agrarian and commercial society. Iranian culture escaped this devastating impact.

This lack of being colonised meant Iran never had many major structural obstacles to economic modernity which so many other countries still suffer from today. The fact that modern Iran’s societal structure does not suffer from colonialism’s legacy of poison is rarely appreciated, but certainly Iran is thankful for it.

Another key historical fact which is unappreciated is: modern Iran’s economy has always been state run.

Reza Shah (reign 1925-41) ended the Qajar dynasty and admired Ataturk’s statist mercantilism. Thus, he used the relatively new oil income to fuel local industry and manufacturing and – in a selfish manner befitting an Iranian shah – all of this planning, power and authority was all centred in the Shah’s person. The economy was not democratic, but it certainly was nationalist & centrally planned.

It also meant that there was no significant bourgeois class in terms of sheer numbers; the Iranian bourgeois was only the Shah’s coterie and chosen few, and not independent, world-trading merchants like in Western Europe. That is as important a historical fact as Iran’s lack of colonialism. Imagine your developing country with no bourgeois class to uproot, like China during their “(Drug) Treaty Century” / “Century of Humiliation” (1839-1949)?

Statist mercantilism meant the Iranian economy was totally protected, as it would be into the 1970s: there was no compact with Western imperialists for major foreign domination of local goods and manufactures – only for oil. Thus, there was no comprador class – you can say one technically existed to extract oil, but the oil was state-owned and not foreign-owned. Imagine your banana republic without a comprador class? Yet another huge historical advantage explaining Iran’s good future in achieving political advancement.

I hope the reader is appreciating in just how many profoundly different ways the Iranian economy developed, as compared with both Western nations and colonised nations.

2nd half of 20th century: Iran’s economic uniqueness grew & grew

Given that he was in total control of the economy, Reza Shah was forced to redistribute some oil wealth to guide the economy in such a populous nation – of course, he did not redistribute much.

His successor, Mohammad Reza Shah (1941-1979), continued this state mercantilism – he used oil revenues to enrich his person, of course, but he was also forced to make enough investments to complete Iran’s change from an agrarian to semi-industrial nation. In short: he was making so much money from oil that only an idiot wouldn’t have made the basic investments he did – he couldn’t have spent it ALL on himself and his coterie (though he apparently did try).

During his era Iran advanced from the periphery to the semi-periphery of the global economy thanks to some proper investments in infrastructure and basic industries, such as steel: in the 1970s Iran went from producing no steel to the level of France and the UK by the 1980s. This era is known as the White Revolution (1963-1978), and was it instituted specifically to avoid an (Iranian Islamic) Socialist revolution.

However, despite this advancement to semi-industrialism there was STILL no major bourgeois class!

In 1973 just 45 families owned 85% of private industry in Iran. Yes, this is “capitalist” – very – but just as not all “capitalism” is “neoliberal”, not all “bourgeois” classes should be considered the same. The 54-year Pahlavi dynasty created only a tiny bourgeois – and not comprador – class.

As socialist demands for more land for peasants increased after World War II, what the Shah essentially did was reduce the landholdings of the biggest gentry and provided compensation by handing the new industries to a few of them – i.e, he bought off the ones he preferred and made them beholden to him, the central planner.

Furthermore, the genuine middle class was tiny as well: government workers were just 5% of the workforce in 1976.

A tiny bourgeois, a tiny middle class, a tiny industrialist class: indeed, it was this repeated increase in the concentration of his power which made the shah unpopular and ripe for toppling. It also made Iran different.

Also significantly different in Iran is that pre-1979 the military had no role in the country’s economy.

The shah always feared a military coup, so he purposely kept them poor and dependent, and constantly manipulated the top leadership to avoid the rise of any one general. Of course, this is why the armed forces could not – and often would not – aid him in 1979. This lack of military involvement in the economy is a unique development in 20th century history – in the US, for example, there is no doubt that their economy is guided by the Pentagon, which is the world’s largest employer.

(In this sense, the “privatisation” of state assets to the (state-linked) Revolutionary Guards (which is not the military) is a sort of rebalancing more in line with the global norm, and certainly in-line with the socialist idea that the state and its organs should hold all the major assets. However this concept requires much more explanation in the next article, What privatisation in Iran? or Definitely not THAT privatisation.

This unique, so-called “privatisation” is also present in the discussion of the Basij in parts 4-7, as they are another state-controlled organization which has benefited from “privatisation” of state assets.)

Iran’s economy was always state-run, but 1979 made it for the People’s benefit

I think you’ll agree we have a lot of 20th century economic uniqueness to recap:

No colonial structures, total state planning of the economy, protectionist policies to promote Iranian development, no colonialist class nor any compradors working with them, a tiny domestic bourgeois, a weak & unstable military, two monarchs who were wary of foreign capitalists, let’s not forget the Islamic importance of charity, let’s not forget that Islamic financial rules preclude the rapaciousness of Western financial rules: Iranian economic development has never been typical, and thus resists the usual cliches. Use them and reflect your ignorance, and render your ideas useless to Iranians.

Clearly, there were totally different social forces at play which produced very different groups from the types even Marx imagined. Iran was, and still is, unique – for better or for worse.

Iran thus developed more like South Korea, where the Park military dictatorship decided the economic plan and controlled a small bourgeoisie’s relationships with foreign capital with the same strictness as the English did for an 18th century colonial subject. The huge difference is that in Iran the state was the main driver of growth, and not private industry.

And this explains other huge differences: such as why South Korea is filled with US troops, whereas all the US bases dedicated to subjugating Iran are around & not inside Iran. South Korea’s commitment to capitalism also explains with US corporations are all over South Korea, whereas in Iran you buy “Niks” and not “Nikes”, and you shop at the bazaar and not Wal-Mart.

South Korea is a common comparison for Iran, but incorrect: the best comparison is China. I elaborate – and only partly, because there are just so many common experiences, beliefs & institutions – in the 4th part of this series: Structural similarities between Iran’s Basij and the Chinese Communist Party.

However, South Korea and then Iran are the two nations whose UN Human Development Index increased the most from 1990-2014 – absolutely no small feat for either one, and certainly lessons regarding protectionism against foreign capital abound. Ignore that statistic at your national peril.

(I have often cited this UN statistic regarding Iran to show what all Iranians know and what likely forms the basis of the Revolution’s solidity in 2018: since the war ended the government has massively succeeded in transforming Iranian society for the benefit of all.)

So by the end of the 1970s the state WAS the capitalist sector – they owned it all, and much of what they didn’t own outright they controlled informally. This also means that Iranians have always seen the state as the natural driver of a centrally-planned economy; or at least they certainly have been prepared for the socialist concept of central planning and central ownership as much as any other country.

The problem under the Shah was: it was not for the People’s benefit – not enough economic redistribution of wealth. The 1979 Islamic Revolution obviously changed that, and only a liar, racist or anti-religion fanatic would deny it.

Given all these facts, the economic heritage of the Islamic Republic of Iran is difficult to define, but we must agree that Iran under the 20th-century shahs was nothing like a “bourgeois capitalist state”, “colonialist state”, nor a “neoliberal capitalist state”. Hooray for us!!!!!!!!! But down with the shah!!!!!!!!

This section should make clear that Iran’s revolutionaries thus inherited an economy totally ripe for total nationalization, as well as an economic mindset which had known nothing other than nationalisation and central planning. This was a huge advantage which has produced the vast redistribution of wealth post 1979 in Iran. Whether this was luck, the good grace of geographic determinism, Iranian ingenuity or some other force is not important – who cares about credit? What’s important is to see things clearly in order to understand Iran from now on, because what I have mostly read in the West is a bunch of ill-informed nonsense.

The oil boom of the 1970s threw the Shah’s 1%-centered system into crystal-clear relief, and so it was scrapped in favor off Iranian Islamic Socialism.

And that is where things get even more economically different!

Is Iran the most state-run economy in the world today?

You will have to read the next part of this series to get the complete answer, but I can only think of one country who might have more state control….

The Shah and his coterie, which controlled 70% of the nation’s capital – came entirely under revolutionary national control. This percentage of state control would, amazingly, go significantly higher in the coming years.

I do not expect that non-Iranian & non-economic (& non-good) journalists know the basic outline of economic history in Iran, but it is amazing that they do not know that Iran’s current economy is not only centrally-planned but almost entirely centrally owned…because for nearly 100 years of modern history the vast majority of Iran’s economy been under national control! This is not a new event! Tap tap tap – hello? Is this thing on?

Anyway…moving on.

1979 certainly wiped out the undemocratic state planner (the shah), the bourgeois class (reading this from Beverly Hills) and put Islamic Socialist revolutionaries in charge: they were tasked with creating & implementing a completely new system unseen in history…and that they did.

It had to be a “new system unseen in history” because the Iranian revolution was not just intensely nationalist and Islamic: there was an uber-intense demand to decouple from the entire international political system. This necessarily meant decoupling from capitalism as much as possible.

Indeed, because there was this popular demand to decouple from capitalism Iran’s nationalism could never – and is never and should never – be called “fascism” or “reactionary”. Khomeini’s “Neither East nor West but the Islamic Republic”, is no mere slogan, but an ideology of both independence and revolution; most Western nationalists don’t want revolution but merely independence, and this makes them neo-fascists. Tap tap tap….ah fuggetaboutit.

That anti-capitalist goal was undoubtedly met and preserved: Today, Iran is incredibly un-globalized, and at the bottom of all such tables ranking international economic connectedness. You can buy a fine pair (for the price) of Niks, however.

All of Iran’s economic planning and development remained state-planned and state-owned, but here is the difference: pre-1979, there was no talk of redistribution, of economic justice, of social justice, or of anti-privileges; post-1979, this was the state philosophy.

There can be no false claims that Iran’s “Islamic economy” isn’t a welfare state deeply concerned with social justice; it sits fundamentally opposed to the neoliberal model. To implement this is why Iran’s economy remains so controlled by the state, both constitutionally, in practice & informally.

But Westerners don’t have the facts about Iran’s unique (revolutionary) economic structures. I concede that uniqueness does complicate easy understanding. They aren’t even told about Iran’s massive success in redistribution – who would explain Iran’s economy in 2018 in the West?

What this final section, and all of the next part, will show is how Iran took the existing state capitalist model and built upon it something totally new – Iranian Islamic Socialism.

Background for the bonyads, because there is no Western parallel

Forty years is long enough to have realised that Iran’s economy is structurally totally different.

There is massive, massive, MASSIVE misunderstanding about unique (revolutionary) economic structures & ideas which are inadequately described as the “Third Sector” (the first two sectors being “Public Sector” and “Private Sector”). Clearly, I am not discussing the “Second Economy / Black Market”, which is a different sector.

If this “Third Sector” phrase is unique to you, it is likely because this is a sector which does not have a Western parallel.

Frankly, a better name is the “1B Sector”, because it is entirely accurate to say that this is a part of the Public sector. I will use “1B Sector”, a new term, because it is accurate.

(Being Public Sector is like being pregnant – you can’t be “just a little of either”. Well, actually you can – 20% is considered a controlling stake in a company, and a state can certainly have less than that. However – and this is detailed in the next part – Iran never goes less than 51% state control in seemingly anything, and certainly not any industry of even moderate importance. BP tried that with us – Iranians were not converted. So…perhaps it’s: “Being Iranian Public Sector is like being pregnant…”, but I will stick with the phrase “1B Sector” in this series.)

No account of Iran’s economy can be complete without these so-called “para-statal” organisations which are…under the government’s control. I will explain one of them, the bonyads.

When the WSWS penned this extremely broad and unexplained generalisation – “huge sums paid over to the Shia religious establishment” – I assumed they were talking about the state religious charity cooperatives (bonyads), for which it is very difficult for Westerners to even conceive of.

To put it briefly: The bonyads became major economic factors when the Islamic Republic of Iran nationalised the assets of the Shah and his 1% and…gave them to charity.

Totally pure capitalism from those hypocritical Iranian Islamic Socialists, right? It’s amazing all the hardcore neoliberal capitalism charities get up to, we all know!

That is how around 10-20% of the Iranian economy came under the control of state religious charity cooperatives. However, the administrative apparatus of the bonyads can go back 1,200 years – these are embedded, grassroots organisations.

Let’s first quickly talk about the role of charity in an Islamic economy – it is much more than just some free soup. Many Iranian politicians even talk of Iran being an “alms-based economy” (which seems like a stretch to me…but I certainly get it).

Charity will always have a significant role because of zakat – the Islamic practice (one of the Five Pillars) of giving 2.5% of your profits to charity. In Iran, this is a voluntary decision, and the giving is to imam-sponsored instead of state-sponsored collectors (unlike some Muslim countries). $1 billion was given in Iran via zakat last year, but not all zakat is reported, so it is likely much more. There is also khum: Muslim businessmen (especially Shia) are expected to give 20% of their profits to their local mosques for charity. I have no figure on khum, but you get a good khum and you can build a new mosque or something overnight (this leads to perceptions of “Millionaire Mullahs”, which I will address later). This works just like for Jews in the West: religious people come knocking on the door of your (Jewish-owned) shop and ask you to give some of your profits to support the community – it’s certainly not capitalist. Nor is it what some readers are thinking – “religious extortion”: Extortion is for personal and criminal gain – not community gains; you have made your profit off the community, after all. An underlying rationale for both of these economic levers is the idea that religious people can provide welfare as well as the state – that has certainly been the case in Iranian history.

So the bonyads were already needed and useful in Iran – the Revolution made them here to stay.

An introduction to Iran’s ‘para-state’ sector: The key word there is ‘state’

The only question is how much money they have under their charge. The 1979 Islamic Revolution decided that too – rather a lot. They made sure that much of the economy would be run with a religious – not capitalist – goal. This is a hugely important – and socialist – fact of the Iranian economy.

However, it was not just handed over with no strings attached – this is not a Western capitalist bailout of bankers! Nor are the bonyads some sort of Clinton Foundation – which existed to funnel money to the Clintons to fund their lifestyle in return for political access and favourable political decisions – for Iranian mullahs.

The bonyads now employ millions of people. Perhaps because Westerners don’t like to see religious people in charge of anything, this is mistakenly called “corruption” instead of “avoiding unemployment and poverty”.

The bonyads are not just in consumer goods but have been awarded parts of more sensitive economic sectors; the same goes for the Basij, another co-operative foundation. However, it’s the Revolutionary Guards who have been handed partial control of the big portfolios, sectors and projects upon which the country’s well-being depends: oil, telecommunications, large-scale development and construction. This was obviously all by plan, and all of these groups, their political backers and their employees have discouraged private competition because their ideology is that the state should control it – they prefer the bonyads (and Basji and the Revolutionary Guards) to Western capitalism (ands thus Western capitalists).

The main complaint about the bonyads is that the factories and businesses they were awarded became more economically inefficient, but…the entire point of taking the money from the capitalists’ hands and giving a large part to charity is inherently against the cruel efficiency of market capitalism. Capitalists will thus always talk badly about the bonyads.

The bonyads report directly to the Supreme Leader – not only is he the religious leader of the nation, he is the ideological leader of the modern, social justice-obsessed principles of the Islamic Revolution. People have different opinions on the role of the Supreme Leader, but we should all agree that Khomeini and Khamenei are no hard-core capitalists!

This decision has both pros and cons:

They are not concerning about making money, but about providing social services. Khamenei is not the CEO of the bonyads, LOL. In effect, the bonyads give the “soul of the government” – the Supreme Leader – a direct and influential hand in the economy. One may be against this, but one may not call this “capitalist”.

They bonyads are not not under parliamentary supervision, causing a lack of transparency and accountability.

The bonyads pay no taxes. This reduces government revenue, technically, but in reality it is yet another redistribution measure as it is obviously an implicit government subsidy of economic development, employment and charity. Six of one, half a dozen of the other – economically.

The bonyads can also technically make investment and commercial plans apart from the government’s five-year economic plans, which create redundancies, competition and inefficiencies. However, considering that the Supreme Leader, and many other religious leaders are tied to the bonyads, and the government, and are also heavily-involved in long-term economic planning, it is not as if the bonyads operate like economic loose cannons totally divorced from the democratic planning centers, grosso modo. The head of the one of the largest bonyads, Ebrahaim Raisi, came second with 38% in the 2017 presidential election and is perhaps the leading candidate to follow Khamenei as Leader.

I’m sorry to bring up these realities, because if there’s one thing Westerners don’t tolerate about Iran it’s understanding its nuances.

But these are not really “nuances” at all – the bonyads are under government control…but not much parliamentary or executive control…but they are under total judicial and Supreme Leader-branch control. It’s simply a unique (revolutionary) system, but do NOT call the bonyads capitalist.

Do you really think the average CEO is more ethical than the average mullah?

You must have a lot of faith in capitalism…a funny kind of faith, to me.

Not only do Westerners accuse the bonyads of being capitalist, they say it much more harshly. They accuse: “These must be fronts for ‘millionaire mullahs’.” Of course Westerners are very cynical when it comes to religion or money, so when the two intersect….

Truly, this is only an issue for Iranians who are obsessed with being anti-government and want to believe the worst about it. Most mullahs in Iran are barely-middle class – it’s an inherently absurd argument. Do priests in your country really live lavishly?

At the highest levels of the religious establishment is there money? Sure, and with zakat and khum there always was and always will be, but in many ways mullahs today are poorer than ever: In pre-modern times being a mullah meant you had formal studies, which meant your family had the money to send you to school in the first place. Take Rafsanjani, the stereotypical “millionare mullah” – how many people know that he was already rich before becoming a revolutionary? He comes from pistachio money, which is very big money in Iran.

The idea of “Millionaire Mullahs” came from the uber-capitalist magazine Forbes in 2003, and by their longtime Russia editor, no less (Russia in the age of Yeltsin, when Forbes reporters were probably feted like kings as the average Russian suffered). Why on earth we (especially leftists) would accept Forbes’ account of the bonyads is totally beyond my comprehension. I can assure you that this section has given you more objective information about the bonyads than Forbes will ever write about Iran in sum and until the end of time. They hate bonyads, and any charity they do not get a lot of public credit (and tax credit) for.

Do the bonyads have a lot of money? Yes, but there is a difference between being stewards of money and being CEOs. They are expected – by the people, press & government – to actually do something with the money, factories, subsidies and workforces they are handed. A bonyad leader cannot be Gordon Gecko and liquidate parts of a bonyad for his personal profit. If a bonyad leader dies the bonyad is not transferred to his eldest son like in England, LOL. A bonyad leader cannot “go public” and sell shares…and sell them to foreigners, too, hahahahahah. LOL, I am really having fun thinking of ways the bonyads do not conform to capitalist rules!

A mullah driving a Maserati and living in a palace and throwing lavish parties and living like a rap music video – LOL, the press would die from happiness at such a story because it would be so big and sell so many papers!

The idea that Iranian bonyad leaders are all massively living corrupt, unequal, high-off-the-hog lifestyles – like EVERY Western business leader in a comparable situation, of course! – is an absurdity on religious principle, and on economic structural principle, and it also ignores Iran’s highly-critical press. Other than that…Forbes spelled some names right, at least.

Again, bonyad leaders are not Western CEOs and it is inaccurate to imagine them as such…not that anyone in the West has enough information about the bonyads to imagine them at all. They are not in it for unrestrained personal enrichment, nor shareholder enrichment, nor only profit.

Therefore: there can be no question from leftists that the bonyads are indeed superior in every way for society than the continued presence of the previous capitalist class.

Perfect? No. Ways to get them better? Yes.

Capitalist? Go away kid, ya bother me.

However, more explanation of the 1B Sector is needed – this section on the bonyads hopefully primes the pump for readers to realize just how unusual Iran’s economy is with these so-called “parastatal” organizations. I hope I have definitely shown that not only are the bonyads not capitalist, but they are also not “parastatal” – they are not separate from the the unique branches of Iran’s government.

For the past 100 years Iran’s economy has been hard to get a handle on, but the last 40 years have truly been unique. Hopefully this article shed some light on things, but much is left as Iran’s economy is truly revolutionary in conception and practice.

That’s why clarifying the much-discussed but rarely-implemented “privatisation” is the inspiration for the next part of this series – What privatisation in Iran? or Not THAT privatisation.

***********************************

This is the 2nd article in an 11-part series which explains the economics, history, religion and culture of Iran’s Revolutionary Shi’ism, which produced modern Iranian Islamic Socialism.

Here is the list of articles slated to be published, and I hope you will find them useful in your leftist struggle!

The WSWS, Iran’s economy, the Basij & Revolutionary Shi’ism: an 11-part series

How Iran got economically socialist, and then Islamic socialist

What privatisation in Iran? or Definitely not THAT privatisation

Structural similarities between Iran’s Basij and the Chinese Communist Party

Iran’s Basij: The reason why land or civil war inside Iran is impossible

A leftist analysis of Iran’s Basij – likely the first ever in the West

Iran’s Basij: Restructuring society and/or class warfare

‘Cultural’ & ‘Permanent Revolution’ in Revolutionary Shi’ism & Iranian Islamic Socialism

‘Martyrdom and Martyrdom’ & martyrdom, and the Basij

‘The Death of Yazdgerd’: The greatest political movie ever explains Iran’s revolution (available with English subtitles for free on Youtube here)

Iran détente after Trump’s JCPOA pull out? We can wait 2 more years, or 6, or…

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.

#Iran

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collymore · 8 years ago

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The wilful false narratives surrounding "Jew" and "Anti-Semitism"!

By Stanley Collymore

Being a Jew doesn’t determine your race, ethnicity, gender, political orientation, language, place of birth or nationality let alone your skin colour, how you physically look or the determination of who your biological parents are, any more than my being, and publicly stating that I am, a High Church C of E Anglican communicant to all those who previously did not have a clue of this useless piece of information, taken in its general context prior to my declaration of this irrelevant fact, and done so as it happens for whatever sane or illogical reason, according to your point of view, that I might have embarked on informing you of it; and frankly and probably if you had any sense couldn’t have cared less about my divulging this essentially private information.

Judaism like Christianity is strictly a religion, nothing more, and is practised by those who care to religiously associate themselves with it. It’s discernibly not a political nor a social creed. And just as I would categorize myself as a Christian for literally practising a branch of the Christian faith, such persons who do that as regards Judaism can similarly class themselves as Jews and logically, as a result, expect to be treated accordingly as Jews. Therefore, and put succinctly in other words the term Jew determines the religion which that individual or persons concerned follow and absolutely nothing more. Just as being an Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, or a member of the Pentecostal Church for example, signifies, were one to be at all interested in that information and accordingly then set about finding out that particular piece of information in the first place, that the person following that branch of the Christian faith was in fact a practising Christian; ascribing to the requisite recognition and overall realization that the intensity of the involvement of that specific practitioner’s direct, committed or otherwise participation in that particular faith was entirely a matter of conscience for the individual concerned.

The authorities in Britain and the overwhelming majority of whites living in the country, a figure consisting at about 98% of their number ludicrously to the point of it being quite fair to describe their approach as asinine in the extreme classify Britain as a Christian country and quite unthinkingly others also go along with that absurdity. I purposely used the word absurdity since these said Britons that laud the country as a Christian entity don’t practice Christianity themselves and have no intention of doing so, and in actuality haven’t the foggiest notion of what genuine Christianity is all about. Moreover the vast majority if not all of them have never been christened or baptized into the Christian faith; don’t or have ever read the Bible; never attended Christian Sunday School in their growing up life and have never entered a church of any description. Additionally, most of such people have never, and that’s assuming they ever consider let alone bother to get married at all, which remarkably is a striking phenomenon that’s very common nowadays, see fit if they do, to get married in church; and similarly most funerals aren’t church affairs. And all this at a time too when church pews are routinely empty every day of the week and especially so on Sundays. Yet Britain’s brain-dead still persist in deluding themselves that Britain is a Christian country.

So taking every bit of the aforementioned into serious account it’s totally stupid in the extreme to logically regard Britain as a Christian country. The state may decree that it is a decision that is as idiotic as decreeing Jimmy Savile to be an untainted philanthropist. In effect delusion, fantasy and wilful make belief don’t and never will in any rational mind or objective thinking add up to reality. Nor does being unquestionably partial to something and doing nothing more about it. An underage schoolgirl or lad might be particularly partial to sexual intercourse but sensibly or fearfully decide to purposely refrain from indulging it, but that pronounced partiality to coition doesn’t make them a licentious person by any analytical observation or determine that their secret obsession with sex now puts them in the category of no longer being a virgin. Likewise because someone who is also underage and routinely has sex, whether they’re on the pill or not, can’t be laughably classified as a virgin simply because of their underage status but even more principally so because that person - and let’s presuppose it’s a girl - is your “precious” and sticking to outmoded stereotypes whenever that terminology is employed blue-eyed, blonde haired daughter, and all because you’re unable to bring yourself to accept the fact that this daughter of yours is of her own free will voluntarily and pleasurably indulging in sexual intercourse and without being in any way pressured into acting as she’s doing.

It’s the same contention and moreover rationally so when taking to classifying someone or, worst still, through absolute ignorance and a complete lack of reality, you irrationally take to personally regarding someone as a Jew or even go further and let that individual deceive you that they are one because they unilaterally choose without anything to substantiate their statement or claim that they are, or have premeditatedly and with the utmost mendacity opted to become a Jew not for genuine religious reasons but meticulously in their fraudulent case avaricious and unreservedly self-serving secular ones! And as such is no more a Jew or have any entitlement to being one as Jimmy Savile had to being the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In religious and cultural terms the Falasha are the oldest Jewish religious sect on Planet Earth and the practising of Judaism by them goes back several millennia to the dawning of that faith. But the Falasha are Black and indigenous to Ethiopia never mind the spurious spiriting away of them from their indigenous homeland to Yidland by the then regime of that wholly illegitimate and genocide of the Palestinians, in their own indigenous homeland, entity that like a pernicious cancer is deeply lodged in the body politic of the Middle East, and with these credulous Falasha taken to Yidland in order for those who control that outright loathsome, Nazi-Zionist-apartheid entity to mendaciously con their toadying elements in the white western world that Yidland was “genuinely” a homeland for all “Jews” who were at last “coming home” again.

Nothing could have been any further from the concrete truth of what the actual situation was as the Falasha were quick and despairingly to find out. With their genuine Jewish religious rites predating by millennia the fabricated ones of those of the condescending bogus “Jew” upstarts from the parts of Western Europe from where they had either fled as refugees or else had been mercifully rescued from the prevailing and pervasive death and concentration camps in which they were ensconced by entirely volunteer, decidedly altruistic and chiefly non-white, British Empire Forces, the Russians, the Americans and the British, they were unreservedly and unceremoniously told that they would have to immediately subjugate these to those of white European Ashkenazi “Jews” if they wanted to be officially approved of and even in their case accepted as Jews in Yidland although never on the same basis as the Ashkenazi “Jews” who in essence controlled Yidland and everything in it, a grotesque state of affairs that in detailed fashion affected every aspect of their lives, even personal matters like them getting married. And one that still persists in 2017 ever since they were airlifted from Ethiopia to Yidland.

European Judaism is by comparison to anything that the Falasha can massively muster relatively recent in historical terms and unlike the Falasha, European Jews - and I’m referring to those who actually practice Judaism and not the European holocaust reparations and anything else that they can get from it bandwagon climbers – became Jews because their white Caucasian ancestors just like their similarly white Caucasian kith and kin relative to the latter’s conversion to Christianity, those who became the practitioners of Judaism had also converted to their faith. White Caucasian Christians, and I’m not referring to the fraudsters or fantasists who delude themselves that because they are white the tag “Christian” somehow automatically and miraculously comes with it, are the descendants of those who converted to Christianity. They didn’t create Christianity any more than white Caucasian Europeans who practised, or still do, Judaism actually created their faith or were in any way instrumental in bringing it about. So if you personally don’t practice Christianity you can’t honestly call yourself a Christian and do so just because a grandparent or even your parents practise that particular religion. The fundamental factor is that whatever you may think otherwise you aren’t and most categorically cannot ever become a Christian simply by association or birth. For Christianity isn’t something that can be handed down like a benevolence in someone’s will; and the same concept applies to Judaism and every other religion come to that.

Furthermore because religion is a faith and something you can convert to it makes a complete and obscene mockery of any religion if you then ludicrously assume or believe that it can be inherited, like Charles anticipating him inheriting the British crown from his mother Elizabeth Mountbatten Windsor when she dies or were she to abdicate and hand it to him. And much worse so if you were to delude yourself that is or can be the case in your particular circumstances regarding religion and whether it’s Christianity of Judaism, labelling yourself rather ridiculously as a Jew afterwards, and to then either dupe or coerce the ill-informed or total dimwits that that is actually the case, when it patently is not

My entire family: grandparents, parents, aunts, great-aunts, siblings etc are or were all practising members of the Anglican faith, essentially High Church, Church of England. I was christened at the age of one week old when I was formally inducted as it were into becoming a member of the Christian faith and over the several subsequent years and the requisite Christian teaching became at the age of eleven years old a full communicant in my church having been officially confirmed by the Bishop of the diocese in which my church was located. And in addition to that I’ve played practically every conceivable role within the church to which I belonged from altar boy, server to choirboy and Sunday school teacher ; to lay preacher, God-parent and many others and I attended church regularly, and not just on Sundays. But at no time, and even now in 2017, I’ve never been, had no intention of ever becoming or would I want to be a Bible bashing proselytizer of my faith. I’m a practising Christian and although my faith is important to me it’s private. Just as it should be I believe for those who have a faith or none whatsoever.

So I couldn’t care less whether someone follows my faith, has another one or actually possesses none at all, and as such take the view that that decision is theirs alone and has nothing to do with me. And as far as my contemplating using Christianity, let alone actually doing so, to purposely exert pressure on others to advantageously improve my life’s chances regardless of my personal capabilities or suitability for the position I’m after and invariably at the massive disadvantage of others, as all of you out there are completely aware routinely goes one in the case of a particular religious faith and the numerous and fraudulent renegades that have no compunction or morality whatsoever in deviously and insidiously employing such tactics for their own ends when in point of fact they’re no even practitioners of the faith they laud as their own, is something that I would never in a month of Sundays resort to doing.

When I moved to Germany and as there are no Church of England churches there that I know of except one in Hamburg I would approach the priest of the local church where I was located and of whatever Christian denomination it was, explain who I was and tell him or her in our discussion at the time what my religious faith was all about and ask if I could worship in their church. Without exception such requested permission on my part was always granted. Customarily though if there was a Roman Catholic church in the area I would choose to go there because the service and mass at it was rather similar to the High Church, Anglican service that I was familiarly acquainted with and had been from birth. The major difference being that the Head of the RC was the Pope while the spiritual head of the Anglican Church was the Archbishop of Canterbury; and the way I see it is this, if you’re heading for a particular destination – and in a spiritual sense Heaven - and have a choice of ways to get there, does it really matter what appropriate means you use to get there?

What I’ve observed over the years and disturbingly so from my perspective and a situation that has become grotesquely ingrained in the mindset of many ever since the end of World War II in which my father, several others of my close biological relatives and their friends altruistically participated in when they need not have done so, and bearing very much in mind that the visibly loathsome and racist jackboot of British imperialism and colonialism following in the wake of Caribbean Slavery was very much on their individual necks and overall made what was going on in German look like disorderly drunken brawl, is the asinine placing on this special pedestal, and exclusively so I must truthfully and unapologetically point out, anything to do with Europe’s holocaust and as it strictly and only applies to just one noticeable set of people, Europe’s Ashkenazi. And whether they were practitioners of Judaism or not they were all of them earnestly, cheerfully, intentionally, flagrantly and non-discriminatorily amalgamated together as “Jews” and so World War II and the European holocaust was wilfully and most despicably, fraudulently and self-servingly concocted as a tragic and barbarically inhumane story simply about and that impacted exclusively on them and nobody else; not even the considerably more millions of other victims: the Romany people or Gypsies – Europe’s uniquely oldest continuous inhabitants who in 2017, just as back then and always have been, are still unremittingly persecuted; Communists; Homosexuals; The Rhineland Niggers: the legitimate offspring of Black French soldiers, born in France but not uncommonly with ancestors from France’s global colonial territories, and their white Caucasian French wives; and all of them together with many more collectively in their millions butchered in Europe’s European holocaust death and concentration camps. But no mention is ever made of them and of course no “requisite” compensation or reparations demanded and enthusiastically handed over on their behalf!

Those who classed themselves as Jews or were ignorantly regarded as such whether they were or not were treated totally differently. They were entitled to get reparations and compensation to be also empathized with as victims exclusively of Europe’s holocaust and even have that term itself appended only to them. Furthermore, they themselves didn’t empathize with any of the others that were victims of Europe’s holocaust and post World War II sought only to milk that episode in the history of Europe’s many other barbarities, but carried out globally and particularly in the Global South, for whatever they could financially and solely for them; a situation that still goes on to this very day in 2017. And even more sickeningly, if that its at all possible, Europe’s holocaust is the only one, and it’s not at all difficult assuming of course you’ve a functioning brain in your head to understand why, for which one can be summarily prosecuted and jailed in some western countries for the supposed “crime” of denying or even suggesting that Europe’s holocaust didn’t exist or that the actual number of “Jews” who were killed in Europe wasn’t the grossly exaggerated figure that all of these dim-witted sycophants of Zionism like to in the most toadying fashion, enthusiastically latch on it, earnestly embrace with religious fervour and in turn cheerfully promulgate at each and every opportunity granted to them or that they can improvise.

No such sanctions, legal or social mind you, for those who even if they knew about them said the same things about Germany’s first two holocausts in Namibia as it now is, at the time the German colony of Southwest Africa, now independent Namibia, where in excess of 80% plus of that land’s indigenous population was entirely, premeditatedly and systematically wiped out and Shark Island the first ever streamlined and official death camp made Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen Bergen for example look like gentle correction institutions. Nor come to that are legal penalties in situ or for that matter in force should anyone state in whatever context they desire that the Transatlantic Slave Trade never happened. And as I read not in anyway in surprise but as a Black man with déjà vu of the harrowing experiences of white British children, some of whom were mere toddlers at the time, being “transported” to Australia, New Zealand and Canada, for example, and subsequently the vile and absolutely loathsome and intolerable sexual and other abusive experiences they were subjected to in the countries they were sent to during the period of the 1930s to 1970s, despite my individual abhorrence, on the part of those victims, to what went on I can’t help as a Black man feeling at the same time a sense of disgust at white Britons who sickeningly and very belatedly are decrying this but who are the very same persons who frankly couldn’t give a damn about the far worst situations that were commonplace for Blacks throughout the British Empire, and also taken there enforcedly, and in essence treated far more appallingly than anything meted out to these white kids. But again one doesn’t have to ask why their approach is different for stench of hypocrisy and rampant double standards are overriding, prevalent and profoundly ingrained in their essentially racist, bigoted and white supremacist attitudes. But Black Brits like me are all nevertheless automatically expected by them to empathize with the plight of their white kith and kin, even in the light of them showing no such empathy, understanding or solidarity whatsoever or ever likely to do so with what happened at the hands of similar British authority figures and the country as a whole to Black people.

I’ve written extensively in the past about the intentionally false narrative of white European Jews of Khazar descent claiming to be “Semites”. My own information and that of others who are also reputable in the field of genealogy confirms that these people are at best fantasists and at the worst pathologically ingrained liars and fraudsters. So I’m not going to waste my precious time repeating what I’ve already extensively written, and if you’re interested and care about the truth rather than Zionist promulgated fiction or worst still having others do your thinking for you then go search that information out for yourselves or read the works of others who similarly tell the truth about these Zionist “Jew” fraudsters. And while you’re at it and should you take that path then do your own research on Zionism, determine what it really is, when it started, who were behind it and how it fraudulently and premeditatedly became conflated with Judaism which it has nothing at all to do with, and how the evil adherents of this political “creed” – for that’s what it actually is – have quite scandalously arbitrarily linked it to the European version of Judaism and subsequent to World War II jumped on Europe’s holocaust in order to recruit numbers to their cause and set up their entity of Yidland in the Middle East through the completely brazen lying and savage militaristic deprivation of Palestine from its indigenous inhabitants coupled with the barbaric ethnic cleansing and ongoing genocide of the Palestinians themselves, but most significantly as an expedient vehicle, this clearly deliberate and unashamedly sickening conflation on their part of Zionism with Judaism to greedily and specifically financially milk the European holocaust for everything they can self-servingly get from doing so.

But I couldn’t possibly end this article without as I always do making my position abundantly and at the same time unequivocally clear. So here goes!

As a Black man and a longstanding practicing Anglican Christian I can convert at my pleasure to Judaism and consequently become a legitimate Jew. However in doing so that act on my part doesn’t in any way, or can it do so rationally, change my race, my cultural identity, educational background, political perspective or my chosen or acquired nationality for example. Likewise a genuine or fake “Jew” can just as spiritually or expediently convert to Rastafarianism. But their decision to do so, and just for argument sake in this discussion, does not make them an Afro-Caribbean person biologically if they weren’t already genetically one, simply because the Rastafarian Faith was founded in Jamaica which is principally an Afro-Caribbean state. So how on Earth then can being a white Caucasian, Khazar European “Jew”, whether in essence a truly authentic or else a bogus one, make that particular individual, or collectively as persons, a Semite or Semites? Because they say so and claim to be “Jews”; desire it to be thus; or there are simply any number of absolutely brainless, ill-informed, inveterate and thoroughly dim-witted, gullible, totally manipulated and comprehensively deeply educationally challenged white pillocks around and sickeningly infesting the white western world they inhabit in terms of countries like the UK, USA, Canada and Europe whom these bogus “Jews” can in the most vile, coercive and blackmailing or perverse seductive terms con in this specific regard or idiotically bend to their will?

And unless the just as transparently stupidly lot of you out there who have risibly fallen for all this mindless crap are just as ludicrously going to say that only whites and specifically European ones are or can be “Jews” and de facto that makes them Semites; then immersed as you are in such utter nonsense there’s absolutely nothing more that any truly informed person can say or do than to put the information out so that those who’re willing to think for themselves can objectively analyse and make their own minds up while for my part relentlessly challenge you, as I also fearlessly and unapologetically tell everyone of you other mother-fucking idiots along with your bogus “Jew” chums and any others who asininely think like them to go fuck yourselves! For what you’re intentionally doing is a gross obscenity and intolerable insult to all those: The Rhineland Niggers; Gypsies; Communists; Homosexuals; the Disabled; Political Opponents and others who were sadistically and unscrupulously massacred and exterminated in Europe’s Concentration and Death Camps through the utilization of the same methods being currently employed by the plethora of Nazi-Zionist-apartheid, bogus “Semitic Jews” and their idiotic white western, and couldn’t independently plot their way out of a sodden paper bag, useless cunt supporters!

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