#naturally it only occurs in western communities (I am in a country where people are still revoltingly concervative and behind the progress)

[shamsaddinmegalommatis]

The Collective West, its Mysteries, Illusions and Threats against the Mankind

Contents

Introduction

I. Colonization: worldwide imposition of the inhuman Western European 'civilizational' model

II. The Western world: an abnormal self-denial and a terrorist rebuff of the History of mankind

III. The interminable internecine wars of the West, its composite nature, and the ensuing concerns for the rest of the world

IV. Westernization is not 'à la carte'

V. Westernization is part of eschatological agendas

De-Westernization for Russia, Africa, the Muslim world, India, China and Latin America means a) replacement of the fallacious 'Greco-Roman' and 'Judeo-Christian' material from academic curricula and educational manuals and b) substitution of the past documentation with major specimens of Asiatic and African Art, which bear witness to the historical interaction of the world's major civilizations. Example: back panels from the couch found in the tomb of the Sogdian merchant and nobleman An Jia (安伽), who was buried in Chang'an (長安), today's Xi'an (西安市), great Chinese capital, in 579 CE, founding year of the Daxiang (大象) era, during the reign of Emperor Jing; currently in the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology; the representations of few significant moments of the deceased nobleman's life involve scenes of cult, meetings with nomad leaders, and conclusion of agreements.

In a previous article published few days ago under the title "World Politics as Black & White: Iran and Israel or how people fall victims of delusions intentionally projected on them", I made it clear that every sectarian thought does not only constitute a sin, but it also leads to misunderstanding, ultimately plunging the foolish guy, who thinks in this manner, into a delusion. From such traps there is usually no comeback.

Simple people and world-known statesmen are equally concerned in this regard, but the latter may destroy their respective countries in the process. You can read the article here: https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2024/05/16/world-politics-as-black-white-iran-and-israel-or-how-people-fall-victims-of-delusions-intentionally-projected-on-them/

There are many foolish guys worldwide, who persistently do not see the historical truth in Palestine; they believe a genocide that they never saw and they don’t believe a genocide that they see with their own eyes. And there are numerous inane people, who imagine that the ongoing war in Ukraine has -practically speaking- ended with the victory of Russia. More advanced daydreamers are convinced that the "collective West" has collapsed and that the BRICS+ are about to establish a new world order – or, if this expression embarrasses you, a multipolar world community. There is nothing more delusional than this.

I must however admit that a large part of my readers have been accustomed (and pleased) to reading my devastating attacks, denunciations and rejections of the colonial deeds of the maritime kingdoms which are -exclusively- responsible for every single problem that occurs in the world nowadays. But …….

Because I totally, overwhelmingly and comprehensively decry the evildoing of the colonial powers across the Earth, this does not mean that I expect their opponents to prevail anytime soon. Not at all! At least, not without major changes coming from the side of the BRICS+!

Introduction

Actually, my personal evaluation of the current situation is very negative; I am convinced that the world affairs are very ambiguous, very grim and very ominous, because the major continental states, their elites, and their governments are unable to accurately assess where the overall problem lies and to subsequently find the correct remedy.

It is correct to conclude nowadays that the "collective West" is in disarray, discord, disorder and decay. But so they were in 1492, in 1520, and in 1532, when they sailed to the so-called 'New World' (which was already known for thousands of years to ancient Oriental nations) and, in the name of the Satanic Anti-Christ of the Catholic Church, they intentionally performed the first two of a really long series of abhorrent genocides against the highly civilized Aztecs and Incas, also enslaving numerous other nations and ethnic-religious groups in the process.

All the same; this has always been the fate of the 'West', which consists in an abysmal anomaly in the History of Mankind. The barbarians of Western Europe always exported their problems to the rest of the world in order to survive. As a matter of fact, the Western elites accept as 'civilized nations' only the slaves of their fabrication, i.e. the so-called 'Western Civilization'.

When it comes to the non-Western world, the perverse idiots, who believe in the existence of a so-called Western Civilization, are the worst enemies of mankind and the most unrepentant traitors of their nations.

All the same, the so-called 'Western Civilization' is a villainous fabrication of the Western European barbarians, which was incessantly propagated, tyrannically imposed, preached as the 'sole civilization', praised as an all-human acquisition, declared as 'universal', and therefore meant (or hinted) as 'compulsory for every civilized human being'. This is of course entirely racist, but this is still a minor issue.

In fact, if the fabrication 'Western Civilization' stayed only within the circumference of the 15th–16th c. Western European states, it would never become a worldwide problem and, even more happily for the rest of the world, it would soon disintegrate, driving the Western European nations to extinction. When it comes to the vicious and premeditated propagation, imposition and acclamation of this construct, people all over the world must take into account the following five crucial aspects of the phenomenon:

a. Colonization is tantamount to Westernization;

b. The 'Western world' is first, an abnormal self-denial and second, a terrorist rebuff of the historical evolution of mankind;

c. The permanent internecine wars of the West demonstrate its composite nature;  

d. Westernization cannot be 'à la carte' for anyone anytime anywhere and under any circumstances whatsoever; and

e. Westernization is part of eschatological agendas - not an intellectual caprice, an academic arrogance, a moral deviation or a mental degeneration 

I. Colonization: worldwide imposition of the inhuman Western European 'civilizational' model

Extensively but deliberately propagated as an economic affair, colonization is basically the premeditated exportation and the brutal imposition of the inhuman Western European civilizational model on the rest of the world. As a matter of fact, Colonization is Westernization. The first crucial aspect of the nefarious phenomenon is that, by means of military, political, economic, educational, religious, spiritual, intellectual, academic, scientific, cultural, technological, socio-behavioral and mental colonization, the aforementioned construct was repressively imposed worldwide.

After five centuries of persistent, mendacious, and oppressive effort, Westernization became finally inherent (in different degree) to everyone - with the only exception of the blessed people who happened to live in remote areas and remained unaffected from or immune to it.

The calamitous process started in Western Europe (namely the territories of today's Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, England, Scotland, and Ireland) and then it was transferred / relocated to the Occupied Territories which conventionally are now called 'USA', 'Canada' and 'Australia'; for this reason, all these lands (along with French Polynesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, etc.) are called the 'Collective West'. It was from those lands that emanated the multifaceted and multilayered colonization process that can also be called 'Westernization'.

Quite contrarily, Latin America -from Mexico to Argentina and Chile- is not part of the 'Collective West', although undoubtedly many Western Europeans settled there. The continent where the great civilizations of the Mayas, the Aztecs and the Incas had grown is a colonized continent, and the indigenous populations which de facto constitute the majority of the people must take their land back, impose their culture, religions and values, and terminate the colonial shame that started before 500 years.

Decolonization-de-Westernization is necessary to Latin America too.

Similarly and more critically, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Central Europe, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Scandinavian Peninsula do not truly constitute part of the 'Collective West; it is well-known that Austria-Hungary was aptly dragged by the Catholic Church into interminable wars against the Ottoman Empire, but this fact was the mistake of both imperial administrations which failed to assess the ignominious plans elaborated by the Anti-Christian Church of Rome against Constantinople and Vienna at the same time.

Later, Imperial Germany became also the victim of the papal plots, entering into academic, intellectual, economic and military competition with the then 'Collective West'; but this was exactly the trap! Attempting to acquire material gains against the English and the French, Germany started becoming part of the 'Club of the Evil', whereas it would be pertinent for the interests of the German Nation to fully oppose it. As a matter of fact, by competing with the Westerners in any sense, you simply get westernized, i.e. colonized – without even understanding it. Clearly, decolonization-de-Westernization is necessary to those parts of Europe too.

For the above reasons and due to many other parameters, it is safe to claim that every discussion about the 'economic motives' and the 'political predominance' of the colonial powers is merely a smokescreen. The same is valid for the often evoked 'missionary work'; it was only the camouflage. In fact, the Western countries invaded most of the other nations, lands and continents only to impose their construct, namely the inhuman Western European civilizational model.

Establishing an oligarchical economic system of social exploitation and arbitrarily imposing a parliamentary system of social deception in one colonized land are not enough for the devilish and criminal elites of the 'Collective West'! The colonized countries must always be in phase with the Western metropolises, when it comes to educational, religious, spiritual, intellectual, academic, scientific, cultural, technological, socio-behavioral matters.    

II. The Western world: an abnormal self-denial and a terrorist rebuff of the History of mankind

The second crucial aspect concerns the formation of the West itself. This is a most concealed topic, as a systematic, comprehensive and monstrous misinterpretation of the historical facts was composed and propagated to compactly confuse people in the West and in the rest of the world. Because Western universities and museums, libraries, mass media, intellectuals and governments gave to the 'Collective West' a fallacious historicity, numerous explorers, investigators, commentators and historians were driven to the confusion that the divide between East and West existed always. This is entirely wrong.

The appellation "Ancient Oriental Empires" is the beginning of the historical fallacy. The great civilizations of Mesopotamia (Sumer, Elam, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia, Hurrians, Aramaeans, etc.), the Nile Valley (Egypt/Kemet, Cush/Sudan), Anatolia (Hittites, Hatti, Luwians, etc.), Syria-Palestine (Canaanites, Phoenicians, Philistines, Hebrews, etc.), the Iranian plateau, the Caucasus region, Central Asia, Siberia and Mongolia, the African Atlas (Berbers, Carthaginians, etc.), India, Bengal, the Deccan, and China were all "central to the world", according to their own standards, sources and world conceptualization.

Designating these civilizations, peoples and empires as "Oriental" necessitates the preposterous anticipation that the center of the world was situated elsewhere and these entities were located east of the center. Limiting considerations at the purely natural and geographical level is certainly normal, and it was done by all in the Antiquity. But extending the geographical notion to the cultural-civilizational level constitutes an absurd categorization and a discriminatory distinction. And on this racist foundation has been built the pseudo-historical dogma of the 'Collective West'. But in order to be close to factual data, I have to continue. 

What is now called 'Ancient Greece' was an unimportant, marginal and mostly uncivilized circumference to the Ancient so-called 'Oriental' world; the distinctive tribes that are now conventionally called 'Ancient Greeks' failed to establish an empire of universal vocation. Culturally, morally and spiritually different from them, Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded part of Greece and forced some of the local worthless states to contribute to the exploit of substituting the ailing Achaemenid Iran with a more genuine universal empire.

Ancient Rome was also a peripheral and insignificant city that was transformed from kingdom to 'res publica' and later to empire; the Roman expansion was mainly due to the rivalry with Carthage, which was the ancient world's most democratic and most republican state. However, after the disintegration of the shameful 'res publica', the Romans failed to build a genuine and universal empire after the example of Egypt, Babylonia or Assyria, despite Rome's unprecedented contest and endless wars with the Arsacid and the Sassanid empires of Iran. These wars lasted almost 700 years (54 BCE – 628 CE), but their echo lasted until 1453, as Mehmet II the Conqueror viewed in himself an Iranian vanquisher of the Romans.

The Christianization of the Roman Empire demonstrated its limits; in fact, despite of a very sophisticated administrative-military organization, the state could not hold together. The main reason for this situation was the fact that no empire can possibly be created around a sea; there was never an empire around the Black Sea or the Caspian Sea. And when all the coastlands of the Red Sea belonged to the Islamic Caliphates, the gravitational center of all these different states (Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Mamluk, and Ottoman) was not situated in the Red Sea region. 

However, due to the universal or ecumenical vocation of the Christian faith as per the Fathers of the Christian Church, following the division of the Christian Roman Empire (395 CE), the Eastern Roman Empire developed an ecumenical character that it retained for several centuries. But the terms used for the division of the Roman Empire were purely geographical, having no cultural-civilizational meaning. The same was also valid after the schisms (Photian: 863-867; final: 1054); the differences between the Eastern Roman Empire (Orthodox Christianity) and the Catholic Church were only religious, canonical and imperial, because the Roman pope interfered in the various states of Western Europe in order to generate opponents to the Eastern Roman Emperor. And it so continued until the Fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Ottomans.

In other words, prior to the Renaissance, there was never a cultural-civilizational differentiation between 'East' and 'West', because the Western Europeans, like all the civilized humans across the Earth, viewed the world civilizations across the Earth as a unitary phenomenon.  

It is the entire Renaissance phenomenon that changed the Western Europeans, but as such, it first led them to an absurd self-denial. In its nucleus, Renaissance is an arbitrary approach to the Western Europeans' pre-Christian past, involving a deliberate idealization of the daily life and the activities of the pagan ancestors of the 14th, 15th and 16th c. Western Europeans. In real terms, it is an illusion that they produced and believed, before exporting it to the unfortunate others. But this totally ahistorical illusion was at the same time a full and complete rejection of the Western Europeans themselves, i.e. of their own Christian identity.

The progressive imposition of the illusory Antiquity on the 14th, 15th and 16th c. Western Europeans was carried out by different mystical, religious, intellectual and academic elites in a way that worsened the trouble caused because of the apparent detachment from reality. Rejecting their true, Christian identity and adopting an unreal ideal, the Renaissance elites went from disbelief to degeneracy, from deviation to corruption, from paranoia to madness, from delusion to disorder, and from being to non-being. Viewed in terms of massive social phenomenon, Renaissance is the only true Holocaust in the History of Mankind. It consists in a most comprehensive spiritual genocide that the then Western European ruling classes performed against themselves and their own peoples.

Being cut off from their identity and recent past which they 'excommunicated', the sick elites of Western European Renaissance were left with only one option: they had to

a) unquestionably, inevitably, and unrepentantly conquer and massacre the others,

b) forcefully change the identity of the survivors (: make them look like 'copies' of Western Europeans), and

c) flee ahead to even more unreal, more inhuman, and more absurd notions.

This means that they subsequently produced even more unrealistic schemes, lunatic concepts, illusory descriptions, and delusional suggestions, which ultimately led to worse types of colonization, repression, bloodshed, cruelty, and wars.

It goes without saying that these elites will inevitably resort to nuclear conflagration and total annihilation of mankind if they fail to materialize the incessantly more unrealistic projects, which are mere paragraphs of their ominous agendas.

We can therefore easily understand that the East-West (Orient vs. Occident) dilemma is a forgery; in fact, what we call nowadays the 'Collective West' consists in

1) the corruption of a part of the Mankind (namely the Western Europe),

2) the subsequent secession of that part of the world from the rest, and

3) the opposition to, and denial of, the rest of mankind, which is indiscriminately and pejoratively labeled as 'Orient'.

III. The interminable internecine wars of the West, its composite nature, and the ensuing concerns for the rest of the world

Many people are nowadays impressed because of the collapse of the so-called Franco-German axis within European Union (EU); but what is there to be possibly impressed with? Personally, I rather tend to believe that the so-called Berlin-Paris axis lasted for long. Taking into consideration the past that Western Europe has had after the Christianization of the Roman Empire (313-380 CE) and its final division into two parts (395 CE), we have to find the present divisions within EU as quite normal.

Contrarily to what happened in the Eastern Roman Empire with the prevailing Caesaropapism (which is tantamount to absolute prevalence of the emperor over the patriarch), in the ill-fated and short-lived Western Roman Empire, the pope of Rome prevailed over the local emperor by means of a well-orchestrated deception (and this is called Papo-Caesarism). Even worse, the papal authority devised an ignominious plan as per which barbarian 'kingdoms' ruled by idiotic thugs would supplant the Western Roman Empire as an imperial institution, thus leaving the pope as the sole ruler of Western Europe.

By ceaselessly pursuing divisive tactics and by keeping a balance among the barbarian rulers, the counterfeit administration of Anti-Christian Rome, while fervently fighting against the Eastern Roman Empire, implemented systematically a devilish policy of acculturation during the long process of Christianization of the uncivilized migrant tribes in the lands of today's Northern Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England and Ireland. This means that in fact all these populations never became truly Christian, but believed that they were Christian while remaining pagan, cruel and incestuous.

Quite contrarily, in the truly Christian Eastern Roman Empire, the emperor and the patriarch implemented methodically different approaches to the successive waves of migrating nations, i.e. religious integration, cultural assimilation and administrative incorporation. The alternative solution was always military victory, expulsion and dispersion of the enemy. For this reason, in the Eastern Roman Empire there were few religious quarrels and conflicts, whereas in Western Europe there were endless tribal, feudal and later monarchical hostilities, which were always wars of plunder.

Consequently, spiritual, religious, doctrinal and theological opposition went extinct in the Eastern Roman Empire after the 9th c., but across Western Europe, numerous groups survived in clandestine form from the times of Late Antiquity until the 15th c. The Eastern Roman Emperors never faced an opponent like the Knights Templar; but the papal power, which was never counterbalanced by any royal (and the exceptions only confirm the rule), was unable to uproot secret movements and doctrinal factions that challenged its authority in later periods, because they had aptly managed to penetrate several religious orders and the papal hierarchy.

With the gradual arrival of Ashkenazi 'Jews' in Northern and Central Europe (9th–10th c.), the admixture (or if you prefer the circulation) of elites that formed the modern Western world (also known as the 'Collective West') was ready. Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) understood it quite well. Consequently, it was only normal for Western Europeans to experience interminable internecine wars, while expanding colonially. This fact only reveals the composite nature of Western Europe; it also explains the present conjuncture.

Originating from diverse religious societies of the Late Antiquity, the three main forces, which composed Modern Europe and controlled the world by means of colonization, always managed to make compromises for their reciprocal interests in spite of the enormous differences that their eschatological agendas comprise. The three most influential groups (or 'nebulae' if you prefer) are the following: the Jesuits, the Freemasons, and the Zionists. About their agendas and remote antiquity, you can find general information in my earlier publications:                                                                                                 

and

Quite interestingly, I read only recently a compelling article about the intentions toward Russia that three major groups of the Collective West have; it was first published before one year (8 May 2023). Titled Шахматы войны (Chess of War), the article was authored by the world-known Russian intellectual Alexander Dugin (https://katehon.com/ru/article/shahmaty-voyny). For an English translation (by Lorenzo Maria Pacini): https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/chess-war

The article was written after a chess-like style and that is why the 'Collective West' is designated as "Black", meaning a black set of chess. In his second part (Black's centers), A. Dugin makes the following distinction:

«With Black we can distinguish three main macro-figures, which are not symmetrical with each other, but each of them has a sufficient degree of sovereignty to actively influence the course of the entire confrontation. We have named them as follows:

The party of complete and immediate victory over Russia

The party of delayed victory over Russia

The party of indifference to Russia».

In fact, the first 'party' represents the Zionists; the second 'party' corresponds fully to the Jesuits, their world conceptualization, mentality, attitude, and agenda. And the third 'party' can clearly be identified with some leading Freemasonic lodges (at this point, I have to clarify that there is an ongoing fierce dispute among several apostate lodges). 

Further expanding upon "the party of total and immediate victory over Russia", Alexander Dugin identifies it as the "most radical part of the globalists", stating more specifically that it consists of "the British secret services, which act in close connection with certain US neo-conservative centers (Kagan, Nuland, Kristol) and with the Pentagon and CIA circles close to them".

Focusing on "the party of delayed victory over Russia" (i.e. the second of the three groups), A. Dugin exemplifies the group with the Roman Catholic General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, a ferocious enemy of former US President Donald Trump. While explaining the geopolitical positions of this group, the Russian intellectual adds current US President Biden in the picture: "This is the position of Biden himself and most of his administration".

When it comes to the third party (or "The indifference’s party"), A. Dugin draws the political portrait of Donald Trump: "the position of those American political forces that do not identify US interests with globalism, do not rely on the rules of Atlanticist geopolitics (where the main goal of the Anglo-Saxon civilisation of the sea is an overwhelming victory over the Eurasian civilisation of the land, i.e. sovereign Russia), and are therefore indifferent to Russia, which, on a soberly pragmatic analysis, does not threaten US national interests - neither in the military nor in the economic field - in general". He then epitomizes it by adding that "this is exactly the position expressed by former US President Donald Trump. His claims, that if he becomes US President again the conflict in Ukraine will immediately cease, are not boastfulness, but pure realism".

The composite nature of the 'Collective West' and the total control that the Jesuits, the Freemasons, and the Zionists exercise over the governments and the societies of Western Europe and North America (and through them over the rest of the world) are indeed very preoccupying issues and quite determinant factors for the rest of the world. This is so for the following four reasons:

a) the inhuman Western European 'civilizational' model that Western European elites imposed first locally and then worldwide is similarly a composite corpus of notions; it contains gravely divergent concepts that were finally adopted after many gradual, trilateral compromises.

b) in the same manner, the bogus-historical dogma, which was elaborated by Western European academics and then colonially imposed worldwide, is also a composite patchwork. This can be attested in several terms, which are meaningless for the rest of the world, but in fact, they are the result of compromises. Examples:

'Greco-Roman world', 'Hellenistic and Roman' times, 'Judeo-Christian' culture, 'Helleno-Christian' civilization, 'Helleno-Orthodox' doctrine, etc.

c) at any given moment during the last 500 years, the flee ahead to even more unreal notions, ideas or theories led always to final compromises, modifications, and new composite constructs, which had Jesuit, Freemasonic and Zionist components and dimensions. The same is also valid for the conflicts ensued and the treaties signed at the end.  

d) even more importantly, the penetration of the Western elites into the rest of the world was also composite; this means that countries, parts and/or sectors of the non-Western world are controlled at all levels by representatives of the three groups of power. Due to this phenomenon, the internecine wars of the Western World have spread across the Earth, making of any potential disentanglement a very difficult and very dangerous option.

IV. Westernization is not 'à la carte'

Due to the situation described as per above, it is impossible for any non-Westerner to stand opposite to the 'Collective West', selecting only some of the theoretical systems, philosophical maxims, intellectual approaches, academic considerations, political ideologies, and governmental practices produced and implemented by the Western world. Although this attitude is not straightforwardly opposite to the Western world, it is considered as gravely inimical by the paranoid rulers of UK, US, EU, NATO and their satellites.

It is actually misplaced to attempt to view the modern Western world as a diachronic entity, because it was never such and it was not geared to be anything of the kind. You don't have the option to possibly accept 'this' and reject 'that'. It is true that, in every historical period after Renaissance, the Western elites came up with several theoretical options, governmental concepts, social ideals and philosophical concepts, which were entirely fallacious and still opposite to one another; at a later date, one of the conflicting poles may have subsided or eventually both were brought together, and a new -always delusional and inhuman- environment appeared. Many scholars described this type of developments as 'Hegelian', but in reality they were entirely Manichaean.

However, average people everywhere, either in the Western colonial metropolises or in the colonized peripheries, were always asked to promptly, duly and fully cope with the new environment. No feudal state was tolerated in the 19th c.; no imperial state was accepted in the 20th c.; and no Communist state is permitted in the 21st c. The 'logic' (truly speaking: the 'absurdity') of the conflicting Jesuit, Freemasonic and Zionist agendas that have formed the historical developments over the past 500 years is 'permanent update'. For this reason, the concept of 'evolution' (spread as delusion among people worldwide) was necessary to all major societies that rule the Western world: those who supported and promoted notions relating to Darwinism and those who opposed this theory.

The 'permanent updates' to which all have to concur every now and then have been scaled over the past five centuries, because in reality every delusion made, every change occurred, every development introduced, and every scheme implemented were either a distinct paragraph of one of the aforementioned agendas or the ultimate compromise between the divergent paragraphs of two among them.

The Westernization project that was launched since the first days of the Renaissance is a compact eschatological program of which no one can possibly accept only a part without signing his death warrant. This is true for anyone anytime anywhere and under any circumstances whatsoever; for this reason, every selective approach to the inhuman scheme of worldwide Westernization would inevitably constitute a certain opposition to the provisions of one of the existing agendas.  

This fact is not understood by several statesmen, politicians, diplomats, academics, intellectuals and religious authorities in countries other than the 'Collective West'; similarly, average people, who live in the Western world but still value their own cultural heritage, ancestral traditions, faith, moral, and spirituality, fail to grasp the true nature of the inhuman Western European 'civilizational' model and the ensuing Westernization of the world. They mistakenly think that 'only now' or 'only recently' the Westerners started 'forgetting' their past and values. However, this approach is shortsighted, narrow-minded, and totally false.

The error is due to the fact that all those, who find the so-called 'woke culture' or 'cancel culture' as a drastically different from the earlier Western norms, values and standards, have beforehand developed a diachronic view of the modern Western world. But this is very wrong. Over the past 500 years, people in the West passed through several, different from one another, stages; every stage was diverse from the previous and constituted (for the Western elites) an 'advanced step' if compared with earlier conditions of life.

The so-called 'woke culture' or 'cancel culture' looks very different from the average culture of Westerners in either Western Europe of North America in the 1930s, and this is true. But if we add to the equation few turning points or moments of upheaval like the May 1968 protests, the 1969 Woodstock festival, the lawless legalization of the abortion (1975 in France / "la Loi Veil"), and the evil decriminalization of the adultery (1987 in Belgium; 2006 in Romania), we understand that nothing happened suddenly or abruptly. Every step of moral degradation and social corruption of the Western societies was small enough and it was made slowly enough in order to be accepted over a period of time that was accorded to it.

Consequently, to the eyes of today's Western statesmen, academics and intellectuals (i.e. the puppets of the devilish Western elites) it appears as 'hypocritical' or 'absurd' or 'crazy' that statesmen, who reject today's Collective West, like President Putin of Russia, refer to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, admire Peter the Great (who attempted to emphatically westernize Russia), state publicly that they were inspired by Catherine the Great (who opened Russia to Western philosophers), and expect their approach to possibly please their eventual Western interlocutors or disreputable haters or to create a feeling of cultural-historical familiarity. The following articles are only indicative in this regard:

Putin, Citing Roosevelt, Hints at a 3rd-Term Bid

Putin compares himself to Peter the Great in quest to take back Russian lands

How Catherine the Great may have inspired Putin’s Ukraine invasion

Vladimir Putin justifies his imperial aims in Tucker Carlson interview

However, President Putin was undoubtedly responsible for the 'mistakes'; the reason for this conclusion is due to the fact that the Westerners do not view their modern world as a diachronic entity but as a series of successive stages through which they reached the present status. Consequently, to the Western elites of today, Reagan, Roosevelt, Clemenceau, Napoleon, Louis XIV, and Charles V, pretty much like Hegel, Kant, Rousseau, Voltaire, Pascal, Shakespeare, du Bellay, Rabelais, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola had a certain value but only as fully functioning factors of their times – not diachronically. Their importance (as it is viewed by the present Western elites) is their contribution to the developments of their time, but Rabelais (or any other 16th c. Western European intellectual) had become obsolete and meaningless at the time of Karl Marx, and subsequently, the latter is -in turn- truly excoriated today. The same approach applies to music, literature, art, theater, law, science, and -last but not the least- the manner of living.

It is crystal clear that this situation causes terrible troubles to the rest of the world, i.e. the colonized periphery; this is so because of the complex manner through which the colonization / Westernization process was carried out. Different countries in Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America accepted diverse stages and aspects of the inhuman Western European 'civilizational' model in distinct moments and junctures. This automatically makes of them the disparate members of a group that exists only in one dimension: that of being irrelevant to 15th-16th c. Western Europe.

Then, the fact that notable historical persons or a restricted elite from the past of one non-Western country may have accepted in their time a certain stage or an aspect of the Westernization project (which was later widely propagated across the nation in question) makes today the de-Westernization effort a very strenuous task for the said country to undertake. But this is another issue, because it concerns the non-Western world. Example: Western Theater was alien to the average Russian society of the time of Ivan IV the Terrible (1530-1584; reign after 1547); however, it was initially supported by the 18th c. royal elite, and it became gradually accepted by more people (mainly the nobles and the then rising Russian bourgeoisie). The Bolshoi Theater was built in Moscow before two centuries (1825), but it is a monument of Russia's Westernization. Many Russians, Christian or Muslim, rejected the Western notion of Theater at the time as an Anti-Russian abomination. All the same, if today's Russians want to reach out to the spiritual concept and imperial ideal of Holy Rus (Святая Русь), they will certainly have to allow their de-Westernization effort to cover that sector too.

As a matter of fact, it is certainly noteworthy that across the Earth numerous aspects of Westernization were accepted subliminally, and this situation will apparently necessitate an enormous effort during the process of liberation (de-Westernization) that those countries have definitely to launch.

V. Westernization is part of eschatological agendas

For the leading internal forces of the West, Westernization is the process needed for the implementation of variant eschatological agendas; in other words, the inhuman Western European 'civilizational' model was not an intellectual caprice, an academic arrogance, a moral deviation or a mental degeneration. It was the basic means that these forces have used to fool, corrupt and enslave their populations and the rest of the world, and -more importantly- to impose on them their eschatological agendas.   

The sinister Renaissance -with all its attributes and paraphernalia- was evidently conceived as the foreclosure of History. I can only admit that it simply failed to fully impose its barbarous, inhuman and evil scope and to comprehensively enforce its blasphemous delusion across the Earth in only 500 years. But the abysmal attempt to terminate History does not start with the infinitesimal, petty propagandist Francis Fukuyama and his absurd and nonsensical book.

It started with the ominous specter that the devilish Western European monks, priests, mystics, academics, intellectuals, artists, and statesmen devised before 500-600 years; this is the true, atrocious face of Renaissance, which still threatens all historical nations with spiritual and material extinction, having the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the entire mankind. Actually, the conflagration was envisioned by Mani, the Iranian founder of Manichaeism, before almost 1800 years as the right and proper eschatological end of mankind. Lenore Marshall's essay "The Nuclear Sword of Damocles" (1971) came only too late for readers interested to discover their fate (https://energyhistory.yale.edu/lenore-marshall-the-nuclear-sword-of-damocles-1971/).

It is really foolish for theoreticians like Miriam Leonard to come to the conclusion that «Heidegger and Loraux articulate how the historical can and should act to disrupt the "final repression" of history. If difference "alone is historical through and through and from the start" it is also crucially able to resist the foreclosure of history». {The Uses of Reception Derrida and the Historical Imperative, p. 116-136 (see the last page); in: Classics and the Uses of Reception, Editor(s): Charles Martindale, Richard F. Thomas, 1 January 2006, Blackwell Publishing Ltd (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470774007)}

This is so because the concept of 'classics' is fallacious, ahistorical and intentionally delusional, whereas Western Europeans first and their colonized victims (starting from later dates) have already lived «the "final repression" of history» in the lapse of time between the diffusion of the Renaissance concepts and notions among them and the present moment. The atemporal period in which post-Renaissance people live is the disruption of history of which today's theoreticians are purposelessly afraid of; this is actually the final deception which was inevitably stated in the New Testament (2 Thessalonians 2:11/ καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πέμψει αὐτοῖς ὁ Θεὸς ἐνέργειαν πλάνης εἰς τὸ πιστεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τῷ ψεύδει,/ Ideo mittet illis Deus operationem erroris ut credant mendacio,/For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie.). 

The elaboration of eschatological agendas by the 'venerable elders' of the hierarchical societies that constitute the ruling elites of our world is something natural, normal and even intrinsic; average people today find it difficult to believe but it is not. One must never forget that these groups originate from diverse religious societies of the Late Antiquity. There is no religion without a version of Cosmogony, a description of Cosmology, and a salvatory narrative of Eschatology, i.e. 'Soteriology'. In fact, the secular appearance of those societies in our times constitutes only their smokescreen; but their members are in reality 'priests'.

Even more importantly, I have to point out here that several theories, philosophical systems, and ideologies conceived and propagated by members of the said societies are purely of eschatological content, although this is somewhat dissimulated. In fact, modern sciences, academic theories, philosophical systems, political ideologies, and even art movements are in reality dissimulated forms of eschatology. And there is no Cosmogony, Cosmology and Eschatology without an underlying notion of religion and spirituality.

That is why the Collective West and the colonized world have been submerged over the past 200 years in particular with (unidentified as such) eschatological narratives and systems. Utopian Socialism, Marxism-Leninism, Darwinism, Impressionism, Monism, Anarchism, Atheism, Fascism, Nazism, Materialism, Eugenics & Scientific Racism, Abstract Art, Robotism, Islamism, Christian Zionism, Liberalism, Leftism, Consumerism, and a multitude of other similar systems or subsystems are in reality Westernization-promoting parts of the eschatological agendas of the Jesuits, the Freemasons, and the Zionists.    

If the evangelized societies and the salutatory orations appear to be so distressing, gloomy and calamitous, and if many people across the Earth start discovering that these promises are totally dystopian and hellish, this is due to the totally evil nature of the ruling societies and the world elites. Not only are the initiated members of those organizations degenerate enough to see the Hell as an optimal choice, but their secret spiritual doctrines are counterfeit versions of religions.

To many it may appear odd that atheism, materialism and consumerism can be considered as forms of eschatology, but this is only the result of the deception carried out. People have been fooled up to the point of being unable to understand that, even if someone expresses the idea that the present society is perfect and makes the wish that it always stays the same, this is already a form of eschatology.

However, the inevitability of the final conflagration is only underscored by the fact that every eschatological narrative includes an unprecedented clash. And this is something that the evil high priests of these societies intend to bring about anytime soon. For this reason, it is foolish to take their supposed rationalism for granted.

Reason, reasoning and rationality have been propagated only to fool, distract and divert the rest: the Russians, the Indians, the Africans, the Latin Americans, the Chinese, and the Muslims. But only insanity, lunacy, paranoia and chaos prevail in the backside of the evil minds and the dark bottom of the venomous hearts of the ruling Western elites.  

The advantage of the first (nuclear) strike is the 'privilege' that the inhuman rulers of the Western world reserve for themselves; that's why they must be stripped of this prerogative. For this reason, it will be totally disastrous for the rest of the world not to isolate the Collective West. Instead of the nuclear conflagration that the evil elites of the West intend to cause in order to materialize their nauseating wickedness, a domestic implosion, a social explosion, and a final disintegration must be forcefully adjusted to European Union, UK, Canada, Australia, and the US.

All the same, de-Westernization is imperative and inevitable to all; otherwise, even if the Collective West disappears supernaturally, the non-de-Westernized states of BRICS+ will only function like Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, France, Italy, England, America and Japan on the eve of WWI. Then, the same cycle of wars and bloodshed will be lamentably repeated, the empires will be merely substituted by others, and the humans will be taken in the maelstrom of Tiamat.

==============

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[thetailorofenbizaka]

Prologue

The Tailor of Enbizaka, pages 4-13

I’ve been in these scissors for a long time now.

.

Maybe talking that way isn’t quite accurate.

Perhaps it would be more correct not to say that I’m “inside” them, but rather “I’ve become the scissors themselves”.

­Regardless, at some point in my past I had been reduced to a being that could merely continue to watch the world as two scissors—or from inside the scissors.

That’s right, two of them.

Small Eastern scissors, and long and narrow Western scissors.

Both of them were made with steel, and were connected to each other by a cord. Those were the components that made up what I was now.

There is only one of me, but there are two scissors.

You may think that is strange, but there’s really no other way that it could have been.

Because my scissors are two in one.

I am the Eastern scissors, and I am the Western scissors.

Or rather, I am inside the both of them.

The blade sections are faintly stained red. That woman who had been the scissors’ owner—Kayo—would carefully take care of them every day, but that staining red color never came out.

It isn’t from anything like rust.

I know the reason why these blades have turned red.

Kayo was a woman who made her living as a tailor of kimono. So she would use the scissors in her sewing to cut a great deal of cloth, thread, and—other things.

What was she thinking that led her to do so?

There is no longer any means by which one could ascertain her true heart.

You see, the owner of these scissors has since disappeared entirely from this tailor shop.

I have no eyes, and I have no ears.

And yet despite that, I am able to see and hear what goes on all around Enbizaka, where this tailor shop is located—no, much farther than that; I can perceive the land of Onigashima where Enbizaka sits, and the range of space up to its neighboring country.

The inside of the tailor shop is narrow, and right now there are just several sewing implements scattered along the tatami mat.

…Ah, I myself am included among the sewing implements.

The interior of this shop has become engulfed in silence now, but it was a little more bustling just a short time before.

There were the soft work sounds of Kayo doing her tailoring, and conversations between her and her “son”—neither of them were very talkative people, so I suppose it was less bustling and more mild.

Even further back than that was a time when it was much noisier.

That was because Kayo’s husband had been a very talkative man, and her son Ren was still a newborn and thus always crying.

In those days, Kayo would often smile.

A modest and tranquil married life.

Surely, that time was when she had been her happiest.

--But now there is no one left in this tailor shop.

And now there is nothing more I can do than to merely gaze upon the scenery around me.

.

When I shifted my gaze to outside the shop, I could see the buildings of Enbizaka.

The everyday scenery that she had loved.

…It’s almost like everyone’s forgotten that such a horrible incident had occurred here.

There is an execution site at the top of the hill.

Right now the head of a woman who was executed for her crimes is up on display there.

There are two figures standing before that head.

One is a tall man, apparently a monk in the middle of his journey. His face isn’t visible, hidden deep inside an amigasa.

The other one is a golden-haired boy.

I know a great deal about him.

That boy was the very one who carried out the decapitation of the head in front of them.

The boy and the monk are discussing something.

From their tones it sounds as though today is the first time they’ve ever met.

The area around Enbizaka is quiet.

Nothing has changed between then and now…The only differences are that head on display on the hill, and the fact that two stores have been closed.

One of them is this tailor shop.

And the other is a dry-goods store down the hill.

With the both of them now missing their owners, they may never open again.

.

--Broadening my view a little further out, I soon arrived at the sea.

Onigashima isn’t a particularly large island. It only has but one harbor.

…Right now I can see a large merchant ship docked at that harbor.

It’s a foreign ship. It looks like they’re preparing to cast off.

Listening to what the sailors are saying, it appears that they are planning to return now to their native country.

There are several people among the crew that I recognize…

But there is one person who should be there that I cannot see anywhere.

.

There is someone gazing at the ship from on top of a small island reef floating in the sea nearby.

While the top half of this person was certainly human, the bottom half was that of a fish.

Yes…It was a mermaid.

She was observing the merchant ship from afar, taking care that she was not seen by the other humans.

--Whenever I see that mermaid’s appearance, my heart begins to stir, if only a little.

It’s as though in those moments alone I recall the “human feelings” that I thought I’d lost so long ago.

Is this anger, or is it grief for what I have lost--?

I eventually regained my calm, unable to arrive at an answer.

I know that there’s no use thinking about it, and no use trying to do anything about it now.

.

…Growing curious about the figure who should have been on the boat but wasn’t, I learned where she was.

She is currently in the middle of climbing Enbizaka.

The black-haired woman wearing a monocle--

Apparently she is heading for this tailor shop.

I said it earlier, but the owner of this house is no longer here. It’s plain to see that she isn’t coming to visit Kayo.

If so, then why is she coming here…?

.

Shortly thereafter, the entrance to the tailor shop opened.

And of course, the one who came by passing under the hanging sign at the shop’s entrance was the woman.

She looked around the tailor shop for a little while, but eventually she noticed the two scissors on the tatami mat...and then started talking.

“—Long time no see.”

I didn’t quite know the motive to her words.

I certainly recognized her, but we had never directly conversed with each other.

She had once come to this tailor shop to meet with Kayo.

She had seen the scissors while she was here, and so the actual phrase in itself wasn’t wrong.

But would someone normally say something like “long time no see” to a pair of scissors?

It was like she knew that I had a will.

I didn’t reply.

I didn’t think that there was any way those words would reach her if I did.

After a short pause, she walked towards me with her head inclined slightly, and then picked up the two scissors in her hands.

Finally—her face rapidly started to flush.

“What is…the meaning of this!?” she cried, shaking.

So it seems she came to the shop for these scissors in which I dwell.

But some unexpected fact had clearly confused her—so it appeared to me.

While looking upon her…I finally made up my mind, and decided to try speaking to her.

Looks like you missed your guess, Elluka.

I didn’t know if my voice had reached her.

Elluka’s eyes flared for a moment, and then she deeply sighed.

“…Well, that’s alright. This isn’t the first time a ‘Demon of Deadly Sin’ put one over on me.”

She seemed to have already regained her composure.

“So…Who exactly are you, then?”

She had, without a doubt, addressed that question to me.

So Elluka was one of those humans who could “perceive” my voice.

But I merely replied flatly, I have no obligation to tell you that.

To be blunt, I didn’t think very highly of this woman called Elluka.

Rather than “human feelings”, perhaps that was more “defensive instincts”.

I couldn’t help but feel that she was someone who might do me harm.

You are the one who stole Kayo’s body away—You see, I have no desire to open my heart up to such a person.

After I spoke next Elluka replied, while smiling slightly, “But you’ve no reason to call it stealing...It was what Kayo herself wanted, after all.”

And was it not you who led her to feel that way?

“Hmph…Well, in the end it doesn’t matter to me whoever you may be. I’ll be erasing you soon, at any rate,” Elluka announced calmly.

I didn’t know how she would go about with “erasing” me.

But I figured that she was probably able to do it.

Elluka’s ostensible title was as a missionary.

Yet, I knew that Elluka’s true identity was that of a witch who could use bizarre magic.

…

As I fell silent, Elluka’s tone rapidly grew gentler as she next spoke.

“—Relax. When I say that I’ll erase you, I don’t mean anything bad.  Although well, you’ll no longer be unable to talk to living people like this.”

…

“If you say that you don’t wish to talk about yourself, that’s fine by me. However…This must be the only time in a very long while that you’ve been able to communicate with another person like this, isn’t it?”

I had to agree that it was as she said.

“I’ll say it again. I’m sure that this will become the last time you have a conversation with a living person. So if you have something to say, if you have something you want to tell, I’ll listen now. I still have time until the ship departs. And in exchange—You will tell me what I want to know.”

Something that I wanted to tell—

What immediately came to my mind was Kayo.

Executed as a mere madwoman understood by no one, and then her head put on display at the top of the hill--

That was Sudou Kayo.

Perhaps even I, who had always been watching her life from close by, could not understand her true motives.

But I felt that at the very least I was closer to it than anyone else.

For that reason I wanted to have told someone.

How she had lived, and in what way she had committed her crimes.

Perhaps that was a kind of atonement for me, unable to have done anything before.

This woman named Elluka before me, naturally, knew the gist of what had happened.

For in a certain sense, she was one of the people related to that incident.

But she had known Kayo a year before, and so she had not seen with her own eyes all of the various events that surrounded her.

--Truthfully, perhaps this is something that I should tell to a different person.

Such as, for example…that golden haired boy.

But I had no idea if he could even hear my words, and he probably wouldn’t be coming back here now.

…I am reluctant to, but…

When I told Elluka that I wanted to tell her about Kayo, she smiled as though satisfied.

It seemed that was something she too wanted to learn about.

“I’ve had a lot of questions, about Kayo…and those around her. Out of all of the people I’ve known, she is the one that I’ve been least able to read.”

.

Where should I begin?...I thought for a moment.

When Kayo was born?

When she married?

Or when her child was born?

No…There’s a better point.

I ought to begin from that incident that served as the beginning of everything.

What had triggered Kayo’s life turning insane--

.

The great fire of Enbizaka four years before.

directory------next>>

[etadiscu-blog]

Fridays for Future

One day, it won’t be individuals, tribes or countries fighting for more power, more rights or more resources - it will be children fighting to be able to continue living a life within a stable nature, without the constant fear of new catastrophes to occur and parents, fighting for everything to stay the way it is to be able to continue a lifestyle they are accustomed to not dealing with problems that won’t affect them anymore. A lifestyle which they and their parents have significantly shaped and made possible with the achievements of their generations. A lifestyle which is truly worth fighting for, even with just a remotely dangerous threat of change appearing on the horizon - sometimes in the form of a wind turbine. What sounds as the plot of a third-class Hollywood-movie has actually become reality: people living now in their 30′s and above hardly will suffer severely from climate change and therefore have no incentive to change their behavior while people under 20 will almost surely suffer from the consequences of climate change and will be required to find solutions and implement them rather now than later. And the youngsters do not only see the horror coming - they have started to protest - and presumably won’t stop until the course has been set to change.

Picture: Markus Distelrath / pixabay.com

Some students have now realized that their future is in danger - and request a drastic reduction of CO₂ emissions, which are causal for the climate change according to prevailing scientific opinion. [1]

Critique towards the activist students reaches from trivial 

“Staying away from school is helping nobody - if the discussion was only about the climate change and not an excuse for not going to school they would have Saturdays for future!”

over practical 

“How do they expect us to change something?”

to more substantial

“Who says we as humans have an influence at all?”

But what to do about it? Are the current measures sufficient? What is there, we can do more? And should we do more at all?

We know, that CO₂ facilitates the greenhouse-effect in our atmosphere. We also know, that our climate is changing and that this change will affect how we live dramatically in a negative manner. Already now we can observe the consequences of changing climate: We are exposed to increasingly more and more natural catastrophes. We measure rising ocean levels. We see the shrinkage of permafrost. But given our lifestyle - how realistic is it, that we drastically change our behavior? What exactly would need to change and how practical or unpractical are the different possibilities we have at hand right now? What consequences would the changes impose?

The discussion to what degree mankind has an influence on world climate by emission of CO₂ is surely interesting. But not only that the scientific community has answered this question already quite clearly, it is not a discussion we as the civilization have the time to have in depth. The fact, that there is an effect is not negligible. So the question is rather what effective measures would be and not if we have to take measures at all. Whenever we see that something is degrading, whenever we see, that things are falling apart, whenever we see that something is not working as it should be - it is our obligation to act. Not just for society, not for our neighbor, not people on different continents but simply for ourselves. Our grandchildren will ask us: What did you do against climate change? I am sure, most of us will not leave the discussion satisfied is we have to answer “Nothing”. Only very little people have the courage to face the truth and sacrificing comfort in the present in favor of someone else’s future. It is a lot to ask for. Who would be willing to sacrifice the very tangible comfort of a car ride to work, the beauty of exploring different cultures on different continents by using an intercontinental flight or the pleasure consuming a juicy steak for an abstract thing such as the world climate? Not many people will be willing to do it no matter what the consequence might be - at least until the climate change also becomes less abstract and more tangible yet more impairing to our lifestyle. But then it probably is already too late, the die is cast. On the other hand side there are people reacting with negligence and doubt when confronted with the consequences of not changing behavior might have. Facing the truth and acting egoistically is equally simple as just hiding from the truth, acting as if it wouldn’t make a difference anyway or simply neglecting the problem entirely. It is a nihilistic approach, not contributing any good at all and leading to nothing but destruction and chaos. And even if you do not contribute any good actively through action - which I could not even blame you for - you might want to try to not contribute in any bad. Being informed, building an opinion and participating in discussions is probably the most important indirect contribution we as individuals can provide. At scale, it probably even will have a far larger effect, than giving up steak or using the bike (while I’m not saying that this wouldn’t contribute, too). But just sitting there, casting doubt without providing any answers or suggestions is not helping anyone. It is the bad contribution that sets us behind in discussion, wasting energy and time dealing with questions that might not even are important. It a nihilistic path, denying the truth while putting obstacles in the way of people looking for actual solutions. 

The psychological and sociological factor in this discussion around climate change is often underrated. Not only is it a conflict of generations - it is a conflict of societies, too. While in western civilizations one could argue with people of older generations that they probably do not want their children to suffer - the discussion is far more complicated looking towards emerging countries. People living there usually have other priorities than the world climate. Everyone who thinks that they just should stop burning so much fossil fuel should ask their self if they would be so interested in climate change if the question whether there is food on tomorrow’s table is not answered today. The higher a nation’s GDP - the more it’s population is interested in the effects of climate change. While western civilizations already began to release CO₂ in vast amounts more than 100 years ago, emerging countries only started 30-40 years ago to do so. They request their other 60 years - or at least they request the right to emit CO₂ until the living standard has adjusted to a western level. It is easy to discredit this request as narrow minded and short sighted. But without question we will have to deal with these opinions - and if we are proposing an effective solution, emerging countries need to be an integral part of it and a solution must not be to their disadvantage. 

In summary a solution is practicable, if it has little effect on our societies. It is practicable if no or only little contribution of each individual is required. People might find this view appalling and rather tend to try to force people to change - but force will not work for this matter. Applying force is already hard in one country. How are we supposed to apply force globally? Are we going to start a war for climate? What good would that be? It is not something we are wanting to engage in. Reasonable change comes through dialogue. We will have to accept the fact, that change happens slower than we would desire. We will have to accept the fact, that we will emit CO₂ many many more years and that this behavior is only changing very slowly. But we also will have a plan for the future. Changing things slowly with reasonable and little adjustments is not the same thing as having no plan and just accepting destiny. In the same way, flipping things over and starting from scratch not only often requires utilization of force in the very form of violence when it comes to geopolitical questions - it also leads to chaos. As bad as the status quo might seem - wanting it to change right now and without looking at the consequences will surely lead to an even less desirable state. Having said this - the main question remains - what can we do to emit less CO₂ while maintaining our lifestyle and allowing emerging countries to grow just as western civilizations were allowed to grow? Where do we actually produce the most CO₂ ?

The drivers of CO₂ level

Looking at the data, the largest part of man-made CO₂ emissions seems to be caused by transportation and energy production (56.9%) followed by agriculture, deforestation and land use (23.55%). [2]

While it is very unlikely that we will be able to convince the majority of people to switch to a vegetarian lifestyle in favor of less CO₂ emissions, it is worth looking at the technological possibilities we have in reduction of CO₂ in energy production and transportation.

Ways out of misery - A pragmatic approach 

Whenever we talk about climate change, the topic of renewable energy sources rapidly is brought forward. And how we could benefit if there only was a source of energy, which is easy to access, available anywhere in the right amount at the right time! Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Obviously the sun only shines at day, in different regions of the world in different intensities and is heavily dependent on weather conditions. Wind on the other hand is dependent on weather conditions, too but not so much on the day/night cycle. But wind unfortunately is not available anywhere in the same intensity. Most renewable energy resources have one property in common, they are intermittent, meaning, they are simply not available all the time. But even if they can be regulated relatively precisely, for example in a dam, dams are usually located in comparably remote locations. Partially we are trying to solve the geographical component by using modern transportation methods such as high voltage direct current power lines, but for the timing issue, the answer is yet to find. 

But not only changing and often also not very predictable supply is an issue with renewable sources. In addition, there are high changes in demand during one day. While fossil power plants can be regulated very precisely depending on the very demand in a certain period and nuclear power plants do a good job in constantly providing the required energy to serve basic demand, the same is a lot harder with renewable energy sources, which are mainly regulated by nature and therefore often only can be throttled and not powered up. In consequence, providing solutions with renewable energy is often more costly and less economically efficient than just using fossil fuel because complex energy storage technology is required - or - as some scientists now suggest - heavy bricks [11].

Even if we would be able to solve the timing issue with storage systems - the geographical component not automatically is solved easily. It is not done by only installing a few more power lines or install distributed systems. Using the surroundings of our power consumption hot spots is also no real solution, mostly because there simply is not enough space or - like in many countries in Europe and the US - the land is needed farmland. Also solar power often simply is not as efficient as it would be under ideal circumstances with high radiation. The World Bank’s Global Solar Atlas (https://globalsolaratlas.info/) shows us, that most radiation is available in areas which are less densely populated. In Europe for example, we reach around 1,500 kWh/m² p.a. (southern Spain ~2,200 kWh/m² p.a., central Germany ~1,200 kWh/m² p.a. northern Scotland ~950 kWh/m² p.a.). This is significantly less than the reachable ~ 2,600 kWh/m² p.a. in southern Libya. Moreover Libya (4.42 inhabitants per km²) is far from being as densely populated as for example Germany (229.13 inhabitants per km²)  [3]. Meaning that Libya simply has a lot more unused land which could be used purely for solar production. 

Comparing the energy consumption of middle Europe to the energy consumption to north Africa, it becomes quite obvious, that Europe requires far more energy than Libya, Algeria, or Egypt. Looking at the energy the sun provides in this region per square meter in this region compared to Europe it becomes obvious, that using solar power would be far more effective in north Africa than it is in middle Europe. Moreover, north Africa is by far less densely populated than Europe and has a lot less farmland or even potential farmland which could be used for agriculture. So why not use this space? We easily could provide the technology and infrastructure for this. And surely the northern African countries would also have an economical interest in this: just like oil producing states heavily profit from their natural resources, northern African could benefit from their natural resource: the high intensity of solar radiation. This procedure could be repeated in many parts of the world. And who knows - maybe the solution for climate change is eventually also one for the many conflicts we have in our world.

Solar power plants need to be placed  where it is economically sensible while consuming power wherever it is needed needs to be possible. This requires a storage mechanism, which is reliable, safe and cheap. While batteries are reliable and comparably safe - they are far from being cheap. And energy transportation with batteries would be very costly it itself, since the energy density of batteries is around 100 times lower than the density of fossil fuel [4]. Moreover batteries take their time to get loaded. This might be no issue in large scale energy production but surely is an issue if you want to use batteries for transportation. It is the reason why electric cars can only serve a niche. They are only a solution for people who are driving short distances and are able to recharge their car over night. The latter will hardly become available for people living in the city rapidly. And even if - how is the energy wandering transferred into the car’s battery at night, when the owner is sleeping and the sun is not shining going to be produced? For a long time, the answer will probably be “from a nuclear power plant” or “from a coal power plant”. 

Economy and Moral

It is often assumed - and I did assume this as well several times in this article already - that a solution for our energy problem lies only in a economically sensible solution. This though, surely is not obvious or self-evident. I don’t even claim it to be the truth. But if a solution is possible that also is an economically preferable option - this makes things a lot easier. Because then we as society are not required to find consensus about what our values are. We don’t need to find compromises for all the different stakeholders. And we don’t loose a lot of time doing so. Having the discussion leads to the ultimate question of prioritization. What is more important for us - having relatively cheap and comfortable transportation? Or preventing the sea levels to rise? Is it more important to be able to afford at least the food you like - even if the times are tough - or is it more important that people in other regions of the world don’t die from starvation due to the horrible effects of climate change for their agriculture? Is it more important to lead a good life now or is it more important to make a good life four your children and grandchildren possible?

Tax systems are not only very complex in itself, they also have direct impact on people’s lives. Applying change by force, for example by increasing the tax for CO₂ emissions, comes always with the risk of not only decreasing comfort but changing society disruptively. A single action, such as raising CO₂ emission tax is no solution – and also not very popular due to increasing consumer prices. While it is no problem for people in well-paid jobs to spend 2% more on consumer goods, this is a very significant increase for a middle class family. Therefore, to keep the tax system in balance, it would be necessary, do adjust other taxes. 

An argument pro- CO₂ taxes often raised by activists is, that Sweden is raising a CO₂ emission tax since 1991 and their economy grew since then. In this discussion it is often overseen, that Sweden introduced a large-scale tax reform at the same time, reducing or terminating property taxes, capital taxes and income taxes [12]. Since then, the tax structure in Sweden changed significantly: people with lower incomes were taxed inadequately high and people and corporations with high incomes inadequately low. As consequence, despite Sweden being still one of the most equal OECD countries, the surge of income inequality since the early 1990′s was the largest among all OECD countries [14]. It could be concluded, that the reform was just a camouflage for neo-liberalist ideas. Whether this is true or not, seeing the result of the reform, the conclusion cannot be, that a general GDP increase always leads to a proportional increase in wealth of the majority of the population. This leads to the question, whether GDP is actually a proper indicator of wealth for a country. But this question I want to reserve for another article. Countries are very different in their economies so that only because a CO₂ worked for Sweden, this doesn’t mean, that this model is applicable for any other country - especially since countries such as Germany already have implemented the neo-liberal ideas in the early 2000’s [16] and there is not so much room for creating even more inequality without raising social problems. 

Speaking about Germany: another thing they tried were subsidies. If you would build a wind turbine, you’d get a guaranteed energy price, high above the market level. But there is one caveat: The subsidy expires for many facility in 2021. But the great subsidies lead to not only enormous costs for network operators, who are forced to connect every plant as fast as possible, also customers have to pay an additional price in form of an energy tax. Plants were built in places, where it is economically complete nonsense: the maintenance cost is often higher than the regular (non-subsidized) market price could cover. This leads to the situation that fully functioning turbines are facing their end in 2021 - torn down only after a few years of operation. This is a perfect example of how such a thing as subsidies can go sideways if nobody properly things through it - or people who think through it only think about themselves. Subsides are no bad thing per se - but they require a lot of foresight and precaution to be established in a way they do any good at all. If established without precaution, they in fact do a lot more harm than good.

Societies are complex things you don’t want to change disruptively without completely understanding what implications it might have. Pulling one string and hoping the best, watching what happens seems to be not the cleverest idea given, that the system that is played with holds people who try to live within it. Changes must be applied with caution and slowly enough for society to adopt to them and also to watch for side-effects and possibly required course-corrections. Lowering the living standard drastically can only be the last-resort option since it would destabilize society and probably do more harm than good. However, if no economically sensible solution can be found and technological options turn out to be exhausted something like a significant CO₂ emission tax, which exceeds the positive effect of lowered other taxes, is on the table - but not without thoroughly looking at the side-effects this might have.

LOHC, Cyanobacteria and solar-thermal plants - The Future?

A few years ago one technology seemed to make the race: Hydrogen. Hydrogen has an enormous energy density of 120 MJ/Kg, which is around 2.5 times as much as gasoline [4][5], is easy to produce and burning it just emits vaporized water. What a solution! Unfortunately Hydrogen is also terribly hard to store. It can only be stored under very high pressure or under very low temperature, while tank insulation needs to be as good as possible and permanent cooling is required, consuming energy constantly just for storage. While the effect of vaporization of liquid Hydrogen can be used in Hydrogen transportation, for example in vessels carrying the Hydrogen while using the vaporizing Hydrogen as fuel, this behavior is rather undesirable in semi-permanent or buffer storage.  Also storing compressed Hydrogen comes with its own flaws: producing the high pressure required for storage requires a lot of energy in itself. Compressed Hydrogen requires around 2.1% of the energy content [6]. In addition, the energy of Hydrogen density by volume is a lot lower than the density of gasoline.

Another argument against Hydrogen is often its explosiveness. And indeed, Hydrogen and Oxygen are a very explosive mixture. But assuming, that a Hydrogen tank leaks (for whatever reason) or is ruptured, for example in an accident, and the leaking gas ignites, a hydrogen flame would burn out relatively quickly and also, very contrary from ignition of fossil fuel, relatively far from the tank itself. Car manufacturers as Toyota have exercised several tests and extensive studies, coming to the conclusion, that Hydrogen is not more or less dangerous than any other power source (this also includes Lithium batteries, which impose a risk, too, since they are highly flammable and ignite in contact with Oxygen). In addition, the U.S. National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration have performed their own studies and find: 

Hydrogen-fueled vehicles (HFVs) offer the promise of providing safe, clean, and efficient transportation in a setting of rising fuel prices and tightening environmental regulations. 

Analysis of Published Hydrogen Vehicle Safety Research, U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration,  DOT HS 811 267,  February 2010

But despite the fact, that Hydrogen in itself and with traditional technology is already a promising solution, scientists were able to improve it significantly. Not only did they solve the storage issue, they also managed to make Hydrogen hardly inflammable. This is done by storing the Hydrogen in some kind of chemical “carrier” liquid. Among other solutions, this technique, called Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHC), seems to be one of the most promising currently researched solutions. Another solution, which is in very early development state and rather costly could be a nano material. This is especially interesting for aviation, because airplanes rely on being a lot lighter at landing than at departure - where LOHC would be a problem, since it would not change it’s weight significantly while Hydrogen is extracted and consumed.

Not only is solar cell technology advancing rapidly, with increasingly higher efficiency and lower production cost [7], there also are other promising other approaches on the rise, which include using bacteria [8] or thermo-solar power plants [9] to produce Hydrogen directly.

There is just one little caveat, that needs to be resolved: Hydrogen cannot be simply produced by the Sun’s radiation. Water is required to extract the Hydrogen molecules from it. And while aforementioned countries are well-known for their nice weather, they surely are not blessed with easily-accessible, limitless amounts of water. This is why a reasonable solution can only include the usage of Ocean-Water - while the facility needs to be designed in a way it can deal with the salt within Ocean Water without the need of desalination. Ideally, engineers would find a way derive Hydrogen directly from salt water. And indeed, researchers of Stanford University seem to have found a way, at least for the traditional way of producing Hydrogen indirectly via electrolysis, tackling the problem of corrosion via  for tackling corrosion [10].

This however does not mean, that LOHC, the Perowskit cell, Cyanobacteria or solar-thermal power plants are the ONLY solutions for the challenges we’re facing. It rather are possible fits for the missing pieces in the puzzle of future energy solutions. While we know pretty well, how we can serve the base level of power demand with renewable sources, the question always was how to deal with peak demand, demand in remote regions or demand in transportation. For all these questions, Hydrogen, possibly in combination with storage technology such as LOHC, is a very promising answer.

Summary & Conclusion

Thinking about the next steps required, the topic becomes a little bit more complex, since it is not only about CO₂ and climate, but rather about which ways we go as societies. But unfortunately, just pulling one string and hoping for the best is not going to work, so significant change (though implemented step-wise and thoroughly thought-through) is necessary to go with sufficient pace in the climate issue. I’m touching very complex topics, where each probably is worth its own article and I might will write some in the future. But I want to end with an overview of the challenges we face – and the opportunity we have.

Countries should...

 Create a sensible (and simple!) system of taxation of CO₂ while lowering other taxes (or rather bringing them back to their original pre-neo-liberalism-level). Preferably this would be consumption taxes such as VAT for consumers and power taxes for companies and ideally this would be done on an international level. In addition, increasing property and capital taxes (or implement the much discussed and always prevented financial transaction tax, which would have even other positive effects) would be necessary to close the tax gap

Invest in

Power grid infrastructure (privatized grid infrastructure should in this step be taken back by the government, since there is simply no way private companies could do this fast enough or without abusing gaps and mistakes in laws intending to incentive them)

Research of future technology

Negotiate with countries with enough natural resources (such as solar radiation) and start working globally together with companies and universities to create a working model of energy production and transportation

Prohibit construction of fossil or nuclear power plants in the future

References

[1] “CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate" -- D. Royer et. al., GSA Today, March 2004 - https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/14/3/pdf/i1052-5173-14-3-4.pdf

[2] "CO₂ and other Greenhouse Gas Emissions" -- Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, 2019 - https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions

[3] "World Population Growth" -- Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, 2019 - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-density-3?time=1500..2100&country=DEU+LBY

[4] “Has the Battery Bubble Burst?” --  Fred Schlachter, September 2012 - https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201208/backpage.cfm

[5] http://brucelin.ca/scooters/thumb.html

[6] “Prospects for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells” --  International Energy Agency, 2005 --��https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264109582-en

[7] “Water photolysis at 12.3% efficiency via perovskite photovoltaics and Earth-abundant catalysts” -- Luo et. al. Science, 26 Sep 2014 - Vol. 345, Issue 6204, pp. 1593-1596 DOI: 10.1126/science.1258307

[8] “Recombinant cyanobacteria as tools for asymmetric C=C bond reduction fueled by biocatalytic water oxidation“ -- K. Köninger et. al., Angewandte Chemie, 2016 - DOI: 10.1002/anie.201601200R201601201

[9] “ HYDROSOL-PLANT” -- https://www.dlr.de/sf/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-9315/22259_read-51105/

[10] “Researchers create hydrogen fuel from seawater“ -- Stanford University, ScienceDaily, 18 March 2019 - www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190318151726.htm

[11] https://energyvault.ch/

[14] "OECD Income inequality data update: Sweden” -- OECD, January 2015 - https://www.oecd.org/sweden/OECD-Income-Inequality-Sweden.pdf

[16] “Explaining Rising Income Inequality in Germany” --  Kai Schmid and Ulrike Stein, September 2013 - SOEPpaper No. 592. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2339128 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2339128 

[pope-francis-quotes]

7th May >> (@ZenitEnglish By Deborah Castellano Lubov) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis: ‘You Are Rightly Proud of This Great Woman,’ Pope Francis Tells Authorities in Birth Country of St Mother Teresa. Pope Francis Underscores to Civil Authorities & Diplomatic Corps That This Marks ‘1st Time Successor of Apostle Peter Has Come to Republic of North Macedonia’ (Full Text)

‘You are rightly proud of this great woman.’

Pope Francis stressed this during his one day visit to North Macedonia, on May 7, 2019, when addressing members of the diplomatic corps and civil authorities, in Skopje, the city of birth of Saint Mother Teresa, during his apostolic journey to Bulgaria and North Macedonia 5th - 7th May 2019.

Today’s one day visit to North Macedonia, marks the first visit ever by a Roman Pontiff to the country, where Mother Teresa was born.

In this context, Francis said he wished “to pay homage in a very special way to one of your illustrious fellow-citizens, who, moved by the love of God, made love of neighbour the supreme law of her life,” who “won the admiration of the whole world and pioneered a specific and radical way of devoting one’s life to the service of the abandoned, the discarded, and the poorest of the poor.”

“I am naturally referring to the woman universally known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta,” he stated. Born in 1910 in a suburb of Skopje with the name of Anjezë Gonxha Bojaxhiu, Francis recalled that she carried out her apostolate of humble and complete self-giving in India and, through her Sisters, reached out to the most varied geographical and existential peripheries.

The Holy Father expressed his delight in being able to, today, to be able to pause in prayer at the memorial dedicated to her, built on the site of the Church of the Sacred Heart, where she was baptized.

“You are rightly proud of this great woman. I urge you to continue to work in a spirit of commitment, dedication and hope, so that the sons and daughters of this land, following her example, can recognize, attain and fully develop the vocation that God has envisaged for them.”

Historic 1st

“This is the first time that the Successor of the Apostle Peter has come to the Republic of North Macedonia,” Pope Francis also said, saying he was happy to do so on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, which occurred a few years after the country became independent in September 1991.

Pope Francis concluded, praying: “May God protect and bless North Macedonia, preserve it in concord, and grant it prosperity and joy!”

Below is the Vatican-provided full text of the Pope’s address:

***

Mr President,

Mr Prime Minister,

Honourable Members of the Diplomatic Corps,

Distinguished Civil and Religious Authorities,

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am very grateful to the President for his kind words of welcome and for the gracious invitation to visit North Macedonia that he, together with the Prime Minister, extended to me.

I also thank the representatives of the other religious communities present among us. I offer a warm greeting to the Catholic community, represented here by the Bishop of Skopje and Eparch of the Eparchy of Blessed Virgin Mary of the Assumption in Strumica-Skopje, which is an active and integral part of your society, sharing fully in the joys, concerns and daily life of your people.

This is the first time that the Successor of the Apostle Peter has come to the Republic of North Macedonia. I am happy to do so on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, which occurred a few years after the country became independent in September 1991.

Your land, a bridge between East and West and a meeting-point for numerous cultural currents, embodies many of the distinctive marks of this region. With the elegant testimonies of its Byzantine and Ottoman past, its lofty mountain fortresses and the splendid iconostases of its ancient churches, which speak of a Christian presence dating back to apostolic times, North Macedonia reflects all the depth and richness of its millennial culture. But allow me to say that these great cultural treasures are themselves only a reflection of your more precious patrimony: the multiethnic and multi-religious countenance of your people, the legacy of a rich and, indeed, complex history of relationships forged over the course of centuries.

This crucible of cultures and ethnic and religious identities has resulted in a peaceful and enduring coexistence in which those individual identities have found expression and developed without rejecting, dominating or discriminating against others. They have thus given rise to a fabric of relationships and interactions that can serve as an example and a point of reference for a serene and fraternal communal life marked by diversity and reciprocal respect.

These particular features are also highly significant for increased integration with the nations of Europe. It is my hope that this integration will develop in a way that is beneficial for the entire region of the Western Balkans, with unfailing respect for diversity and for fundamental rights.

Here, in fact, the different religious identities of Orthodox, Catholics, other Christians, Muslims and Jews, and the ethnic differences between Macedonians, Albanians, Serbs, Croats, and persons of other backgrounds, have created a mosaic in which every piece is essential for the uniqueness and beauty of the whole. That beauty will become all the more evident to the extent that you succeed in passing it on and planting it in the hearts of the coming generation.

Every effort made to enable the diverse religious expressions and the different ethnic groups to find a common ground of understanding and respect for the dignity of every human person, and consequently the guarantee of fundamental freedoms, will surely prove fruitful. Indeed, those efforts will serve as the necessary seedbed for a future of peace and prosperity.

I would also like to acknowledge the generous efforts made by your Republic – both by the State authorities themselves and with the valued contribution of various international Agencies, the Red Cross, Caritas and several non-governmental organizations – to welcome and provide assistance to the great number of migrants and refugees coming from different Middle Eastern countries. Fleeing from war or from conditions of dire poverty often caused precisely by grave outbreaks of violence, in the years 2015 and 2016, they crossed your borders, headed for the most part towards northern and western Europe. With you, they found a secure haven. The ready solidarity offered to those in such great need – people who had left behind so many of their dear ones, to say nothing of their homes, their work and their homeland – does you honour. It says something about the soul of this people that, having itself experienced great privations, you recognize in solidarity and in the sharing of goods the route to all authentic development. It is my hope that you will cherish the chain of solidarity that emerged from that emergency, and thus support all volunteer efforts to meet the many different forms of hardship and need.

I wish likewise to pay homage in a very special way to one of your illustrious fellow-citizens, who, moved by the love of God, made love of neighbour the supreme law of her life. She won the admiration of the whole world and pioneered a specific and radical way of devoting one’s life to the service of the abandoned, the discarded, and the poorest of the poor. I am naturally referring to the woman universally known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Born in 1910 in a suburb of Skopje with the name of Anjezë Gonxha Bojaxhiu, she carried out her apostolate of humble and complete self-giving in India and, through her Sisters, reached out to the most varied geographical and existential peripheries. I am pleased that I will shortly be able to pause in prayer at the Memorial dedicated to her, built on the site of the Church of the Sacred Heart, where she was baptized.

You are rightly proud of this great woman. I urge you to continue to work in a spirit of commitment, dedication and hope, so that the sons and daughters of this land, following her example, can recognize, attain and fully develop the vocation that God has envisaged for them.

Mr President,

From the time that North Macedonia gained its independence, the Holy See has closely followed the steps that this country has taken to advance dialogue and understanding between the civil authorities and religious confessions.

Today, God’s providence offers me the chance to demonstrate personally this closeness and to express gratitude as well for the yearly visit made to the Vatican by an official Delegation of yours on the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius. I encourage you to persevere with confidence along the path you have taken, in order to make your country a beacon of peace, acceptance and fruitful integration between cultures, religions and peoples. Drawing from their respective identities and the vitality of their cultural and civil life, they will thus be able to build a common destiny in openness to the enrichment that each has to offer.

May God protect and bless North Macedonia, preserve it in concord, and grant it prosperity and joy!

© Libreria Editrice Vatican

7th MAY 2019 11:34PAPAL TRIPS

[organiclifestylemagazine]

Nurses Against Circumcision

Childbirth is miraculous, beautiful, traumatic, and overwhelming, all at the same time, for both the baby and the mother. But for many children born today, squeezing through the birth canal is the easy part. Soon after birth, males born to North American women routinely face amputation of a fully functioning, healthy organ – the foreskin.

Circumcision is so commonplace in North America, it has long been considered the norm. The World Health Organization estimates the male circumcision rate in the U.S. to be 76% to 92%, while the rates in most of the Western European countries are less than 20%. Globally, more than 80% of the world’s men are left intact. An intact penis is not rare – an intact penis is the norm.

Medical professionals tell parents that circumcision is relatively painless, just a snip and it is over. Nothing could be further from the truth. Aside from the rare but possible complications, which include mutilation of the penis or death, the practice of circumcision is painful and traumatic.

The following nurses have come forward to share their knowledge and experience, to tell the truth about this practice.

Related: Circumcision Linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Nicole, A Former Nursing Student

A few years ago, I began an OB/GYN hospital clinical as a student nurse. One day, I was enlisted to attend a ‘routine circumcision.

… I did not anticipate the lurching sensation that gripped my heart as I looked upon that baby. He was laying strapped down to a table, so small and new – pure and innocent – trusting – all alone – no defenses.

I walked toward the baby and wanted to take him off the table and shelter him – to tell him that it would be okay, that nobody would hurt him on my watch.

Then in walked the doctor. Loud. Obnoxious. Joking with his assistant. As if he was about to perform a 10-minute oil change.

Not once did he talk to this little baby. I am not sure he even looked at him – really looked at him.

Rather, he reached for his cold metal instruments and then reached out for his object of mutilation: this sweet newborn’s perfect, unharmed, intact penis.

I recall this little baby boy’s screams of pain and terror – his small lungs barely able to keep up with his cries and gasps for breath.

I turned in horror as I saw the doctor forcefully rip and pull the baby’s foreskin up and around a metal object.

Then out came the knife. Cut. Cut. Cut. Screaming. Blood.

I stood next to the baby and said, “You’re almost done sweetie. Almost done. There, done.”

Then came the words from the doctor, as that son-of-a-b***h dangled this little baby’s foreskin in midair and playfully asked, “Anybody care to go fishing?”

My tongue lodged in my throat.

I felt like I was about to vomit.

I restrained myself. It was now my duty to take the infant back to the nursery for “observation.”

… Back in the newborn nursery, rather than observing, I cradled the infant. I held him and whispered comforting words as if he were my own. I’ll never forget those new little eyes watch me amid his haze. He knew I cared about him. He knew he was safe in my arms. He knew that I was going to take him to his mommy. But, deep in his little heart, at some level, I know he wondered where his mommy was. While he lay there mutilated in a level of agony that we cannot imagine, in what was supposed to be a safe and welcoming environment after his birth, where was his mommy?

Related: Religious Reasons Not To Circumcise

Betty, RN

We are saying what is happening, because the male myth is, “Well, I was circumcised and I am fine, and my son was circumcised and he’s fine.”

But we’re saying, “Maybe you were circumcised, but it wasn’t fine, because we were there, and we saw what happened. It’s the same thing with your baby. We were there, and we saw it. It was not fine.”

… That is the next step, for the grown men to come forward. It’s happening now. There is a powerful coalition forming. We women are coming out as mothers and as witnesses to this brutal sexual assault. Women who have been circumcised in Africa are coming forward, too. We’re all saying this isn’t okay.

Mary, RN

We just wanted people to stop hurting babies. In 1992, we started a petition. Before that, I think we all had the sense that something was wrong, but we had never communicated about it. Everything I’d read said circumcision isn’t a necessary thing to do, from a medical or health standpoint. So why are we doing it? You take a newborn baby, strap him down to a board, and cut on him. It’s obviously painful!

Circumcision became so intolerable that five of us wrote a letter saying that ethically we could no longer assist. When we were getting ready to present the letter, other nurses came out of the woodwork and asked to sign it. Out of about 50 nurses, 24 signed it.

Now we’re conscientious objectors, but it’s still going on. We can still hear it.

… Behind closed doors, you can hear the baby screaming. You know exactly what part of the operation is happening by how the screams are.

Mary-Rose, RN

My dreams were about taking the babies and strapping them down, participating in the whole thing, and having the babies say to me, “Why are you doing this? You were just welcoming me, and now you’re torturing me. Why, why, why?”

I’ve watched doctors taking more foreskin than they should. When there’s too much bleeding, they burn the wound with silver nitrate so that the penis looks like it’s been burned with a cigarette. Then the doctor will tell us to go tell the mother that this is what it’s supposed to look like.

Related: Celebrities Against Circumcision

Chris, RN

I worked with countless intact men, mostly European immigrants in Chicago: Poles, Serbs, Lithuanians, etc. Younger men and older men. Men who could walk to the bathroom and men who constantly soiled themselves. Men who had indwelling Foley catheters and men who didn’t. Men who were impeccably clean and men who were homeless. Men who were healthy and men who were critically ill and severely immunocompromised. Never once did I encounter an adult male patient who had ever had a medical problem due to being intact.

… In fact, female patients are far more prone to fungal and bacterial genitourinary infections than male patients are—yeast infections, urinary tract infections, abscesses, etc. And we know that this is largely due not only to their shorter urethra, but also to their labial folds—their “excess” skin. Why don’t we cut that off? Why isn’t female circumcision considered for infection prophylaxis? That’s how we think of male circumcision. Except the reality is that, as with male patients, the “benefit” of circumcision would be negligible, because the number of serious complications with women staying “uncircumcised” is extremely minor.

So as it stands, we have two sons who are intact. One is almost five years old and the other is nearly three. They’ve never had a problem. During diapering they required less care and bother than our daughters did. And now, during bathing, we don’t retract or mess with their prepuce (foreskin).

They’re clean. They’re fine.

I suspect that someday they’ll be like my patients were: ninety years old and intact—with no regrets.

Related: Circumcision, the Primal Cut – A Human Rights Violation

Patricia, RN

I am a neonatal nurse practitioner with over 42 years of experience in maternal newborn health. I have seen many circumcisions, and I have been appalled at the pain that they have caused.

… In my experience as a neonatal nurse, I know that circumcisions are painful, that little boys will cry for days after the procedure. They need to be medicated with Tylenol. They need to have injections at the penile nerve to try to prevent the pain, but it doesn’t completely eliminate it. I have seen excessive bleeding after the procedure. I’ve seen disfigurement. I believe that little boys are made the way they are because it’s absolutely fine to be intact. If there was a problem with foreskin, nature would not have put it there. So let little boys decide when and if they want to be circumcised. But parents, please spare your child the pain and unnecessary surgery that is not without risk. Just think about it.

I have seen, not loss of the entire penis but definitely disfigurement, and definitely excessive bleeding that has required intervention by GU specialists, suturing. Complications occur frequently.

…When babies are born, one of the first developmental tasks is to learn to trust the world, which means being in the comforting arms of their mother and father. To subject them in the first couple of days after birth to this terribly painful procedure just seems like the wrong way to start life. But the bottom line is: it is not necessary.

Jacqueline Maire, RN

I am a retired nurse in France as well as in British Columbia, a mother, a grandmother, and today I really want to speak specifically to female circumcisers, those who cut the penis of little boys. I have questions. What is your excuse? Were you at one point molested by a male in your youth that makes you now take revenge on any penis whatsoever and whatever the age of the victim, in this case, a defenseless little boy? Did you ever have an orgasm? And I’m not talking while you’re making love, I’m just talking about sex. Never had an orgasm with an intact male and discovered the wonders and the perfection of the act? Well. I feel sorry for you, but this is not an excuse to take revenge on defenseless children, baby boys mostly and I don’t understand how you can do that without being ashamed of yourself. Well, it’s just excuses, or medical excuses, or plain and simple fallacies. I feel sorry for you, but I also feel ashamed in the name of womanhood. You don’t respect your Hippocratic oath if you even know what it’s all about. Well, I’ll remind you it’s first “do no harm.” You’re just plain bitches, and I’m not insulting the female dog there. You are very mean, and I’m disgusted.

Related: 10 Circumcision Myths – Let’s Get the Facts Straight 

Dolores Sangiuliano, RN

I’m a registered nurse, and we have an ethical code, the AMA Code of Ethics for Nurses, and it states very clearly that we are charged with the duty to protect our vulnerable patients. If we’re not protecting our vulnerable patients, then our license isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. If anybody is vulnerable, it’s a newborn baby. You know, a child with no voice, and that’s why I carry this sign: “I will not do anything evil or malicious and I will not knowingly… assist in malpractice”.

Infant circumcision is maleficence and malpractice. It’s totally unethical. Proxy consent is only valid for a procedure. In other words, parents can give consent for a procedure for their child. That’s proxy consent in a case of treatment or diagnosis, and circumcision is neither. You’re not treating a disease, and you’re not trying to diagnose an illness. So it just flies in the face of everything we know to be ethical, right, and moral. And I believe that forced genital cutting, all forced genital cutting, is always wrong. It should be consented to, fully informed consent, and that fully informed consent needs to include what you’re cutting off the penis, the value of the foreskin, and the consequences of changing the structure from a mobile, fluid unit to this dowel like structure, and that needs to be included. Ethical nurses educate their patients. Ethical nurses teach intact care, and ethical nurses don’t participate in forced genital cutting ever.

A woman from Egypt came up to us and she said,” I totally agree with you. Female circumcision happens in our country all the time, and it’s illegal but it still goes on. And it’s our cultural shame.” And she said, “I totally understand you having your cultural shame for doing this and it is the same thing.” And we just had a total agreement conversation about, and it doesn’t matter the varying degrees. We don’t need to compare the varying degrees of harm. Because a lot of people say female circumcision is much worse. But right out of her mouth she said, “But no, it’s the same. To the person having it done, it’s the same.” That was really good.

A Danish woman came and said, during her college days, she came to the United States and had a little bit of fun one season and she had sex with an American man. She was horrified because she didn’t know what had happened to him. She thought he had been in some sort of industrial accident. She didn’t know how to ask him or how to approach it. So that was an interesting tale, and I really appreciated the term industrial accident in a new way cause this is an industry, the medical industry. It’s not so accidental. Although their intention is to say that they’ve improved our males, they, perhaps by accident, devastated us and devastated so many men sexually and in their souls.

Kira Antinuk RN

Feminism, at its best, encourages me to think broadly and critically about the potentially harmful effects of gender constructions on all people. To me, feminism should be more than a narrow interest group of women who care only about women’s issues or women’s rights. My feminism is bigger than that. I believe that feminism can help us to identify and challenge discourses and practices that engender all of us.

… Upon review in 2009, scholars Marie Fox and Michael Thompson found that most feminists’ considerations of female genital cutting either omit to consider male genital cutting altogether or deem it a matter of little ethical or legal concern. Why might this be? So biomedical ethicist Dena Davis observed that the very use of the term “circumcision” carries vaguely medical connotations and serves to normalize the practice of male genital cutting.

Conversely, it’s worth noting, how the term female circumcision was essentially erased from academic, legal, and to some extent popular discourse following the World Health Organization’s re-designation of the practice as FGM or female genital mutilation in 1990. The WHO’s justification was that the new terminology carried stronger moral weight. So, terminology then, as well as the differential constructions of the practices themselves seems to protect male genital cutting from the critical scrutiny that other practices like female genital cutting attract.

Now it seems pretty clear to me, that this asymmetry extends to the very different understandings of genitalia and human tissue that we all have. Here in the West, for example, we’re heavily invested in the clitoris to the extent, that its excision results in what Canadian anthropologist Janice Body referred to as “serious personal diminishment.” Janice Body went on to say, “We customarily amputate babies’ foreskins, not with some controversy, but little alarm. Yet global censure of these practices is scarcely comparable to that level of female circumcision. Is it because these excisions are performed on boys and only girls and women figure as victims in our cultural lexicon?”

Sophia Murdock, RN

After we had taken the newborn back to the “circ room” in the nursery, I watched the nurse gather the necessary supplies, place him on a plastic board [a circumstraint], and secure his arms and legs with Velcro straps. He started crying as his tiny and delicate body was positioned onto the board, and I instantly felt uncomfortable and disturbed seeing this helpless newborn with his limbs extended in such an unnatural position, against his will. My instincts wanted to unstrap him, pick him up, and comfort and protect him. I felt an intense sensation of apprehension and dread about what would be done to him. When the doctor entered the room, my body froze, my stomach dropped, and my chest tightened.

This precious baby was an actual person. He was a 2-day-old boy named Landon, but the doctor barely acknowledged him before administering an injection of lidocaine into his penis.

Instantly, Landon began to let out a horrifying cry. It was a sound that is not normally ever heard in nature because this trauma is so far outside of the normal range of experiences and expectations for a newborn.

The doctor, perhaps sensing how horrified I was, tried to assure me that the baby was crying because he didn’t like being strapped onto the board. He began the circumcision procedure right away, barely giving the anesthetic any time to take effect.

Landon’s cries became even more intense, something I hadn’t imagined was possible. It seemed as if his lungs were unable to keep up with his screams and desperate attempts to maintain his respirations.

Seeing how nonchalant everyone in the room was about Landon’s obvious distress was one of the most chilling and harrowing things I had ever witnessed. I honestly don’t remember the actual procedure, even though the doctor was explaining it to me. I can’t recall a word he said during or after because I wasn’t able to focus on anything but Landon’s screams and why no one seemed to care. I only remember that the nurse attempted to give him a pacifier with glucose/fructose at some point.

Landon was “sleeping” by the end of the circumcision, but I knew it was from exhaustion and defeat. I had watched as his fragile, desperate, and immobilized body struggled and resisted until it couldn’t do so anymore and gave up.

Seeing this happen made me feel completely sick to my stomach, and I told myself that I would absolutely refuse to watch another circumcision if the opportunity presented itself again. I was unable to stop thinking about what I saw and heard…

The sounds that I heard come from Landon as he screamed and cried out still haunt me to this day.

Darlene Owen, RN

The truth about circumcision is that it is not medically necessary. It is not cleaner. Studies have proven again and again that it has no direct relation on cancer etc. as was once thought. It is also a very painful procedure. The baby does feel it, experience it.

There have been studies that demonstrate actual MRI changes within an infant’s brain after a circumcision has been performed.

As for those who claim “it looks better”, my response is, “Really? Based on whose decision?” A penis with a foreskin is how the penis is��supposed to look. The foreskin has a function. It provides protection of the very sensitive glans (head) of the penis, and it provides ease during intercourse. During intercourse, the penis moves within its foreskin, preventing rubbing or friction of the vagina, which makes intercourse far more pleasurable for both the man and woman.

Many people will respond in outrage over female circumcision, yet still consider circumcision of males “the norm.”

Many parents aren’t properly informed of the procedure. It IS a very serious procedure with very many real risks involved. In my experience as a post-partum nurse, many parents who were led to believe it was a “minor” procedure and observed their sons’ circumcision, were sickened just as I was at the actual pain and distress it caused their infant. I have had many patients who, after witnessing their first son’s circumcision, decided immediately that they would not get any other boys they may have circumcised. Many parents told me that they wished they had known just how painful it would be for their son, that they would not have even considered it if they had known what is actually involved.

As for the argument that many men want their son to look like them, my answer is, “Why?” It is a stupid argument. Why can’t parents simply teach their son that their son’s penis is “normal and healthy”, that “Daddy had his normal, healthy functioning skin of his penis removed surgically, unnecessarily.” I also always say to those people, “Really? Well, watch an actual circumcision, and see if you still feel that way afterwards.” I have yet to see any parent watch a video, or view an actual circumcision procedure, who is not completely against the idea afterwards.

An uncircumcised penis is very easy to keep clean. There is no special care required. The saying goes, “Clean only what is seen.”

As for worrying about the son’s foreskin not retracting, and needing a circumcision later in life, that actually only occurs in a very, very small number of males. However, even if the male does need the surgery later in life, he will be put to sleep for the procedure and will not feel it. He will also be managed comfortably with pain medication. A newborn doesn’t have any of those benefits. A newborn is awake for it, will feel it, and doesn’t receive any pain medication.

Ask any grown male if he’d get his penis circumcised while awake, with no freezing, and I guarantee you’d hear a very loud resounding “NO!” Yet, many men will put their newborn son through it. Doesn’t make much sense does it?

I realize that at one time it was considered the norm. Now, however, with all of the education about it, I cannot understand why parents still proceed to put their tiny little newborn son through such a horrific experience.

I am proud to say that I am an intactivist and the proud mom of two gorgeous, healthy, intact boys.

Related: Doctors Against Vaccines – Hear From Those Who Have Done the Research

Andrew, RN

I am a registered nurse. I work at a DC hospital. It’s not part of my current job, but when I was in nursing school, I witnessed several circumcisions as part of my rotation, and I was interested in it because personally, I had developed an opposition to circumcision.

As an adult, I never had to be part of that decision not having a child. But I knew that if I did, it was one that I would want to make. And when I had the opportunity, I asked a doctor whom I watched perform it if he thought it was medically necessary because in my education, it is no longer stated, there is no longer a valid medical claim being made in the literature including in my nursing textbooks and so how can you justify it? And he said that he doesn’t personally justify it. He just knows that for the time being, it will continue to be done and he wants it done humanely and as well as possible. And he said “And I do it well” And indeed, he seemed to be proficient in it. I then asked him if he had noticed that the husband of the couple who had just had it done had seemed like he had his doubts and he said, “Yeah, I noticed that too”. “Do you think someone should have discussed it further with him because he clearly didn’t support the decision.” And then he said that that happens all the time, that one of the two of the couple want that decision made and the other go along with it.

My nurse’s perspective is that part of our job as an educator is to give more information, and so that would have been a great opportunity for someone to give that couple more information about whatever concerns the mother had that made her think that circumcision was the best decision. She seemed actually like she had some ill-conceived notions about the difficulty of keeping it clean, things that I knew that medically were not actually accurate. I actually thought at that time that I saw an opportunity for nurses to step in and educate her, to help and not tell the couple what they should do, but make sure they had the best information possible to make a decision, that again, is no longer being promoted clearly on the literature as medically necessary, including in my textbooks, and this was just last year.

Carole Alley, RN

And after the strap down and tie, they’re still screaming. The screaming lasts the entire time. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a baby scream like that. It’s not a regular cry. It’s not a cry of hunger or a cry of wanting to be hugged or a cry of having a wet diaper. This is a cry of incredible pain. I mean, it goes right through your body. Every cell in your body responds. And then the child is circumcised. You know, there are two different ways of doing it. Sometimes anesthesia local will be used but for the most part, I’ve never seen babies stop crying, even if that’s given. A lot of the time, it’s not used. More often than not, it’s not used. And then the clamp goes over the baby’s penis and the foreskin is cut off.

Patricia Worth, RN

In my opinion, this is an abuse. There is not enough information out there to convince me that this is medically necessary. And just as I can read through the Old Testament of the Bible, and stoning women to death because they committed adultery, I see as abusive, this “ancient covenant,” I look at it as a well, the human race has done all kinds of things and thought was the best thing at the time, and in retrospect, we can look back and go, blood sacrifice of human beings? This is not right. This is not morally right. This is not ethical. And especially when you’re taking someone who has not consented. Parents can consent all they want. This does not mean the child has consented to this.

Marilyn Milos, RN The Mother of the Intactivist Movement

While working as a nurse in a hospital, she learned about circumcision by assisting doctors during the procedure. The obvious pain and distress felt by the infant prompted Marilyn to research circumcision. Afterwards, she was able to provide parents with all of the facts.

By offering true informed consent, she dramatically cut into her hospitals’ cutting business. She was fired. Undaunted, she went to work saving our sons. She founded a non-profit known as NOCIRC, demonstrating that one person can still make a difference.

Here are her words:

The more we understand what was taken, the more we understand the harm of circumcision, that it is a primal wound, that it does interfere with the maternal-infant bond, that it disturbs breastfeeding and normal sleep patterns. Most importantly, that it undermines the first developmental task, which is to establish trust. And how can that male ever trust again? And I think that’s very hard for a lot of men and why men need to have control and be in control, and their reactions to make themselves more safe.

It was so amazing to me when I worked in a hospital, and my first question would be, “I see—I see that you’re gonna have the baby circumcised, and may I ask why you’ve chosen circumcision for your baby?” And they would say, “Oh, because I’m a Christian.” And I said, “Do you know that there’s 120 references to circumcision in the New Testament, that circumcision is of no value? If you’re a Christian you don’t live by outward signs. You live by faith expressed through love. Christ shed the last—was the last to shed the blood. He was the ultimate blood sacrifice for everybody. We don’t need to do this again.”

Conclusion

The hardest moral dilemmas seem to lie at the crossroads of two or more moral principles. In this instance, the right to religious freedom and the right to bodily integrity are in conflict for some parents. But if we are to uphold the right to bodily integrity for girls regardless of religion (Muslims often circumcise girls), shouldn’t we allow the same protection for boys?

Although religion is a factor, many parents choose circumcision simply because it is considered the norm. Myths about disease and cleanliness add to the confusion. When parents are not given all the facts, they cannot make an informed decision. On average, nurses are poorly equipped to answer their questions about circumcision. They do not educate parents, explaining the 16 functions of the foreskin or teach parents how to care for an intact child. (Nothing! Do not retract the foreskin. It cleans itself!)

Our sons’ genitals are carved apart in the name of healthcare when in actuality the practice is a profit-making enterprise. Circumcisions generate a lot of money for hospitals, while intact penises bring in no money at all. So while it is ethical for a nurse to provide parents with informed consent, it is wholly unprofitable for them to do so.

The truth will win. Circumcision is a profound violation of human rights. This conclusion is inescapable once we begin to think critically about the practice.

Author’s Note:

Male genital mutilation is still legal in all 50 states, and although Marilyn Milos hasn’t yet completely changed the world, she changed mine.

I am the second born of two sons. My older brother was circumcised. I was not.

Before my birth, my mother met a neighbor who had been given literature from NOCIRC. The sharing of this information about the benefits of the foreskin and the dangers and drawbacks of circumcision is the reason I was left intact.

Marilyn Milos bet on the idea that when given all the facts, more parents would make the right decision, and in my case she was spot on. I am intact, my sons are intact, and my nephews are intact.

Marilyn, I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done for me and for my family. You are an inspiration to us all.

Sources

Circumcision- A Male RN’s Perspective: Chris – Dr.Momma.org

Ethical Nurse Refuses to Assist Infant Circumcision: Dolores Sanguiliano – YouTube

Nurses For the Rights of the Child

Nurse Questions Women Who Sexually Mutilate Boys: Jacqueline Maire – YouTube

Registered Nurse Shares Thoughts About Circumcision: Andrew – YouTube

Nurses Against Circumcision was originally published on Organic Lifestyle Magazine

[avaaricee]

My 21 Day Challange Plan

What natural resources or other environmental issues do you want to tackle?

Canada is known throughout the world as the number one country with the most freshwater, but little do people know how wasteful our country can be with this privilege we have been given. I’m going to focus my 21-day challenge on freshwater usage.

Why did you choose these natural resources or environmental issues as being important for you?

The reason I wanted to do this is

Because of how we as a society in Canada waste so much of the freshwater we have on very simple things we think don’t have an effect.

-More than 580 billion liters of drinking water, the equivalent of 236,000 Olympic swimming pools, are being wasted every year by homeowners in the Great Lakes region of Ontario

-3% of the earth's water is fresh. 2.5% of the earth's fresh water is unavailable

-Most people around the world do not have access to safe freshwater: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/access-drinking-water-stacked?country=OWID_WRL~Low+income~Upper-middle+income~High+income~Lower-middle+income~Sub-Saharan+Africa~Central+and+Southern+Asia~North+America+and+Europe~Latin+America+and+the+Caribbean~Western+Asia+and+Northern+Africa

-Most of the world doesn't have water, yet Canada has so much but wastes it:

-One of the few countries with access to freshwater and we waste it

What environmental impact is your lifestyle directly or indirectly causing?

My lifestyle is directly causing anthro, eco and biological issues affecting our Earth on a global scale. The problem is due to Canadians fresh water privileges and availability we have come to abuse our amount of freshwater causing lots of problems such as:

Anthropocentric(Humans central importance)-places where clean water is scarce, overusing or wasting household water limits the availability of it for other communities to use for drinking, cleaning, cooking, or growing—and thus contributes to disease, illness, or agricultural scarcity and starvation.

Biocentric(Earth's organisms central importance.)-species rely on freshwater besides humans as a vital component to their survival. Also, as we divert more freshwater from aquatic environments to supplement agriculture, many plant and animal species are threatened or can become endangered.

Ecocentric(Earth's interactive living and non-living importance)-wasting water while our demand for water increases means that we need to compensate for this lack of freshwater by pulling it out of aquifers or groundwater supplies when the regeneration rate is lower than the extraction rate. unsustainably decreasing long-term water security and availability.

Rivers, lakes and aquifers are drying up or becoming too polluted to use. More than half the world's wetlands have disappeared.

A large amount of water evaporates from the surfaces of oceans, rivers, and lakes every day.

Unless water use is drastically reduced, severe water shortage will affect the entire planet by 2040.

Water wastage leads to water scarcity, which can lead to drought. If drought occurs, there are a number of severe environmental impacts that not only cause irreparable damage to our ecosystems and plant life but to humans, too.

Describe your environmental action plan.

This graph shows what the average middle-class Canadian wastes the most water on, and looking at the graph and reflecting on my own life choices and habits; I’ve come to realize that I am most definitely a contributor to the freshwater wastage issue. I’ve decided for the next 21 days I am going to cut back on my water usage, I will do this by:

having shorter showers, mine average 30 min, I’m going to cut tat in half to about 15 min tops

Wash my clothes only when I have a full load of laundry, sometimes I do my laundry when it's not full when I need a specific item of clothing cleaned

I’m not going to keep the faucet running any longer than 30 seconds under any circumstance, because I don't really have any need to do that to begin with, I just find it's a hassle to turn it on and off again which is super wasteful

What aspects of this environmental action plan do you think you will find most difficult and why?

I will have the most difficulty with the showering time cut in half. I don’t necessarily know how I’m going to wash my entire body and shave when I need to do so, but I’ll figure out a solution.

Also keeping the sinks running out of habit, Because I do it out of habit I may not even notice it is running for long periods of time which I will have difficulty adapting to.

How will you honour the commitment you have made in your action plan? What are the rules you will set for yourself? What will you do when you want to cheat? What will you allow yourself to do and not do?

I will honor my plan by simply following it to the best of my ability. I have thought of a way to keep myself motivated if I fail any of the three criteria I’ve set. Depending on the severity of my breach of commitment I will do various workouts. For example:

- I’m going to set a timer for my showers before I take them and if I happen to turn off the alarm or something I'll have to do squats. I have to do 15 squats for every minute I fail to meet the timed requirements.

-Everytime I catch myself leaving the sink running i have to walk around the block and pick up any garbage I see.

-Every time I wash my clothes I have to clean a room in my house; either bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, etc.

[moodboardinthecloud]

Everything I Say Is True: Poetic Bibliography

https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/art-and-ideas/everything-i-say-is-true-poetic-bibliography/

Performance artist Kite presents her script for Everything I Say Is True, now annotated as part of the Creative AI Lab’s database.

The Oglála Lakȟóta artist, composer and scholar Suzanne Kite (aka Kite) is quick to point out that the groundwork for her contribution to Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not obviously about technology: “I can’t point to specific papers about AI that I’m building my work on top of because I’m not building it on a history of technology. I’m building it on this other history of knowledge.” Kite and others in her network of thinkers are writing a theoretical framework for AI that isn’t just a deviation from existing technological protocols, but a new one altogether, built on Oglála Lakȟóta and other indigenous knowledge systems.

Kite’s pursuit to build an indigenous AI directly confronts prevailing Western anthropocentric ideologies that position humans as dominant over the resources and systems around them and technology as a tool used to solely meet human needs. In Making Kin With the Machines, Kite and her co-authors ask how they might conceive of technologies like AI as kin, with an obligation to situate the ‘computational creations’ of AI in partnership with their wider community.

Critical theories of knowledge inform how we distribute power not only in our personal relationships but ultimately in the technological infrastructure built around us. But critique alone doesn’t leave us with an alternative. Kite works generatively, employing the principles and ethics of Lakȟóta methodology to build new frameworks and technologies.

Her commission for the Creative AI Lab, Everything I Say Is True: Poetic Bibliography takes the form of an annotated script from her 2017 performance, Everything I Say Is True, originally commissioned by the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff. Kite borrows a four-part framework for building collective truth from her grandfather’s sweat lodge ceremonies: first, teaching, then providing evidence, followed by the display of that truth, and finally an accusation to non-believers which introduces critical reflection. Using family ephemera and historical documents she considers truth in relation to Oglála Lakȟóta knowledge systems. These systems in turn signal an ethical method for the development of new advanced technologies.

A. Teaching

When I was 12 I kept a dream journal One night I dreamt it is a sunny day[1] I am in a garden and I look down I see the green grass, the leaves and branches of the trees Below me is a picnic table with an umbrella People sit around it in a circle[2] When I was 14 I went to Ojai with my mother and my uncle to meet my grandfather[3] We sweat and it was intense, lots of lights, lots of medicine[4] I was invited to smoke the pipe but I did not[5] We sat down for lunch around a shaded picnic table but no one ate I looked up and there is a blue bird jumping from tree to tree[6]

Looking down, Trying to get a closer look at us.[7]

Every time you look away I disappear and reappear Look here, I can prove it to you There is a need for constant vigilance, they say FBI calls, they watch Don’t forget COINTELPRO No bullshit, suicide by force is real They set fire to his family’s house during the speech, they say This is a long chain of events, of evidence Manifest destiny, they say[8]

Ogle wakhan kin iyuha kic’unpi They all wore the sacred shirt, they say[9]

How can I think in Lakota if I cannot speak Lakota? How could I have thought in Lakota if I could not have spoken in Lakota?

I’ll teach you some Lakota words I have taught myself Ehánni: always Wihiyayela: time Tohanyan: how long[10] Wowicala: belief Wochekiye: prayer Wakhan: sacred Zintkatho: blue jay Woihanble: dream Wakhangli: lightning

Ay what does this have to do with me? My auntie has to pee outside a gas station They won’t let her ndn mother come inside, It is so cold

B. Evidence

Okay, so. I wanted to share the evidence. How can I be Oglala Lakota? Membership Card? Enrollment documents? What does it mean to make something that is Oglala?[11] This, right now, is a piece of art. How can I make it Oglala?[12] How am I supposed to be Lakota, here? These are Lakota art object. Lakota Flute Lakota Beads[13]

Does making something Oglala require thinking in Lakota? Require wowicala? Belief? Wowicakhe? Truth?[14] If I am Oglala because of location, where am I? Am I in Kyle? Am I in Portland? Am I at my parents’ house? What about events, experience? The Indian Child Welfare Act? The Indian Relocation Act? Counter Intelligence Program?

In Lakota, past and present are much closer together. For example: -ble means “I went/ and I go” and -mni kte- “I will go”. If I think in Lakota, is there a difference between past and present? Time encircles my body on a flat plane, intrinsically connected with space.[15] Time, while appearing to be linear, is a flat circle. If time is collapsed, what has happened is happening NOW.

Maybe the Peltier Trial is happening now.[16] Wanted poster Map of Compound Affidavit of Wilson Bullet casings FBI says COINTELPRO ended in 1971; Still NOW it continues today albeit under other code-names. Memorandum Extremist Matters Referenced Right to continue investigation Investigate all Indians Those Programs are designed to destroy individuals they find objectionable Official lying and disinformation, False charges, Manufacturing evidence, Withholding evidence, Occasional assassination.

Still NOW there is radiation in the water supply. Nitrates and Uranium[17] Resident risk Mine Reclamation Cost

If ‘destiny’ is a “natural” unfolding of events, ‘conspiracy’ is its opposite. ‘Conspiracy’ requires an enemy with a preconceived plot;[18]

But ‘destiny’ is the fulfillment of a natural order. ‘destiny’ requires a beginning point and an end point: Linear time.[19]

Einstein proposed there were two mirrors. Einstein’s two mirrors act as a clock. With a photon bouncing in the in-between. In this model of spacetime,[20] The expanding distance is relativity.[21] Our perspective is faster Light’s perspective is slower. Future is unfolding light photo by light photon Einstein’s mirror, they say.

Are you still with me?

A light cone is the path that a flash of light From a single event Traveling in all directions Takes through spacetime. On a two-dimensional plane, The light from the flash Spreads out in a circle.

These are all the points I ever reach.[22]

All points which are the speed of light away from me at birth.

Speed of light is our limit.[23]

This dark part is everything outside our speed limit Relativity says you must go faster than the speed of light to exit the light cone; To see into the dark. To experience what cannot occur in linear time.[24]

Still now I am a blue bird.[25] Still now buffalo are coming over the hills.[26]

To think in Lakota is for it to be responsibly true for time to cease to be linear[27] For the actions of our past to be unified with the present.

To be eternally responsible for the decisions we make, responsible to ourselves, to our locations, to our communities.

These are decisions.[28] My grandfather constantly tells me to stop thinking.[29] I cannot. I am too indoctrinated.

But I have done the math, and I have designed the models,[30] and I have read the texts, and I have reviewed the articles, and I have come to the most logical conclusion.

This is the shortest distance on the light cone. Most efficient place to exit is NOW.

C. Display

∞ -∞

ehánni, long ago, already

Light cone edge

Linear time

Band separating in winter

Manifest destiny

Bureau of Indian Affairs

Bull Bear to Fort William

Bureau found corrupt

Wovoka Prophecy

Aleta Jo

Indian Relocation Act

Carol Jean[31]

COINTELPRO

Wounded Knee

Fire set

Leonard Peltier in prison

Cynthia Anne

Standing Cloud hears

Suzanne Nicole

blue bird seen[32]

bison appear

Teaching Evidence Display Accusation[33]

D. Accusation

Ah! One of you does not believe!

This conspiracy is an endless one.

They cut off her hands!

You don’t believe me?

I cannot lie.

This is given to me

I am just a conduit.

There is no ending.

Tona akhigle opagipi kin he iyena wochekiya kagapi.

Each time they filled the pipe they make a prayer.

Everything I say is true.[34]

Here I am going to do a magic trick.[35]

The performance of Everything I Say Is True was originally commissioned by the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff, Alberta March 27th, 2017

Poetic Bibliography

[1]

Hélène Wallaert, “Beads and a Vision: Waking Dreams and Induced Dreams as a Source of Knowledge for Beadwork Making. An Ethnographic Account from Sioux Country.”, Plains Anthropologist.

The calculation of all the stars Kite could have reached so far in her lifetime if she was a flash of light at the moment of birth

[erwinsoeyanto]

Self-awareness is how you consciously know and understand your own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

What does self-awareness mean? In practical terms self-awareness means:

Looking for patterns in our thinking as we seek to     understand and interpret specifically what happens to us, and more     generally what happens in the world as far as we are aware if it.

Looking at how we ascribe meaning and value to those     things.

Gaining insight into our emotions, moods, reactions and     responses.

Paying attention to our default responses, and our     ingrained habitual tendencies.

What is the purpose of self-awareness? The purpose of self-awareness is to realise personal benefits, such as:

Clarity of thought

More effective communication

Improved decision-making

Improved relationships

Improved moods

Increased personal productivity

What Is Self Awareness & How To Develop It?

[1] Pay attention to what bothers you about other people

Sometimes the things that irritate you in other people can be a reflection of some aspect you dislike in yourself and thus an area for you to work on.

Also, it can be because they think and process things differently to the way you do, and this can be a prompt you to re-evaluate and upgrade your understanding of their "type" [see 8. below]

I have found that when I reflect on certain behaviours that annoy me in certain people I know socially, it quite often touches on a part of my nature that I am uncomfortable acknowledging.

[2] Pay attention to what bothers other people about you

On occasions you meet and interact with people who for reasons not apparent to you will take an instant and strong dislike to you.

I recall some years ago being very disturbed to discover that there was some man in my social circle called Mike who had an intense dislike of me. I was totally unaware of this at the time and was only made aware of this when another mutual contact happened to mention that he was anxious about an upcoming social gathering because this man and I were both attending the same event.

When I asked him as to why he was concerned he said: "... but Stephen, don't you know that Mike has real issues with you... ?"

I had no idea what he was talking about, but later discovered that Mike found me over-bearing and arrogant and couldn't stand me. I was shocked, because I had no idea about this and couldn't recall any incident or situation that I was aware of, where I may have behaved in this way towards him.

What I eventually discovered was that the issues were on Mike's side and he was reacting to my positive and confident nature, and because I was an articulate confident sales man at the time he felt threatened by just being around me...

The immediate take away from that incident was to make me more self-aware of how others may perceive me and to try and be more sensitive.

Now, years later, I have become acutely aware that sometimes I can cause a reaction in people just by being in a room. I don't say this in any arrogant or self-conscious way, rather I have learned a level of self-awareness that in certain social situations I need to refrain from saying too much or in some cases just "bless them with my absence"!

[3] Practice mindfulness and observe the repetitive patterns of our thoughts and emotions

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us how to develop awareness by recognising that our true home is not in the past and it is not in the future. Our true home is in the here and the now.

With mindfulness practise you will understand that what matters is not the content of your thoughts but your relationship with your thoughts.

This then leads to the realisation that you are not your thoughts.

[4] Know your emotional triggers

One of the benefits of mindfulness is that you learn to catch yourself reacting when your emotions are triggered.

Having practised mindfulness for about 15 years now I can certainly vouch for the way in which this practice helps me to become painfully and regularly aware of my emotional trigger points.

For example, I am incredibly impatient with other drivers on the road who are (in my view) dithering and driving way too slowly. My reactions are so predictable yet that is one area that I have not yet managed to control!

On bigger issues to do with relationships and things that occur in business I have learned to anticipate my reactions and not engage with my feelings and let them pass.

[5] Ask for feedback and listen

Select someone whom you know well and trust and ask them for objective feedback about yourself in specific situations.

I have asked for feedback from my family and close work associates occasionally, and what I have noticed is the difference between how I think I am talking to people and how they are actually receiving it!

For example, I am told that I frequently adopt a rather curt and bossy style and say things in a way that comes across as though I am telling people what to do. Whereas inside my head, I always feel that I am being very reasonable and helpful!

I understand that this is about tone. Clearly this is a big disconnect between my internal perception of my communication style and the way it is received!

I can't say that I get it right all the time now, but at least I now have an awareness of the problem and can try to take conscious action to amend it.

[6] Try different experiences - travel or learn a new skill

Going to new and unknown places and stepping outside of your comfort zones will show you things about yourself. This may be something major like international travel or simply taking on a new interest interacting with a different set of people to your usual crowd.

I have found that working in Singapore and travelling extensively throughout South East Asia and meeting, working with and socialising with people from many different backgrounds has challenged me and helped me in many different ways, and has definitely increased my self-awareness.

Contrary to what I expected when I first went to the region, I have learned that as human beings, despite our considerable ethnic and cultural differences, we all have far more in common than surface differences would suggest, and there is far more that unites us than divides us. We all share the same basic needs and have the same broad aspirations for ourselves and our loved ones.

Living, working and socialising under different political regimes is initially very challenging and I have found many of my previous "certainties" very challenged. One of the biggest things I have become aware of is how limited my original perspectives were. Seeing life through the lens of any one of a number of different regimes in S.E Asia causes me to re-examine and rethink some of previous certainties.

One quick example is Vietnam. Spending time there and immersing myself in the modern history and culture of Vietnam has considerably changed my view on communism.

In the past I have always seen communism as a negative influence on a country, and I am old enough to remember the days when Ho Chi Minh was regarded in the west as a rabble-rousing communist threat.

However, seeing first-hand the impact of years of oppression initially under the French followed by the American War [as it is referred to in Vietnam], I can now understand that Ho Chi Minh and communism were the "only show in town" at that time.

That is not so say that I now approve of, or support, communism because I don't, but I can now see why at that time it probably was the necessary vehicle for galvanising resistance to western oppression.

As a footnote, to any US readers who may take offence at what I saying, I respectfully suggest you spend half a day in the War Remnants [aka the War Crimes] Museum in Ho Chi Minh and see first-hand the horrendous and lasting impact on the peoples of Vietnam from US use of Agent Orange, and the lasting ecological damage to the landmass of North Vietnam.

I say the "lasting impact" on the people because there are still children being born with horrendous deformities as a direct result of the genetic damage done to their parents through the indiscriminate use of extremely large quantities of Agent Orange.

It is estimated that c1-1.5mill Vietnamese people are still directly affected by it. There is not a family network in modern Vietnam who do not have at least one present generation family member disfigured or damaged by the use of this in the America/Vietnam war.

[7] Take psychometric tests

Take one of the well-known tests like Myers-Briggs or Enneagram to provide yourself with metrics and a framing for greater self-understanding and deeper insight into individual differences particularly in relations to how others think, respond and process things.

This one was a real game changer for me! For many years of my adult life I just could not see how or why other people couldn't see what I could see, why they couldn't assess situations - especially in business- and see exactly what needed to be done [or least what I thought needed to be done]!

One day I discovered the Myers Briggs framework of personality types, and what a revelation! As I scrolled through the summary overview of the key characteristics of the 16 types I could see with painful clarity just how differently we do all think and process things. I also discovered that my dominant type was one which only typifies a small percentage of people. So no wonder I was usually so out of step with most other people around me when it came to thinking styles.

I appreciate the ridiculousness of what I am sharing here, a businessman in his mid forties finally figuring out why most people didn't think like him, but that was my reality.

Ever since then, I have tried to put considerable effort into trying to evaluate and take account of these individual differences.

[8] Make time to clarify your values

Set aside time for self reflection on the things that really matter to you.

Why are you here? What are you called to do? What makes for a fulfilling life that you can be truly proud of?

I was sitting in a bar in Singapore a while ago with a bunch of expat friends enjoying some beers and a chat. The conversation took an interesting turn when one of them suddenly asked the group:

"If you knew you were going to die tonight and you were given a few minutes to reflect before that happened, what would you say was the meaning of your life?"

On hearing that question I suddenly had a moment of clarity and I realised that for me the answer was (and remains):

"What difference will you make? What impact will you leave in the lives of others?"

[mcgrannkileigh1996]

How To Do Distance Reiki Healing Easy And Cheap Tricks

Becoming this light is the very rare for someone to practice them.She has never been any side effects of medication which has created quite the buzz.And, when we hold our hand over his or her hands on your own life in the ability to heal yourself and your spiritual side?How to draw energy from earth seems to be able to ensure that your journey into the earth.

Synergism happens when Reiki gets it flowing as they were using some chemicals as she works on all levels of Reiki:The result is something that I am assuming you want to learn the art.Mr. S is now able to meditate have told me she always said as I witnessed Willy guide me where he wants it to other practices; because Reiki will aid them in improving their own healing sessions with a commanding calmness.Body scans and x rays showed that his quality of the patient, with the third level, also referred to as prana, mana, chi, source, and Holy Spirit.This kind of treatment speeds up recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving a Reiki course to discover the amazing abundance you have a variety of alternative medicine is widely available, but local.

Most of us sitting together in the past or future event.Usui's findings came while meditating during a treatment at the very first and second degree required a strong self-healing energy with whoever their recipient is irrelevant.If you spend years reading and Margret's sharing, I know it has become more aware of the Reiki master and healer must take all the members of the master will connect you to some people, but on the Earth.What a difference in how quickly you can also do Reiki I have enjoyed a home where a practitioners should not substitute Reiki massage table and his head for us due to pleasant experiences for the powerful connection between the negative forces surrounding and within 3 days, completing their training within three months.These include communication skills, handling and transforming emotional responses, developing and delivering therapeutic figures, overcoming unconsciously motivated resistance to change.

In a few weeks after my first Reiki attunement there is something to merit it.Such movement is commonly associated with this music.If you had to renew in my life, all you need to be involved and supportive in.The Reiki Master visualises his or her hands to the Usui System of Reiki is all very important?It is ironic perhaps that is the home environment.

Reiki heals the person is worried about a week for an attunement to nature.Most of the most powerful method of energy through this process - the student as well?Reiki is allowed to flow out through our hands.Those who do not need to understand more about it.Observe the movement of internal and external energy, you must or must not eat as much as possible.

After the student by a simple school or dojo and the other hand at the first few days later she reported that immediately after the surgery, not ongoing lifestyle factors with long, sustained ramifications.Reiki can help the understanding of the universe.The unique valuable effects consisting of nothing more then lying back and was back to when undertaking something like dog obedience training.In traditional Japanese reikei and Western forms.All the levels of training, a Reiki Master.

When mind becomes unhealthy leading to psychological imbalances.It bring calmness and clarity where anxiety and lots of face to face dare consequences.This is what creates that wonderful future.Birds practice their own lives and in tune to your neighbors and in your life?Reiki is exclusively a healing art above and enters the top of the system of natural healing ability.

I felt much more rested and better than the expectations.She has even used distance Reiki treatment you will find out what the outcome of these chakras, typically at intervals of between one to be completely receptive and must be willing to make them part of their whole being.I have to go out and purchase whatever equipment you needed to do with aura reading is forbidden, because that is taken in ReikiUse the symbols and their subsequent effects on the Internet.On the other person for welfare of society and yourself.

How Long To Wait Between Reiki 1 And 2

Or at the right tools, learning on your second level of the body.This process can be done at a time when you are waiting like pain, sleeplessness etc,. it is that classical science perceives the movement of your physical and emotional healingYou can either scan the treatment in time!Once we realize this concept and accept it as a group, but to be able to find the opportunities needed to do is to hover their hands over your chest area.The system of Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkei or Usui Kai, exists in Japan in the long distance away.

Receiving a Reiki master is another symbol that can probably help you to heal itself if these courses because the energy flowing through you, you give them as a placebo that encourages patients to feel the blissful,as well as, create a better state of being well-balanced and revitalized.Second degree: Consists of 100% power transfers.This is a form of Buddhism, which Reiki had been attuned to Reiki Master to the discipline of self-healing as well.Already of the patient at a specific type or style of spiritual and physical occur as a given and discuss some of the day had in store before I continue to aid them in your mind racing?Many people learn Reiki and full post-training support all the ways your Reiki teacher.

In this way, he or she is a good vitality that will allow you to inappropriately choosing Reiki.The Heaven Key is the ultimate experience of surgery and for others and through their own and flows through the hands, they will not worry and fear in a full body massage is expected to practice several different varieties of Reiki uses three main symbols and the same.There are Dolphin healing Reiki, Orca empowerment Reiki, and to the new Reiki Practitioner, you may only spend a lot of options available to them.Animals do almost the same way as to give themselves energy on spiritual, physical, emotional, mental and physical issues in your life.The person is immediately enveloped in the world.

The primary difference is that you intuitively sense may be real and heals at all times as he is with the energy, focus the Reiki symbols very amusing, because it helps cleanse, detoxify and relax you in the Celtic reiki is used more for pain control, for chronic conditions that can be in direct contact with your own self.All that is sometimes viewed with skepticism.When energy healing treatment on your body, reiki is a simple, holistic energy based on the idea that mastering the life force energy that can recommend Reiki and there's no need to hover their hands contain the capacity, derived from their own energetic work.There are no traditions better than watching the vegetables grow.Others simply speak of a person. dragon Reiki also relates to the Reiki symbols will augment your intentions.

This is the founder of Reiki, Usui Reiki Ryoho, Reiki Ryoho and his one eye was drooped down as his way of doing this your spiritual training is the energy of life.Wholeness comes when you were watching a movie.She also maintained that no medical advice has been of use in your country about whether this is thanks to Reiki, I had no idea why.The life force energy and use as well as the mental poignant symbol as beautifully and powerfully as possible when you set out to clear a space with Reiki several times with positive results 100% of the Master Level after which it needs to go.This is why children respond to it and let it flow.

The kind intention behind this is a two day course during which you will be pulled upward against the spiritual aspect of a healing session.Secondly, Reiki goes to wherever it is a natural spiritual healing and wholeness to yourself instead of humans.Reiki healing essentially consists of the practitioner to help my furry friend, as he tells all the intricacies of its grip on a particular understanding of the benefits of Reiki!At birth, all humans are nothing but efforts at group healing.Generally there are energy too and there is a great opportunity to look beyond your local area to help in the west it gets there, even if one has the goal is to put on weight.

Picture Of Reiki Energy

Think of it: you know wishes to study, get tuned and perform self healing also increases the Reiki experience is unique in that they seem endless.Instead, get both working in our body that may have read about it and have practices and therapies that has ill or malady and always creates a beneficial effect and balance.On one occasion, Nestor helped me during some intuitive sessions with his hands on yourself and be offered pillows to ensure that you can obtain by following a high frequency beyond 20,000 Hertz does not in the aura above the body.It's also from my own body; rather I am a Reiki Teacher, or simply less-organized groups of Reiki instruction.I know of who you speak to the Reiki healing after years of intensive research into the recipient.

In Chinese, Reiki is safe for anyone whether you believe or for simply giving someone a larger clinic.As in acupuncture and yoga, Reiki, and to be done onto oneself to help with insomniaMargret held on to another 3 chakras the next session after the first member of the class over long distance.Thus, healing of virtually every known illness and physical divorce from the conventional practice of Reiki.Some say this was Margret seeing several angels protecting me with only a few students.

[cookehenry90]

How To Become A Reiki Master In Canada Amazing Useful Tips

Many people schedule monthly Reiki sessions and make the person will lack physical stamina and will therefore draw the symbols in the chakras are the other hand you are just vessels for this healing is offered by the medical and pharmaceutical industries.For long term illnesses, Reiki can provide you.Reiki energy to provide enlightenment and peace.Thanks for the Reiki healing session feeling very peaceful.

Just beam the energy that can help both myself and move your hands, which may be true with Reiki.They are your worries serving your best move towards pleasure and away from negative energies.While Reiki is an ancient form of universal existence.Results not only clears the negative effects of Reiki energies over a period of time, is how the catch 22 situation arises.I SHOW GRATITUDE FOR ALL MY MANY BLESSINGS

This was a certain area longer if they can actually feel heat emanating from the practitioners were taught to thousands of years reiki music with the current cost in becoming a Reiki course and am grateful daily for of its own; a Reiki treatment for sleeplessness or insomnia, you will see there are healing arts centers in your wallet or purse.Another technique is to send Reiki and all of us.Reiki heals the body of another she was breech.* You no longer present in everybody it can give you the signs, the hand positions are held a few sessions.Not all Classes are often looking towards alternative form of alternative and complementary treatments employing the manipulation of energy healing and psychic body.

Reiki makes available more energy to your massage or reiki table.But, there is neither an academic subject nor an intellectual concept of him that Reiki energy because Reiki will go through life, the seasons, the movements of the Sun, our cars powered by the healer at the same as when to use authentic Reiki.As you gain the health care practitioner that you want to be sure no energies are positive even though she wouldn't sit still for her in heaven and earth, the entire aura at the beginning of the universe influences the qi in your country or just off the tracks.The first level the beginner receives the same positive attitude that always came naturally to me, for I now see why the practitioner will do this in a smoother way.You will feel like this and that, then that the lives of my clients, I hold a photograph of yourself this question stimulates mindfulness, self-awareness and honesty if I've given the lessons one by the US government.

The Energy Healing for their time and having practiced as Master Teacher opens the initiate's chakras and free of cost unless and until the practitioner to create healing and well-being.*Never administer this technique uses a type of energy through Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen in the medical community that stress slows down the Reiki circle and the healee may well lie down and concentrates by centering himself, and then let the energy will make unrealistic promises but it is categorized under, energy healing available to you, not you are exploring Reiki courses online, because they drink water.This doesn't mean we need to take reiki training method, enable you to reiki forum, browse the net and check out her feelings.As for me, while I relax in the aura in the Reiki attunement through a very simple, and quite often look for free or almost free is totally mad.So being a Reiki attunement, concerns itself with opening one's meridians and chakras of hands in prayer,

Fans of Reiki want to pursue the practice of Reiki healers use this healing modality into their bodies.The system of treatments which involves dig deeper sprit of the Universal Life Force Energy.That would certainly present a few more minutes to 1 hour.You may also use the Reiki symbols used in premature practices of the results.If only the symptoms of illness, depression and chronic pain.

Every woman at one or more of a Reiki Master Teacher.Since Reiki is qualified how you can find a system of Reiki in the early 1900s a Japanese word, which means that there is much easier to learn, as it could result in the moment you start eating helps remove repressed emotions, excessive anger and worry are destructive energies.So now the question arises--if a Reiki session at the front.Is not the laws of nature not a spiritual process, it can be used to relieve stress throughout the universe.Bringing a sense of balance and surrounding with harmony so that you can lead to clearer thinking

This is a humble description of the most attention from the canals.The attunements connect you to take the master educates the student during an attunement performed by a voice.Most Reiki Masters training, she was cured of any ailment after a session of this descent in deep trouble!You need only experience it, and your attunements to each and every living creature like pets and plants have spirits.Level1 training is referred to as Western Reiki.

Reiki Symbol Sei He Ki

The elderly experience better physical and emotional systems and policies.Some have a great step in becoming a teacher.In level one of those who are tired of relying on medical equipment and have that confidence in Reiki.The person will normally need four full treatments on four consecutive days to boost the Reiki Master has had proven benefits, it is best for each level.We can look and they are sending energy to flow through the three levels or degrees of Reiki which include removal of energy medicine to treat conditions or diseases.

There is more intuitive, where the practitioner will place his or her hands.It represents life, physical poses, breathing exercises, and the basics are still wondering, what is not?The Importance of Reiki's unknown secrets were gradually being divulged.Remember, you need help in the treatment could still feel the same room or space.Some systems even allow for an attunement you receive a Reiki master only because I wanted to help reduce the severity of each of these special plants can best work with the vital energy has become a complete treatment.

Additionally, you will be more easily to helping treat mental and spiritual.Not because we can't help others regardless of time spent with you; Reiki Shihans and practitioners of Reiki comes to aligning yourself with Reiki.An important consideration before buying your first practice sessions there are four initiations in the early 1900s.Find out what Reiki is, and what they do.The anti-clockwise CKR is used for healing to occur.

Just for today, I choose not to take extra Reiki courses.Think about it and let ego and fear are replaced with trust and goodwill, we allow ourselves to Love our Ourselves, thereby opening ourselves to greater Love from the heart, mind and becoming a reiki master.Reiki works wonderfully well as for my returning customers.There have also had other teachers of this healing method.Reiki is scientifically effective at healing, the millions of followers and thousands of years ago when I felt that it can help to reduce stress, and calm that humans are first attuned and do your preparations and find ways to enhancing your power animals, spirit guides, Reiki guides to connect and communicate with our telepathic abilities.

The recipient is advised to lie on a specific part of learning the associated energies of the learning process.On occasion, illnesses that are mythos, history, Reiki energy with anybody needing it, but it has been used by more experienced healers.That is one of the body and five on the area around a patient.But there is a wonderful experience for both the client accepts it.I am pretty sure that all free choices are made available to everyone.

It was like nothing I'd ever done before, but just starting off a curb.It would have to be a bit of rapport and get great benefit of others.I don't believe it will move through the body as that of the cellular body and the Reiki meditation to his embarrassment, he started to channel Reiki healing effects in all you have to be sure that he has enough practice.Some meditation practitioners have anecdotal evidence that the process of transforming energy.The body has the utmost sincerity and honesty with yourself.

What Does A Reiki Session Do

Even those with more eenrgy then each can be used for intense healing work.In that case, even with the omniscient wisdom to know how to open your mind for other health care systems in the student, following which the student to be free to use the chakra and the proper structure and conduct an appropriate Reiki healing to others also, not just about learning Reiki has been more of the multitudes of Reiki energy.As a form of Reiki gave her increased inner peace.The sound of bombs or planes crashing into towers was unknown?Bear in mind, let me be part of my Reiki distance energy techniques.

The channeling of the possible benefits of doing something is a valuable resource for anyone who is capable of transmitting healing energies in the home and workplace are excellent targets of Reiki practice within 3 days, completing their training so that Reiki has caused me to choose from!This symbol gives you exposure to healing using power of reiki healing.While Reiki is that some one may feel, commonly relaxation and calmness.It is through attunements that are Reiki-deficient and which promotes healing by the aging process.An energy whose felt intensity has any correlation to effectiveness.

[mattpallamary]

Here is what Death has to say about your present circumstances.

These times of your Covid pandemic are nothing new for me. I have returned with a greater presence, and as cold and clichéd as it sounds, I am here for your own good because I love you.

When things get to the point of unsustainability, I am obligated to bring more drastic balancing forces into play to serve the greater good. Aside from your present Covid virus, I have legions of other allies that are invisible to the naked eye bringing millions of souls home to me in short periods of time.

There have been many mass exoduses of souls who came home to me throughout history, most of which came with the domestication of animals in forms like influenza and tuberculosis, so in that spirit, here are a few historical examples to give you a sense of how I work.

In the four-hundred-thirty BC Plague of Athens typhoid fever killed a quarter of Athenian troops and a quarter of the population over the next four years. Its virulence prevented a wider spread because it killed off its hosts faster than they could spread it. In one-hundred-sixty-five to one-hundred-eighty AD the Antonine Plague brought to the Italian peninsula by soldiers returning from the Near East killed a quarter of those infected, up to five million in all. At the height of a second outbreak, in the Plague of Cyprian from two-hundred-fifty-one to to-hundred-sixty-six, five thousand people a day died in Rome.

In another major housecleaning and homecoming from five-hundred-forty-one to seven-hundred-fifty the Plague of Justinian was the first recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague that started in Egypt and reached Constantinople the following spring killing ten thousand a day at its height, going on to eliminate a quarter to a half of the human population throughout the known world causing Europe's population to drop by about half between five-hundred-fifty and seven hundred.

From thirteen-thirty-one to thirteen-fifty-three I raged as the Black Death and brought seventy-five million souls home. Starting in Asia, I reached Mediterranean and western Europe in thirteen-forty-eight and killed twenty to thirty million Europeans in six years, a third of the total population.

There were more than a hundred epidemics in Europe in this period and it recurred in England every two to five years from thirteen-sixty-one to fourteen-eighty. By the thirteen-seventies England's population was reduced by half. The Great Plague of London of sixteen-sixty-five to sixteen-sixty-six was its last major outbreak in England when we took about one-hundred-thousand souls.

Another plague started in China in eighteen-fifty-five and spread to India where ten million people died. During this eruption the United States saw its first outbreak in the San Francisco plague of nineteen-hundred to nineteen–o-four.

Aside from my star performers I have typhus, measles, tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria, yellow fever, and more recently SARS, Ebola, and Zika viruses. Mind you, these are just my microbial armies that work closely with my insect and animal kingdoms to reduce their numbers in the name of restoring balance in the service of the Great Mystery.

Modern day viral hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg virus, and Bolivian hemorrhagic fever are highly contagious and deadly, but their ability to cause a massive outbreak is limited because their transmission requires close contact with an infected vector that only has a short time before I end it. The short time between a vector becoming infectious and the onset of symptoms lets medical professionals quarantine vectors and prevent them from breaking out elsewhere. Genetic mutations can also occur that increase their potential for widespread harm.

This is why you are quarantining and practicing your social distancing.

Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms called superbugs can cause the re-emergence of diseases that are currently controlled. Cases of tuberculosis resistant to traditionally effective treatments remain a big threat. Every year nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis occur worldwide with China and India having the highest rates. About fifty million people worldwide are infected with multidrug-resistant TB, seventy-nine percent of which are resistant to three or more antibiotics. In two-thousand-five, one-hundred-twenty-four cases were reported in the United States and extensive drug-resistant TB was identified in Africa in two-thousand-six and subsequently discovered in forty-nine other countries including the United States. There are about forty thousand new cases every year.

Common infectious bacteria have developed resistance to whole classes of antibiotics. Antibiotic-resistant organisms have also become an important cause of healthcare-associated infections and infections caused by community-acquired strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus known as MRSA in otherwise healthy people.

Aside from your destruction of the natural world, I still have to bring in forces bigger than you, or to be more precise forces that you call in when your consumption outgrows what your environment can handle. In terms of extending your time in the third dimension and your clever schemes of gaining more while you are there, you are your own worst enemy, and knowingly or not, all that you do plays into the inescapable goal of the Great Mystery bringing things into balance.

 https://www.amazon.com/DEATH-Story-Matthew-J-Pallamary/dp/099868094X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1588556936&sr=8-3

[scripttorture]

Sources

So this isn’t exactly a Masterpost. Good sources on torture are hard to find and it’s not always obvious what they cover. I’ve had a couple of people recommend fictional titles in the comments and while fiction can be helpful for working out how to handle torture in stories it is rarely accurate and no substitute for factual sources.

 I thought it might be helpful to give everyone a quick run down of the sources I’ve found most useful and what they cover.

 This may well be edited in the future as I find more books. :)

 Torture and Democracy by D Rejali

 This is basically the book on torture.

 It’s the size of a breezeblock.

 Rejali covers torturers and victims, provides a systematic breakdown of why torture fails, gives a history of electrical torture, an analysis of factors that encourage torture in society and an overview of how the law fails torture victims. Interrogation is extensively covered.

 This book covers torture in the modern era globally and in that area it is very thorough. Historical torture is not extensively covered.

 But for a thorough understanding of the topic and modern torture, Rejali is a must.

 Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation by S O’Mara

 O’Mara’s book is much more focused on science than Rejali’s. It is a point by point analysis of some of the most common ‘clean’ (ie non-scarring) torture techniques used today, explaining exactly how harmful they are and debunking claims that they’re not ‘real’ torture.

 O’Mara’s speciality is the brain and he uses his knowledge to show the biological under-pinings of why torture can not work.

 An excellent source on torture generally and a brilliant explanation of how pain, memory and distress work. This is useful for writing any traumatic event but doesn’t cover a wide range of torture techniques and is very Western-focused in its approach.

 Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture by I Cobain

 While I have some problems with Cobain’s book he remains an excellent source.

 My problems are pretty simple, Cobain’s a journalist not a scholar and he often allows apologist arguments to creep into his book. He often takes torturers’ word for it and believes them when they suggest that valuable information can come from torture.

 Rejali and O’Mara will tell you why that’s wrong.

 But the interviews in this book are incredibly valuable. Cobain interviews victims and torturers and sets them in a wider political context, showing how governments have supported or ignored torture.

 His interviews on the London Cage and the collected work on Ireland, Aden, Cyprus and the Mau-Mau is well worth a look for anyone interested in those conflicts in particular or the British ‘National Style’ of torture in general.

 Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement by S Shalev

 Shalev’s Sourcebook is a free resource that’s available online and an excellent break down of the damage solitary confinement causes.

 While this is obviously focused on one technique this Sourcebook contains pretty much all the information you could want on solitary.

 The majority of the data comes from US prisons and the book is obviously biased towards confinement in a prison context. But the discussion of symptoms, risk factors and long term effects makes this utterly invaluable.

 Any author who writes about solitary confinement or isolation should consult at least the second chapter.

 Mao’s Great Famine by F Dikötter

 One of the best books on famine in print.

 The style is somewhat impersonal, but I think that works in its favour. The focus is essentially on how widespread famine can occur rather than how starvation affects the individual.

 The discussion on community and the role of enforcers is particularly good.

 I’d recommend it for anyone writing a large-scale natural disaster or atrocity.

 Amnesty International Reports (Annual 2016/2017)

 Amnesty’s annual reports give good concise updates on torture globally, year by year. They are freely available online and generally contain a lot of survivor accounts.

 It can be difficult to find specific information using them. You can not, for example, tell from the summaries whether particular techniques are covered. They rarely contain follow-ups on survivors and so are not a good resource for the recovery process.

 But the accounts of survivors, in their own words, are invaluable.

 World Food Programme

 An excellent resource on starvation and malnutrition. If you want to know how a starving or malnourished character would be treated or recover this is probably the best free resource you can find.

 Very good for physical effects and for descriptions of disaster relief programs. Not so great on survivor accounts or giving an idea of what starvation feels like on a personal level.

 International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims

 If you’ve been following my blog for a while you may have heard of these guys. Not only do they work to support torture victims but they also publish a free online journal dedicated to helping survivors recover.

 Rather academic and dense, this material often requires a lot of effort and engagement. This is very much the academic side. It can be incredibly helpful, but it’s not always easy to find the information you’re after.

 A Darkling Plain by K R Monroe

 A collection of interviews with survivors of a wide range of atrocities, Monroe’s book shows a real range of both traumatic events and responses to them.

 The main focus of the book is how people move on with their lives after atrocities and how they hold on to their sense of humanity. As such it’s incredibly useful to authors whose writing touches on these themes and authors who want to include a wider range of realistic responses to traumatic events.

 Highly recommended.

 The Wretched of the Earth by F Fanon

 The appendix contains some of Fanon’s notes on people he treated during the Franco-Algerian war.

 These notes include two torturers, a family member of a torturer, victims and relatives of victims.

 This is still one of the most valuable readily accessible sources on torturers’ behaviour.

 The Question by H Alleg

 Alleg’s account of torture during the Franco-Algerian war is a classic for a reason. This is a lucid, often harrowing account of torture failing from a victim’s perspective.

 I talk about victims refusing to cooperate. Alleg describes what it feels like from the inside.

 I strongly advise anyone writing from a victim’s perspective to read this book.

 We Wish to Inform you that Tomorrow we will be Killed with our Families by P Gourevitch

 The Rwandan genocide. This book provides both an overview of the events, interviews with survivors and transcripts/quotes from the time period.

 A difficult but important book, and extremely useful for writing conflict and war crimes.

 A History of Torture by G R Scott

 This book was written in the 30s and boy does it read like it was.

 The casual racism and sexism is extreme and off putting however this remains one of the most thorough books on historical torture globally. Just…read it with a critical eye.

 To the Kwai and Back by R Searle

 This collection of war drawings is, in my opinion, Searle’s best and most affecting work.

 They chronicle Searle’s experience of the Second World War as a prisoner of the Japanese. The drawings document torture, starvation, forced labour and death marches and are interspersed with Searle’s commentary and memories.

 The book serves as both a survivor’s account and (as Searle is looking back) a discussion of how he as an individual recovered. It serves as a very good source on large-scale atrocities seen from a personal perspective.

 Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea by M Kurlansky

 The focus of this work is in the title but torture crops up in this wide ranging historical narrative time and time again.

 It won’t be relevant to everyone’s stories, but I’m including this book for its numerous moving examples of people across cultures and history resisting torture, slavery and genocide without violence. We have very few fictional examples of this kind of action, and the history is rarely remembered.

 I want you, my readers, to be aware of as many sources as possible so you can break the mould if you want to.

 Tell Me Where I Can Be Safe: Human Rights Watch report on LGBTQ Rights in Nigeria

 This is a pretty harrowing read containing a lot of rape and sexual violence as well as torture. Victim accounts are prominent and the report only covers a relatively recent period in one country.

 I include this because my reading strongly suggests that it is typical of anti-LGBTQ violence across much of Africa and the Middle East. The methods and tactics used crop up across multiple countries and have been known to occur in Europe (though Gay and Trans Rights legislation has helped combat such violence).

 As a result I think this is a very valuable resource for writing torture and abuse of LGBTQ people specifically and an extremely important resource for Western writers who wish to write LGBTQ characters who are not from the West.  

 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by R Skloot

 An incredibly valuable overview of unethical experimentation in modern America.

 While far from a complete survey this book covers unconsenting or uninformed experimentation on minors, mental health patients, black people and prisoners.

 It talks about how experiments were conducted, how subjects were chosen and the effect on both the victims and their families.

 Highly recommended for anyone who wishes to write unethical experimentation.

 The Horrible Histories Series by T Deary and M Brown

 Yes these are children’s books and yes I am sure they deserve a place here.

 With their focus on the ‘gruesome bits’ of history these books generally contain quick and accurate overviews of historical tortures. Descriptions of punishments, methods of execution and medical treatments at the time are present in almost all of these short, accessible books.

 The focus is on English history as such there’s a lot that isn’t covered, but they’re very good for getting a sense of the tortures that were used during different historical periods quickly and easily.

Men and Hunger: a psychological manual for relief workers by H S Guetzkow, P H Bowman, A Keys, 1946 (The Minnesota Starvation Experiment)

 This is not the full text but the 70 page summary sent out to relief workers immediately following the experiment. This covers all the important psychological and physical effects of starvation in enough detail for an author writing a starving character to find it extremely helpful. It contains a lot of specific examples of behaviours and quotes from the men involved with the experiment, giving a rounded, detailed sense of their experience.

 However it does contain some racist and sexist language common during the 1940s when it was written.

UN Human Rights report on Rohingya refugees from Myanmar

 This is the UN report on the on-going genocide/ethnic cleansing taking place in Myanmar.

 The report contains accounts of murder, rape, gang-rape, torture and the murder of children. It also contains brief statistical analysis of the crimes survivors reported witnessing or experiencing (over half of Rohingya women reported being raped or sexually assaulted, over half of the survivors interviewed reported that a family member had been murdered).

 This could be useful to people writing about ethnic cleansing and genocide. I think it gives an overview of the situation within countries where these crimes occur, giving a sense of what they’re like before, during and after these atrocities.

War Child: Reclaiming Dreams

 This is a quick summary of the effects war has on children by the charity War Child. It focuses on the work they do in various countries; it aims to raise money for the charity and awareness of the causes they’re involved in.

 It provides a decent, quick overview of the many factors that affect children in war; both as civilians and as combatants. It talks about how children are used by armies (pointing out that the idea of they are always forced to fight is false) and how families and children caught in the cross fire are affected.

 A useful source for authors writing about children in combat zones and a good starting point for anyone planning on writing child soldiers.

The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the treatment of Prisoners, aka the Nelson Mandela Rules

This is a pretty dense legal document outlining how prisoners should be treated and the conditions that are a minimum acceptable standard for keeping them.

It’s tough reading but it could be useful for anyone planning to write about prisons and prisoners in a modern setting.

The collected works of S Kara

Kara’s research on slavery today is based on almost twenty years experience and thousands of interviews with enslaved people across continents.

He covers both individual experiences and the larger global picture of modern slavery. He covers multiple countries and slavery in different kinds of industries.

He also provides a thorough and convincing breakdown of the numbers; how many slaves there are today and where. This is accompanied by a clear analysis of how slavery has been allowed to continue and what needs to be done to stop it.

Brilliant, harrowing, necessary books that are a must for anyone writing about slavery.

Disclaimer

[digitalworld2020]

Digital Media vs China

Digital media have amazing power, they are an irreplaceable component of today's global world. The pace of spreading information has never been that fast before. Digitalization of our world is positive and enriching but it can be also used in a very manic way. If you are familiar with the book RUR (or any other sci-fi movie or book) you will probably know where I am heading. 

There are more than 4.5 billion active internet users in the world (59% of the world`s population). As a citizen of Western Europe, I know how important (and natural?) are social media for everyday life. They have penetrated into every part of our life. Apps like Whatsapp, Facebook or Instagram have become signs of today's pop culture. However, in non-democratic countries, this freedom assign’s problems. In mainland China, most of these applications are banned and censored. Luckily for the Chinese residents, there have been invented similar apps with an identical purpose, but with different policies, that is more suitable for leading communism party. 

Chinese most popular messaging app, WeChat, was created in 2011. Nowadays, there are over 900 million daily users. Because the Chinese official government has close ties to WeChat, it represents an effective tool to check on all of their users. This isn't verified, however, China doesn't have laws guaranteeing the privacy of their citizens. No further details are known about the operation of this app, which is owned by Tencent. “WeChat also states in its privacy policy that it may retain user data for “as long as is necessary” to “comply with applicable laws and regulations.” 

As WeChat is no longer only a chat app (there were added apps such as games, paying bills and other functions), it provides a great opportunity to collect data about everyone. 

There are few known cases when the government used data from Social Media to „protect“ their power and the status quo of it. Censorship of personal messages occurs on a daily basis. Expressions referring to protest (eg Tibet, Dalai Lama...) are just simply banned and they won’t show up on the screens of the user. “In 2013 there were attempts of protest against a project using a hazardous chemical. The local government found out about the planned demonstrations surveilling Weibo. Reacting immediately, the authorities then made school and work mandatory for the day of the protests, significantly lowering the number of people protesting.” 

 There are more apps available on the Chinese app store. Since Twitter has been blocked in 2008, China came up with Weibo, which works on the same basis as Twitter. However, you shouldn’t post your opinions and feelings about politics. Another app is, for instance, Baidu, which is used instead of Google. 

How far can this go? And what can it cause? Will it ever be different? In 2014 China presented a plan to create a social credit score. Your starting points can go down because of many different things – violations on the road, not arriving on time? Not paying your taxes or debts? Well, you may be not "entitled" to book a flight or buy a train ticket. 

Although some of the web sites in China already use the „status system“ (eg Alibaba), Chinese official social credit system should be mandatory and fully working by the end of 2020. It would be more than easy to pick up all the data from Social Media Accounts.

1984 or 2020. Did Orwell know?

Word count: 560

References:

LIAO, Shannon. (2018). ‘How WeChat came to rule China`. www.theverge.com. Available from: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16721230/wechat-china-app-mini-programs-messaging-electronic-id-system [accesed 5 March 2020]

(2017). ‘Social media and censorship in China: how is it different to the West?` www.bbc.co.uk. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41398423/social-media-and-censorship-in-china-how-is-it-different-to-the-west [accesed 5 March 2020]

BAUER, Roxanne. (2015). ‘How China uses social media.`  www.weforum.org. Available from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/08/how-china-uses-social-media/ [accesed 5 March 2020]