#opere religiose

[pier-carlo-universe]

Monsignor Ermenegildo Fusaro: l’Apostolo della fede e della carità, un esempio di amore universale

Un sacerdote, scrittore e patrono degli animali che ha dedicato la sua vita alla difesa dei più deboli e alla promozione della fede.

Un sacerdote, scrittore e patrono degli animali che ha dedicato la sua vita alla difesa dei più deboli e alla promozione della fede. Monsignor Ermenegildo Fusaro: una vita dedicata alla fede e alla carità Monsignor Ermenegildo Fusaro, sacerdote veneziano, è stato una figura straordinaria, un esempio luminoso di dedizione, compassione e amore per gli esseri viventi. Nato con una vocazione innata…

[delightfulgardenersong]

Le opere religiose non sono Arte, ma semplice propaganda politica.

Il soggetto religioso è propaganda, l'oggetto religioso pertanto non è Arte, perché è eseguito su commissione e non secondo il principio di Libertà di Espressione.

E' definibile come Artista soltanto la persona che ha pieno controllo dell'opera realizzata, senza condizionamenti politici, religiosi di alcuna sorta.

Il Caravaggio, ad esempio, è considerabile Artista soltanto per quelle opere in cui Lui ha deciso cosa ritrarre e non terzi; quando esegui opere su commissione, dove sono altri a decidere il soggetto da ritrarre, sei un artigiano e non un Artista.

[foggynerdhideout]

Le opere a tema religioso (edifici, statue, dipinti, letteratura, musica, cinema) sono spacciate per Cultura, ma non lo sono affatto: sono solo propaganda politica della peggior specie commissionata da istituzioni religiose nel corso dei secoli fino ad oggi.

[theblogwithoutfear]

On Daredevil: Born Again and Matt Murdock's Religious Convictions

One of the most glaring differences between Netflix's Daredevil and Disney's, thus far, has been in the (lack of) overt religiosity. While a lot of folks are upset about this, I actually think it's an important creative choice that tells us a lot about the state of Matt's mind and his soul.

Matt Murdock has always been a man of powerful convictions, and possesses a strong sense of both morality and ethics. He is also a deeply divided man, and has divided his life into two separate personas: The Lawyer, and The Devil. Very rarely is he ever Matt Murdock: The Man.

These two personas have mirroring missions, drives, and beliefs; both The Lawyer and the Devil work to defend the innocent, expose the truth, and punish the guilty. They work to carry out "the law."

However, they are carrying out two very different laws—and so they are, quite frequently, diametrically opposed.

The Lawyer side of Matt Murdock is deeply intertwined with the legal system. The Lawyer has a deep sense of ethics, integrity, and a faith in the power of the American justice system. Though he recognizes that it is not always just or equitable, The Lawyer continues to work within that system and believes that it can be redeemed from corruption. The Lawyer operates based on ethics.

The Devil side of Matt Murdock, ironically (or perhaps not ironic at all), is deeply intertwined with his Catholicism. Rather than the legal system, The Devil follows a higher law: the law of God, at least as far as Matt interprets it. The Devil cares about deeper issues of good vs. evil, and believes that he is carrying out the will of God as His soldier. The Devil understands that there is a deeper good in the world than the law; he operates based on morality.

In Daredevil: Born Again, Matt has given up Daredevil. He tells Fisk that he "lost the privilege;" he no longer believes he is worthy of acting as an arbiter of God's higher law. After losing Foggy and attempting to murder Dex, Matt cannot reconcile his conviction for carrying out God's law with the tangible results of his pursuit of it.

In episode 2 we see Matt standing outside a church while a choir sings "I am unworthy that you should enter under my roof." Matt feels too unworthy to enter, and also feels too unworthy for God to enter into his heart. He has "lost the privilege" of Daredevil; and thus, he has "lost the privilege" of practicing his faith like he used to.

Being Daredevil was an act of worship; without Daredevil, Matt can't (or won't) pursue the higher law.

However, during the Hector Ayala trial, it's clear that Matt is missing the sense of spiritual guidance, comfort, and wisdom that he found in the practice of his religious faith. One of the most beautiful, and telling, sequences of the show thus far is when he sits in the empty courtroom.

The shots are framed deliberately to remind us of a chapel. The aisle, the pew-style seats, the white light streaming in through the high windows, the judge's seat almost like an altar at the head of the room. Especially with the solemnity and solitude of the moment, we are meant to see the courtroom as Matt's substitute for a church.

This is taken even farther when Matt pulls out the piece of his horn, clasping it in his hands like he's praying the rosary.

Matt, although he claims to no longer need Daredevil, clearly misses the deep sense of spiritual connection he no longer has—both from his faith, and from Daredevil. Because the two are inextricably linked.

The Devil cannot worship at a church, nor can he practice a higher law.

Therefore, The Lawyer substitutes where he can. He worships at a courtroom, and practices the literal law.

To me, the lack of religious imagery in this show is not the writers shying away from a depiction of faith; rather, it seems to be a deliberate choice: they're showing us that Matt, although he still believes in God (see: the cross pendant), cannot worship Him fully until he picks up his mask again.

And obviously, he will.

[diceriadelluntore]

Storia Di Musica #369 - Frank Zappa, Joe's Garage Acts I,II,III, 1979

Il mese di storie musicali legate al numero 3 si conclude con una pazza quanto meravigliosa opera rock in 3 parti, sogno del suo autore, che uscì in due dischi nel 1979. Infatti Frank Zappa, che dopo una estenuante diatriba legare sui diritti discografici del suo archivio, nel 1979 fondò la sua personale etichetta discografica, Zappa Records, a cui a breve aggiungerà un fantastico studio di registrazione personale. Nel 1979 pubblica uno dei suoi manifesti di "antropologia musicale", Sheik Yerbouti, che oltre la sua immensa fantasia e varietà musicale (una enciclopedia vivente che andava dalla musica concreta a Boulez, dal jazz al bluegrass fino al doo-woop passando per ogni stile intermedio) presenta una sfiziosa novità: Zappa la chiama xenocrony, è un innovativo montaggio sonoro in cui parti musicali, spessissimo i suoi assoli alla chitarra, vengono rimontate in altre canzone in maniera che sembra perfettamente naturale. Sheik Yerbouti, che è un doppio album, è anche uno dei suoi pochi dischi da classifica: tra le perle Rat Tomago, la spettacolare Yo' Mama, la caustica Jewish Princess che attira gli strali della comunità ebraica e la mitica parodia di Peter Frampton, che ebbe successo planetario con I'm In You, di I Have Been In You.

Zappa sull'onda positiva di questo disco è subito pronto a farne un nuovo capitolo, e già registra alcuni brani, ipotizzando di utilizzare la tecnica della xenocrony. Però una sera, spinto dal suo desiderio personale di scrivere "opere rock", butta giù una sorta di sceneggiatura e pensa che può funzionare. Inizia a registrare tantissimo materiale con la sua nuova band (sempre di grandi musicisti, che tra poco svelerò) e alla fine ha materiale per tre dischi che hanno una certa coesione concettuale. Timoroso di presentarsi sul mercato con un triplo disco, divide l'opera in due parti, un Act I, che esce nei negozi nel Settembre 1979, e un doppio, Act II e III a Novembre.

Joe's Garage diviene uno dei suoi dischi più famosi ed ambiziosi, e una delle opere rock più ardite (in tutti i sensi, visto il personaggio). La storia è una grande metafora della stupidità della società americana, della cultura della repressione e del controllo e anche un grande atto di amore per la musica. È la storia di Joe, un adolescente medio, di Canoga Park, Los Angeles, che forma una band garage rock, ha relazioni insoddisfacenti con le donne, dona tutti i suoi soldi a una religione insincera e assistita dal governo (un nemmeno troppo velato strale con Scientology), esplora attività sessuali con elettrodomestici vari e viene imprigionato. Dopo essere stato rilasciato dalla prigione in una società distopica in cui la musica stessa è stata criminalizzata, cade nella follia. La storia è narrata da una sorta di Grande Fratello orwelliano, The Central Scrutinizer (che è la voce di Zappa manipolata) che alla fine, dopo che Joe è impazzito sognando un assolo "definitivo" prende voce "reale", quella di Zappa appunto, per dimostrare che se la storia di Joe non bastasse a convincere l'ascoltatore che la musica sia un male, tale cosa potrà essere più chiara se espressa con la sua reale voce, nella sua interpretazione di una "canzonetta", A Little Green Rosetta, Musicalmente, è il solito ribollente calderone zappiano di stili, varietà e genialità, dove persino i brani che sembrano più semplici nascondono strutture e cambi di ritmo travolgenti: tra le canzoni da ricordare, la splendida Joe's Garage (che aggiunge note reggae alla cucina musicale), l'ironica Catholic Girls, sugli stereotipi sulle ragazze religiose, impersonate da Mary, la fidanzata di Joe, una che cade nel "baratro della vita da roadie" (Crew Slut) fino a fare le gare di Miss Maglietta Bagnata ( Wet T-Shirt Nite), poi le sue strampalate allucinazioni musicali, tipo la malattia venerea che Lucille passa a Joe, descritta in Why Does It Hurt When I Pee, che in verità fu una domanda vera che fece a Zappa il suo manager, Peter Kaufman, che aveva una cististe. Due pezzi sono ancora più iconici: Lucille Has Messed My Mind, dedicata alla Lucille di cui sopra, che fu un successo di Zappa scritto per Jeff Simmons, ex componente dei Mothers Of Invention, che nel 1969 pubblicò un disco dallo stesso titolo davvero bello (con Zappa che produsse il disco e scrisse alcuni brani con il nome d'arte di La Marr Bruister); Watermelon In Easter Bay, l'assolo che sogna Joe, diventerà una delle sua canzoni più famosi, sebbene all'epoca non fu tanto bene accettata, ma adesso, anche a detta del figlio Dweezil, è il suo miglior assolo in assoluto.

Tra le curiosità, con la tecnica della xenocrony furono riprese almeno 4 parti di assolo di City Of Tiny Lights, uno dei massimi strumentali zappiani, da un concerto in Germania del marzo del 1979, per ben tre canzoni di Joe's Garage. Nella nuova band, immensi musicisti come Vinnie Colaiuta alla batteria (ma anche ad un immaginifico optometric abandon), Warren Cuccurullo alla chitarra, Denny Walley alla slide guitar, Tommy Mars e Peter Wolf alle tastierie, il fido Ike Willis alla voce, Arthur Barrow e Patrick O'Hearn al basso e la voce di Dale Bozzio, moglie del suo fido collaboratore Terry.

Il disco ebbe anche un discreto successo, soprattutto in Canada (e questa storia di 45 anni fa sembra così attuale per tutti questi particolari) per la migliore opera rock di Frank Zappa: ci proverà ancora molte volte, con risultati a volte davvero "drammatici" e non all'altezza della sua genialità (penso a Thing Fish del 1984, un triplo album che sebbene abbia un libretto di guida all'ascolto non si capisce davvero cosa voglia dire), ma qui rimangono luminose le sue idee e soprattutto la sua musica, espressione totale del suo motto "Qualsiasi cosa, in qualsiasi momento, in qualsiasi luogo, per un motivo qualsiasi".

[rabbitcrimes]

Wangxian Fic Rec: Science Fiction Double Feature 🤖🚀

Mostly wangxian fics with sci fi elements - space, dream science, mindlink, androids, cyberpunk cities etc

Out of Nothing by Pip (Moirail) - zhanchengxian - 27k Summary: You and me, Wei Ying had said. Jiang Cheng is going to take him at his word. Command says that the first neural link is the one that stands out the most, the one that everyone has to be the most careful of, because a navigator’s thoughts can get tangled up with their pilot’s and become inextricably linked. Entangled. My Notes: All time fave. If I ever shut up about this fic you should assume I've been body snatched. Transhumanism, nostalgia, space opera, mindlink.

In Imitation of Life by travelingneuritis - wangxian - 70k Summary: Lan Zhan stops in front of one of the bespoke duplicates— a male figure, small, creamy-skinned and lithe. The name on the plinth reads Mo Xuanyu. Lan Zhan tested it on his first pass through the room. The doll was empty. No signals bouncing around its artificial brain, no operating programs queued to autostart. Not even a blinking dormancy light. "Hey big guy," says Mo Xuanyu, chrome eyes sparkling with fun. "Who do I gotta fuck around here to get unplugged?" Wei Ying is a rogue AI come to life. Lan Zhan is… handling it. My Notes: This is my Neuromancer. Actually one of my favorite cyberpunk cities EVER. When I figured out what OP was doing with the city and plot structure I legitimately went insane. Android erotics, cyberpunk city.

More fics under the cut!!

via AMONG THE STARS BY PLONK (a series of oneshots set in Firefly's CU, all really excellent but I want to draw attention a few all time faves) A Monk and a Myth - wangxian Summary: take_me_to_church.mp3 My Notes: This is THE and I mean THE final word on science fictional religiosity and devotion. Can not imagine trying to tackle those concepts without having read this. Man as myth, folk heroes, Lan Zhan's canon typical devotion. a grease monkey, a companion, and some pals aboard the lil apple - wangxian My Notes: Lan Wangji is a very prim and classy companion (in universe style of sex worker) and Wei Wuxian is a ship repair guy and Lan Wangji teaches him the ways of the secular flesh. My fucking god do I think about this sex scene all the time. Like, weekly. a chatty mechanic and a silent academy survivor aboard the lotus - wangxian genderswap Summary: Just really excellent. Wei Wuxian is a ship mechanic and Lan Wangji has psychic abilities from medical experimentation from which she's been rescued. Solidly space western, the end of this one is just wonderful. Love the mindlink elements here. escapees aboard the radish - wangxian Summary: So absolutely crazy about this one. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are both ex academy students or have both been victims of psychic medical experiments. I love it as a story about trauma and living in aftermath. Mindlink.

promises of the future by spookykingdomstarlight - wei wuxian/wei wuxian - 3k Summary: His ocular sensors spin themselves to life. In the mirror, he sees himself. And he sees himself, himself but different, reflected from the mirror he’s resting against into the mirror he’s facing. Himself but slighter, features sharper. Himself, with eyes brightened by the power of a star. Himself, crouched above himself, close enough to kiss. My Notes: Yes you read that pairing right!! Give it up for robot eroticism!!!! Android erotics, cyberpunk sensibility.

some lovely, perilous think by varnes - wangxian - 24k Summary: Jingyi makes a sympathetic sound. “I’ve got a buddy in one of the Hefei labs, and he says there’s some evidence to suggest that people stuck in limbo develop, like, whole new neural pathways. And you go in and out of it all the time, right, so who knows what your brain is up to.” His eyes light up. “Oh man, would you let me — ” “Obviously no,” Wei Ying says, voice flat. “But you’re close enough to right. I can keep you all safely in the level, but it’s tiring. I can’t be both dreamer and extractor.” “I’ll do it,” Lan Zhan cuts in, before Jingyi can protest or Wen Yuan can ask any further questions. “It’s not a problem.” “Are you sure?” Wen Yuan asks, brow furrowing. “If your sub-security picks up that Xian-gege doesn’t belong — ” “They won’t.” Wei Ying frowns. “Not for nothing, ge,” he says slowly, “but the last time we were in your dream together, I fell off a cliff.” Lan Zhan looks up and over at him. There is something in his eyes that Wei Ying can’t quite read: something fierce, and faraway. “I remember,” he says, voice quiet. “Do you?” - Wei Ying takes a dream heist job with an old friend. My Notes: God this is wonderful. We've got a full cast and some case/heist fic flavoured science fictional elements. I think it plays very nicely with a lot of the other cool mindlink stuff on this list.

world.runExecution by pip (moirail) - zhanchengxian - 30k IN PROGRESS Summary: What does it mean to be human, anyway? “Here we go,” Wei Ying mumbles, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t have the chance to ask what that means before Wei Ying’s squaring up his shoulders and moving in a way that cuts a swath through the crowd. My Notes: my group chat commissioned this for FTH in 2022 and it remains the love of my life. Pip you beautiful genius. CYBERPUNK I LOVE YOU.

i will be chasing a starlight by feyburner, sundiscus - wangxian - 71k Summary: “You know what?” Wei Ying said. “I think we should be friends.”

“Vulcans do not have friends,” said Lan Zhan. He was staring very determinedly at the screen in front of him.

Wei Ying frowned at him. “That can’t be right.” My Notes: I am so insanely crazy town about this fic. God there has not been a filler entry on this list YET! below the clouds, above the lakes by northofallmusic (tofsla) - wangxian - 22k UNFINISHED Summary: Wei Ying was not formally considered a Jiang until it became necessary for a Jiang to marry a Lan as a guarantee of alliance. Now, in the habitat dome which houses the palace known as the Cloud Recesses, he has to navigate a new role, a new marriage, and an unfamiliar tangle of political relationships and loyalties. My Notes: I remember LOVING the worldbuilding on this and really enjoying the space OP was playing in, I thought it was worth a read. Thank you so much to everyone who recommended fics!! It's coming to my attention that this list is going to get massive so I'll reblog as I read and update it 🚀

[sheiskindasweet]

What’s ur relation like with Christianity/going to church?

Somewhat complicated to be transparent. I have major issues with organized religion and recognize the hurt, brokenness, hypocrisy and bigotry that can occur "in the church". I have wrestled for years with the concept of organized religion and religiosity, and do not align with all the ways in which the Christian church/members operate.

That being said, I would identify myself as a "believer", or someone with faith. I have had periods of major doubt and utter rejection, but ultimately, I have found that those moments are largely underscored by the operation, approach and leadership of the Church as a formal organization/institution. All that being said, my faith is something that continues to underscore the way that I live, my morals and my outlook on life.

I have attended church on and off for most of my life and have personally experienced a lot of hurt and resentment towards "the church" based on my own experiences and the experiences of those close to me. That is partly why I say I have a complicated relationship with Christianity.

I am very thankful to have gotten out of my "bubble" and gone to a very "secular" liberal/socialist university; it really broadened my horizons and changed the way I view/understand the world and operate within it.

I am open to continuing to challenge views and perspectives and operate largely off the premise of love, acceptance, and comradery with all types of people from different backgrounds, walks of life, and religious affiliations.

I will continue to search, grow, challenge, question and seek answers

[accord-vn]

Major Players in the War Against the Firmament

The Republic of Stauros

The Republic of Stauros is a global superpower that controls the Americas and much of eastern and southern Africa, its imperialist agenda funded by the exploitation of abundant natural resources. This influx of resources means that they have been able to rapidly advance technology, particularly in bio-science, engineering, and materials science fields, and their advanced technology in turn makes for political capital with which they can bully nations into being subsumed by the Republic.

Stauros is a meritocratic oligarchy with republican structures, and presents itself as being a place where the best can rise to the top. It is centrally governed in its capital of Etorios, by a council of (what were originally) six departments that oversee facets of government such as treasury, military, agriculture, etc. These department heads are chosen from among a democratically elected parliament that makes up the upper levels of each department by the previous council. In short, the system rejects change very stubbornly as those who are eligible to lead have been entrenched in the system for a very long time. This entrenchment means that the Republic, while founded on progressive ideals, has now fully embraced the authoritarian streak that has haunted it since its inception.

Most prominent in Stauros's war against the Firmament is the ExoCorps, the executive arm of the Department of the Exterior. The Dept of the Exterior was created in order to protect Stauros's offplanet interests, however in the decades since they have come to rival the power of the Dept of Military, even surpassing it in many instances. The most notable example of this power imbalance is in the ExoCorps' development of Synaptic Transfer technology and the resulting Janissary program.

The Sophic Church

The Sophic Church originated as part of the Third Awakening, a reactionary revival in religiosity coupled with anti-Christian sentiment and strong undercurrents of paranoia brought about by a sharp rise in conspiratorial thought. What were several grassroots Gnostic revival movements came together to form a single ecclesiastical society, united in their desire to dismantle current institutions and build something new. These movements, originally different sects, syncretized their beliefs, though after several decades of transformation, their doctrine has evolved into a largely ahistorical conflation of Valentinianism and Sethianism alongside some entirely new ideas.

The Sophic Church played a key role in the formation of the Republic and rose alongside it, shaping it in the process, and as a result, within Stauros there is a strong presumption that most residents of the Republic are a part of the church.

Naturally, due to this relationship the Church has amassed a large amount of wealth and influence, and has invested this wealth into a number of corporate assets. The most prominent among these is Ascension, a corporation with child companies for mining, manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries.

As a result, the Sophic Church has control over a substantial amount of the economy not just of Stauros, but the rest of the world as well.

The Stereomatos

In 2068, Olympia, Stauros's first permanent Martian research base, collapsed due to mismanagement. Due to the nature of the Stauros Dept of Research's control over the research base, while researchers lived permanent lives on base and even raised families there, leadership was not only appointed from a bureaucracy located on Earth, but also frequently rotated. As a result, most Directors of Operations viewed the position only as a temporary station, and ultimately failed to carry out their duties.

This culminated in 2067, when a failure in the water system caused dozens of people to become ill and 14 deaths. Civil unrest had already started to stir, but now was in full swing.

A nearby ExoCorps detachment was then stationed inside the colony to dissuade uprising, but the additional strain on resources that they caused served only to exacerbate discontentment. Before any violence broke out, the base was declared no longer fit for human habitation and disbanded, its residents either returned to earth or stationed in other colonies. The base was leveled shortly thereafter.

A mere two years later, Synesia was founded on Olympia's ruins. Synesia was intended to serve as a colony and an experiment in autonomous government, as well as a center for Stauros' civic operations offplanet. This quickly expanded into a semi-autonomous satellite state, granted nominal independence by Stauros in return for serving as the governing body for bases and offplanet stations too large and too distant from Earth in order to be effectively managed by a planetary bureaucracy.

In practice, the Stereomatos is a puppet state. Most of its leadership is either beholden or sympathetic to Stauros, and lives under constant threat of dismantlement. Stauros maintains exclusive trading rights with the Stereomatos, and uses the leverage of their monopoly on space infrastructure as means of controlling the nation.

The Firmament

The Firmament is a revolutionary movement across the Stereomatos with the ultimate goal of eliminating Stauros control over space.

The movement is comprised of several cells across both inner sphere and outer sphere colonies and stations, which frequently work together to improve the living conditions of Stereomatos citizens, smuggle goods and resources across planetary boundaries, and wage asymmetric warfare against Stauros.

The Firmament's immediate strategy is to hold Stauros at resource-point through piracy and targeted attacks on military installations so that they'll agree to several key conditions:

The right to self-govern independent of Stauros control, including reforming the government from a parliamentary republic into a syndical state.

Better access to tertiary industry, including the means to utilize synaptic transfer tech

Access to Stauros trade networks in order to carry out trade with other nations with minimal interference

The Stereomatos as a whole may be generally divided in their opinion on the Firmament's methods, however it is an unspoken rule to side with them whenever possible, because the Firmament represents hope for a freer future and an end to overcrowding and military police actions. Even those ideologically opposed tend to avoid speaking out, because the members of the Firmament are ultimately members of their community. A number of Stereomatos politicians have direct connections to Firmament leadership, and work to achieve the movement's aims through diplomatic means.

On Earth, however, the opinion is generally much more divided. Typically the details of their actions are largely reduced to the effect that they've had on Stauros, and are branded terrorists due to civilian casualties from their attacks. Within Stauros, media is sufficiently skewed that those who are aware of them despise them. Outside of Stauros, the Stereomatos is shown more sympathy, and even those who skew more conservative are open to the idea of free trade with the Stereomatos.

Federated Oceania

As climate change ravaged the global south, Aotearoa (formerly New Zealand) successfully pushed back the encroaching ocean with a sea wall, reclaiming additional land in the process. Having secured their new position as a safe haven for climate refugees, they pushed Australia into adopting a similar strategy. As a means of allowing displaced people to retain their sovereignty as well as protect against the threat of a subjugation-hungry Stauros on the horizon, the bloc of Federated Oceania was formed.

With a vested interest in environmental sciences and sustainable energy, Oceania rose to prominence by implementing the first viable fusion reactor and selling off excess energy from successive plants. This paved the way to further successes until it became the non-Stauros leader in technology on a global stage, and served as the first country to challenge Stauros's self-proclaimed "monopoly on space".

As a staunch rival of Stauros, Oceania is one of the few terrestrial nations to openly provide support the Firmament.

The Archon Program

The disappearance of the Caesarea is a mainstay of conspiracy circles system-wide. From independent blogs hosted on the clearnet to chatrooms on planetside LITEs to forums and message boards maintained on Firmnet servers in the belt, no hushed whisper passes through the internet's lips without mentioning its name, and the Caesarea is rarely mentioned without the words "Archon program" in its wake.

However, there is little consensus on what those words mean.  

They say that Archon Program is run by the Dept of the Exterior— no, by the Sophic Church— no, it's the secret Dept of Suppression— as a psyop— actually, it's in order to crush unions (the IPU has NEVER been able to touch Ascension)— no, to serve as a counter to the Firmament's dark matter bomb— and eventually, to dominate the world— utilizing heinous machines that are larger than any Cataphract, that bleed, that drive their enemies and pilots to madness.

When asked for proof, however, the stories converge. A would-be whistleblower from Ascension Aerospace, killed when lightning struck her complex as she was uploading the leak, severing the connection and her life at once. All that was uploaded was the first gigabyte of a single file, titled Archon Program, completely blank except for the image of an A with an ouroboros divided into seven pieces.

Nothing more is known by the public.

[hummingjay]

Hey Jay! First of all, Nice OC! (Kassandra). Secondly, was her backstory partially inspired by Aimo Koivunen?

HAIIIII Sosaaaa thank youuuuuuuu and yess she was! At least partially. At the moment I had in my head just the concept of overdosing, but I always knew (and adored the story) of Aimo Koivunen, so I think she was inspired by him kinda more subconsciously and I later reread his story and it was an “ohhhhh. So THATS where I got it from. Huh.” Situation. Very much inspired by him, I just didn’t know it at the moment.

A tad of a tangent here, she’s also inspired by 40k kriegers! I never did play or get into WH40K, but I read about kriegers on the wiki, and I LOVED them. (Partially an inspo for the gas mask too.)

The Königensarmee’s the quickly-made and badly-thought out idea for a military for Corpse. I made her, then the army. It translates to “Queen’s Army” from German (at least I’m pretty sure it does) and it’s an infantry-based army of mostly humans and droids supported by man (or droid) operated vehicles.

the humans are mostly conscripts. They’re recruited from wherever, trained, given gear, and sent to die. The vehicles, such as tanks, APCs, IFVs, trucks, and various Air Force and navy ships, support said humans.

then there’s the droids. Humanoid robots specifically created to fight. They work in-tandem with their human counterparts and function as androids, with thoughts, feelings, learning capacity, and eventually forms of individuality. They are not androids, since they do not mimic humans, just their nature and basic structure (like replikas kinda do). It’s more apt to classify them as robots.

Kassandra herself worked on a farm with her sister and father before she was recruited. (She was also really happy before then)

now, the Königensarmee is the military of the Königenreich (Queendom), a nation run by a (you guessed it) Queen, who’s mostly surrounded in mystery and an odd religiosity. (Think of the empress or revolutionary from signalis) I haven’t given much thought to an enemy, but the Königenreich is a heavy-surveillance nation priding itself on its military might. I haven’t yet decided if it’s set across numerous planets or a single fantasy earth.

now, Corpse is very patriotic. Not to say she isn’t sympathetic, but she’s wholly willing to sacrifice her body and mind for the benefit of her nation. she expects the same of her allies, and if she hears bad speech about the queen, she’ll gently remind whoever it is (allies and civilians in Königenreich-held areas alike) that their talk is treason, before eventually resorting to highly effective threats. If the civilians (smartly) do not insult the queen or her rule, Corpse is (in contrast to her patriotism) very kind to them. She shares her rations and even helps heal their wounds. She does this mostly to absolve the guilt of killing their soldiers.

But yeah! That’s the corpse and her Königenreich!

[blogitalianissimo]

Ho l'askbox in fiamme, rispondo a tutti con questo post Stai seguendo le olimpiadi? Nì, ho un po' da fare in questi giorni + è impossibile commentare tutte le gare + il canone lo paghiamo per vedere i pacchi di Pino insegno, mica per avere il privilegio di seguire per bene tutto l'evento Cosa pensi della cerimonia d'apertura e della polemica creata sull'ultima cena? Cerimonia d'apertura pazzesca + le parodie opere famose /anche religiose/ ci sono sempre state, stanno polemizzando solo per vomitare un po' d'odio sul GiEnDeR E della Senna non balneabile? Non molto diversa da noti litorali nel nord italia pieni di turisti tedeschi, scherzo, male qui amici francesi, spero che non nasca una nuova pandemia di qualcosa da questa roba Israhell partecipante? Disgustoso, ma comunque un pelo meglio del Sionvision dove alla Palestina non è manco permesso di partecipare

Aggiungo che mi ha fatto molto ridere che gli americani stiano contando il "totale del numero di medaglie conquistate" per mettersi primi in classifica, quando in realtà conta il numero di oro in primis

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

So, just to be clear, The Good Place is the greatest show in history, it is my heart, my soul, my everything. That said, after the bilionth rewatch, I need to talk about a couple of things:

1. Not a single person in the real Good Place should have been okay with the concept of the Bad Place from the beginning of time. The thing is that eternity, of any kind, is inherently cruel, and I was so happy that the show actually delt with it and acknowledged the problem of it, both as punishment and as a reward. But it makes no sense to me whatsoever that a person who is presumably good and caring would reach paradise and learn that there are people who will never ever reach it, and not immediately demand to talk to the manager or start a riot. In fact, even the people in the bad place wouldn't accept that. And not necessarily just about themselves! Knowing that people will suffer endlessly for the rest of time, regardless of their actions, is beyond horrific for the majority of people in the world, let alone ones who get into heaven. Even in the fake Good Place, there's no way that someone like Chiddi wouldn't be disturbed by it. You can say that Eleanor and Jason had other things to worry about, and that Tahani was too self centered at the beginning to care (though I don't think she was so self centered that she would become that cruel as to think that eternity of suffering is okay for anyone), but to know that your loved ones would never be there with you, that humans will suffer for the rest of time... I don't know how anyone could live with that. Or technically not-live with it, I guess. You know. Cause they're dead. Anyway, I know that we wouldn't have a show if this wasn't the case, but it still doesn't really make sense once you think about it.

2. Even if the humans in the existing system wouldn't revolt over the cruelty of infinity, I feel like the accountants should have. Technically speaking, within the existing system amazingly good people and generally good ones still went to the Bad Place because they had like 1,150,000 points instead of 1,200,000, and not to mention every other person with points between zero and the lower cut of the Good Place. The system makes no sense from its inception. Why on earth should a person with more than a million point literally burn in hell? Why would accountants be okay with this? To see so many green points go to hell? It's horrible.

3. Also, infinity doesn't apply only to humans - it is cruel and unfair that all non-humans in this world are immortal, and on top of that, forced into a job essentially from birth. They did touch it with Michael both changing his job and later becoming mortal, but it's such a shame that the possibility wasn't given to all non-humans. When your only options are forced labour (that you can't choose the type of) or brutal death ("retirement"), you are just as much of a prisoner of the system as the humans.

4. Why exactly is there a system? I know it is irrelevant within the frame of the show, but I am genuinely curious in the philosophical aspect of this, especially since the system in the show is explicitly detached from any religion, religiosity and divinity. Why are humans judged at all? Why only humans? What right or authority do the non-humans have to operate this system and judge humans in the first place? Does this imply a higher being does exist? Or is the universe just really into burocracy, randomly placing atoms in the shape of accountants and fire monsters?

4. Doug Forcett shouldn't have had any points at all. His motivation was just as curupt as Tahani's, and so it didn't matter how much good he did.

5. Funny enough, through the experiment Michael actually found a more moral and fair way to torture people, regardless of how it revealed the flaws in the system. This goes back to the fact that a lot of good people and just normal average people filled the Bad Place. It was established that the Bad Place workers truly believe in justice. They don't do their job because they're evil, they do it because it's their part in keeping the universe balanced. But I can't believe that a demon looks at essentially a good person's file and says "yeah they deserve to get their intestines pulled out of their ass for the rest of eternity". If the revolt wouldn't start from the humans or the accountans (or angles for that matter), it should have started with the demons, who actually deal with the consequences of the flaws in the system every day. Michael's solution is what the Bad Place should have been from the beginning - a tailored torture that fits the crimes of the individual human. Finding out that they're in the Bad Place didn't actually harm the torture at all, it's a form of torture all of its own and should have been incorporated into the new technique (which, technically, it was in the end, when it became the new system). Beyond that, it's just a question of the length of the punishment, which brings us full circle to the first point.

Still the best show ever.

[bu1410]

Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707-1762) - Ragazza con libro.

Pietro Rotari è stato un pittore italiano del periodo barocco. Nato a Verona, ha viaggiato molto e ha trascorso gli ultimi anni della sua vita a San Pietroburgo, dove ha lavorato per la corte russa.

Rotari è noto soprattutto per i suoi ritratti, in particolare quelli di giovani donne, che sono apprezzati per la loro bellezza e il loro realismo. I suoi soggetti erano spesso donne dell'aristocrazia russa, ma anche contadine e altre figure popolari.

Oltre ai ritratti, Rotari ha realizzato anche opere religiose e incisioni. Il suo stile è caratterizzato da una tavolozza di colori tenui, con sfumature di grigio, marrone, verde oliva, rosa e nero.

Rotari è considerato uno dei più importanti pittori del XVIII secolo. Le sue opere sono state esposte in musei di tutto il mondo e sono ancora oggi molto ammirate.

[bonebeautyart]

On religion and its control in politics

“The church was designed to operate like a river, not a pond” – Joshua Proudinat

The human in his full complexity has created a mutable and eternal machine of government: religion; this is the word, and the institution the form. The concept of religion can be summarized, in broad terms, in the belief of the origin of the power that unites the individuals, contemplated within a hierarchical order, to worship as custom and the one who exercises the ceremonies will then be his institution, to which his name is recognized as church.

The church is a system of government that for two millennia has been able to lay the foundations of politics: From its roots in the fundamental pillars of human civilization - such as the conception of morality and the family - to its conquests in war. This order has been established on the basis of a human criterion: existence and mortality. Questions that have been whispering to us since man created his state of consciousness, the church gave a safe haven to our troubled minds by the absurdity of life. The church represents comfort and routine. It represents continuity of life, exerts a sense of faith.

From this sense of faith is born the union by belief, and almost "naturally" this principle is moved from the individual to the institution: the source is no longer found in everyone, but in the church, which will dedicate itself to preaching the new principles that create the state. It is then intended to organise the masses in this way, but in the course of history individual interests begin to supersede the institution, thus creating the corruption and vice that poisons it into an enterprise. This enterprise, united by the cult but separated by factions, creates war as a justification for its ambition, thus crushing different cultures and imposing its order. But they have crushed not only the culture but the very society that with this same sense of faith gives strength and meaning to the church. In this imposed order, it is abruptly interrupted by the French Revolution, entering the scene as a consequence of the need for a fresher order and representative structure caused by growing industrialization and the impotence of the feudal government that had been the norm. The church loses the weight of faith, and this is consummated in the moral judgment suffered by the priest-king.

But the disorder caused by the instability of the era ends up devouring the revolutionary fire, thus extinguishing the hope of a possible new order. Religiosity comes before chaos, returning to the classical structure it has maintained for years. Now the state may be secular, but culture is naturally an act of belief, the people create culture and culture the state. And then we see, the union in dress, the symbolism of control, the divine perfection and the geometric contrasts that indicate coolness, conservation and political relations in their purest sense. This resource fills our senses and, as has been repeated in history, is used by power itself to manage and persuade.

Previously the centralized systems did not need to possess the rhetoric for their preservation; however, the present representative systems for the preservation of the political class, have been created sophists to give a new tradition linked again with religion.

The pendulum of politics moves through individual interests rather than collective needs. This creates the necessary conditions for tyrannies. That the church, seeking to regain its political position, may come to support causing an alignment of human thought, breaking the threads of democracy. The passing of Pope Francis may signal a change of course, closing one era and opening another, which will not be discovered until after the conclave is over.

The current political tensions and the inclination of the masses towards conservatism may be an opening for the new pontiff to decide to break with Pope Francis's progressive legacy, again embracing traditionalism and seeking to position the church in union with the state. These new winds may indicate political centralism and the need of the rise of democracy.

-G.P

[aki1975]

Andrea Pozzo - Roma Sant’Ignazio di Loyola - Apoteosi di Sant’Ignazio - 1694

I conflitti religiosi che nel Cinquecento avevano visto una composizione con la Pace di Augusta in cui Carlo V aveva accettato il principio del “cuius regio eius religio” sfociano nel Seicento in due tendenze contrapposte:

- le meraviglie del Barocco e le opere della Controriforma cattolica;

- l’ampio scenario della Guerra dei Trent’Anni.

La Guerra dei Trent’Anni può essere riassunta lungo queste tappe:

- 1594 - Enrico IV Borbone, convertendosi al Cattolicesimo, Re di Francia

- 1598 - Morte di Filippo II

- 1603 - Morte di Elisabetta I

- 1618 - i rappresentanti dell’imperatore cattolico Ferdinando II d’Asburgo, che cerca di creare uno stato moderno, vengono defenestrati dai protestanti boemi

- 1620 - Sacro Macello dei protestanti in Valtellina

- 1624 - Richelieu Primo Ministro

- 1628 - il generale boemo Wallenstein, al servizio degli Asburgo, sconfigge l’esercito danese

- 1631 - il candidato francese al Ducato di Mantova e del Monferrato Carlo I Gonzaga - Nevers prevale, anche grazie all’abilità diplomatica di Mazzarino, sul candidato sostenuto dagli Asburgo di Spagna e dai Savoia dopo la guerra del Monferrato in cui dilaga la peste raccontata nei Promessi Sposi. Nello stesso anno l’Impero saccheggia Magdeburgo, città alleata degli Svedesi

- 1642 - Mazzarino succede a Richelieu

- 1643 - i Francesi, guidate dal Duca d’Enghien (poi Principe di Condè) sconfiggono gli Spagnoli a Rocroi. Luigi XIV Borbone Re di Francia

- 1648 - Pace di Westfalia. Fine del conflitto in cui si profila la leadership francese sull’Europa: gli Asburgo si concentrano sui possedimenti propri (Austria e Ungheria) anziché sull’Impero;

- 1649 - Carlo I Stuart decapitato in Inghilterra

Il Seicento, secolo in Italia di decadenza politica ed economica, è però anche il secolo di Carlo e Federico Borromeo e del Barocco ispirato dalla Controriforma i cui eventi principali sono:

- 1534 - Alessandro Farnese, fratello di Giulia, amante di Alessandro VI Borgia, eletto Papa Paolo III. Approvazione della Compagnia di Gesù

- 1542 - Paolo III istituisce l’Inquisizione

- 1545 - Concilio di Trento: accentramento del potere papale, importanza delle opere e non solo della grazia, formazione del clero, impegno pastorale

- 1566 - Michele Ghislieri eletto Papa Pio V, il Papa che raccoglie la Lega che vince a Lepanto nel 1571

- 1572 - Il bolognese Ugo Boncompagni eletto Papa Gregorio XIII, promotore non solo del calendario gregoriano, ma anche di importanti iniziative religiose, pastorali e culturali. Nel 1580 viene inaugurato il Quirinale

- 1589 - Fontana del Mosè sotto il pontificato di Sisto V che fa erigere obelischi e migliorare il tessuto urbanistico dell’Urbe: è il modello della “Ecclesia triumphans” dopo il contrasto alle eresie dei decenni precedenti

- 1592 - Clemente VIII Aldobrandini Papa

- 1600 - Cappella Contarelli a San Luigi dei Francesi (Caravaggio). Giordano Bruno al rogo a Campo dei Fiori, decapitata Beatrice Cenci

- 1605 - Camillo Borghese eletto Papa Paolo V. Cappella Cerasi in Santa Maria del Popolo (Caravaggio)

- 1612 - Carlo Maderno inaugura la nuova facciata di San Pietro

- 1623 - Maffeo Barberini eletto Papa Urbano VIII

- 1626 - Baldacchino di San Pietro (Bernini)

- 1633 - Abiura di Galileo

- 1651 - grazie alla mediazione di Olimpia Maidalchini, Innocenzo X Pamphili affida al Bernini la Fontana dei Fiumi che completa Piazza Navona

- 1652 - Estasi di Santa Teresa a Santa Maria della Vittoria (Bernini)

- 1655 - Fabio Chigi eletto Papa Alessandro VII

- 1657 - Colonnato di San Pietro (Bernini)

- 1660 - Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza (Borromini)

- 1667 - Oratorio dei Filippini (Borromini), Santa Maria della Pace (Pietro da Cortona)

Terminato lo slancio mecenatistico dei pontefici, l’Apoteosi di Sant’Ignazio con la finta cupola commissionata ad Andrea Pozzo dai Gesuiti segna nel 1694 la fine del Barocco a Roma.

[dailyanarchistposts]

The New Pacifism

The new pacifism is not really all that new. It is little more than an eclectic mixture of ideas and techniques borrowed from its various predecessors. From the old pacifism comes the flat refusal to fight; from the old anti-militarism comes the determination to resist war; and from Gandhi comes the use of mass non- violent direct action. There are other borrowings. From socialism comes the optimistic view of the future; from liberalism comes the idealistic view of the present; from anarchism comes the disrespect for authority. But the new pacifism is selective. It rejects the sentimentality of the old pacifists, the vagueness of the anti-militarists, the religiosity of Gandhi, the authoritarianism of the socialists, the respectability of the liberals, the intolerance of the anarchists.

The basis of the new pacifism is unilateralism, the demand that this country should offer a sort of national satyagraha to the world. “Someone has to arise in England with the living faith to say that England, whatever happens, shall not use arms,” said Gandhi before the last war; but “that will be a miracle.” Miracle or not, that is what has happened. The new opposition to war derives from opposition to nuclear war, to the Bomb rather than to bombs, and not from opposition to all violence. At first this looks like a retreat, but on second thoughts it is possible to see that it can actually be an advance. The progression used to be from the lesser violence to the greater; now it is the other way round, and instead of justifying war because violence is sometimes necessary we are now learning to condemn violence because its use in war is always useless. Few people start by accepting total non-violence; quite a lot can start by rejecting nuclear war. Thus many new pacifists refuse to take the name of “pacifist”, partly because pacifism has a bad image (see George Orwell) and partly because they aren’t like the old pacifists. The old pacifism tended to be simpleminded and tender-minded; the new pacifism tends to be tough-minded and bloody-minded.

And yet the new pacifism grew straight from the old. The British unilateralist movement sprang not from the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in January 1958 nor even from that of its parent, the National Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapon Tests, in February 1957. It was really brought to fife by Harold Steele’s proposal to enter the Christmas Island test-area early in 1957, which led to the formation of an Emergency Committee for Direct Action against Nuclear War, and which followed years of grinding work by dedicated pacifists. The CND leaders like to take a lot of credit for their success during the last four years, but it was made possible only because the ground had been prepared for so long. The beginning of pacifist unilateralism was right back in 1949, when some people in the PPU formed a Non- Violent Commission; two years later some members of this group formed “Operation Gandhi”, and on 11 January, 1952, eleven pacifists in “Operation Gandhi” sat down outside the War Office and were fined 30s. apiece. So the first London sit-down wasn’t the one led by Bertrand Russell and Michael Scott on 18 February, 1961, or even the spontaneous one in Downing Street after the launching meeting of CND on 17 February, 1958, but was one carried out more than ten years ago by seven women and four men and probably forgotten by nearly everyone except themselves. The same is true of the later activities of “Operation Gandhi”— or the Non-violent Resistance Group, as it became. Who now remembers the demonstrations at Aldermaston (yes, Aldcrmaston) in April 1952, at Porton in March 1953, at Harwell in April 1953, and at Woolwich in July 1954? Who remembers the sit-down by two women at Msldenhall US base in July 1952? Who remembers any unilateralist demonstration before the march to Aldermaston at Easter 1958? Ask anyone when the unilateralist movement began and who began it, ask for the dates of the first examples of illegal action against the Bomb, and you wiH find that the answers are connected to some big name or other, to the adherence of a reputable person or body to an otherwise disreputable movement.

What happened to British unilateralism to make it seem respectable, non-pacifist, so that for four years there has been a sort of conspiracy to avoid admitting just how unrespectable and pacifist it really is? The turning-point was the announcement of British nuclear tests at the beginning of 1957, just after Suez, which caused not only the emergence of Harold Steele, an old member of the No Conscription Fellowship, but to the feeling by many thoroughly respective and orthodox people that things had gone too far. So we had Stephen King-Hall’s conversion to non-violent resistance (“breaking through the thoughtbarrier”, as he put it) and the growing feeling by the Labour Left that a unilateralist campaign was necessary. So we also had the National

Council in February 1957 and CND a year later. Understand that CND has never been a pacifist body; it has indeed tended to fall into a sentimentalism as dangerous as the old pacifist sentimentalism — hoping to get rid of the British Bomb without changing anything else, so it is all right to kill people as long as you don’t kill too many at once. Nevertheless CND has served a most useful service— for pacifism, despite itself, because it has built up mass support for protest action against not only the Bomb but all bombs; and for anarchism too, even more despite itself, because it has also built up mass support for protest action against the State that makes the Bomb and the whole social system that maintains the State, what Landauer called the topia. Thus the rank and file of CND have been consistently and increasingly more militant than the leadership; CND began as a pressure-group to make the Labour Party unilateralist, but it became an unwilling vanguard of Utopia, the nucleus of Alex Comfort’s maquis of the peace.

A more important unilateralist body was the successor of the NonViolent Resistance Group and the Emergency Committee for Direct Action— the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, which was formed in November 1957, and whose great contribution to the new pacifism is that it put illegal non-violent direct action on the British political map. The first Aldermaston march was planned by a D AC sub-committee as a direct action operation, but it was more or less taken over by CND— along with Gerald Holtom’s “nuclear disarmament” symbol, which was designed for the march and later became the universal unilateralist badge. (It is significant that CND turned the Aldermaston march back to front after 1958, so that it became a march from instead of to the research establishment— as if to symbolise the retreat of conventional unilateralists from unorthodox direct action back into orthodox demonstration and publicity— and took on the appearance of some kind of annual spring festival always ending with a bump at the dull meeting in Trafalgar Square.) This was something of a setback, but DAC was not deflected from its chosen course. First there was the almost forgotten sit-down at Aldermaston in September 1958, and then the famous sit-downs at North Pickenham in December 1958, at Harrington in January 1960, at Finningley in July 1960, and at the Holy Loch in May 1961, which— together with the two at Foulness in April and May 1960 (which were organised by Southend CND)— have rightly become a vital part of the unilateralist mythology. We should also remember the attempts to enter the Sahara test-area at the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960, the CND demonstration at Selby in July 1959, the invasion of the lost village of Imber in January 1961, and the guerrilla activity of the Polaris Action jranc-tireurs last spring and summer. There was never non-violent action like this before in Britain. The Chartists, Suffragettes and Hunger Marchers organised all kinds of spectacular demonstrations, and the Aldermaston marches were getting bigger and bigger every year, but DAC was doing something quite unique — they were getting people used to the idea of not only thinking for themselves and demonstrating for themselves, but taking action for themselves and inviting punishment for themselves as well. In 1917 the leaders of the Champaran indigo-workers said to Gandhi: “The idea of accommodating oneself to imprisonment is a novel thing for us. We will try to assimilate it.” This is what we might have said forty years later to Michael Scott (who had taken part in satyagraha in South Africa ten years earlier) and to Michael Randle and Pat Arrowsmith and April Carter, and they did their best to show us how — they were the real maquis.

Not that their methods were strictly Gandhian. There were many traditional Indian techniques of non-violent resistance for him to use, as well as the universal ones of the strike and non-co-operation— the exodus (deshatyaga\ the trade-strike (hartal), the fast unto death iprayopaveshanaX the sit-down (dharna), and civil disobedience (ajnabhanga), Gandhi himself preferred civil disobedience and the tradestrike, and he preferred not to break the law until it became necessary. He always thought the sit-down was a barbaric technique, as bad as sabotage, and condemned it even though many of his followers used it (notably in Bombay in 1930). But it has of course become the chief technique of unilateralists who favour illegal action, whether it is used for direct action (against military sites) or for civil disobedience (at significant places in large towns). There are other points of difference —Gandhi used to insist on absolute obedience to his orders during a satyagraha operation (though he never tried to impose himself: it was more like the old Roman dictatorships than anything else), and on a very high degree of training and discipline; arrested satyagrahis used to co-operate with the police as soon as they were arrested (but we should remember that thousands of them were beaten unconcious before they were arrested in the 1930 salt-pan raids, for example); and there seems to have been much more shouting and scuffling than we are used to. Above all, Gandhi proclaimed that he loved his opponents— few unilateralists could claim as much, and Russell is clearly no satyagrahi by Gandhian standards! But in the important things the unilateralists have followed Gandhi pretty closely, especially in the insistance on non-violence, self-sacrifice, openness and truth, though they could do with rather more of his self-criticism and self-discipline.

The direct action sit-down was naturally the technique favoured by DAC, and its members were a little self-righteous about the superiority of their methods over anything else. Their self-sacrifice extended even to matters like choosing the most unfavourable possible time of the year or place in the countryside for their demonstrations, and this was something of a defect, since their impact was inevitably softened by the very small numbers they attracted. They were more important than CND in the long run, but instead of sneering at the CND leaders’ obsession with numbers they might have tried to see just why thousands of people would march from Aldermaston while barely a hundred would sit-down at any missile site. It would be disastrous for the unilateralist movement to calculate its success entirely in terms of the numbers of people who take part in or get arrested at illegal demonstrations, but numbers are significant all the same. It isn’t irrelevant to point out that there were less than fifty arrests at North Pickenham, less than ninety at Harrington, less than forty at Foulness, and less than thirty at Finningley— that the DAC demonstrations were very small, and the Committee of 100 demonstrations which came after them were relatively very large.

The Committee of 100 was formed in October 1960 as an act of dissatisfaction with both CND (which was too moderate) and DAC (which was too puritanical), and as a gesture of no-confidence in orthodox political action — this was the very month of the Scarborough vote! It was headed by Bertrand Russell and Michael Scott, the cleverest and the best man in the country, one representing the anti-militarist tradition, the other representing the pacifist tradition, one representing humanist thought, the other representing religious thought. But its inspiration was anarchist, both conscious and unconscious, and the effect of its activities since it was formed has been to give British anarchism a bigger push forward than anything else that has happened since the last War. The Committee has tried to use the sit-down technique both for civil disobedience and for direct action; so far it has only succeeded with the former, since people are still shy of direct action, and Very Important People (who make up a good proportion of the Committee’s official membership) are shyer than most. The idea is that either civil disobedience or direct action on a large enough scale come to the same thing, a sort of non-violent insurrection* though there have been powerful forces in the Committee from the start trying to pull it one way or the other. But last year’s three big sit-downs in central London (February 18th, April 29th, September 17th), the provincial sit-downs (December 9th), the Embassy sit-downs (American, April 3rd and September 6th; Russian, August 31st and October 21st), the Holy Loch sit-down on September 16th and the Ruislip and Wethersfield sit-downs on December 9th, are all part of the same campaign and differ from each other, in intention at least, only in tactical details. In practice it has become clear that the most successful ones, in terms of efficiency and discipline, are the sudden small ones which are organised without much notice, while the most successful ones, in terms of propaganda and effect, are the big ones which are organised weeks ahead, and which take place in central London.

Now it is regrettable, of course, that many people who are prepared to break the law in the middle of the metropolis are not yet prepared to do so at military sites in suburbs or out in the countryside, but there it is — it is very human, and we are dealing with human beings, not saints. It is one of our first principles that we are all free individuals and can make up our own minds and follow our own consciences. So it is nothing more than common sense to get people used to breaking the law where they are most willing to do so before moving them on into direct action when they feel more sure of themselves. (This is what Gandhi would have done in our place, for he was nothing if not shrewd. And just as people are being trained to take action in the right way, they are also being trained to take action at the right time.

We have already seen how the root fallacy of the old pacifists and antimilitarists alike was that they spent all their effort in making plans for a general strike and were then reduced to individual protest — they played with models of direct action in their heads. The new pacifists and antimilitarists began with the individual protest and use their effort to work up by stages to the general strike — they are playing with models of direct action in the city streets and the country lanes. We are learning a new language, as it were, by the direct method, which is far more effective than studying books of grammar; we can’t speak perfectly yet, but at least we have begun to speak.

Not that our direct action is real direct action yet. Even DAC never managed to achieve a genuine direct action demonstration; the nearest they came was in the first attack on North Pickenham, and the result was that they were attacked not only by the servicemen and police but by the civilian labourers working on the site. After all, real direct action can only be taken by people in their own homes and places of work; the only people who can take real direct action at military sites, until we can raise 100,000 people to surround one, are the people who work at military sites. Direct action is in fact almost unknown in British politics, and it is desperately difficult to open most people’s minds to it at all. But, as Gandhi said, “never has anything been done on this earth without direct action.” Somehow the Committee of 100 has to increase its numbers and eventually get them out to the sites, and this is punishing work.

This applies in other areas of political life too. Gandhi’s successors in South Africa and North America are fighting racial oppression as he did — indeed he once suggested that “it may be through the negroes that the unadulterated message of non-violence will be delivered to the world”— and there is room for direct action against the small amount of racial oppression we already have in this country. It is also possible to see a valid extension of the same technique into areas like housing, poverty, bureaucracy, subtopia, and so on. But above all the use of non-violent direct action can become an instrument of the unofficial Labour Movement, or at least that part of it which is still immune to Marx’s “incurable disease of parliamentary cretinism” (recently renamed “Labourism” by Ralph Miliband). The Committee of 100 formed an industrial sub-committee last October and maintains a loose alliance with the syndicalist movement in general. As Michael Randle said to a hostile journalist, “It is quite legitimate for people who come from a background of industrial struggle to see there is a relation between what we have been saying about nuclear disarmament and what they are saying about society in general.” So far the purpose of the alliance has been to mobilise the Labour Movement against the Bomb. Energy should also be flowing in the other direction, to mobilise the unilateralists against the State and against all the imperfections in our society — but not to pour the wine of the new pacifism into some old bottle or other, such as parliamentary by-elections or the Labour Party or the New Left. The unilateralists have stimulated the Left; let’s hope there is some feed-back so that the unilateralists are stimulated by the Left as well. Gandhi always insisted that every satyagraha operation should be accompanied by a “constructive programme”. At first it is difficult to see how unilateralists can have one (though I suspect that Gandhi would have told us to join Civil Defence en masse!), but a little thought shows that since our satyagraha or duragraha is directed against the Warfare State our constructive programme should be to replace it.

This isn’t such a new idea. All left-wing anti-militarists wanted the social revolution to follow the general strike against war, and though most pacifists wanted nothing of the kind there were always some, like Tolstoy, who wanted nothing better. Bart de Ligt said at the end of his mobilisation plan that “the collective opposition to war should be converted into the social revolution”, and elsewhere [10] he stated the law The more violence, the less revolution, and called for a non-violent “revolutionary anti-militarism”. Wilhelm Liebknecht had already said that “violence has been a reactionary force for thousands of years,” and Gustav Landauer had already said that “socialists are romantics who invariably and inevitably use their enemies* methods.” When Marx said that “violence is the midwife of a new order” and Bakunin said, that “every step forward in history has been achieved only when it has been baptised in blood,” they were being irresponsive and irresponsible; when Emma Goldman said that “the most pernicious idea is that the end justifies the means” and Simone Weil said that “the revolutionary war is the revolutionary grave”, they were being responsive and responsible. Violence in human history has brought us to the concentration camp and the Bomb; perhaps we can now learn to take Aldous Huxley’s simple and superficially rather sentimental statement that “violence makes men worse: non-violence makes them better” quite seriously at last. And when Richard Gregg says “although it is not a panacea non-violent resistance is an effective social instrument whereby we may remound the world,” and when Joan Bondurant says it is “the solution to the problem of method which anarchism has consistently failed to solve,” we will begin to listen with attention. How much better is “propaganda by deed” when it is against bombs instead of with them.

What is our task? It is to increase and extend our resistance to the Bomb and all bombs, to war and to the Warfare State, to our State and to all States, by direct action and by civil disobedience and by education and by mutual aid. Cobbett used to call what he hated “the Thing”, but the State isn’t all —Landauer said : “The State is a condition, a certain relationship between people, a way of human behaviour; and we destroy it when we contract different relationships and behave in a different way.” Nor is revolution a thing either — Gandhi said : “A non- violent revolution is not a programme of ‘seizure of power’; it is a programme of transformation of relationships.” The Committee of 100 has perpetrated its Pennine miscalculations and often made a fool of itself; but at the moment it is the most active agent in the destruction of the State, in the improvement of public relationships, in Trotsky’s “permanent revolution”, Zamyatin’s “infinite revolution” Landauer’s plain “revolution” [11] — “the period between the end of one topia and the beginning of the next”, in the present modern British Utopia. The Left, which sucks its life from Utopia, should be helping the Committee in its work; every section and sect should be forgetting its sectarian King Karl’s Head and giving all it can to the unilateralist movement— instead of sniping at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Committee of 100 from all sides (even from the anarchist side which should know better). The unilateralist movement is an existentialist movement, drawing its being from its action, and in the last few years it has done more good than all the left-wing periodicals have done since the War. There is plenty to discuss without being rude to one another.[12]

We may not succeed— but at last we have started something, you and me and all of them. At last we are learning how to take direct action, even if at the moment it only involves “sitting in puddles as a symbolic gesture— of our own impotence.” At last the intelligentsia has found a cause that doesn’t involve being somewhere else when the trigger is pulled, as George Orwell put it. And at last we are beginning to see the possibility of the situation envisaged years ago by Alex Comfort, “when enough people respond to the invitation to die, not with a salute but a smack in the mouth, and the mention of war empties the factories and fills the streets.” We are far from this situation, but I still hope, remembering Gandhi’s observation that “A society organised and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy.” I don’t know what our chances are. I only know what I myself am going to do.

[10]

[11]

[1] The State (1918), posthumously published in Untimely Essays (1919V reprinted separately by the American “Resistance Press” (1946–47)- never published in this country.

[2] See Margaret Hirst: The Quakers in Peace & War (1923).

[3] See Denis Hayes: Conscription Conflict (1949), which goes up to 1939 and its sequel Conscription & Conscience (1949).

[4] The Moral Equivalent of War, leaflet 27 of the American “Association for Internationa Conciliation” (1910); posthumously published in Memories & Studies (1911); reprinted separately by the PPU (1943).

[5] The Political Equivalent of War, in the Atlantic Monthly (August 1928).

[6] Le Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, ou Le Contr’un, written by La Boetie when he was 16 (1546–47) according to his close friend Montaigne; several pirated editions were posthumously published in France in the 1570s; there is a good English translation called The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (1735) and a bad American one called Anti-Dictator (1942).

[7] Written immediately after the Massacre of Peterloo in August 1819 but first published posthumously in 1832.

[8] Published asan Appendix to de Ligt’s The Conquest of Violence”; reprinted separately by the PPU (1939).

[9] The best books on Gandhi’s political ideas and activities are Clarence Case’s Non-VioIent Coercion (1923); the first edition of Richard Gregg: The Power of Non-Violence (1934); and Joan Bondurant: Conquest of Violence (1958), which should not be confused with Bart de Ligt’s book of a similar name.

[12] The Conquest of Violence (1937), a translation of Pour Vaincre sans U Violence. No English translation seems to have been published of the same author’s monumental La Paix Creatrice (1934). Die Revolution (1907) has never been published in this country. There is a very useful list of relevant ideas, books and articles in Anthony Weaver: Schools for Non-Violence (1961)— a pamphlet published by the Committee of 100.

[daniela--anna]

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Gli AZULEJOS PORTOGHESI sono piastrelle di ceramica smaltata, caratterizzate da decorazioni intricate e colori vivaci, utilizzate per abbellire edifici e spazi pubblici in Portogallo sin dal XVI secolo.

La parola "azulejo" deriva dall'arabo "al-zulayj," che significa "pietra lucidata," riflettendo le origini moresche di questa forma d'arte, introdotta durante l'occupazione islamica della penisola iberica.

Inizialmente ispirati ai motivi geometrici moreschi, gli azulejos portoghesi si sono evoluti nel tempo, incorporando elementi rinascimentali, barocchi e rococò. Durante il XVII e XVIII secolo, il Portogallo sviluppò uno stile unico, caratterizzato principalmente dal colore blu e bianco, che evocava l'estetica della porcellana cinese, molto in voga all'epoca.

Questi azulejos adornavano chiese, palazzi e persino abitazioni comuni, trasformando le città portoghesi in vere e proprie gallerie d'arte all'aperto.

Gli azulejos non erano solo decorativi, ma anche narrativi. Spesso raffiguravano scene religiose, storiche o mitologiche, raccontando storie visive accessibili a tutti. Un esempio famoso è il Convento di Madre de Deus a Lisbona, che ospita un magnifico museo dedicato a questa forma d'arte, con opere che spaziano dal gotico al contemporaneo.

Il loro ruolo non si limitava all'ornamento; gli azulejos venivano usati anche per isolare termicamente gli edifici e proteggerli dall'umidità. Ancora oggi, passeggiando per città come Lisbona o Porto, è possibile ammirare facciate di case, stazioni ferroviarie e chiese rivestite di azulejos, testimonianza di una tradizione che continua a essere parte integrante dell'identità culturale portoghese. Questi pannelli di ceramica raccontano la storia del paese, unendo l'arte alla vita quotidiana in modo unico.

📚 Dal portale "Giubbe Rosse".