#radical reconstruction

[lightdancer1]

Thaddeus Stevens is the face of white Reconstruction-era radicalism in its successes and its failures:

The best example of the kind of figure who led the white vision of Reconstruction in its most radical forms and where and how the visions proved limited is one Thaddeus Stevens. He was the most radical representative of the Republican Party, the standard bearer of Radical Reconstruction. He was also one of the few men openly married to a Black woman in the 1870s and unashamed of it.

Stevens held to both the 'republican form of government clause' and to the idea that while secession was illegal and didn't actually happen, the practical reality was that the South was held by conquest and if it denied he'd damned well force it to face it. His vision viewed political equality as a given, but distinguished it from social equality in the most strict senses (and when he even he thought this you can see why it ultimately failed).

Too, one can see that line in the gap between political and social equality when the modern era has shown without the latter the former doesn't mean a bucket of warm piss.

[forgottenrememberings]

there is a place for us, if we are willing to make it for one another.

[thereconstructinggirl]

He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? (‭‭‭Micah‬ ‭6‬‬:‭8‬ ‭NRSVUE‬‬)

[deadpresidents]

Can you tell us more about James A Garfield and is there any media of him that you recommend? All I know is the book by Goodyear..

I always say that Garfield was one of the big "What if?" Presidents in American history had he not been assassinated. He was a fascinating character and could have been the transformational leader that propelled the United States through late-Reconstruction and the Gilded Age in ways that the other Presidents between Lincoln and McKinley were unable to do. Garfield was young (just 49 years old when he died), energetic, charismatic, absolutely brilliant, and aggressively progressive. He had ideas and the ability to implement them instead of simply being a steady hand. And, like JFK in a way, he brought his young, attractive family to the White House and that could have helped him lead the country in a different direction than his less engaging contemporaries who immediately preceded and succeeded him like Grant, Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison. Garfield also had a somewhat mystical quality to him that I also believe would have captivated many Americans in an entirely new manner than most Presidents. The fact that he was only President for 199 days -- most of which were spent fighting for his life after he was shot -- is one of the great missed opportunities of American history.

For more on Garfield, the C.W. Goodyear biography that you mentioned, President Garfield: From Radical to Unified (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), is the most recent (published in 2023) and fresh look at his life and career. But there are several others that I'd highly recommend checking out:

•Garfield by Allan Peskin (BOOK | KINDLE), was published in 1978 and, for many years, was the best, most in-depth full-fledged biography on Garfield. It's still a must-read, in my opinion. •Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield by Kenneth D. Ackerman (BOOK | KINDLE), was published in 2003, and is an excellent look at Garfield's shocking nomination and election in 1880, brief Presidency, and tragic assassination. •Touched With Fire: Five Presidents and the Civil War That Made Them by James M. Perry (BOOK | KINDLE), was also published in 2003. It's not a full biography of Garfield, but a look at the five Presidents who saw combat during the Civil War -- Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and McKinley -- and how those experiences shaped them. •Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by the always-awesome Candice Millard (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), was published in 2011 and it is the definitive book on Garfield's assassination. It's a detailed illustration of the shooting that wounded Garfield and his brutal, two-and-a-half -month-long battle to attempt to survive his wounds -- a battle that was ultimately lost largely due to the botched medical "care" that the President received after he was shot. Candice's book reads like a novel and it's apparently the basis for the upcoming Netflix series, "Death by Lightning" featuring Michael Shannon, Betty Gilpin, Matthew Macfadyen, and Nick Offerman.

Also, PBS's American Experience released a fantastic, two-hour-long documentary on Garfield's assassination in 2016 called Murder of a President, which was also partially based on Candice Millard's book. I'm pretty biased when it comes to American Experience, which I believe is a national treasure, but Murder of a President is especially good. I don't know if you can watch it directly from the PBS American Experience website right now, but you can find the film on sites like iTunes and Amazon Prime.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

instagram.com :: Jesse Duquette (@_jesseduquette)

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 8, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 09, 2024

On July 9, 1868, Americans changed the U.S. Constitution for the fourteenth time, adapting our foundational document to construct a new nation without systematic Black enslavement. 

In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution had prohibited slavery on the basis of race, but it did not prevent the establishment of a system in which Black Americans continued to be unequal. Backed by President Andrew Johnson, who had taken over the presidency after actor John Wilkes Booth had murdered President Abraham Lincoln, white southern Democrats had done their best to push their Black neighbors back into subservience. So long as southern states had abolished enslavement, repudiated Confederate debts, and nullified the ordinances of secession, Johnson was happy to readmit them to full standing in the Union, still led by the very men who had organized the Confederacy and made war on the United States. 

Northern Republican lawmakers refused. There was no way they were going to rebuild southern society on the same blueprint as existed before the Civil War, especially since the upcoming 1870 census would count Black Americans as whole persons for the first time in the nation’s history, giving southern states more power in Congress and the Electoral College after the war than they had had before it. Having just fought a war to destroy the South’s ideology, they were not going to let it regrow in peacetime.

Congress rejected Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction.

But then congressmen had to come up with their own. After months of hearings and debate, they proposed amending the Constitution to settle the outstanding questions of the war. Chief among these was how to protect the rights of Black Americans in states where they could neither vote nor testify in court or sit on a jury to protect their own interests. 

Congress’s solution was the Fourteenth Amendment.

It took on the infamous 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision declaring that Black men "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens.” 

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” 

The amendment also addressed the Dred Scott decision in another profound way. In 1857, southerners and Democrats who were adamantly opposed to federal power controlled the Supreme Court. They backed states’ rights. So the Dred Scott decision did more than read Black Americans out of our history; it dramatically circumscribed Congress’s power. 

The Dred Scott decision declared that democracy was created at the state level, by those people in a state who were allowed to vote. In 1857 this meant white men, almost exclusively. If those people voted to do something widely unpopular—like adopting human enslavement, for example—they had the right to do so. People like Abraham Lincoln pointed out that such domination by states would eventually mean that an unpopular minority could take over the national government, forcing their ideas on everyone else, but defenders of states’ rights stood firm. 

And so the Fourteenth Amendment gave the federal government the power to protect individuals even if their state legislatures had passed discriminatory laws. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” it said. And then it went on to say that “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” 

The principles behind the Fourteenth Amendment were behind the 1870 creation of the Department of Justice, whose first job was to bring down the Ku Klux Klan terrorists in the South. 

Those same principles took on profound national significance in the post–World War II era, when the Supreme Court began to use the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment aggressively to apply the protections in the Bill of Rights to the states. The civil rights decisions of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including the Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public schools, come from this doctrine. Under it, the federal government took up the mantle of protecting the rights of individual Americans in the states from the whims of state legislatures.

Opponents of these new civil rights protections quickly began to object that such decisions were “legislating from the bench,” rather than permitting state legislatures to make their own laws. They began to call for “originalism,” the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted only as the Framers had intended when they wrote it, an argument that focused on the creation of law at the state level. Famously, in 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork, an originalist who had called for the rollback of the Supreme Court’s civil rights decisions, for a seat on that court. 

Reacting to that nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) recognized the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to equality: “Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….”

From the perspective of 2024, Kennedy’s comments seem prescient, but the country could go even further backward. The 2024 Republican Party platform, released today, calls for using the Fourteenth Amendment not to protect equal rights for Americans from discriminatory laws, as those who wrote, passed, and ratified the amendment intended. Instead it calls for using the Fourteenth Amendment to protect the rights of fetuses from the time of fertilization. It says that states should start passing laws protecting those rights: so-called fetal personhood laws that have their roots in the 1960s and were considered a fringe idea until about fifteen years ago. Those laws prohibit all abortion, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and several forms of contraception.  

Saying states should pass such laws echoes the language Trump has used to try to avoid the Republicans’ extreme and unpopular abortion stance by claiming, as the Supreme Court did in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, that states alone should write laws covering abortion. But in its reaction to the Republican platform today, the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization made it clear that the platform’s reference to the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to open the way for a national abortion ban. The Fourteenth Amendment, after all, gives Congress “power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

“It is important that the [Republican Party] reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment,” the organization said in a statement. “Under this amendment, it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions. The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mala-santa-radfem]

i dream about a world where plastic surgery doesn't exist. like how did we get here ? an industry that thrives on women's insecurities and allows "doctors" (bc i think plastic surgeons are fucking butchers) to perform unnecessary procedures on perfectly healthy women and sometimes teenage girls.

i dream of the day the entire medical industry realizes this is an inhumane practice and every resource and time and money put into plastic surgery goes to women's health. enough. plastic surgery and plastic surgeons are not necessary in this world.

[lavender-lily-lilac]

Does anyone have any articles or writings on feminist critiques of non-cosmetic plastic surgery? Like, surgery that changes the shape or appearance of a facial feature where beauty is not the end goal.

[missmayhemvr]

Like halfway through "how Europe underdeveloped Africa" cause I decided I'd read/listen to it after I had a strong base on knowledge on African history and just holy fuck is he right about nearly everything so far.

Having learned about how extensive African trade was prior to the 18th century and how heavily most African kingdoms shifted in the 16th it's very clear that what he points out in the way the slave trade and the need to aquire firearms grew the European economies while near completely emptying out African economies and how the hard shift to European import goods after Europe had grow through the use of African slave labor and monopoly of trade routes is still a largely still at play in the era of neocolonialism.

The way that Walter Rodney not just points out that this is true, but the depth to which he covers a variety of African kingdoms, their economies, and cultural practices puts even some college level courses to shame while also showcasing the exact ways in which some of these stronger or more expansive kingdoms like the Ashanti, oyo, borno, Kongo, and Benin kingdoms had explicitly tried everything to get guns through any other trade and how the Ashanti, merina, Ethiopian, Burundi Benin kingdoms sought our education and scholars to begin industrialization and the systematic way in which Europeans and Americans prevented that is just, well it's damming.

It's a continuing reminder how from the first stage of European expansion and control they had precisely zero good intentions for the peoples of Africa. That Europe saw Africa as nothing more than a way to grow itself, it's institutions and improve its economies by depriving Africa of labor, materials and freedom which is true to this day, most starkly in the Congo but true across the whole region.

But while the book shows the crimes of Europeans without sugar coating, it also doesn't glorify the African leaders and more importantly those that became collaborative with European despitism. It also does not abide by the word games the European powers like to play and goes in depth to the way Europeans had no actual interest in ending slavery, and that while invading the various kingdoms and communities to "end slavery" the created some of the most brutal slave conditions on this side of the globe, not just in Leopolds Congo but in French forced labor camps and British controlled regions, with the Portuguese being particularly up front about it.

Truly a shame that like most other black radicals Rodney was murdered so young. The rarity to which black radicals even get to 40 shows how desperately capitalist and white supremist try to prevent even the slightest push back from black voices. It also makes clear how much we all need to know this stuff, from debois's black reconstruction to nkrumah's neoimperialism these books give a great understanding of the past and the precise way in which we arrived to the current situation.

I pray that with the new scramble for Africa that is unfolding in front of our very faces, the genocides in the Congo, and Sudan, and the way in which these interlock with the genocide of Palestinians, that we all take the time to properly read and reflect so that we may properly organize and fight back for a fully free and sovereign Africa and Palestine and a world free from white supremacy.

[sayruq]

Several key architects of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq 21 years ago are presenting a plan for rebuilding and “de-radicalizing” the surviving population of Gaza, while ensuring that Israel retains “freedom of action” to continue operations against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The plan, which was published as a report Thursday by the hard-line neo-conservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, or JINSA, and the Vandenberg Coalition, is calling for the creation of a private entity, the “International Trust for Gaza Relief and Reconstruction” to be led by “a group of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates” and “supported by the United States and other nations.”

In addition to granting Israel license to intervene against Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Gaza, the plan calls for security to be provided by the Trust’s leaders and “capable forces from non-regional states with close ties to Israel,” as well as “vetted Gazans.” The Trust should also be empowered to “hire private security contractors with good reputations among Western militaries” in “close coordination with Israeli security forces,” according to the report. The task force that produced the report consists of nine members, four of whom played key roles as Middle East policymakers under former President George W. Bush and in the run-up to and aftermath of the disastrous Iraq invasion in 2003.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

By Peter Rosenstein

I will surely be challenged for these views, not the least being called ageist. But as someone older myself, I am comfortable with that. It is not that I think older people are not fully capable of functioning at a very high level; they are. I just believe we must let the next generations, who will be living much longer with the results of what government does, have more of a role in determining what that is.

Based on what we have seen of this Supreme Court, its willingness to overturn decades of precedent, the time has come to expand the court for a rational balance. In addition, we should set 24-year term limits for justices, or retirement at 80, whichever comes first. Changing the number of people on the court is not a new idea. The number of persons on the Supreme Court has been changed six times since our country was founded. The U.S. Constitution is silent about how many justices should sit on the Supreme Court.

“After the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, Congress clashed with Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, who was rapidly undoing the ‘Radical Republicans’ plan for Reconstruction. To limit Johnson’s power, Congress passed legislation in 1866 that cut the number of Supreme Court justices back to seven, all but assuring that Johnson wouldn’t have the opportunity to fill a vacant seat. The last time Congress changed the number of Supreme Court justices was in 1869, again to meet a political end. Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868 with the backing of congressional Republicans who hated Johnson. As a gift to Grant, Congress increased the number of justices from seven back to nine, and Grant gamely used those picks.”

On today’s Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has now served 32 years, and Roberts and Alito, 19 years each. Then there was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was 87, and had served 27 years, when she died, clinging to her seat when it was known how ill she was.

It is only recently I have come to this conclusion regarding the Supreme Court, and on term and age limits for the Congress. We are seeing too many older men, and women, cling to power. They may still have the mental acuity to perform their jobs, but entire generations aren’t serving because they refuse to leave. There is incredible power in incumbency, and we are seeing it abused.

We are asking young people to vote for candidates old enough to be their grandparents, or great-grandparents. Some say they should revolt and change that. But the fact is, so much money is now in the game, the unlimited amount people can spend on their own campaigns, and collect from others, makes that nearly impossible. It’s rare to be able to fight incumbency and wealth.

Yes, it can happen, as in the case of Maryland Congressman David Trone (D-Md.), who is 68, and tried to buy a United States Senate seat in Maryland with $60 million of his own money. He lost his primary to Angela Alsobrooks, who is 53, whose campaign had less than a tenth of that. But she was a known entity, and elected official, in her own right.

Today, in the 100-member United States Senate, there is one senator over 90, four over 80, and another 10 over 70. I propose we set a limit of four terms, or 24 years, and mandatory retirement at 80. In the House of Representatives, which now has 11 members over 80, and 62 over 70, I would recommend a 12-term limit, or 24 years, and mandatory retirement at 80.

I have had conversations with many young people, and listened to their frustrations with their ability to move forward in politics. Many see the world differently than I do, and my belief is they are entitled to be making the decisions that will impact their lives, and not have the older generations continue to do so. I think being in office for 24 years is enough time to make a difference, and to accomplish what you wanted to do when you ran for office. And if you couldn’t do it, it is time to allow the next generations to try.

The desire to cling to power is natural. For many, the fear of retirement, and not knowing what they will do with their lives, is scary. I think one must plan for that, even politicians. They need to accept they can make a difference, even if not in office, if they really want to.

[lightdancer1]

Radical/Congressional Reconstruction marked the apex of the first bid by the US government to take active efforts to secure civil rights:

Radical Reconstruction, also called Congressional Reconstruction, marked the start of a phenomenon that the 19th Century Presidency dealt with in a way the modern one post-Theodore Roosevelt doesn't nearly so much. Because Andrew Johnson bent over backwards to accommodate the night-riders, Congress balked at this, securing against his will the 14th Amendment, and securing as well the Tenure of Office Act. At a strict constitutional level this was a usurpation of the power of the Presidency, at a moral level it was a blow against Johnson's enabling lawlessness in a position meant to enforce laws.

The result was the passage of the 14th and ultimately the 15th Amendments, the most radical phases of Reconstruction in an effort to build a political and social space for Black people in the post-War of the Rebellion South, the two terms of Ulysses S. Grant, and the establishment of just enough of a presence that the terror of the mid to late 1870s was forced to settle for 'separate but equal' and not for the outright reconstruction of slavery in all but name.

All because the last Southern President until Woodrow Wilson elected to push events down a malevolent path.

[transmutationisms]

are there any books i can read to learn more about university abolition?

Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study (Brooklyn: Minor Compositions, 2013) [link: open access pdf]

Dylan Rodriguez, “Racial/colonial Genocide and the Neoliberal Academy: In Excess of a Problematic.” American Quarterly 64.4 (2012)

la paperson, A Third University Is Possible (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017)

The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent. Edited by Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014

Review essay: "Critical University Studies and the Crisis Consensus." Abigail Boggs and Nick Mitchell. Feminist Studies 44 (2): 432-463 (2018)

Clyde W. Barrow, Universities and the Capitalist State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher Education, 1894-1928 Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1990

Eli Meyerhoff, Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019).

[theblackdahliaemporium]

Dealing In Death: A Quick Guide To Death Magick

On the surface that might sound kind of scary, even downright evil, but I assure you it’s the farthest thing from. In this blog I will attempt to give you an in-site into the basics of death work. Please know that every witch does things their own unique way, so for the purposes of this work I will be trying to explain things in as unified a fashion as I can. This is intended to essentially be a starting point to bounce off of.

«~ • ~»

• Death Energy •

Death energy, simply put is energy called from death and death symbols. It’s about stillness, endings, and the deconstructing and reconstructing processes. It’s about using what’s in the past to fertilize what’s new and grow something that has purpose in the next step of your life. It’s about the acceptance of inevitability and what we can’t change to bring about what we can. Many practitioners call on death energy in everyday spell work the same way you would any other energy. In that sense it’s not to different from life energy.

«~ • ~»

• Cemetery Work •

For a lot of death witches, doing work in a cemetery or graveyard is a must, although there are those that don’t, a great deal more either do or will do when they get the chance. Lots goes into this type of work though and a thorough study on the subject should be done before pursuing this type of magick. However, some key points to remember are to always be respectful, obey the laws and rules of your land regarding the resting places, and listen to what the dead tell you.

It’s very important to recognize that there are always going to be practitioners that have their own unique rules on this subject, but the best way to know if the dead favor something or not is to ask them. What rules you inevitably believe should revolve around what the dead are comfortable with. That said, some of these rules are shared amongst practitioners. I have compiled a list below with some of them. Remember, this is very basic and what a practitioner adds or changes is up to them.

Typically these are the oldest spirits in the cemetery and are in charge of maintaining order. Most offerings include things like coins, drink, bread, or apples.

It’s important to let the spirits know what your intentions are. Will you be doing magick at the crossroads, magick at a grave, or foraging? The gatekeeper should let you know through energy what is acceptable. Remember each Cemetery is different and has different rules over all.

Gifts on a grave belong to the spirit dwelling there. It’s okay to pick up things like trash, or moldy flowers in still water but, rocks, dried or fresh flowers, feathers, etc should be left alone.

Try not to walk near the headstone of a grave (you’re walking on their body. Try to stay near the feet and always say excuse me politely if you have to step on it), always ask for a spirits help never demand it, and always bring them an offering as a thank you.

If you’re gathering dirt, sticks, or plants from a cemetery, even if it’s not on a grave, and you get a feeling like you shouldn’t touch it, then don’t. Spirits will always let you know what they want to keep. Obey that or it’s theft.

Being polite and thanking your hosts is always a must in general and can bring good energies between you and the dead. Especially if you intend on going back to work at that Cemetery.

«~ • ~»

• Necromancy •

Another common staple amongst death workers and arguably one of the most misunderstood practices. Simply put, this practice is divination with the dead. It’s all about connecting to and asking the dead for answers from the beyond. Lots of that used to be done in the cemetery and as a result many wild and fantastic rumors about zombie creation were formed, but that’s far from the truth. There were indeed many radical understandings within the practices history however but as science matured so did the knowledge on what this practice actually was.

While necromancy is still done in cemeteries even today, it’s not a must. Calling fourth a spirit can be done a number of ways and will definitely alter and change based on the witch. Some working maybe more cultural than others, and some may be more complex. The uniqueness of these practices can number well into the double digits and is always interesting to learn. Some of the most common spirit summoning techniques (aside from going directly to someone’s grave) are the spirit board, a mirror, and the pendulum. As for how these spirits are called, that too can differ from witch to witch. Most often though, it can involve candles or crystals as an energy source, a personal item or favored item like food, and/or the spirits name. It can be as simple as physically calling out to the abyss, beckoning the spirit forward or as elaborate a ritual as calling in the four directional guardians or a guide to lead them to you.

Regardless of how it’s done, it’s always a good rule of thumb to be respectful to them. Don’t demand from them, ask instead, and offer gratitude and an offering when you end the session.

«~ • ~»

• Deity and Spirit Guides •

Lots of death workers may worship deity just like any other practitioner. However the deity they are generally more drawn to are often either associated with the underworld or a psychopomp, like Osiris, Hades, Anubis, or Hecate. However they may also be a deity tide in some way to the personification of death, much like Thanatos.

Even if the witch chooses not to utilize deity they can still conjure up spiritual guides of some sort. These guides can be something as common as ancestral spirits or even animal spirits. Most common animal guides often have some death association and symbolism to them. So animals like Black cats, bats, vultures, owls, crows and ravens are quite popular.

«~ • ~»

• Bones & Body Parts •

Its not uncommon to see bones on the altars of death witches. Many beliefs around these tools and what they represent circulate within the community. For some specific animal bones it’s believed you can use that animal spirit and energy. Other beliefs revolve not around the animal itself but rather the type of bone, as each one has its own unique symbolism attached to it. The possibilities are near limitless and for most death practitioners they are a very necessary tool within the craft. Some practitioners even collect additional things like insect exoskeletons, animal skins, and preserved body parts like a rabbits foot.

DISCLAIMER! People should be made aware that it’s always encouraged for all materials to be ethnically sourced. Any form of unlawful collection or cruelty is frowned upon and not condoned within the community.

«~ • ~»

• Conclusion •

As started above, these are just some of the basics of death work within the pagan community and serves as a starting point to bounce off of. It’s very important to do your own research and come to your own conclusions regarding this craft and always remember to obey your local laws. Death work can be very fulfilling but not when it’s done under illegal circumstances.

[deadpresidents]

"Johnson is an insolent, drunken brute in comparison with which Caligula's horse was respectable."

-- Senator Charles Sumner (R-Massachusetts) on President Andrew Johnson

[gatheringbones]

best books I read in 2023:

sophie strand, the flowering wand: rewilding the sacred masculine

alex iantaffi, gender trauma: healing cultural, social, and historical gendered trauma

matthew desmond, evicted: poverty and profit in the american city

betty dodson, sex for one: the joy of selfloving

ching-in chen, andrea smith, jai dulani, the revolution starts at home: confronting intimate partner violence within activist communities

robin stern, the gaslight effect: how to spot and survive the hidden manipulation others use to control your life

nick turse, kill anything that moves: the real american war in vietnam

lori fox, this has always been a war: the radicalization of a working class queer

arline t. geronimus, weathering: the extraordinary stress of ordinary life in an unjust society

roxanne dunbar-ortiz, not a nation of immigrants: settler colonialism, white supremacy, and a history of erasure and exclusion

eyal press, dirty work: essential jobs and the hidden toll of inequality in america

rabbi danya ruttenberg, on repentence and repair: making amends in an unapologetic world

michelle dowd, forager: field notes for surviving a family cult

starhawk, the empowerment manual: a guide for collaborative groups

betty dodson, orgasms for two: the joy of partnersex

timothy snyder, black earth: the holocaust as history and warning

kidada e. williams, I saw death coming: a history of terror and survival in the war against reconstruction

judy grahn, another mother tongue: gay words, gay worlds

jennifer m. silva, coming up short: working-class adulthood in an age of uncertainty

susanna clarke, piranesi

megan asaka, seattle from the margins: exclusion, erasure, and the making of a pacific coast city

starhawk, truth or dare: encounters with power, authority, and mystery

laura jane grace, tranny: confessions of punk rock’s most infamous anarchist sellout

molly smith, revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex worker's rights

richard c. schwartz, you are the one you've been waiting for: applying internal family systems to intimate relationships

timothy snyder, our malady: lessons in liberty from a hospital diary

peter levine, trauma and memory: brain and body in search for the living past

kylie cheung, survivor injustice: state-sanctioned abuse, domestic violence, and the fight for bodily autonomy

timothy snyder, bloodlands: europe between hitler and stalin

joan larkin, a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories

cj cherryh, hammerfall

[kabutoden]

my friend xonn designed this character and traded them to me :) lookathim. LOOK!! his upper shoulders were crushed in an accident, but he's gotten some PRETTY RADICAL RECONSTRUCTIONS!! his name is Scorpi Styler and you can find his original design here :) he was an adult. now he is a little guy (andabug. TEE HEE!!!)