#that is at its basis one rooted in justice as it reaches both self and others

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Truly reading fundamental academic literature is a humbling experience of intellectually mining for gold. Yes, past a certain point in academic life you'll feel like a whole lot of it is just dust, and then suddenly the author will hit you with a very enlightening passage that leaves you reeling a bit.

[merryfortune]

Day 5 / Awkward Hugs

Social Interactionism 2021

Event: @hugsaku

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Ship: Wisteriashipping | Spectre/Yusaku

Word Count: 1.8k

Tags: Developing Relationship, Bittersweet, Fluff with a Sad Ending

AN: since today’s Hugsaku prompt overlaps with my birthday, it was only natural for me to write Spectre/Yusaku as a birthday treat to myself (hence why, no spoilers), they can hug twice in this fic as a treat

  Yusaku’s plan, like they usually did, involved three steps. There might be more steps or issues within those three, broad ideas but so be it. That’s also how it usually was.

  One. He would apologise to Spectre.

  Two. He would find the Earth Ignis.

  Three. He would reunite Spectre and the Earth Ignis.

  He wasn’t sure if the steps to his plan were in descending order or difficulty or not, but he would abide by these three steps to the best of his ability. Of course, coaxing Spectre out into the open, one on one, was going to be difficult and it was part of step one. Yusaku could have just sent a letter addressed for Spectre or even an e-mail but he thought that was impersonal. He wanted it to mean something big and something dear because when he wanted to apologise, he wanted to do something more than just create a clean slate between them. He wanted to earn Spectre’s trust and maybe even affection as the third step in Yusaku’s plan would likely hinge on that.

  However, Yusaku thought that Spectre was even more hermetic than him which was saying something. Yet for all that agonising, just sending a summons for Spectre and Spectre alone at the usual spot for his and his team’s encounters with the Knights of Hanoi, though mainly Ryoken, was enough.

  Quite honestly, Yusaku was expecting to be stood up when he waited by the Stardust Road. He stood with his hands laced over the rail and he stared out to sea. All around him, dusk descended with orange skies and indigo clouds; it dyed the sea that lapped at the rocks and cement below a very, very dark colour and just as Yusaku thought that Spectre might not appear, a familiar stranger dejectedly stood beside him, leaning over the rail with him.

  “I didn’t even hear you.” Yusaku murmured.

  Spectre snickered. “Most people usually don’t. If I’m not careful, if I’m not making a fuss, most people won’t notice me at all.”

  “But Ryoken does?” Yusaku guessed.

  “Yes.” Spectre replied with a bitter smile.

  There was a moment of silence between them. It was uneasy but not necessarily uncompanionable. It was just there to acclimatize them between greetings and the actual conversation, of which, Yusaku initiated it and very boldly at that.

  “I’m sorry.” he said.

  Spectre harrumphed. “Whatever for?”

  “For tricking you into destroying your field when we duelled. That was a cruel thing to do.” Yusaku said. “I can tell you have a very genuine affection for your Sunavalon cards. So, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s water under the bridge,” Spectre said, “but thank you. I appreciate the sentiments.”

  “I’m glad. Because, well, I felt bad about that.” Yusaku stated.

  “You shouldn’t though… I goaded you into, remember, I wanted you to do something cruel and I ought to be impressed that you exceeded expectations.” Spectre replied.

  “Well, now I’m trying to do kind things.” Yusaku said.

  Spectre’s pupils dilated at that – and Yusaku noticed even if it was a small quirk of his body language.

  “No, don’t tell me…” Spectre said, realising where this conversation was going, he had thought it was strange that Yusaku would call him out of the blue like this but he figured he would indulge it, he was his master’s servant after all, so he assumed – hoped – it was eventually going to funnel to him.

  “Yeah,” Yusaku murmured, “I am. I want to bring back the Earth Ignis, or just, um, Earth as he’s called.”

  Spectre shook his head. He wanted to chastise Yusaku, but he couldn’t find his words. He just looked stiff instead.

  “I was hoping you would help but I don’t want to force you.” Yusaku added.

  “I’ll allow it to happen,” Spectre elected to reply, “but I won’t help.”

  “Thank you.” Yusaku said.

  Yusaku was expecting the conversation to end there. He was right. It did. But not how he thought it would. Spectre, slovenly, pushed himself off the railing, ready to return to the marina and retire to the yacht for the night because dealing with Yusaku was exhausting but not quite.

  Yusaku was somewhat surprised as Spectre gave him an unexpected hug. He blinked and he felt Spectre’s arms surge around him. His hug was tight and Yusaku wasn’t sure what to do as he felt Spectre’s head beneath the crook of his chin and his arms on his waist. Yusaku swallowed and he half-heartedly tried to push Spectre off him. He didn’t feel in danger, even if Spectre was a peculiar and oftentimes unpleasant person, but he did feel… Awkward being hugged by him.

  “What are you doing…?” Yusaku asked, blushing.

  Spectre got the hint that now was the time to stop and it seemed he didn’t appreciate being rejected like that. He straightened up his coat and looked mildly annoyed. His brows furrowed and his eyes fixated on some weedy flower growing between the pavers on the ground.

  “I thought it was appropriate. It’s a kind thing, isn’t it?” Spectre asked. “You apologised and now you have yet another channel for your sense of justice so. I thought it was the least I could do.”

  “O-oh, well then,” Yusaku murmured, “thank you.”

  “Well, good luck, I might not want to be involved in whatever it is you plan to do to bring back my Other Self but good luck. I will make sure we don’t… intervene on whatever basis we can find to prevent further resurrections of the Ignis.” Spectre said.

  Yusaku hazarded a small smile. He appreciated it but he didn’t know how to say it beyond words. He figured there were other actions that he could take – and he did take them.

  Steadily over the next few weeks, Yusaku with the help of Kusanagi and Ai, he began to piece together the data belonging to Earth. It was getting much, much easier after all the practice that he had gotten with Ai and then applied that to bring Flame back to Takeru and Aqua back to both Miyu and Aoi. Though, that didn’t make the finding of the pieces all that easier, just the putting them back together and Earth was in plenty of pieces but as Playmaker, Yusaku found them all.

  He restored Earth back to form and Earth was overjoyed to see his good friend Ai once more. They had a hug or two with Ai crying and screaming that he was so glad that yet another of his friends was back; just two more to go. Playmaker was fond as he watched Ai jump and down with Earth in his arms, it was quite the sight to behold given the fact that Earth was much bigger and much heavier than Ai.

  But in the midst of that jubilation, Earth looked up with sorrowful eyes at Playmaker. It seemed he knew where this was heading. Even if he and Spectre hadn’t been all that close previously, there was a disappointment to what Earth had in mind for if he came back.

  “I didn’t remember Aqua first,” Earth began to explain as Playmaker, atop his D-Board, made a beeline for where he could hope to find Spectre, either alone or with Revolver, “I remembered him.”

  Ai nodded. It had been the same for him. He had remembered his dear Yusaku before he remembered anything else or any of the others. It was bittersweet.

  “There he is.” Playmaker commented quietly and he saw Spectre on his lonesome.

  He was standing in the shade of a tree. It was wiry with white bark; its beet purple foliage moved slowly on the breeze. That appeared to be the most natural place for him to reside, he was staring out into the distance of the sort of asteroid field-like area on the hinterlands of the Neo Link VRAINS. The roots of the were spilling out the bottom of the rock platform that it and Spectre was planted on.

  Playmaker drew in closer and Spectre looked up at him. He had a morose look on his face. He took a breath.

  “You fulfilled your goal, I presume?” Spectre asked.

  Playmaker nodded and he made a hand gesture. He allowed Earth to follow through on it and Spectre’s eyes widened. For a moment, he looked completely and utterly happy. Childishly happy. But then he flinched.

  Earth lifted his hand and he didn’t know what to say.

  So, Spectre decided to say it for him.

  “It is good to meet you,” he said, “but I don’t believe our continued meeting is advised.”

  Playmaker inhaled sharply. He was surprised – almost offended – to hear that.

  Spectre came closer to the edge, came closer to Earth and he reached up to where Earth floated against gravity. Gingerly, Spectre pet the top of Earth’s head and he liked how the Ignis’s skin felt on his fingertip. There was a muted joy to Spectre’s expression.

  “I did my best,” Spectre said, recalling the Incident, “for my Mother, she would want me happy and proud, so I duelled my best for you. But when I was told, the new goal of the Hanoi was to destroy the Ignis, I accepted that whole-heartedly. So, I did my best. I endeavoured to eliminate the Ignis if it meant I was useful. I – I don’t believe I can go over the past ten years of that goal so easily, to say nothing of the others, Revolver-sama and the Lieutenants, and even if we are neutral, trying to atone. I want to be my best self for you, Earth. Until then, I don’t believe it to be advisable for you to remain with me.”

  Ai made a strange expression, but it was the same that Playmaker was making. A certain defensiveness which had become unguarded as Spectre explained himself.

  Earth nodded. “That makes sense. I can accept that decision, Partner, but when you are ready, I will be too.”

  “Thank you.” Spectre said and he turned to Playmaker. “Can I ask something selfish of you?”

  “I think I know what it is, but it’s not selfish, Spectre.” Playmaker replied.

  “Can you please home him, please? Keep him safe?” Spectre asked.

  Playmaker nodded. “I can do that for you, yes.”

  “Thank you.” Spectre said.

  Playmaker let his D-Board drop a few more levels and once they were at a mismatched but even height, Spectre hugged him again. Playmaker stiffened but this time, he hugged back as he felt one of Spectre’s hands close to his neck and the other round his waist. Gratitude emanated from Spectre’s hug and though Playmaker felt awkward, he wasn’t a hugger, he didn’t think himself good at it, he still tried to return Spectre’s sentiments. He mimicked back and he could hear a repressed sob in Spectre’s breathing as they held each other in this embrace.

[deadendairgetlam]

it’s bitterly ironic, really, that rin in many ways has the potential to be a better hero than shirou, or at least a hero whose characteristics come more naturally.

it isn’t because she’s completely selfless, or necessarily a better person. no, rin has shown herself to value self-preservation and even signs of greed and pride. rin isn’t an entirely noble person, it’s almost impossible to be when raised on the principles of magus society. it’s because despite the fact that she belongs to such a fundamentally flawed society, she’s able to maintain a decent sense of right and wrong. it’s because unlike shirou, or even arturia, she developed as a person separated from the ideals of others.

it’s not that she isn’t influenced by others’ expectations, it’s made apparent that she looks up to her father and wishes to prove herself to the world he wanted her to succeed him in, but the fact that she grew up without a guardian who actively guided her towards a certain moral system during the most formative years of her childhood. unlike shirou, arturia, or sakura, there’s a confidence in her identity to rin that they lack. she’s far from a fully realised and developed person, she still has far too long a road ahead of her for that, but she isn’t quite as bound to the firm mould they were set in. she’s bound by the sense of duty she places upon herself to protect fuyuki and the lives of its population, but that duty isn’t something built around someone else. it’s built on the basis of her own interpretation of the grail war and what she knows from what her father has left behind, but the beliefs and decisions are very much her own.

one of shirou’s greatest flaws as a person is that he struggles to be his own person with his own wants outside of the desire of becoming the vessel of hero of justice, whereas rin’s greatest flaw as a mage is that she’s too much of a person to completely conform to the coldness of the magus world. she’s too human to act with no worry for those she might harm in order to achieve her goals. this is clearly shown when she hesitates to kill medea when given the opening to, and during heaven’s feel when despite knowing what the simplest route is as a solution, she still isn’t able to take it. it’s not that she isn’t calculating or capable, she has the potential to be as cruel as the majority of other magi, but she feels too strongly and her moral compass is just as stubborn as the rest of her - too stubborn to be discarded. it’s not that rin isn’t bound by duty, it’s that her character never manages to be quite defined by it, even if it would be most convenient to be.

in so many ways rin and shirou are similar. they both struggle to repress their emotions in order to become their ideals, and there’s more than one parallel between their actions, and they both spend so much time looking up to an image on a pedestal that they lose sight of reality, both’s fall back to the ground and disillusionment is steep, but rin’s ideals have always been on shakier ground. rin has seen loss at a younger age than shirou because of those ideals she tries to live up to.

a theme that overlaps in the behaviour of fsn’s main cast is denial, and the same goes for rin, but there’s always a contradiction between what she’s forcing herself to believe and think, and what her actions imply. rin is a magus that should value reaching the root above all else, but it isn’t truly what she prioritises. sakura is no longer her sister, but in the small gaps where she can’t blind herself to the truth of her feelings, she hovers and watches. rin is selfish, but she gives what she can’t take back. rin is a magus, thus naturally a liar, most of all to herself, but the truth always shines through the cracks in light of her actions.

shirou is many things and grows to be even more, but at his core he is still the boy who lost everything and adopted the life goal of his father because he’s all shirou had after being saved. at her core, rin is still the brave, yet scared and values her safety enough to be sensibly cautious, girl who saved a group of children from a mass murderer while she was still a child herself - while her role model was too focused on winning the grail war to do anything until it became absolutely necessary to intervene.

rin wouldn’t really call herself a hero, but she can be one.

[risalei-nur]

TAFSIR: Risale-i Nur: The Words Collection:The Twenty Ninth Word.Part 11

I have discussed the proofs within the first two verses in my treatise Nuqta (The Point: included in alMathnawi an-Nuri) as follows: Each human being undergoes ordered and systematic changes during the process of development, which goes through the stages of a fertilized ovum, blood-clot, a chew of lump, bones, the flesh, and another creation or (distinct) human-shaped being. Each of these stages follows precise principles particular to it. This development and the principles it follows indicate the exercise of a definite purpose, will, and wisdom. The All-Wise Creator, Who creates human beings by these stages, also causes the body to renew itself each year. This renewal demands the replacement of decomposed cells by new ones produced by the All-Providing One’s provision of food according to the needs of each bodily part.

If we observe the atoms of the food used to renew or repair the body, we see them come together from the atmosphere, soil, and water. Their motions are so precise that it seems they have received marching orders to go to a certain place. In addition, their manner of going indicates the operation of the Real Agent. Starting from the inanimate world of elements and chemical substances, they pass into the animated world of vegetables and animals. Having developed into sustenance in agreement with definite principles, they enter the body as food. After being “cooked” in different “kitchens” and transformed and passed through some “filters,” they are distributed to the body’s parts according to need following the principles established by the All-Munificent Providing. 

All of these processes take place in accordance with the All-Providing One’s laws and without the intervention of blind chance, lawless coincidence, deaf nature, and unconscious causes. They display perfect knowledge, wisdom, and insight. At whatever stage an atom enters the body’s cell from the surrounding element, it does so in an orderly fashion and conforms to that stage’s specified laws. To whichever level it travels, it steps with such order that it appears self-evidently to be proceeding at an All-Wise Mover’s command. Never deviating from its aim and object, it gradually advances from stage to stage and from level to level until, at the command of its Sustainer, it reaches its appropriate position. Once there, it establishes itself and begins to work. 

The provision of food and its reaching the cells for which it is destined show Divine Will and Divine Determination. So perfect is this process’ order and arrangement that each particle seems to have its final destination written on its “forehead.” Is it conceivable that the All-Majestic Creator, Who exercises Lordship over creation with boundless power and allencompassing wisdom, from particles of matter to planets, and spins them with order and balance, could fail to revive creation? Qur’anic verses open our eyes to this revival by comparing it with our first creation:

Say: “He Who has originated them the first time (with definite purpose) will bring them to life again (in the Hereafter).” (36:79) 

He originates creation, then brings it back again, and it is easier for Him. (30:27)

Soldiers of a battalion dispersed to rest come together again at a bugle call more readily and easily than when they had been collected to form the battalion. Similarly, the mind will conclude that it is easier than their original creation that a body’s essential particles, which had established mutual close relations and familiarity during their worldly life, are assembled when the angel Israfil blows the Trumpet. Not all of the component parts even have to be present; rather, the fundamental parts and essential particles, which are like nuclei and seeds and which a Prophetic Tradition calls “the root of the tail” (the os coccyx), may suffice for the second creation’s basis and foundation. The All-Wise Creator will rebuild the human body upon this foundation.

The following section summarizes the truth expressed by the analogy of justice in such verses as: Your Lord does not wrong His servants.

We observe that cruel, sinful, and tyrannical persons usually lead a comfortable and luxurious life while godly, oppressed people live in poverty and difficulty. Death makes them equal, for both would have departed forever with their deeds unquestioned if there were no supreme tribunal. However, Divine Wisdom and Justice never allow any wrongdoing to go unnoticed and forbid injustice, and therefore require the establishment of a supreme tribunal to punish evil and reward good.

As this world is not exactly propitious for a complete development of human potentialities, we are destined to find realization in another world. Our essence is comprehensive and is bound for eternity. As we have an extremely comprehensive nature, we can commit tremendous crime and wrongdoing. Therefore, we cannot be left to our own devices without an order and discipline, nor can we left to deteriorate into non-existence. Hell is waiting for us with a wide-open mouth, and Paradise is expecting us with open arms.

Study the verses like those mentioned above, which contain rational arguments for the Resurrection. Also, the Ten Points you have been following give you a clear insight and strong evidence for the absolute necessity of the Resurrection. Moreover, most of the All-Majestic Maker’s Beautiful Names such as the All-Wise, All-Compassionate, All-Preserver, and All-Just actually require that the Resurrection should occur, that eternal life should come, and that eternal happiness should be realized. Consequently, the Resurrection’s necessity and requirement is so strong that there is no room for doubt or uncertainty.

[tipsycad147]

Rooting: Dark of the Moon Ritual and Healing Practices

On the land I live with, it is a time of seeking shade and cool places. The height of summer buzz is only gently starting to wane as the nights begin to flow further into the hours while daylight starts to ebb. The great swell of energy leading to Midsummer is only just starting to dissipate and I find myself slowing down as I find restful places to be still with my thoughts, my feelings, my dreamings of the land of my body and the land around me. During these unprecedented periods of heat during our current climate emergency, I have struggled to be restful, worrying that I should be in constant movement, but it is in the pause that we are able to refocus, breathe more deeply, and reconnect to what needs to be done to protect life and the land. And so the Dark Moon beckons, calling us to the shade before we spend any more time in the heat of the day.

The Dark of the Moon is an interesting time, not one observed as broadly as say the Full Moon or New Moon, but a period of time during the lunar cycle that I cherish in my own personal practice. (1) The Dark Moon is a period of profound rest before a new lunar cycle begins. If the New Moon is re-emerging onto a stage, the Dark of the Moon is when we are behind the curtains, waiting backstage, grounding and centering before we re-emerge back into the world. Without this period of rest we are unable to sustain the work and energy of the rest of the lunar cycle - though the importance of rest in magickal work and healing can often be overlooked or made difficult to access by capitalist-driven overcultures that pervade both institutional and personal spaces. There is a reason why, in this time of climate emergency, when we are confronting global patterns of consumption, waste, and destruction, that the call for rest as restorative justice has been growing. We need to rest for rest's sake, not to rest in order to become more productive to work, but to rest as a path of self-realization and community resilience. That is the magick of the Dark Moon.

For those who move through the world as womxn or somewhere on the spectrum of femme identity, however that manifests for you, there is a transgressive and radical magick to working with the Dark Moon. In patriarchal cultures, a womxn’s worth is tied up to her fertility and the Dark of the Moon is a time of un-fertileness, the barren field, the Hag who is unconcerned with what society says of Her, allowing her to move freely throughout all of the worlds. It is a time of breaking the hex of the male gaze (which hurts all of us, no matter our gender) and conjuring the collapse of oppressive systems of power. It is beautiful and wild and if this magick calls to you,

Just before the New Moon takes to the sky and far from the fecundity of the Full Moon, the Dark Moon marks the time of greatest dark during the lunar cycle. It is a time to be slow and still, joyfully unproductive, fertile to nothing else but our own needs, and to tend to the boundaries and edges of our wild spirit that help to shape who we are. Descending and returning, shedding and stillness, remembering and forgetting are all key energies of the Dark Moon.

Herbal Traditions

There is not an official correspondence within Traditional Western Herbalism to the Dark Moon. If we were to think of the Moon phase as a cycle of building a sacred structure, the Dark of the Moon is the temple completed, but empty of movement, waiting to be filled up with the sounds of life that people bring, but content and whole unto itself to be still and quiet at this moment. It is the point of the process of creating sacred space that we realize that the spaces we inhabit in are living and breathing and exist beyond us and our needs and our process of coming to respect that. For my garden-minded friends, the Dark Moon is the period between the end of one compost cycle and the beginning of the next.

As I've shared throughout this series, lunar work is deeply personal and I encourage you to trust your intuition and spiritual callings when creating when it comes to working with the Moon and interpreting Her cycles. For me, the Dark of the Moon is a time between work, as lengthy or brief as that may be, where I pause from doing and rest into being. It is both one of my favorite parts of the lunar cycles and one of the most challenging ones as I continue to undo patterns of overwork in my own life. If you believe you do not have time to rest it is a sure sign that you need to rest more. And I recognize that rest is more accessible to some, which is why it is so important for all of us to create cultures which recognize the sanctity of fallow periods as much as fertile ones.

In my own practice I very rarely make herbal remedies at this time and I try not to schedule classes, consultations, or other outer world work. For remedy-makers I think it is really important to have regular time off from making remedies and I invite you to explore what that might look like in your own practice, whether it becomes a Dark of the Moon practice or another lunar phase practice, during your Lunar Return, or perhaps tied to physical cycles like menses (another traditional time to pause from medicine-making). I don't have any specific plant parts that I work with during the Dark Moon. Personally, it's a time of Crone and Hag Goddesses, so I am more likely to reach for plant allies that I associate with elder, haggish, fiercely independent energy.

Examples of Dark of the Moon Herbs: Elder (Sambucus nigra), Mullein (Verbascum thapsus), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), Rose (Rosa spp.).

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris, spp.)

To be perfectly honest, Mugwort is the lunar herb in traditional western herbalism so it can be easily called upon during any Moon ritual. I'm writing about it here, at the Dark of the Moon, because Mugwort is referred to as the "oldest of herbs" within Old English herbal and spiritual tradition and the Dark Moon is a time of Hags. (2) Mugwort is an herb that has a strong effect on me so I am very intentional when I choose to use it and the period of the Dark Moon is one of my favorite times to engage with their magick.

Mugwort's latin binomial clues us into some of its healing qualities. Artemis is a Goddess of all womxnfolk and their magick, with a particular resonance with womb-bearing womxn and the cycles of menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause.  Mugwort is a warming and opening herb, helping to warm up the uterus and clear out stagnant blood. Take just before your menstrual cycle to release tension, ease cramping, and soothe back pain. After a birth, Mugwort helps cease postpartum bleeding and hemorrhage.

As a fiercely protective herb, the Artemisian qualities of Mugwort help guide us back to the sanctity of our sexuality as fully our own, defined by our own parameters, and expressed however we please within the holy boundaries of consent. Along these same lines, Mugwort has a special affinity for womxn who have experienced trauma, especially of a sexual nature, where they feel isolated from their spiritual power, have difficulty feeling their emotions, and feel frozen in their anger and despair. The herb helps us to step back into our power.

As a warming Moon herb, Mugwort is especially good at moving emotions that have stagnated or frozen up in the body. Mixed with the anger and frustration of past or current traumas, indications that Mugwort can be useful include intermittent fever resulting in both hot and cold conditions in the body. Mugwort increases circulation and warmth throughout the body, clearing out stagnation. It wakes up a sluggish digestive tract and stimulates the secretion of digestive fluids making it a valuable ingredient in bitters blends. If the sleep is disturbed with vivid and disruptive dreams, Mugwort is a night ally, bringing deep sleep and growing a dreamer’s ability to be lucid.

One of the ways that Mugwort works its magick is by opening us up to our own psychic gifts and ability. In small regular doses (i.e. 1 drop daily) or by using the flower essence on a regular basis, Mugwort can help to establish an appropriate protective barrier around our psychic senses to help us avoid psychic overwhelm and burnout. The herb can help us articulate our psychic and emotional experiences to ourselves and others in a way that helps us feel connected to our self and our community.

Altars + Rituals

Cover your altar, your body, with a veil. Be hidden away from the world, known only to yourself. Let yourself be completely naked to the eye of your spirit, to your love, to your own deep way of being that can only be you.

A Simple Dark of the Moon Ritual

To honor the roots of your power

The following ritual helps you to reset as the lunar cycle comes to an end and  before it begins again, reconnecting you to what it is that keeps you rooted in your power so that you can more deeply rest your whole self. This ritual can be performed at any time of day or night, but I recommend performing it just before a period of rest (including bedtime) and relaxation.

The charm that you'll be speaking during this ritual starts with "I root my power in…" Examples of how you might complete this sentence might be:

I root my power in the wisdom of my ancestors. I root my power in the courage of self-love. I root my power in the hope of the land.

You can choose a few statements before starting the ritual or be guided by what arises during the ritual. In my own tradition, I would recommend three, six or nine statements, but work with the numerical system that is most meaningful to you and your cultural and/or spiritual traditions.

To begin, remove all of your jewelry and sacred adornments that you wear daily, including scents like perfumes. As you do this, begin to soften your breath until you are breathing in a way that is filling and easeful, guided by your own rhythm. Place all your sacred adornments in a bowl (or bag or on a cloth) that you can comfortably hold in your lap and lift above your head. If you can, sit cross-legged with the bowl centered in your lap, but choose the position that is most comfortable for you with the bowl low in your body or placed on the ground or table in front of you.

Take a deep breath in and out.

On the next in-breath, lift the bowl above your head, the objects in this bowl symbolizing how you present yourself to the world, the crown you wear for all to see. Speak the first of your charms (I root my power in the way of…), as you lower the bowl before you, maybe circling it softly, moving it through your energy centers before resting again on your lap (if the items are on an altar before you or not easily lifted, you can lift just your arms and hands instead).

Continuing to breath deeply, look at the items in your bowl, perhaps picking them up one-by-one and asking yourself if they align energetically with the charm you just spoke. Perhaps everything is in alignment, but if something feels like it doesn't quite match up energetically, remove it from your bowl and set it aside. The item might need to be cleansed and/or recharged, just need a break for a lunar cycle or longer. In some cases an item is ready to move on and be gifted or disposed of in a sacred manner.

Repeat the process with all of your daily adornments until your bowl is full of items that help reflect your inner values and principles with your outer appearance.

Take a deep breath in and hold the bowl above your head. Breathe out and lower the bowl to your heart. Breathe in. Breathe out and lower the bowl to your lap. Breathe in, reveling in the alignment of your energy.

Once the ritual is done, take a few more deep and centering breaths before retiring to rest. I often like to take a moment at the end of any magick, but especially when I am grounding and centering to be grateful for the people, places, things, and experiences which have affirmed who I am and helped me to rest, whole and complete.

A Simple Dark of the Moon Tarot Spread

To help you find the path of rest

Card 1 · Restless

This card highlights what is hindering your ability to rest deeply.

Card 2 · Restful

This card shows you what tools or practices can help you to rest fully.

Card 3 · Story

The overall message of the Dark Moon in your life. If you are familiar with your birth chart and how to find the transiting Moon in your chart this card can help you to understand the message of the Dark Moon in the context of where it lands in your chart.

I hope you enjoyed this fifth and final post in my series exploring simple ritual practices of the lunar phases (and thanks to my patrons who requested this series!). You can find the posts for the other phases here:

Waxing Quarter Moon

Full Moon

New Moon

Waning Quarter Moon

If you’re looking for more lunar magick, start by finding the Moon in your birth chart. I also teach a full course centered on lunar herbalism and astrology to help you discover your unique gifts as a healer called The Lunar Apothecary.

Wherever the Moon finds you I hope you find yourself and the kind spirits who inhabit the dark places of the night, holding up a mirror to your brilliance as you reflect the back the brilliance of the stars to them.

Notes

(1) The New Moon and the Dark of the Moon are sometimes used interchangeably, but in my practice they are two distinct, though closely situated, periods of time and space. I was taught that the Dark Moon is when there is no Moon visible in the sky for a day or two before the New Moon when a crescent becomes visible. The Dark Moon corresponds to the Balsamic Moon in astrology. Honoring the Dark Moon is a tradition passed down through Goddess spirituality and feminist circles that places emphasis on honoring not only the bright energy of the Full Moon but the beautiful dark depths of the Dark Moon (of course, the honoring the Dark Moon is not exclusive to those spaces and traditions, but that is where I learned it).

(2) I highly recommend reading the full Nine Herbs Charm in both modern English and in the original Old English. Read the Old English out loud to get a feel for the deeply trancey rhythm and pace of the spell (though you can listen to it in modern English here).

http://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog/tag/lunar+rituals

[chasandres]

Creating a Better Magic Community

Like many of you, I was shocked and horrified on Saturday when I learned that Christine Sprankle decided to step away from the community due to repeated and targeted harassment from Jeremy of MTG Headquarters/Unsleeved Media as well as continued harassment from other toxic members of the community.

I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised. Talk to enough women in the Magic community and stories about harassment inevitably crop up. It’s not so much an open secret as a low-grade headache that can turn malignant.

Regardless, I was thrilled to see the community almost entirely united in its support for Christine. On Tuesday, a large group of pros responded to the situation by writing an open letter condemning MTG Headquarters’ actions and pledging to act as allies and advocates for victims of harassment at future events. I’m proud to be part of a community where so many high profile people are taking active steps to ameliorate this situation.

There isn’t much I can add to this specific situation at this point. I’m not here to write more about why Jeremy needs to be banned from YouTube and WotC sanctioned events—other people are doing that already, and they know more about this situation than me. I suspect that this particular dragon will eventually be slain, most people will consider the matter resolved, and we’ll seek to move beyond this dark chapter in our game’s long history.

But MTG Headquarters has more than THIRTEEN THOUSAND followers on Twitter. Unsleeved Media has A HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR THOUSAND SUBSCRIBERS. Not all of them supported his overt harassment campaign, but overt harassment is only one part of a larger, systemic problem in the Magic community. Taking down an obvious villain is commendable, but if that’s all we do, than we’ve failed to properly learn from this situation. If we truly want to create a more inclusive community, we all have some work to do.

Before getting into the meat of this thing, I want to be very clear about who I am and why I’m writing this. I’m not here to tell stories of harassment or otherwise step on the voices of the community members who fight those battles on a daily basis. Those aren’t my stories to tell. I’ve already heard similar stories to Christine’s pop up on social media over the past few days, and it’s important that we magnify those voices and believe them.

As a heterosexual white man in a position of relative power, (at least in terms of being someone that the greater Magic community has more or less heard of) I’d like to use some of my power for good. We can’t place the burden of action entirely on the victims of harassment—we all have to step up and take some of it on ourselves. This is my best effort to help in any way that I can.

While the open letter pros are doing a commendable job of keeping the watch at large events, this is an issue that starts at the roots—at FNM, in our living room, on Magic Online. We can’t just leave things up to Brad Nelson and Sam Black—we all need to step up.

To that end, I’ve written a lot of this post in second person, using a lot of “you” and “we.” I feel like it’s important to say straight off that the “you” I have in mind are people who look more or less like me. I’m not trying to lecture marginalized members of the Magic community about an issue that they already understand all too well. This is a message for geeky white guys like me.

If you scroll down any Reddit thread about this issue, or you check the mentions on the right Twitter account, or you read the right Facebook page, you’re going to see more than just solidarity. You’re going to see a lot of confusion, and bitterness, and outright hostility over this situation. Some guys are a little bit ambivalent about what the heck our role is in all of this and how we can help. Others feel attacked and feel like “both sides” should be considered. Still others are unconvinced that there’s a problem at all.

I’ve been around the internet long enough to know that my message is going to fall on a whole lot of deaf ears, but I want to do my best to try and reach everybody I can. At the very least, I want to write this post to remind myself what I can do to help. When I say that we’re all somewhat complicit, I’m including myself. We all have to do better. All of us.

“I haven’t sent any harassing DMs or made any horrible comments on anybody’s videos or articles. Why are you putting me on blast?”

The harassment problem in the Magic community is systemic and multi-layered. I can count at least three different problems, and you don’t have to be actively harassing anyone to be involved with two of them:

1) Active, toxic harassers. These are the people doing the worst, most heinous stuff. These are people who troll women in comments sections, spout racist and anti-Semitic comments at tournaments, and worse. Most of recognize that we shouldn’t be these people.

2) Enablers, both active and passive. The problem is that most of us are guilty of enabling those harassers at one point or another.

Sometimes we downplay it. (“He’s harmless. He’s got a good heart. He’s just a little awkward.”)

Sometimes we justify it. (“We wouldn’t be able to get a draft going every week without him.”)

Sometimes we straight-up defend it. (“He shouldn’t have said that, but do you have to be so sensitive?”)

3) People saying or doing hurtful stuff that they didn’t think about very much. You could also call these microaggressions, but I know that some of you are put off by the language of social justice, so I want to spell out this problem as clearly as possible. The point is that there are lots of phrases, gestures, and actions that (either inadvertently or on purpose) create a barrier between the dominant voices in the community and those who feel like outsiders. You might not sense it, but they do.

These smaller offenses can be tough to pin down, but the only way to do it is by listening to the people who are affected by these actions, believing their stories, and changing our behavior accordingly.

For example, talk to almost any woman who has ever played a game of tournament Magic and she’ll tell you a dozen stories about being disrespected at Magic tournaments due to her gender. It’s usually not as simple as someone walking up to her and saying, “you’re a woman, stop playing Magic” – it’s hearing stuff like, “did your boyfriend teach you to play?” and “I thought you’d be easier to beat!” over, and over, and over again.

If you’re a white guy like me who has never experienced this, try to imagine how disheartening this must feel, especially on days when you’re running bad and your deck just isn’t behaving. A lot of us play Magic because we like to experiencing that feeling of mastery, especially when the rest of life isn’t going so hot. Now imagine a wry smirk of recognition on the face of your opponent when he beats you because of a lucky top deck. I knew I’d beat the girl. This match was never in doubt. Would Magic still feel like an escape for you? Are you sure?

“I’ve been a member of the Magic community for years, and I don’t see why I should have to hide who I am or censor myself! This is my home, and I should feel safe to communicate however I want.”

I can’t convince anyone that empathy is important. If you don’t believe that it’s worth making small sacrifices or accommodations in order to make another person feel safe or comfortable, that’s on you.

For the rest of us…well, these requests are so small, and they mean so much. Nobody’s asking you give away your Scarab Gods, stop attending FNM, or only talk on alternate Thursdays. It’s basic stuff like not using “gay” as a slur and leaving your half-naked Anime girl playmat at home. You’re not being asked to hide major parts of your identity, and you don’t have to “hide who you are.” You just have to stop acting like an abrasive jerk and maybe stop using a couple of problematic words.

In return, the payoff is massive. We’re always talking about how Magic’s player base isn’t growing like it used to. Well, I know at least a dozen women who stepped away from the community because they didn’t feel welcome. Imagine if we all tried a little bit harder to make our little corner of geekdom a little bit friendlier?

“But political correctness has run amok!”

Whenever I have a conversation about political correctness with someone who dislikes the concept, it usually devolves into some grand hypothetical conversation about freedom of speech in stand-up comedy or edgy TV shows or whatever.

I’m happy to have that discussion with any of you fine folks the next time we’re at an event together, but it’s not pertinent to our conversation today. I feel like we’re all mature enough to recognize that a Magic tournament is not the same as a comedy club or an R-rated film.

“We shouldn’t be nicer to people because of the slippery slope!” is a bad hill to die on.

“I’m sick of being called a sexist all the time. I’m not a sexist!”

Extreme binary thinking is one of the biggest obstacles to self-improvement, and it’s a paradigm that you’re going to have to break free from if you want to experience any sort of meaningful growth.

Think back to the last time someone accused you of saying something racist, sexist, or otherwise harmful. If you’re anything like me, chances are your initial reaction is to get super defensive. I’m not racist, you think, your mind instantly flashing to a hooded KKK member. I can’t be racist because of <insert justification here>, I didn’t really mean any harm by my comments, and I’m certainly no KKK member, so this person must be overreacting!

This is an understandable reaction, but it’s important to learn how to move beyond it. As a society, we are TERRIBLE with this sort of nuance. We assume that there are “good” people (non-racists), and “bad” people (racists), and nobody wants to be lumped in with all the Hitlers. Instead, we blame the people leveling the accusations at us for overreacting, or for being too politically correct, or for jumping to conclusions based on “one stupid joke.” Some of us even double down on our suspect behavior, believing that it’s important to stake out some sort of “middle ground.”

But the problem isn’t them, it’s us. There are no good guys and bad guys. We can ALL do better. It’s okay to feel that initial stab of shame and defensiveness, but then it’s important to really look inside you and realize that what you said was hurtful. In fact, it hurt them so much that they felt the need to speak up and say something to somebody THAT THEY KNEW WOULD REACT DEFENSIVELY. That’s not an easy task for most people, and it’s extra hard for a marginalized person in a community where they don’t feel safe.

Look—I’m no exception to this rule. When I go back and watch some of the videos I recorded back in high school and college, I can’t help but cringe at some of the language I used and the jokes I made. In ten years, I’ll probably feel the same way about some of what I say now. It’s not like I was a horrible sexist back in 2007 and a totally enlightened person now—it’s that I’ve made (and continue to make) an effort to learn, grow, and improve. Being a good person is about constantly seeking to improve, same as being a good Magic player.

“All of this harassment talk makes me sick to my stomach. What can I do to help?”

First, listen to the people telling their stories of harassment. Internalize them, validate them, believe them.

This is pretty easy when the harasser is someone like Jeremy, who is well-known to be a toxic member of the community. It’s harder when it’s someone beloved. It’s even harder when it’s someone who you know personally. Your initial reaction may be defensiveness—it often is for me—but there’s a time and a place for that, and it’s not now.

Remember: we are mature enough to handle these situations with poise and nuance. Some people just need to be sat down and told to stop behaving badly, while others need to be banned and ostracized. We won’t be able to call out either type of harasser without creating an environment where people feel safe coming forward.

Second, you need to get more comfortable calling out the harassers in your own life. It’s MUCH harder for victims of harassment to call it out than it is for us bystanders, which is why it’s important that we not let any of this toxicity stand even when it doesn’t directly affect us.

Don’t just say something at FNM—speak up during your kitchen table drafts, too. “We don’t say stuff like that here,” is a good turn of phrase to keep in your back pocket. It’s important to sweep away that “boy’s club” atmosphere for good, because it can permeate out from late-night hotel room games into the community at large.

A lot of these people aren’t evil, they’re just prickly, misguided, and socially awkward. Some of them will double-down on their bad behavior and are unreachable, but I have to believe that at least some of them really do mean well. The only way to find out is by changing the climate and calling out the unacceptable stuff whenever we can, wherever we can. Otherwise, they’ll keep driving people away.

Of course, there are some actions that require a harsher response. Jeremy has an entire platoon of followers who will be harder to pin down. And these guys aren’t outsiders, they’re members of the community. They’re guys that you and I both know.

If you know about someone who likes to troll marginalized members of the Magic community on social media, you need to do everything you can to get them to stop. “It’s just a joke” should not be an acceptable defense at this point. These people need to understand that their actions have consequences.

To this end, try to get more comfortable appealing to authority figures like LGS owners and judges about stuff like this. It’s easier for people like us to speak up about harassing language when we hear it, and most of it is a disqualifying offense in sanctioned play. In smaller or casual events, remember that store owners are too busy running the shop to know what’s going on in the back room. Feel free to enlighten them.

This is especially important when dealing with constant, repeatable offenders. These are the people who lower the attendance at local events because large swaths of the player base don’t feel comfortable gaming with them. We need to do a better job of weeding them out and letting them know that they need to choose between being a productive member of the community or no longer being a part of the group.

Lastly, never assume that you are above it all. I’m certainly not. Remember that making mistakes in the social arena are like misplays in Magic: each one is a chance to improve, to become more precise, to grow as an empathetic person. The important thing is to acknowledge it, apologize, and do your best not to make that mistake again.

I’m sick of hearing “Magic is awesome, but the community kind of sucks.” The community is all of us—you, me, and everyone else who has ever picked up a Magic card and felt that instant, powerful connection. We all have a right to thrive within it, to feel comfortable slinging spells in shops and tournaments around the world. I’m willing to fight for that right. Are you?

[altslashtab]

Racial Profiling in the United States: Growing Concern

The United States has a long, convoluted, and important history with race relations, and racial hierarchies. As Alan Brinkley, John Giggie, and Andrew Huebner review in The Unfinished Nation (2016) it possesses the history of a series of colonies that relied heavily on African slave labor, Native agricultural techniques, and successive generations of European and Asian immigration deeply altering the national consciousness. These historic ties built upon each other to create deep biases and systems of control to maintain white privilege. Perhaps the most powerful surviving system is the form of racial profiling the modern United States retains.

Racial profiling is a topic that exists both in the public world as systemic and interpersonal functions, as well as in the private world experienced on the individual level. It can affect who one chooses to become personally involved with platonically, romantically, or in business. Profiling distorts law enforcement, private security, and education spaces. The range of ways this topic is felt is too numerous to count and so a more general understanding needs to be gained. To assess the issue of racial profiling, and the issues caused by racial profiling one must break down the most critical parts of the issue.

The first issue is the concept of race itself. Race is an artificial social construction defined most often by the skin tone of individuals. In some societies race is traced through the actual ancestry of individuals to a common root. It can also be defined by religious affiliation such as between different religions, like Buddhists and Muslims, or between sects of the same religion, like Catholics and Protestants. Other societies may inherit race from their nation even if there is no clear genetic, cultural, or ideological connection with the host country. The illusive nature of defining race makes it difficult to combat racial stigmas which enable profiling.

The next is that although race is artificial it is also very real in many ways. It has real negative consequences, and to many provides a sense of unity or exclusivity. In the 20th century financial organizations profiled communities on the basis of race. They provided greater values on residential areas that were “whiter” than black thereby assuring that loans, and by extension quality homes, would be distributed to whites over blacks. As Terry Gross and Richard Rothstein (2017) discuss in an interview for NPR inequality in housing projects between black and white veterans was a powerful tool in segregation. This segregation can be found causing continued inequality today.

The third is a disagreement between functionalists and conflict theorists on the increased speculation minority groups receive from authorities. Functionalists find disproportionate police involvement with minorities as an unintended side effect of upholding the law. Conflict Theorists observe the same interactions as an attempt to maintain control by a dominant ethnicity over others. One may imagine that this view would not be reflected on external societies as generously as the Conflict Theorist’s home society. As Griffiths et al. (2020) investigation into Senate Bill 1070 illustrates an example of the problem with the functionalist viewpoint on profiling. This bill is viewed as making it punishable to be, “driving while brown.” One may see this as an unintended side effect, but there already exists slang for, “driving while black” (p 240). Griffiths et al. also cites a 1971 study over multiracial students with good driving records recording the increased frequency they are stopped by police after placing a Black Panther sticker on their vehicle (p 42). It becomes more difficult to see an unintended effect when there are similar cases of profiling without legal basis.

Effects of profiling can be found in childhood. Youngmin Yi, Frank Edwards, and Christopher Wildeman (2020) examined data which showed higher levels of confirmed maltreatment amongst Black, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native children in foster care than White children from a period between 2004 - 2016 (p 705). The issue of profiling on children should be taken seriously due to the increased percentage of children that are part of an ethnic minority. The 2019 Kids Count Data Book shows a statistical change in U.S.minors from a 69% majority of kids in 1990 to 53% in 2017 (p 5).

Minority candidates searching for jobs are often denied the same access to positions in career fields that their white counterparts receive. This creates a systemic enforcement of inequality at corporate levels. In a joint study from the University of Toronto, and Stanford University Sonia Kanga, Katy DeCellesa, András Tilcsika, Sora Jun (2016) found a possibility of organizations with diversity advertised as a value making it more difficult for minorities to make it through the hiring process. Traditionally minorities might choose to hide certain information about themselves on resumes increasing their chances to make it to the interview phase, but if the potential employee holds a belief that the company is unlikely to filter information reflecting a racial minority they are more likely not to withhold that information. This leads to the hiring organization with a greater amount of race-related information that would influence decisions about candidates than organizations with no stated view on diversity (p 1).

The problems caused by racial profiling are not new, but they are continuing to survive in a diversifying country. The United States of America has a form of negative disparity equal to any other it may face in the form of racial profiling. Profiling based on the concept of race is a flexible tool for inequality, it effects children, adults, personal, and public spaces. Due to its severity and reach it is one of the strongest domestic challenges America faces today.

Works Cited

Brinkley, A., Giggie, J., & Huebner, A. (2016). The Unfinished Nation (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Education. 

Gross, T. (2017). NPR Choice page. Retrieved 16 April 2020, from https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america 

Griffiths, H., Keirns, N. J., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewski, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., … Jones, F. (2017). OpenStax, Introduction to Sociology 2e. OpenStax CNX. Jan 30, 2020 Retrieved February 5, 2020 from http://cnx.org/contents/02040312-72c8-441e-a685-20e9333f3e1d@14.1. 

Yi, Y., Edwards, F. R., & Wildeman, C. (2020). Cumulative Prevalence of Confirmed Maltreatment and Foster Care Placement for US Children by Race/Ethnicity, 2011–2016. American Journal of Public Health, 110(5), 704–709. https://ezproxy.mohave.edu:2160/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305554 

Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2019). Kids Count Data Book, 2019: State Trends in Child Well-Being. In Annie E. Casey Foundation. Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Kanga, S., DeCellesa, K., Tilcsika, A., Jun, S. (2016). Whitened Résumés: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market. Retrieved from www2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%20R2%20Accepted.pdf. 

Hayle, S., Wortley, S., & Tanner, J. (2016). Race, Street Life, and Policing: Implications for Racial Profiling. Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice, 58(3), 322–353. https://ezproxy.mohave.edu:2160/10.3138/cjccj.2014.E32 

Logan, T. D., & Parman, J. M. (2017). Segregation and Homeownership in the Early Twentieth Century. American Economic Review, 107(5), 410–414. https://ezproxy.mohave.edu:2160/10.1257/aer.p20171081 

[blackhoof-kra]

The New Abolitionism: Capitalism, Slavery and Animal Liberation Capitalism originated in, and would have been impossible without, imperialism, colonization, the international slave trade, genocide, and large-scale environmental destruction. Organized around profit and power imperatives, capitalism is a system of slavery, exploitation, class hierarchy and inequality, violence, and forced labor. The Global Capitalist Gulag was fuelled, first, by the labor power of millions of slaves from Africa and other nations, and, second, by massive armies of immigrant and domestic workers who comprised an utterly new social class, the industrialized proletariat.

As Marx observed, the accumulation of wealth and the production of poverty, the aggrandizement of the ruling class and the immiseration of the ruled, the development of the European world and the underdevelopment of its colonies, are inseparably interrelated. These apparent antipodes are inevitable consequences of a grow-or-die, profit-seeking system of exploitation whose ceaseless expansion requires a slave class and inordinate amounts of cheap labor power.

The transatlantic slave trade began in 1444 when Henry the Navigator began taking Africans back to Portugal to serve as slaves. Africans already were enslaving each other, but their labor market was more akin to indentured servitude and nothing like the horrors they would later face in British America. Prior to trafficking in African slaves, European nations enjoyed positive relationships with Africa based on friendship and trade. This ended in the mid-fifteenth century when they were overtaken by insatiable demands for gold, profits, and slave labor. As evident in the brutal exploits of Columbus and Spain, many European states waged genocidal war against dark-skinned peoples in order to appropriate their land, resources, riches, and labor power.

Over the next few centuries European forces of “civilization,” “progress,” and Christianity kidnapped twenty million Africans from their homes and villages. They forced inland captives to march 500 grueling miles to the coast while barefoot and in leg irons. Half died before they reached the ships and more expired during the torturous six to ten week journey across the Atlantic to North America. The slave traders confined their human cargo to the suffocating hell beneath the deck. Blacks were packed into tight spaces, chained together, and delirious from heat, stench, and disease. They were beaten, force-fed, and thrown overboard in droves.

Marx rightly saw European colonialism as the “primitive stage of capital development” before the emergence of industrial society. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, profits from the slave trade built European economies, bankrolled the Industrial Revolution, and powered America before and after the Revolutionary War. The glorious cities and refined cultures of modern Europe were erected on the backs of millions of slaves, its “civilization” the product of barbarism. The horrors of slavery were the burning ethical and political issues of modern capitalism. Over a century after the liberation of blacks in the 1880s, however, slavery has again emerged as a focal point of debate and struggle, as society shifts from considering human to animal slaves and a new abolitionist movement seeking animal liberation emerges as a flashpoint for moral evolution and social transformation

Strange Fruit of American Democracy

Both before and after the Revolutionary War, America was a slave-hungry system. In its European form, the nation emerged from scratch, with no prior feudal history or communal traditions, a product of British capital ventures. As British colonists found no gold like the Spaniards did in the Americas, they turned to agriculture. From the Indians they learned to grow tobacco as a profitable crop, but planting and harvesting required intense physical labor. For their sturdiness, vulnerability, and cheap price, the colonists favored Africans over Native American Indians and English laborers for the task.

The first Africans arrived on the North American continent in August 1619, a year before Pilgrims landed the Mayflower on the shores of Massachusetts and decades before the British slave trade began in New England. Exchanged for food, twenty blacks stepped off a Dutch slavery ship to become the first generation of African-Americans. Joining a society not yet lacerated by slavery and racism, they worked as indentured servants to British elites. As such, their status was equal to poor white servants, and servants of either race could gain freedom after their tenure. Like whites, blacks owned property, married, and voted in an integrated society.

This benign situation changed dramatically in the 1660s as ever-more Africans were brought to the colonies to meet the growing need for plantation labor. As slavery became crucial to capitalist expansion and plantation economies organized around tobacco, sugar, and cotton, British colonists constructed racist ideologies to legitimate the violent subjugation of those equal to them in the eyes of God and the principles of natural law. Having survived the shock of capture and wretchedness of their journey, African men, women, and children were auctioned, branded, and sold to white slave owners who grew rich from trading, breeding, and exploiting their bodies. With no consideration of blood ties or emotional bonds, black families were broken apart. Stripped of rights, dignity, and human status, these African citizens and their millions of American descendents were brutalized in the most vicious slavery system on the planet, one whose ugly legacy continues to dominate and poison the US.

As colonists became increasingly autonomous from the monarchy abroad, and British military occupation and oppression subsequently increased, the conflict between Empire and its unruly subjects – dramatized in events such as the Boston Tea Party in 1773 -- inexorably led to war. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence which asserted the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Along with progressive whites such as Thomas Paine and Abigail Adams, slaves were quick to denounce the hypocrisy whereby colonists such as Thomas Jefferson railed against British tyranny while owning slaves drawn from a system far more repressive than English monarchy.

Whereas many blacks fought for the British who promised them freedom, others fought courageously for the patriot cause and were crucial to its victory. When the war ended in 1783, social relations and racial views were in great flux. Tens of thousands of slaves fled to England, Canada, Spanish Florida, or Indian camps. Many Northern slaveholders who embraced the nation’s egalitarian values without regard to race freed their captives. In 1783, Massachusetts became the first state to abolish slavery and from 1789 to 1830 all states north of Maryland gradually followed suit. At the same time, however, slavery grew stronger roots in Southern states that were becoming increasingly influential economically and politically.

The new nation stood at a crucial moral crossroads regarding the slavery question and the true meaning of its professed democratic and Christian values. It could end slavery and adhere to its noble ideals, or it could perpetuate a vicious system of bondage to be an American hypocrisy not democracy. Tragically, the profit imperative triumphed over the moral imperative. Although the North continuously pandered to Southern slavery interests, the two cultures drifted apart irreconcilably like shifting tectonic plates. Rather than pulling together as one nation honoring the progressive values that led them to war, the US imploded through internal contradictions and in 1861 embarked on a bloody war with itself.

The Roar of Abolitionism

With freedom denied and justice betrayed, both free and enslaved blacks intensified their resistance to white oppression. Increasingly, opponents of slavery turned from tactics of reform and moderation to demands for the total and immediate dismantling of the slavery system, and thus, in the 1830s, the abolitionist movement was born.

Abolitionism is rooted in a searing critique of racism and its dehumanizing effects on black people. In the US slavery market, a human being, on the basis of skin color alone, was declared biologically and naturally inferior to whites and thereby stripped of all rights. In such a system, the slave is transmogrified from a human subject into a physical object, from a person into a commodity, and thereby reduced to a moveable form of property known as “chattel.” Abolitionists viewed the institution of slavery as inherently evil, corrupt, and dehumanizing, such that no black person in bondage – however well-treated by their “masters” – could ever attain the full dignity, intelligence, and creativity of their humanity. Abolitionists renounced all reformist approaches that sought better or more “humane treatment” of slaves, in order to insist on the total emancipation of blacks from the chains, masters, laws, courts, and ideologies that corrupted, stunted, and profaned their humanity.

The most militant abolitionist voices advocated the use of violence as a necessary or legitimate tactic of struggle and self-defense. In 1829, David Walker published his “Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World,” a fiery eighty page pamphlet excoriating slavery and calling blacks to violent rebellion. Similarly, in his 1843 keynote address to the National Convention of Colored Citizens, Presbyterian minister Henry Highland Garnet enjoined the nation’s three million blacks to demand freedom and strike their oppressors down if necessary, for “there is not much hope of redemption without the shedding of blood.”

Along with the Haitian Revolution of August 22 1791, whereby black slaves violently overthrew Spanish and British occupiers to establish Haiti as a free black republic, such views panicked US slave owners over the possibility of slave revolts and violence. Their fears were justified, as blacks throughout the country were plotting and carrying out rebellions, achieving with bullets, machetes, or fire the justice denied to them in the courts. Whereas rebels such as Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vesey were betrayed and executed before they could ignite large-scale insurrections, others like Nat Turner and John Brown (a white Christian) spilled the blood of many slave owners before being captured and executed by the state, and resurrected as folk heroes by the enemies of slavery.

Other influential voices urged militancy and direct action without violence. William Lloyd Garrison, a former indentured white servant, started a prominent abolitionist newsletter, the Liberator, on January 1, 1831, which he published for thirty five years. Against those urging slow, gradual, and moderate change, Garrison objected: “I do not wish to think, to speak, or write, with moderation … Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present!’’

Garrison also brought Frederick Douglass into the abolitionist movement. Douglass was born into slavery, became self-educated, and fled from bondage. With Garrison’s initial assistance, he became a star on the lecture circuit and in 1848 began publishing his own abolitionist newspaper, the North Star. In his electrifying speeches, Douglass preached a potent “gospel of struggle,” most eloquently expressed in an 1857 speech that exposed the Machiavellian essence of politics: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will … The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle … If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.”

A vital part of the abolitionist movement was the Underground Railroad, a furtive, illegal network of volunteers – white and black, male and female, free person and slave – who violated pro-slavery laws in order to smuggle thousands of slaves into northern Free states and Canada. Harriet Tubman not only was a “passenger” on the railroad, using it to escape slavery in 1849 at age 25, she also became its celebrated “Conductor.” Risking jail or death, dodging slave hunters out for the $40,000 bounty on her head, Tubman returned to Maryland numerous times to free family members and seventy other slaves. She epitomizes the courage, passion for freedom, and acute sense of justice driving the abolitionist movement.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, Congress passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, thereby banning slavery and mandating equal treatment for blacks and whites. By the late 1880s, blacks throughout the nation were formally “free,” but in reality they remained trapped in racist systems of violence, exploitation, and poverty. Despite advances during the brief Reconstruction Period, America reconstituted racist discrimination in frightful new ways. As the US became an apartheid system organized around Jim Crow segregation laws, violence against blacks increased dramatically through lynch mobs and the Ku Klux Klan. Not until the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did brutality diminish, the walls of apartheid come down, and significant social progress become possible.

The New Abolitionism

As black Americans and anti-racists continue to struggle for justice and equality, the moral and political spotlight is shifting to a far more ancient, pervasive, intensive, and violent form of slavery that confines, tortures, and kills animals by the billions in an ongoing global holocaust.

We speak of animal liberation no differently than human liberation. One cannot “enslave,” “dominate,” or “exploit” physical objects, nor can they be “freed,” “liberated,” or “emancipated.” These terms apply only to organic life forms that are sentient – to beings who can experience pleasure and pain, happiness or suffering. Quite apart from species differences and arbitrary attempts to privilege human powers of reason and language over the unique qualities of animal life, human and nonhuman animals share the same evolutionary capacities for joy or suffering, and in this respect they are essentially the same or equal.

Fundamentally, ethics demands that one not cause suffering to another being or impede another’s freedom and quality of life, unless there is some valid, compelling reason to do so (e.g., self-defense). For all the voluminous scientific literature on the complexity of animal emotions, intelligence, and social life, a being’s capacity for sentience is a necessary and sufficient condition for having basic rights.

Thus, just as animals can be enslaved, so too can they be liberated; indeed, where animals are enslaved, humans arguably have a duty to liberate them. Answering this call of conscience and duty, animal liberation groups have sprouted throughout the world with the objectives of freeing captive animals from systems of exploitation, attacking and dismantling the economic and material basis of oppression, and challenging the ancient mentality that animals exist as human resources, property, or and chattel.

Stealing blacks from their native environment and homeland, wrapping chains around their bodies, shipping them in cramped quarters across continents for weeks or months with no regard for their suffering, branding their skin with a hot iron to mark them as property, auctioning them as servants, separating family members who scream in anguish, breeding them for service and labor, exploiting them for profit, beating them in rages of hatred and anger, and killing them in huge numbers – all these horrors and countless others inflicted on black slaves began with the exploitation of animals. Advanced by technology and propelled by capitalist profit imperatives, the unspeakably violent violation of animals’ emotions, minds, and bodies continues today with the torture and killing of billions of individuals in fur farms, factory farms, slaughterhouses, research laboratories, and other nightmarish settings.

It is time no longer just to question the crime of treating a black person, Jew, or any other human victim of violence “like an animal”; rather, we must also scrutinize the unquestioned assumption that it is acceptable to exploit and terrorize animals.

Whereas the racist mindset creates a hierarchy of superior/inferior on the basis of skin color, the speciesist mindset demeans and objectifies animals by dichotomizing the evolutionary continuum into human and nonhuman life. As racism stems from a hateful white supremacism, so speciesism draws from a violent human supremacism, namely, the arrogant belief that humans have a natural or God-given right to use animals for any purpose they devise.

Both racism and speciesism serve as legitimating ideologies for slavery economies. After the civil war, the Cotton Economy became the Cattle Economy as the nation moved westward, slaughtered millions of Indians and sixty million buffalo, and began intensive operations to raise and slaughter cattle for food. Throughout the twentieth century, as the US shifted from a plant-based to a meat-based diet, meat and dairy industries became giant economic forces. In the last few decades, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have become major components of global capitalist networks, and their research and testing operations are rooted in the breeding, exploitation, and killing of millions of laboratory animals each year

Of course, as soon as Homo erectus began making tools nearly three million years ago, hominids have killed and appropriated animals for labor power, food, clothing, and innumerable other resources, and animal exploitation has been crucial to human economies. But whatever legitimate reasons humans had for using animals to survive in past hunting and gathering societies, subsistence economies, and other low-tech cultures, these rationales are now obsolete in a modern world rife with alternatives to using animals for food, clothing, and medical research. Furthermore, however important the exploitation of animals might be to modern economies, utilitarian apologies for enslaving animals are as invalid as arguments used to justify human slavery or experimentation on human beings at Auschwitz or Tuskegee. Rights trump utilitarian appeals; their very function is to protect individuals from being appropriated for someone else’s or a “greater good.”

The Subterfuge of Welfarism

It was not uncommon for a racist to argue that slavery was beneficial for blacks or that they were biologically unfit for freedom. Similarly, factory farm managers claim that pigs, calves, and chickens are better off in conditions of intense confinement rather than in their natural habitat as their “needs are met” in “managed environments.” Zookeepers and circus operators assert that their animals live better in confinement that in the wild where they are subject to poachers and other dangers.

Abolitionists attack welfarism as a dangerous ruse and roadblock to moral progress, and ground their position in the logic of rights. 19th century abolitionists were not addressing the slave master’s “obligation” to be kind to the slaves, to feed and clothe them well, or to work them with adequate rest. Rather, they demanded the total and unqualified eradication of the master-slave relation, the freeing of the slave from all forms of bondage.

Similarly, the new abolitionists reject reforms of the institutions and practices of animal slavery as grossly inadequate and they pursue the complete emancipation of animals from all forms of human exploitation, subjugation, and domination. They seek not bigger cages, but rather empty cages.

To treat black slaves humanely is a contradiction in terms because the institution of slavery inherently is anti-human and dehumanizing. Similarly, one cannot logically be “kind” to animals kept in debilitating confinement against their will. To “act responsibly” to animals in such a situation requires one liberate them from it. Talk of “humane killing” of animals is especially absurd as there is no “humane” way to steal and violate an animal’s life, and subject it to continual pain and suffering. No accurately aimed bolt shot through the head of an animal warrants pretense to any kind of moral dignity, however superior the killing method is to dismemberment of an animal in a conscious state. Killing itself – unnecessary and unjustified – is inhumane and wrong.

While thousands of national and grass-roots animal welfare organizations help animals in countless ways and reduce their suffering, they cannot free them from exploitation. Welfarists never challenge the legitimacy of institutions of oppression and they share with animal exploiters the speciesist belief that humans have a right to use animals as resources as long as they act “responsibly.” Moral progress and animal liberation is premised on making the profound shift from human responsibility to animals to the rights of animals.

The true obstacles to moral progress are not the sociopaths who burn cats alive, for they are an extreme minority whose actions are almost universally condemned as barbaric. The real barrier to animal liberation is the welfarist orientation and its language of “humane care,” “responsible treatment,” and “kindness and respect.” Every institution of animal exploitation – including the fur farm and slaughterhouse industries -- speaks this language, and animals in their “care” are routinely tortured in horrific ways, Animal welfarism is insidious. It lulls people into thinking that animals in captivity are healthy and content. It promotes human supremacy and tries to dress up the fundamental wrong of exploiting animals in the illusory language of “kind,” “respectful,” and “humane treatment.” Attempting to mask and sanitize the evil of oppression, animal welfarism perverts language, corrupts meaning, and is fundamentally Orwellian and deceptive.

Furthermore, by trying to hijack and monopolize the discourse of moral responsibility solely for its own purposes as it feigns ethical behavior, animal welfarism strategically positions animal rights discourse of any kind – because of the premise that animals are not our resources to use – as extreme. And if an animal rights advocate or organization transgresses conservative decorum or legal boundaries in any way, welfarists denounce the tactics as “violent” and “terrorist,” as measures that “discredit” an otherwise respectable concern for animal welfare.

In Defense of Direct Action

Although abolitionism is rooted in the logic of rights, not welfarism, there are problems with some animal rights positions that also must be overcome. First, as emphasized by Gary Francione, many individuals and organizations that champion animal rights in fact are “new welfarists” who speak in terms of rights but in practice seek welfare reforms and thereby seek to ameliorate, not abolish, oppression. While Francione underplays the complex relationship between welfare and rights, reform and abolition, he illuminates the problem of obscuring fundamental differences between welfare and rights approaches and he correctly insists on the need for uncompromising abolitionist campaigns.

Francione, however, is symptomatic of a second problem with animal rights “legalists” who buy into the status quo’s self-serving argument that the only viable and ethically acceptable tactics for a moral or political cause are those the state pre-approves and sanctions. In rejecting the militant direct action tactics that played crucial roles throughout the struggles to end both human and animal slavery, Francione and others use the same rationale animal welfarists employ against them. Mirroring welfare critiques of rights, and serving as a mouthpiece for the state and animal exploitation industries, Francione criticizes direct activists as radical, extreme, and damaging to the moral credibility and advancement of the cause.

Like its predecessor, the new abolitionist movement is diverse in its philosophy and tactics, ranging from legal to illegal approaches and pacifist to violent orientations. A paradigmatic example of the new abolitionism is the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). ALF activists pursue two different types of tactics against animal exploiters. First, they use sabotage or property destruction to strike at their economic heart and make it less profitable or impossible to use animals. The ALF insists that its methods are non-violent because they only attack the property of animal exploiters, and never the exploiters themselves. They thereby eschew the violence espoused by Walker and Garnet. The ALF argues that the real violence is what is done to animals in the name of research or profit. Second, in direct and immediate acts of liberation, the ALF breaks into prison compounds to release or rescue animals from their cages. They are not “stealing” animals, because they are not property and anyone’s to own in the first place; rather, they are liberating them. By providing veterinary treatment and homes for many of the animals they liberate, using an extensive underground network of care and home providers, the ALF is a superb contemporary example of the Underground Railroad that funneled black slaves to freedom.

The new abolitionism also is evident in the work of “open rescue” groups like Compassion Over Killing who liberate animals from factory farms without causing property destruction or hiding behind masks of anonymity. Moreover, ethical vegans who boycott all animal products for the principle reason that it is wrong to use or kill animals as food resources, however “free-range” or “humanely” produced or killed, abolish cruelty from their lives and contribute toward eliminating animal exploitation altogether.

As of yet, there are no active Nat Turners and John Browns in the animal liberation movement, but they may be forthcoming and would not be without just cause for their actions. Nor would they be without precedent. According to the gospel of struggle: No justice, no peace.

The Meaning of Moral Progress

Just as nineteenth century abolitionists sought to awaken people to the greatest moral issue of the day, so the new abolitionists of the 21st century endeavor to enlighten people about the enormity and importance of animal suffering and oppression. As black slavery earlier raised fundamental questions about the meaning of American “democracy” and modern values, so current discussion regarding animal slavery provokes critical examination into a human psyche damaged by violence, arrogance, and alienation, and the urgent need for a new ethics and sensibility rooted in respect for all life.

Animal liberation is not an alien concept to modern culture; rather it builds on the most progressive ethical and political values Westerners have devised in the last two hundred years --those of equality, democracy, and rights – as it carries them to their logical conclusion. Whereas ethicists such as Arthur Kaplan argue that rights are cheapened when extended to animals, it is far more accurate to see this move as the redemption of rights from an arbitrary and prejudicial limitation of their true meaning.

The next great step in moral evolution is to abolish the last acceptable form of slavery that subjugates the vast majority of species on this planet to the violent whim of one. Moral advance today involves sending human supremacy to the same refuse bin that society earlier discarded much male supremacy and white supremacy. Animal liberation requires that people transcend the complacent boundaries of humanism in order to make a qualitative leap in ethical consideration, thereby moving the moral bar from reason and language to sentience and subjectivity.

Animal liberation is the culmination of a vast historical learning process whereby human beings gradually realize that arguments justifying hierarchy, inequality, and discrimination of any kind are arbitrary, baseless, and fallacious. Moral progress occurs in the process of demystifying and deconstructing all myths -- from ancient patriarchy and the divine right of kings to Social Darwinism and speciesism -- that attempt to legitimate the domination of one group over another. Moral progress advances through the dynamic of replacing hierarchical visions with egalitarian visions and developing a broader and more inclusive ethical community. Having recognized the illogical and unjustifiable rationales used to oppress blacks, women, and other disadvantaged groups, society is beginning to grasp that speciesism is another unsubstantiated form of oppression and discrimination.

Building on the momentum, consciousness, and achievements of past abolitionists and suffragettes, the struggle of the new abolitionists might conceivably culminate in a Bill of (Animal) Rights. This would involve a constitutional amendment that bans exploitation of animals and discrimination based on species, recognizes animals as “persons in a substantive sense, and grants them the rights relevant and necessary to their existence – the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In 2002, Germany took the crucial first step in this direction by adding the words “and animals” to a clause in its constitution obliging the state to protect the dignity of humans.

If capitalism is a grow-or-die system based on slavery and exploitation – be it imperialism and colonialism, exploitation of workers, unequal pay based on gender, or the oppression of animals – then it is a system a movement for radical democracy must transcend, not amend. But just as black slaves condemned the hypocrisy of colonists decrying British tyranny, and suffragettes exposed the contradiction of the US fighting for democracy abroad during World War I while denying it to half of their citizenry at home, so any future movement for peace, justice, democracy, and rights that fails to militate for the liberation of animals is as inconsistent as it is incomplete,

[jalukaba-faith]

Fruit of the spirit

By Jalu Kaba X

Efesus 5:9 : (Beza) : (Ὁ γὰρ καρπὸς τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐν πάσῃ ἀγαθωσύνῃ καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ.

(KJV) : (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;).

- γάρ gar (ğar'), (properly) assigning a reason. {(used in argument, explanation or intensification; often with other particles)} In KJV this word has some of the meanings like as, because (that), but, even, for, indeed, no doubt, seeing, then, therefore, verily, what, why, yet.

- καρπός karpos (kar-pos'). The meaning is fruit (as plucked), {literally or figuratively. In KJV this word has a meaning: fruit.

- πνεῦμα pneuma, this word has some meanings like :

1. a current of air, i.e. breath or a breeze.

2. (by analogy or figuratively) a spin. in(humanly) the rational soul, as in the “spirit of a man.”

3. (by implication) vital principle, mental disposition, etc.

5. (superhumanly) an angel, demon.

5. (divinely) God, Christ's spirit, the Holy Spirit. In KJV the meaning is a ghost, life, spirit(-ual, -ually), mind.

- ἔν en (en') prep, ἐγ- eg- (eng-) [alternate prefix], ἐμ- em- (em-) [soft prefix], meaning is:

1. in. 2. at (i.e. in a given time or place).

3. on (i.e. in the surface or substance of something or someone).

4. by (i.e. in the process of, in consequence, as a result).

5. with (i.e. in the usage or occurrence of).

6. within (i.e. inside of, in the surroundings of).

7. among (i.e. in company with).

8. along (i.e. in the course of travel).

9. along with (i.e. in a progression (of increasing maturity)).

10. into (i.e. into a place or state of being).

11. unto (i.e. into a purpose).

12. to (i.e. in a direction toward).

13. (idiom, with G3588) explicitly, specifically (i.e. in the thing (that follows)).

14. (hence also with a dative pronoun) by name (i.e. by his name, affirm him by name).

15. (of occasion) when.

16. (of coinciding) as (one is doing, something else occurs).

17. (with G3739) while (literally, in that while doing, something else occurs).

18. (when combined as a prefix) (unexpressed).

19. (also) around 10 other similar contextual uses. {Often used in compounds, with substantially the same import; rarely with verbs of motion, and then not to indicate direction, except (elliptically) by a separate (and different) preposition} [a primary preposition denoting (fixed) position (in place, time or state), and (by implication) instrumentality (medially or constructively), i.e. a relation of rest.

In KJV this word containing some meaning, like: about, after, against, + almost, X altogether, among, X as, at, before, between, (here-)by (+ all means), for (... sake of), + give self wholly to, (here-)in(-to, -wardly), X mightily, (because) of, (up-)on, (open-)ly, X outwardly, one, X quickly, X shortly, (speedi-)ly, X that, X there(-in, -on), through(-out), (un-)to(-ward), under, when, where(-with), while, with(-in). -Word πᾶς pas (pas') adj. πᾶν pan (pan'),[including all forms of declension], πάμ- pam- (pam'-) [soft prefix], have meanings: all, any, every, the whole. [apparently a primary word] In KJV this word has some meaning, like all (manner of, means), alway(-s), any (one), in daily, + ever, every (one, way), as many as, + no(-thing), X thoroughly, whatsoever, whole, whosoever.

-Word ἀγαθωσύνη agathosune (a-ğa-thō-sï '-nee) n. Meaning is: goodness, i.e. virtue or beneficence. In KJV: goodness. - kai - καί ; (as a connective) and; (connecting and continuing) and then, then; (as a disjunctive) but, yet, however; (as an adv.) also, even, likewise. Some of the example the use of this word, can be found in;(1) and, Mt. 2:2, 3, 11; 4:22; (2) και και, both and; (3) as a cumulative particle, also, too, Mt. 5:39; Jn. 8:19; 1Cor. 11:6;.

- δικαιοσύνη dikaiosune (d̮iy-kai-o-sï '-nee).

Have meanings:

1. equity (of character or act).

2. righteousness.

3. (specially) the Righteousness ascribed by trust in Jesus.

In KJV righteousness.

- ἀλήθεια Aletheia (a-lee'-that-a).

In KJV: true, X truly, truth, verity.

The lesson of wisdom that I can interpret from this verse:

"For the fruit of the Spirit is in every good and justice and righteousness" This verse explains that "the fruit of the Spirit is in every goodness and justice and truth".

The meaning of the fruit of the Spirit in this verse which I will discuss is the fruit of the spirit which is interpreted as "good knowledge".

Now the origin of this good knowledge can be from various sources, the higher the sharpness of mind and spirit, the higher the light of knowledge both received, can come from holy inspiration. Inspiration or holy inspiration are either in the form of dreams (bisyarah), intuition or hunch (firasyah), Ar-ramli or more commonly known as divination, or knowledge about secret sign of the stars in the mysticism Islamic tradition which is commonly known as knowledge of zodiac or astrology, which is the science of recognizing the properties of celestial bodies, because fortune itself means "stars".

Even though the science of ramli or knowledge of the secret meaning of the stars is more stigmatized negatively, but actually the book or study exists, whether in the Sunni tradition or in the Shiite tradition if in Islam, or in the traditions of other beliefs.

The fruit of the Spirit as good knowledge is in every kindness, justice, and truth. When it is good, the fanfare of truth is ongoing, so in it, we can find the existence of the fruit of the spirit. And if the Fruit of the Spirit is always in all three, then goodness, justice, and truth can come from one source, namely the fruit of the Spirit itself. So when all three "walk" in life, their "walking" is on the basis of the "command" of the Spirit Fruit itself.

And if humans already have the fruit of the Spirit which is interpreted as good knowledge, then their lives will be enlightened, if they are enlightened then the light of their thoughts, feelings, hearing, and views, is not in the darkness of knowledge anymore.

Then ...

"Because light only produces good and justice and truth". This verse explains "that light only produces good and justice and truth", The light in this verse as I have discussed is the light that I understand as "good knowledge". If humans have gotten good knowledge, then understand the content of that knowledge well, then this human behavior in life will only manifest goodness, justice, and truth.

The goodness here that I understand is to bring benefits that are happy and calming, both for themselves, other humans and the surrounding environment. Far from damaging, not close to hurt and contrary to harm. So this man's thoughts, his feelings, his words, his writings, and his actions will always bring benefits that are happy and calming, both for himself, other humans and the surrounding environment. Far from damaging, not close to hurt and contrary to harm.

The justice that I understand here is to put something according to its capacity. Not lacking and not too excessive. So this human being when thinking, will think according to his capacity, will feel in accordance with his capacity, will say according to his capacity, will write according to his capacity and will do according to his capacity. The truth here is in accordance with the situation, conditions, tolerance, relevance and reach. So when this man thinks, feels, says, writes and acts, then his thoughts, feelings, words, writings and actions will be in accordance with the situation and conditions, will be loaded with tolerance, tolerance meant here is understandable, respectful and does not feel right , will be relevant and focus on the problems that are or will be faced, will reach a wide range of humanitarian space, reach touches the roots of each problem, ultimately the good benefits of his mind, his feelings, words, writings and actions can reach and reach by all humans. If this is the case, then this human is not impossible to spread the love for humans, nature and all life in it.

Hopefully, it is useful for those who need it, for those who don't need it, hopefully, it doesn't offend.

Peace greetings always.

Note:

- Correction and constructive criticism I appreciate very much.

Sources:

1. The 1598 version of Beza's Greek New Testament, Theodore Beza ( june/24/1519-october /13/ 1605).

2. King James Version of 1611/1769.

3. Mickelson's Enhanced Strong's Dictionaries of the Greek and Hebrew Testaments (MESD), English Dictionaries of the Textus Receptus, the 1550 Stephanus and 1525 Ben Chayyim (Second Edition - 125th Anniversary Edition), Authors: Mickelson, Jonathan K, Year: 2008, 2010, 2015, Publisher: LivingSon Press, ISBN: (MESD): 978-1-60922-009-9.

4. King James Version (1769) with Strongs Numbers and Morphology (KJV)

[marginalgloss]

innocent blood

The Far Side of the World by Patrick O’Brian shares a name with the subtitle of the movie, but apart from that, the two don’t have a great deal in common. The film by Peter Weir made a pretty good attempt at putting those books on screen, and it was entertaining piece of cinema in its own right, but it lacked a certain something. The script was actually a collage of incidents drawn from all the books; from The Far Side of the World the film borrows the voyage to the Galapagos islands, and one or two other ideas and themes, but for the most part they are better considered as entirely different things.

The book begins in Gibraltar, a place which by now is starting to seem like an old friend to Aubrey and Maturin. There’s a cloak and dagger feel to the first few chapters, where the roots of intrigue stretch all the way back some four entire books to The Fortune of War. The short version is that Stephen is hunted, and it is decided that the best thing for him would be a mission to somewhere very far away where he might be beyond the attention of the Americans and the French. An opportunity presents itself: Aubrey’s old favourite, the HMS Surprise, is dispatched in pursuit of the USS Norfolk, an American frigate that has been harassing British whaling vessels in the distant reaches of the Pacific ocean.

And that’s basically it. This long-distance pursuit over deep blue water is effectively the entirety of the plot. It makes rather a pleasant change from the intricacies of the preceding novels, and it feels like a deliberate return to a story of plain sailing. Most of the crew will be familiar names to anyone has made it this far, and it has the episodic feeling of the earliest books in the series. In some respects it feels like a kind of holiday. 

This is not to say it is all sunshine and light. The journey as a whole is extremely rough: there are storms, hunger, thirst, and there’s one borderline absurd incident where Jack and Stephen are almost drowned. Unusually for O’Brian, there’s a total absence of sea battles in this book: it is all man against nature; or man against man’s own better nature. But as ever, nothing is ever really allowed to arrest the progress of our heroes. The perfect example is where Stephen takes a very bad knock on the head while trying to spot a passing bird in a heavy sea; for a good few pages he is in a coma, and it only when the friendly American doctor is actually standing over him with a trepanning drill in hand that a piece of snuff falls into his nose, he sneezes, and awakens. Aside from the occasional callback, the whole thing is then forgotten. Put like this, it seems ridiculous — but the genius of these books is the effortless panache with which it is all carried off.

And yet there are moments where the author inverts the reader’s expectations with a confidence that is intensely compelling. The best example of that here is a sub-plot which comes to an end in one of the most horrifying moments in these stories thus far. Hollom, an officer, is having an affair with the only woman on the HMS Surprise, Mrs Horner; she is the wife of the gunner, Mr Horner. (The confluence of names here is bizarre — Hollom, Horner — and there’s another unrelated man on board called Honey.) Everyone on the ship seems to know about this affair, but it attracts little in the way of comment. Then Mrs Horner becomes pregnant and approaches Stephen for help in securing an abortion; appalled, Stephen refuses to help her. 

While the Surprise is ashore for repairs, Mr Horner leads his wife and Hollom to a quiet place, and he murders them both.

‘…below him he heard the men in the foretop, unaware of his presence, talking in low urgent voices, little more than a whisper. They were upset; more upset than could be accounted for by a master’s mate bolting with a gunner’s wife on a warm and pleasant island. Whales again; a perfectly enormous school of them spouting over not much more than a mile of sea; he had never seen so many together – certainly more than two hundred. ‘Innocent blood in the sun,’ said a voice in the foretop: Vincent, a West Country lay preacher. ‘Innocent blood my arse,’ said another, probably old Phelps.’

The reader is not shown the act, but they are left in little doubt as to what happened when Horner returns to the ship late, covered in blood, and apparently out of his mind. There is no question of justice. Jack is sure that, out of respect and knowledge of the adulterous relationship, he would find no man to testify against the gunner. Incredibly, he takes no particular action, and nor does anybody else. But the question of what to do with Mr Horner is suddenly rendered moot when he hangs himself.

In another book (by a different writer) this might have formed the basis of an entire novel’s worth of material. But O’Brian wraps it up quickly, as though it were just another spell of bad weather. The relationship between Horner and Hollom is sketched out as if glimpsed from a distance. They don’t even have first names. These are not people the reader is privileged to know. 

As usual, the event is cause for some smart ruminations on Stephen’s part about the nature of human sexuality; but nothing ever comes of it. Certainly there was never anything romantic about the situation. One implication, a joke in dubious taste, is that the gunner’s impotence is the reason his wife is drawn to Hollom. In fact the whole tragedy feels like the zenith of some grim, anti-romantic parable. ‘Innocent blood my arse.’ 

Not that Stephen or Jack could ever be part of the punchline: they are, as ever, immune. Jack’s part is to muddle through, while Stephen delivers the eloquent asides that comfort the reader into thinking the author is entirely aware of what is going on. I like this part, which comes after poor Martin is nearly murdered by a female crew of Pacific islanders fond of castration: 

‘Oh, as far as unsexing is concerned, who are we to throw stones? With us any girl that cannot find a husband is unsexed. If she is very high or very low she may go her own way, with the risks entailed therein, but otherwise she must either have no sex or be disgraced. She burns, and she is ridiculed for burning. To say nothing of male tyranny – a wife or a daughter being a mere chattel in most codes of law or custom – and brute force – to say nothing of that, hundreds of thousands of girls are in effect unsexed every generation: and barren women are as much despised as eunuchs. I do assure you, Martin, that if I were a woman I should march out with a flaming torch and a sword; I should emasculate right and left…’

It might be considered strange that Maturin could come out with this, and yet he — and the book — demonstrate so little in the way of empathy for Mrs Horner. Is it a failure of imagination? She is placed in an impossible position. She is there only because her husband is there; she is alone amongst men who have themselves been separated from female company for months or even years; that much could be said of Diana Viliers in earlier books, but in the eyes of the author here, Mrs Horner does not merit anywhere near the same degree of attention. 

She begins as a nice face in the background until she is smudged out of the picture. If you were inclined to be generous, you could say that there’s something deliberate in the austerity of this picture. Perhaps the novel simply reflects the way in which history is not written by women like Mrs Horner? Well, perhaps. But isn’t it the job of the novelist to correct that? 

At this point in the series it becomes difficult to imagine a catastrophic event that could ever shake Aubrey and Maturin off the tracks to which they are so inseparably trained. Oddly, the closest we have ever got is Diana, but at this point she has been confined to the margins for what seems like years. But in terms of conventional naval disasters, they somehow exist in a zone beyond affect. I’m thinking of something like the main event in Conrad’s Lord Jim, where Jim abandons his ship full of pilgrims thinking it is about to suddenly sink, and then has to live with the consequences of knowing it had only run aground. Is it that the format of the books will not allow for the possibility of trauma, or is it something else?

The simple fact that these books were written as part of a self-sustaining series doesn’t do much to explain the way in which they were written. It is not hard to imagine a different set of historical novels where the protagonists would not live this strange perpetual life in a limbo of war and not-quite-war; where they might go back to Regency England and close out their lives in something resembling the shape of a conventional span of life, or at least of fiction. But there’s something radical in this repeated insistence on the return to the ocean. The prospect of a grand overarching narrative is brought up afresh in every book, only to be quietly shelved for another tilt at the wild blue yonder.

[solarpunk-gnome]

Social ecology is a critical theory coined by the late philosopher and political activist Murray Bookchin in the 1960s, and is associated with the pro-technology and directly-democratic side of the green movement.

It conceives of human society and nonhuman nature needing to relate to each other in non-hierarchical and complementary ways, and can be seen as a sort of middle way beyond anti-humanist forms of green radicalism, at one extreme, and pro-capitalist forms of liberal environmentalism, at the other. The philosophy proposes that in order for the social and natural worlds to reconcile, humans must first transform their relations to each other – recreating society along egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic lines – and then transform their relations towards nature – adopting an attitude to cooperation, rather than domination, towards the planet and its nonhuman forms of life.

While starting out as a Marxist, social ecology’s founder Murray Bookchin came to reject Marxism’s focus on the state, centralisation, and economic determinism, aside from admiring many of the insights of Marx himself and some of the more anti-authoritarian Marxists, such as those from the Frankfurt School tradition. By the early 1960s, he found his way to social anarchism, infusing it with an ecological and futurist dimension. He called the political-economic goal he sought “post-scarcity anarchism” – which would be based on the automation of human labour by decentralised forms of technology – and his body of analytical theories social ecology.

He chose the term social ecology to stress his hypothesis that almost all ecological problems (apart from purely natural disasters) are rooted in human social problems, with these human social problems themselves stemming from political, economic, and cultural modes of power based on hierarchy and domination. The domination of nature by humans, he claimed, arose because of the domination of humans by other humans. These sets of hierarchical social relations – classes, patriarchy, ethnic supremacy – became projected onto the natural world. In other words, the ways the powerful treated the disempowered became reflected in how they, in turn, treated nature.

It was only by reconstructing human society along non-hierarchical, decentralised, cooperative, and directly-democratic lines that he felt society would be able to mend its rift with the natural environment; as we started treating each other better, we would start treating nature better. This perspective, in many respects, anticipates what’s now called intersectionality in social justice movements, enclosed within an ecological sensibility.

He borrowed a term from the Roman philosopher Cicero in referring to the human social milieu as “second nature”, while describing natural environment as “first nature”, doing so to reorient perceptions of human beings existing within nature, rather than conceiving of the species living (hierarchically) on top of it. Second nature is like a circle within a larger circle, first nature; not like a castle upon a hill, separate from the wilderness below.

This first/second nature dichotomy was also used to raise awareness of the fact that nature as a whole should not be thought of as mere wilderness, distinct from human intervention. Because, as humans are the first species capable of consciously altering their own environments – to an to extent that they can direct the flow of nature itself somewhat – so much of what we think of as “nature” is as much a result of human design as a city or a computer: gardens, pastures, parks, and even some forests.

One of the most beautiful examples of this sentiment from animated cinema can be found in the film Only Yesterday by Isao Takahata. At the film’s centrepoint, the main character, Takeo, on a visit to the countryside, looks out into the serene landscape and remarks on how glorious unspoiled nature is. She is in turn informed by her farmer companion, “No, everything you see before you is man-made”.

Humans should therefore, according to social ecology, take on an ethical responsibility as caretakers of the Earth, abandoning the idea of “dominating” or “conquering” nature in the name of progress. Instead, Bookchin emphasised ecological stewardship, stressing that progress could be achieved for both the human and nonhuman spheres of life by practicing cooperation with nature, with humans adopting the naturalist values of non-hierarchy, mutual aid, unity-in-diversity, and complementarity. This would, according to social ecology, lead to a dialectical synthesis of first nature and second nature, incorporating the best of both, which could be called “free nature”.

He also rejected the notion that there was anything inherently anti-ecological about technology, claiming that technology – or “technics”, borrowing a term from Lewis Mumford – could be used for good or ill depending on whether they were utilised for democratic/decentralist or authoritarian/hierarchical purposes. Bookchin, and other members of his Institute of Social Ecology, argued that technics such as fossil fuels and nuclear weapons are coded primarily for authoritarian purposes, while solar and wind power, as well as micro-manufacturing, are more coded for participatory purposes, enabling communities to become more self-reliant and less controllable by the the powers of the state and capital. We should therefore seek to use decentralist and ecological technics to enhance human and nonhuman well-being, especially through the use of automation (or “cybernation”) to get rid of needless toil from human labour, eventually reaching a condition of relative post-scarcity, as long as individuals agreed to live in an egalitarian and sustainable manner.

Another distinct feature of social ecology is its conception of historical progress. Seeing itself as part of the legacy of Enlightenment humanism, with a strong belief in scientific rationalism blended with an ethics of non-hierarchical cooperation, Bookchin agreed with Peter Kropotkin, and contra Marxism, that the move towards capitalism and the nation-state had in fact been a step backwards; and that “industrialisation from below” may have been possible had the municipal-confederations of the Middle Ages become the dominant political-economic model instead of the nation-state. Social ecology therefore always stresses decentralisation and democratisation over centralism and hierarchy, believing the former two are far better for both society and ecology.

Blending the dialectical thought of both GWF Hegel and Karl Marx, social ecology calls its analysis of historical forces “dialectical naturalism”, a middle way of sorts between the dialectical idealism of Hegel and the dialectical materialism of Marx. Dialectical naturalism examines history in terms of its “potentialities” – that is, capacities to realise social forms enabling non-hierarchy and free flourishing – and assesses the “rationality” versus “irrationality” of a society based on how well it actualises those potentialities in practice.

Bookchin and other social ecologists believed that the fullest actualisation of the current society’s potentialities would be a post-scarcity ecological society, founded on decentralised systems of direct democracy and the humane use of technology. This cannot, according to Bookchin, be conceived in Marxist teleological terms, as some kind of inevitable end-point of historical development, but as an ongoing process, a continuous approximation of an ideal; that ideal being a society of ecological balance, egalitarian cooperation, personal freedom, and social-ecological complementarity.

Since the 1960s and 70s, social ecology has branched off in several directions. Bookchin himself used it as the basis for a political theory he called Communalism (with a capital-c), carried on today by the Norwegian group New Compass, philosopher John P. Clark developed its dialectical methodology and liberatory political implications into a blend he calls communitarian anarchism, and Kurdish revolutionary Abdullah Öcalan used it as one of the components for his ideology of “democratic confederalism”, which has shaped much of the Kurdish freedom movement in southeast Turkey (Bakur Kurdistan) and northern Syria (Rojava Kurdistan); where, following Bookchin’s advice, activists have established directly-democratic popular assemblies, worker cooperatives, and an economy of the commons which stresses ecological stewardship.

While the aesthetic-cultural solarpunk movement evolved independently of social ecology, they have so much in common that they could even be regarded as the same tradition by different names. Solarpunk’s emphasis on the liberatory and ecological use of technology sounds as if it were ripped straight from the pages of Bookchin’s Post-Scarcity Anarchism in 1971.

[samiulsabstracts]

The rise of mob justice in Bangladesh

When the public decides to play the role of both the judge and the executioner it becomes mob justice or jungle justice. It is public lynching of the people who the mob judges as guilty. It ignores the proper way of the law and investigation and it is simply fueled by the rage of a crowd of people. So, there are quite a few cases where innocent lives are lost in this barbaric process.

Bangladesh is no stranger to mob justice. In fact it is a fairly familiar part of her society. The people of Bangladesh have been beating up people who they judged as criminals in the form of an angry mob through generations. The more serious cases of mob lynching where multiple people lose their lives were always sporadic. One of those serious cases of mob lynching happened back in 2011, at Aminbazar in Dhaka, six students lost their lives on the night of Shab-e-Barat when the crowd suspected them to be robbers. Most of the times these ‘victims’ are lucky enough to reach the doors of Police Station with their lives and there are very few who fail to survive. So, although mob justice existed in Bangladesh, but it never reached the level of a plague. Well, not until recently that is.

One day, on July 2019, suddenly out of nowhere, there was a sick rumour in the air, "Padma Bridge wants blood, Padma Bridge work is shutting down for the lack of blood." 

This clearly outrageous story was further backed by another incident. This happened on 18 July, Thursday in Netrakona, a 22 year old man was caught red handed with the beheaded head of a boy. People became scared and angry, a mob came into being and beat the said culprit to death. The process of this public execution was recorded on mobile phones along with the severed head of the boy, and was later uploaded on the social media. 

It is a well-known fact, just how much rumour-friendly the social media are, and they helped much to spread the graphic photos and videos. This gave birth to a brand new, modified rumour, "People are abducting and beheading children as a sacrifice for the Padma Bridge." Not long after that, that rumour morphed into a terrible plague and began to claim lives when an angry mob killed five people and injured several others when they suspected these people to be child abductors who were ‘beheading children’ as sacrefice.

Rumours have always been treated with extreme enthusiasm in Bangladesh. Especially if this rumour is related to something super-natural, and coupled with the exciting reality of the much anticipated Padma Bridge; this particular plague took little time to spread throughout the entire country. 

In the blink of an eye, everyone was talking about it. It became a popular topic of discussion among the masses. Some fully believed it, some half believed it and some simply blew it away as just a rumour. None the less, people still talked about it at their home, at their workplaces and at the tea stalls. They used it to scare the little children and also as a source of some cheap laughter. The Dark Forces behind it all worked hard to make it a trending subject of discussion.

Gradually, this rumour successfully created a panic in the masses. They became extremely sensitive to the beings called ‘child abductors’. The atmosphere reeked of gasoline, waiting for a random spark to ignite into a devastating inferno.

The public became suspicious, weary and paranoid. Their hearts itched to get their hand on the said ‘child abductors’ and perform the act of justice. And, eventually the crowd exploded with a blind fury. 

It happened at Badda in Dhaka. The victim was a woman, a single mother named Taslima Begum Renu, who went to a local school to ask about the admission process into the school for her children. But, she was assumed as a ‘child abductor’ and was brutally beaten to death by the Mob. No one was patient enough to hear her words of explanation.

Another victim was also a woman, who was attacked by the local Mob at Savar in Dhaka, for acting ‘suspiciously’. She too, died. The Mob also killed a man named Shaheen Parvez, who was deaf and a mute for the same reason. While in another incident of the same kind, a man was beaten to death at a tea garden at Kalomganj upazila in Moulvibazar.

The mob attacked two men, successfully killing one and injuring other, for talking to a group of children in Keraniganj. The Mob also beat up a mentally challenged woman, Hasina Begum at the Rafayetpur union are in Kustia. They again attacked another mentally challenged woman in Madaripur. They tied her to a tree and tortured her until the Police arrived and rescued her.

The ingenious people of Bangladesh managed to weaponize this rumour and used it for simple revenge. They beat up a group of people who were held over catching fish in a pond and then somehow later became the so called child abductors. A house owner spread the rumour that one of his tenants was a child abductor, this successfully gathered a mob and they beat him too. In another incident at Shripur in Gazipur, a married couple accused each other as ‘child abductor’ in public due to a quarrel, this confused the public; so they took the simple root and beat up them both. The mob also beat up the couple’s innocent friend who was accompanying them as a bonus.

In some areas children stopped going to school in fear of being abducted. Even the begger’s started carrying their identification card (which they never do) lest they might be suspected as a child abductor. 

Similar things continues to happen all over the country while the law enforcement force struggled to put a leash on this dangerous situation.

Now, several questions come up when one thinks about this situation. But let us focus on the most important three. What makes a person participate in mob violence? Why did mob justice reach such an extreme state? Why now and what can be done to stop it?

To further understand the subject, we have to seek help from Social Psychology.

Mob justice is closely related to crowd psychology or mob psychology. This particular branch of social psychology have been explored by the likes of Gustave Le Bon, Gabriel Tarde, Sigmund Freud, and Steve Reicher. This field relates to the behaviors and thought processes of both the individual crowd members and the crowd as an entity. Crowd behavior is heavily influenced by the loss of responsibility of the individual and the impression of universality of behavior, both of which increase with crowd size. 

Experts have come up with several theories to explain crowd psychology. Gustave Le Bon theory, Freudian theory, Deindividuation theory, Convergence theory, Emergent norm theory etc. are some of the most prominat ones among them.

Out of all these theories, two of them; Deindividuation theory and Emergent norm theory might be able to help explain the situation in Bangladesh. 

In the article ‘Examining the mob mentality’ the author Megan Donley asked Tamara Avant, the Psychology program director at South University of Savannah some questions about deindividuation. And here’s what Tamara Avant had to say about it:

“When people are part of a group, they often experience deindividuation, or a loss of selfawareness. When people deindividuate, they are less likely to follow normal restraints and inhibitions and more likely to lose their sense of individual identity. Groups can generate a sense of emotional excitement, which can lead to the provocation of behaviors that a person would not typically engage in if alone. Think about the last sporting event or concert you attended. It’s have been yelling or singing the way you were if you were the only person doing it! The group seems to make some behaviors acceptable that would not be acceptable otherwise.”

Avant also stated that, “Deindividuation obviously does not occur every time people get together in a group, and there are some group characteristics that increase the likelihood of violence, such as group size and physical anonymity. First, many people believe they cannot be held responsible for violent behavior when part of a unlikely that you would n mob because they perceive the violent action as the group’s (e.g., “everyone was doing it”) rather than their own behavior. When in a large group, people tend to experience a diffusion of responsibility. Typically, the bigger a mob, the more its members lose self-awareness and become willing to engage in dangerous behavior.  Second, physical anonymity also leads to a person experiencing fewer social inhibitions. When people feel that their behavior cannot be traced back to them, they are more likely to break social norms and engage in violence.

Group violence is most likely to occur when the group is large, people are able to remain anonymous, and people experience a diffusion of responsibility. Certain situations also play a role, such as when resources are scarce, we are surrounded by like-minded people, and/or when emotions are aroused.”

The Emergent norm theory presents a way of identifying the prime suspects who are more proactive individuals and lead the crowd to a violent direction.

In the ‘Encyclopedia of Psychology’  Stephen Reicher states that crowds have little unity at their outset, but during a period of milling about, key members suggest appropriate actions, and following members fall in line, forming the basis for the crowd's norms. Also, in the ‘Encyclopedia of Social Psychology’ Manstead says that key members are identified through distinctive personalities or behaviors. These garner attention, and the lack of negative response elicited from the crowd as a whole stands as tacit agreement to their legitimacy. Again in the ‘Handbook of Psychology’, D. R. Forsyth says, the followers form the majority of the mob, as people tend to be creatures of conformity who are heavily influenced by the opinions of others. 

Young people, especially the teenagers are more emotional, impulsive and are prone to react to the incidents such as the ‘child abduction’ and murder. So, they are usually most likely to take part in a mob. As we have seen with the case of the killing of Taslima Begum Renu; the prime accused, Ibrahim Ridoy was just a 19 year old who used to sell vegetables in front of the school gate. Ibrahim Ridoy did not have any prior records of extreme violence, but under the influence of the crowd he still beat a helpless middle aged woman to death. This is surely unusual and also a point to be noted.

On the other hand, the blame does not rest entirely on the public for the upsurge in mob violence in recent times. It is important to take a evaluative look at the current justice delivery system of Bangladesh. It is evident that mistrust and lack of confidence in the judicial system of the country are one of the reasons that the public is choosing to lean towards mob justice.

A high increase in mob justice is directly related to the increased crime rate and slow trial process of cases in the courts. The recent upsurge of sexual violence and their sluggish trial process is a key factor which led the public to rely more on the quick and efficient mob justice. The emergence of the vigilante ‘Hercules’, who delivered a speedy execution of the criminals might have played a part it this as well. This is so because when people feel insecure because of crime, for example rape; they will defend and protect themselves by turning to violent acts of instant justice. Here people’s ignorance of the law could also implicate them into mob violence.

The people of Bangladesh needs to be made aware of the fact that this country has an adversarial criminal justice system in which an accused or offender is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. Mob justice denies the victims a fundamental right to a fair trial. Hence it goes against the law of Bangladesh.

In conclusion, at least for the moment, there seems to be no better alternative to raising public awareness of the various laws regarding the mob lynching, as well as ensuring a speedy trial in the court to get rid of this plague and also to prevent it from ever coming back in the future.

[englishchinesetranslations]

1. Serious About Socialism

2. Gender and Identity Politics Are Ascendant

3. Open Borders Is Becoming a Litmus Test

4. ‘Clickbait’ Communism Is Being Used to Propagandize Young Americans

5. The Green Movement Is Red

6. Socialism Can’t Be Ignored as a Rising Ethos on the Left

While you were enjoying your Fourth of July weekend, I was attending a national conference on socialism.

Why? Because socialism is having its moment on the left.

Since there’s often confusion as to what socialism really is, I decided to attend the Socialism 2019 conference at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend.

The conference, which had the tag line “No Borders, No Bosses, No Binaries,” contained a cross-section of the most pertinent hard-left thought in America. Among the sponsors were the Democratic Socialists of America and Jacobin, a quarterly socialist magazine.

The walls of the various conference rooms were adorned with posters of Karl Marx and various depictions of socialist thinkers and causes.

Most of the conference attendees appeared to be white, but identity politics were a major theme throughout—especially in regard to gender.

At the registration desk, attendees were given the option of attaching a “preferred pronoun” sticker on their name tags.

In addition, the multiple-occupancy men’s and women’s restrooms were relabeled as “gender neutral,” and men and women were using both. Interestingly enough, the signs above the doors were still labeled with the traditional “men’s” and “women’s” signs until they were covered over with home-made labels.

One of the paper labels read: “This bathroom has been liberated from the gender binary!”

While the panelists and attendees were certainly radical, and often expressed contempt for the Democratic Party establishment, it was nevertheless clear how seamlessly they blended traditional Marxist thought with the agenda of what’s becoming the mainstream left.

They did so by weaving their views with the identity politics that now dominate on college campuses and in the media and popular entertainment. The culture war is being used as a launching point for genuinely socialist ideas, many of which are re-emerging in the 21st century.

Here are six takeaways from the conference:

1. Serious About Socialism

A common line from those on the modern left is that they embrace “democratic socialism,” rather than the brutal, totalitarian socialism of the former Soviet Union or modern North Korea and Venezuela. Sweden is usually cited as their guide for what it means in practice, though the reality is that these best-case situations show the limits of socialism, not its success.

It’s odd, too, for those who insist that “diversity is our strength” to point to the culturally homogeneous Nordic countries as ideal models anyway.

It’s clear, however, that while many socialists insist that their ideas don’t align with or condone authoritarian societies, their actual ideology—certainly that of those speaking at the conference—is in no sense distinct.

Of the panels I attended, all featured speakers who made paeans to traditional communist theories quoted Marx, and bought into the ideology that formed the basis of those regimes.

Mainstream politicians may dance around the meaning of the word “socialist,” but the intellectuals and activists who attended Socialism 2019 could have few doubts about the fact that Marxism formed the core of their beliefs.

Some sought to dodge the issue. One was David Duhalde, the former political director of Our Revolution, an activist group that supports Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and that was an offshoot of Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.

Duhalde said that Sanders is a creation of the socialist movement—having had direct ties to the Socialist Party of America in his youth—but hasn’t maintained an official connection to socialist political organizations throughout his political career.

Sanders’ position, according to Duhalde, is “anti-totalitarian” and that he favors a model based on “neither Moscow, nor the United States, at least in this formation.”

It’s a convenient way of condemning capitalist-oriented societies while avoiding connections to obviously tyrannical ones.

It was also difficult to mistake the sea of red shirts and posters of Marx that adorned the walls at the conference—or the occasional use of the word “comrades”—as anything other than an embrace of genuine socialism, but with a uniquely modern twist.

2. Gender and Identity Politics Are Ascendant

Transgenderism, gender nonconformity, and abolishing traditional family structures were huge issues at Socialism 2019.

One panel, “Social Reproduction Theory and Gender Liberation,” addressed how the traditional family structure reinforced capitalism and contended that the answer was to simply abolish families.

Corrie Westing, a self-described “queer socialist feminist activist based in Chicago working as a home-birth midwife,” argued that traditional family structures propped up oppression and that the modern transgender movement plays a critical part in achieving true “reproductive justice.”

Society is in a moment of “tremendous political crisis,” one that “really demands a Marxism that’s up to the par of explaining why our socialist project is leading to ending oppression,” she said, “and we need a Marxism that can win generations of folks that can be radicalized by this moment.”

That has broad implications for feminism, according to Westing, who said that it’s important to fight for transgender rights as essential to the whole feminist project—seemingly in a direct shot at transgender-exclusionary radical feminists, who at a Heritage Foundation event in January argued that sex is biological, not a societal construct, and that transgenderism is at odds with a genuine feminism.

She contended that economics is the basis of what she called “heteronormativity.”

Pregnancy becomes a tool of oppression, she said, as women who get pregnant and then engage in child rearing are taken out of the workforce at prime productive ages and then are taken care of by an economic provider.

Thus, the gender binary is reinforced, Westing said.

She insisted that the answer to such problems is to “abolish the family.” The way to get to that point, she said, is by “getting rid of capitalism” and reorganizing society around what she called “queer social reproduction.”

“When we’re talking about revolution, we’re really connecting the issues of gender justice as integral to economic and social justice,” Westing said.

She then quoted a writer, Sophie Lewis, who in a new book, “Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family,” embraced “open-sourced, fully collaborative gestation.”

3. Open Borders Is Becoming a Litmus Test

It’s perhaps not surprising that socialists embrace open borders. After all, that’s becoming a much more mainstream position on the left in general.

The AFL-CIO used to support immigration restrictions until it flipped in 2000 and called for illegal immigrants to be granted citizenship.

As recently as 2015, Sanders rejected the idea of open borders as a ploy to impoverish Americans.

But Justin Akers-Chacon, a socialist activist, argued on a panel, “A Socialist Case for Open Borders,” that open borders are not only a socialist idea, but vital to the movement.

Akers-Chacon said that while capital has moved freely between the United States and Central and South America, labor has been contained and restricted.

He said that while working-class people have difficulty moving across borders, high-skilled labor and “the 1%” are able to move freely to other countries.

South of the border, especially in Mexico and Honduras, Akers-Chacon said, there’s a stronger “class-consciousness, as part of cultural and historical memory exists in the working class.”

“My experiences in Mexico and my experiences working with immigrant workers, and my experiences with people from different parts of this region, socialist politics are much more deeply rooted,” he said.

That has implications for the labor movement.

Despite past attempts to exclude immigrants, Akers-Chacon said, it’s important for organized labor to embrace them. He didn’t distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

For instance, he said one of the biggest benefits of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was that there was a brief boost in union membership amid a more general decline in unionism.

Besides simply boosting unions, the influx “changed the whole AFL-CIO position on immigrants, [which was] still backwards, restrictive, anti-immigrant,” Akers-Chacon said.

“So, there’s a correlation between expanding rights for immigrants and the growth, and confidence, and militancy of the labor movement as a whole,” he said.

4. ‘Clickbait’ Communism Is Being Used to Propagandize Young Americans

The magazine Teen Vogue has come under fire recently for flattering profiles of Karl Marx and promoting prostitution as a career choice, among other controversial pieces.

It would be easy to write these articles off as mere “clickbait,” but it’s clear that the far-left nature of its editorials—and its attempt to reach young people with these views—is genuine.

Teen Vogue hosted a panel at Socialism 2019, “System Change, Not Climate Change: Youth Climate Activists in Conversation with Teen Vogue.”

Teen Vogue panel SYSTEM CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE at the @socialismconf with @SatansJacuzzi @TeenVogue (Lucy) @SunriseMvmtChi (Sally) and me @usclimatestrike! Thanks @haymarketbooks!

The panel moderator was Lucy Diavolo, news and politics editor at the publication, who is transgender.

“I know there’s maybe a contradiction in inviting Teen Vogue to a socialism conference … especially because the youth spinoff brand is a magazine so associated with capitalist excess,” Diavolo said. “If you’re not familiar with our work, I encourage you to read Teen Vogue’s coverage of social justice issues, capitalism, revolutionary theory, and Karl Marx, or you can check out the right-wing op-eds that accuse me of ‘clickbait communism’ and teaching your daughters Marxism and revolution.”

The panel attendees responded enthusiastically.

“Suffice to say, the barbarians are beyond the gates. We are in the tower,” Diavolo boasted.

5. The Green Movement Is Red

It’s perhaps no surprise that an openly socialist member of Congress is pushing for the Green New Deal—which would essentially turn the U.S. into a command-and-control economy reminiscent of the Soviet Union.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti recently said, according to The Washington Post: “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.”

“Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti asked Sam Ricketts, climate director for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who is running for president in the Democratic primary. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Economic transformation barely disguised as a way to address environmental concerns appears to be the main point.

One of the speakers on the Teen Vogue climate panel, Sally Taylor, is a member of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-oriented environmental activist group that made headlines in February when several elementary school-age members of the group confronted Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., about her lack of support for the Green New Deal.

The other speaker on the Teen Vogue climate panel was Haven Coleman, a 13-year-old environmental activist who has received favorable coverage for leading the U.S. Youth Climate Strike in March. She was open about the system change she was aiming for to address climate change.

She noted during her remarks that she was receiving cues from her mother, who she said was in attendance.

Haven said the answer to the climate change problem was moving on from our “capitalistic society” to something “other than capitalism.”

Interestingly, none of the glowing media profiles of Haven or the Climate Strike mentioned a link to socialism or abolishing capitalism.

6. Socialism Can’t Be Ignored as a Rising Ethos on the Left

According to a recent Gallup survey, 4 in 10 Americans have a positive view of socialism. Support among Democrats is even higher than among the general population, with a majority of Democrats saying they prefer socialism to capitalism.

But many who say they want socialism rather than capitalism struggle to define what those terms mean and change their views once asked about specific policies.

As another Gallup poll from 2018 indicated, many associate socialism with vague notions of “equality,” rather than as government control over the means of production in the economy.

What’s clear from my observations at Socialism 2019 is that traditional Marxists have successfully melded their ideology with the identity politics and culture war issues that animate modern liberalism—despite still being quite far from the beliefs of the average citizen.

Socialists at the conference focused more on social change, rather than electoral politics, but there were still many core public policy issues that animated them; notably, “Medicare for All” and government run-health care, some kind of Green New Deal to stop global warming (and more importantly, abolish capitalism), open borders to increase class consciousness and promote transnational solidarity, removing all restrictions on—and publicly funding—abortion, and breaking down social and legal distinctions between the sexes.

They were particularly able to weave their issues together through the thread of “oppressor versus oppressed” class conflict—for instance, supporting government-run health care meant also unquestioningly supporting unfettered abortion and transgender rights.

Though their analyses typically leaned more heavily on economic class struggle and determinism than what one would expect from more mainstream progressives, there wasn’t a wide gap between what was being discussed at Socialism 2019 and the ideas emerging from a growing segment of the American left.

[nancygduarteus]

The City With the Most Expensive ACA Insurance in the U.S.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—When Garnett and Dave Mellen sent their 19-year-old daughter, Gita, off to college an hour away at Virginia Commonwealth University last fall, they didn’t expect to follow her.

But in November, the family received notice that their monthly health-insurance premium in Charlottesville would triple for 2018, from $1,200 to an unaffordable $3,600. So, the Mellens, both longtime local business owners, packed their bags and spent time with Gita in her off-campus apartment in Richmond.

“My whole life has been rearranged around trying to get health insurance,” Garnett Mellen, 56, said, as she explained that claiming residency with her daughter in the new zip code had cut their premiums by more than half.

Charlottesville now claims the dubious distinction of having the highest individual-market health-insurance costs in the country—prompting families like the Mellens to look for extreme solutions.

An exodus of carriers, which was blamed on losses caused by the instability of the Obamacare marketplace, created a coverage vacuum, leaving locals and insurance regulators scrambling.

Only one carrier—the Virginia Beach–based Optima Health—decided to continue to participate in the individual market, but it did so with monthly premium increases that were, on average, in the high double digits and for some consumers as much as 300 percent, according to people interviewed for this story.

It’s a problem that’s likely to be replicated elsewhere, says Timothy Jost, an emeritus professor of law at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and an expert on the health law. “In many states, it’s going to be hard to maintain a functional individual market,” he says. “Charlottesville is sort of ahead of everybody else in this ... but this is the direction things are heading.”

Insurers nationwide that intend to participate in the individual market face spring deadlines to file forms for 2019 plans and rate proposals. In Virginia, these dates are April 20 and May 4, respectively.

The situation in Charlottesville has left many residents at their wits’ end about how to pay for their health insurance, prompting the evolution of an angry and rebellious civic movement and thrusting the costs of coverage into the center of local politics.

Charlottesville for Reasonable Health Insurance, a grassroots organization with a Facebook group of more than 700 people, has already claimed small victories in the state legislature, such as propelling the passage of a bill that will alleviate the cost burden for some of its members. But its highest priority has been pressing state regulators to explain and possibly reconsider the decision that allowed for the stunning premium increase.

In the midst of various bureaucratic fits and starts, the state Bureau of Insurance (BOI) responded to the group April 11 by reiterating that Optima’s rates were “actuarially justified.” Ian Dixon, one of the group’s organizers, says they plan to appeal this finding to the State Corporation Commission. “We’re not going away, that’s for sure,” Dixon says. “They’re hoping they can wait us out ... They would drag this out for a year if they could.”

At the same time, the group has expanded its focus to other issues on health-care costs, such as price transparency and regulatory reform.

The trouble started in summer 2017, when the state’s major insurance carriers announced they would be leaving the individual market in Virginia, saying the market was “shrinking and deteriorating”—pointing to the instability of Obamacare under the Trump administration. Their departures left Albemarle County, home to Charlottesville, bare—meaning residents had no insurance options.

When Optima opted to continue to offer plans in and around Charlottesville, state insurance regulators breathed a collective sigh of relief. But Optima’s decision came with updated rate-increase proposals, which gained the okay of the under-the-gun BOI, led by Commissioner Scott White.

“I think the [regulators] decided they were willing to accept almost anything to get someone to cover Albemarle County and Charlottesville,” Jost says.

About 15 miles north of Charlottesville on U.S. 29, there’s a billboard that some residents now view with bitter irony. It features a smiling man with the message: “I chose Optima.”

On the one hand, Optima did fill a void and offer health plans where no other insurer would. Still, many residents found their only choice came with a 300 percent boost in premium costs. They felt that state regulators had fallen short of their consumer-protection responsibilities.

“Any assumption that I had ... that I thought [the Bureau of Insurance would be] protecting the people ... was completely naive,” says Sarah Stovall, 40, who works for a small software company, lives in Charlottesville with her husband and two sons, and has struggled to find affordable coverage.

But Ken Schrad, the director of the Division of Information Resources for the State Corporation Commission, said the bureau is still questioning Optima, checking its math and evaluating its actuarial decisions. He couldn’t answer specific questions about a matter he said is pending.

Schrad said the bureau reached out to carriers and worked with them last summer when it was clear that much of the commonwealth wouldn’t be covered. “It wasn’t a question of what the premiums would be,” Schrad said. “It was whether there would be any coverage.”

“[Filings] must be based on actuarially sound decisions, and that’s all the bureau can review. The market is the market.”

Stovall, 40, teamed up with Dixon, 38, a web-app developer, to manage the emerging Facebook group, which was originally set up as a support system for people in search of new insurance options in a short window of time. Soon, Karl Quist, 46, who had been actively calling the BOI to lodge complaints, joined the effort.

“The three of us did not know each other before November,” Dixon says. “We feel like we’re relatives now.”

Others quickly piled on, including the Mellens and Gail Williamson, 64, a part-time secretary at a private school who needed insurance for herself and her husband, who owns a business restoring antiques. Like many of the people in the group, the Williamsons made too much money to qualify for federal subsidies, but too little to be able to afford the $3,725 monthly premium that Optima would have charged them.

Sharing their knowledge, many Charlottesville for Reasonable Health Insurance members have resorted to imperfect jury-rigged policies that do not come with many of the coverage guarantees that protect patients from unexpected costs under the Affordable Care Act. Instead of paying $2,920 a month for Optima’s least generous family health plan, Quist is saving $2,300 a month by purchasing two non-ACA-compliant plans, one for sickness and one for accidents. Williamson has settled on a “silly little” three-month policy for $1,400 per month, plus an extra $35 a month in supplemental accident insurance for her husband.

“If I won the lottery, the first thing I’d do before giving my kids any money would be to buy health insurance for everyone in that group,” Williamson says.

Washington and Lee’s Jost says he worries about the impact of such cobbled-together coverage. He says having these plans could damage the ACA market further by skimming the healthier people away from the more comprehensive coverage, leaving behind those who are ill or have chronic conditions.

“It makes the situation worse because the only people who are going to pay premiums that high are people who are desperate,” Jost says.

Over the past months, the community-based effort has evolved beyond being an ad-hoc information clearinghouse into a powerful organizing tool. For instance, it has raised almost $20,000 to hire Jay Angoff, a lawyer and former federal and state insurance official, to appeal to Optima and state regulators about the Charlottesville-area rates. Dixon, Stovall, and Quist also regularly pile into Stovall’s minivan, drive to Richmond, and become lobbyists for their cause.

“The insurance companies pay people very good money to lobby for them on a regular basis,” Stovall says. “Meanwhile, I have to take off work, Ian [Dixon] has to leave his business for a day.”

“On some level, I have faith that if we keep pushing, I don’t know what the eventual outcome will be, but we’ll find some type of justice,” Dixon adds.

Their greatest victory came with the passage of S.B. 672. This law redefined what a “small employer” is so that self-employed people can buy insurance in the small-group market. The group sought this change because many people, including Dixon, found that the cost of adding an employee to a company of one allowed them to save money by obtaining insurance as a small group, though it still added significant overhead costs to these businesses.

Many in the group see this success as only a Band-Aid fix. Though it allows some people to obtain cheaper insurance, it doesn’t address the root of the problem: Optima’s rate increases.

For Garnett Mellen, though, the issue seems resolved, at least for now. She found a job with health benefits in Charlottesville, which enabled her and her husband to move back there. It’s a big relief—both for her and for Gita, her college-aged daughter.

“She [was] not entirely happy with us being there,” Mellen said.

This post appears courtesy of Kaiser Health News.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/04/the-city-with-the-most-expensive-aca-insurance-in-the-united-states/558605/?utm_source=feed

[i-am-fugitive]

RACE IS THE ULTIMATE AMERIKKKAN MONUMENT….

There is no pride to be held in racialized existence (rather it be black or white). On the contrary, the existence of race speaks to our profound failure as human beings ��� essentially proving just how spiritually bankrupt and lost we are to the divine truth of our humanity.

I’ve been sitting back in the cut, quietly observing the latest events unfold in the psychosomatic drama of race, our Great AmeriKKKan Dis-Ease. Rather it be the incidents in Charlottesville or Trumps (slave master-esque) check of protesting athletes like Colin Kaepernick. It’s both sad and laughable, how so many whites and blacks alike still somehow seem – or perhaps I should say feign – shocked by the reality that is racism in AmeriKKKa. That folks still can’t seem to comprehend the fact that Donald Trump is the true face of AmeriKKKa – a nation intrinsically divided. A nation essentially established on white supremacy and racism (via slavery) as institutionalized through the construct that is race, amazes the hell out of lil ole, black assed and ‘ignant’ me! In fact, the only shocking thing about Donald Trump, calling out the demonstrable irreverence of kneeling (capitalist slave master owned) athletes – enter here the 2014 action: Crucifixion of the Kneeling Man, 2015 action: I Have A Dream, and 2017 action: The Consumer – is that he just called them SOB’s as opposed to the moniker he actually wanted to use, NIGGERS.

Race – as a property of racism and a world established on white supremacy – by design is an innate form of alienation, in which “whites” racialized and objectified "blacks" (i.e. essentially reducing black subjects to objects) as a means to negate their humanity and thereby establish their supreme certainty in the world. And it is on this basis that black existence, as a product of racialization, was made to express the objective reality of whiteness – a condition that still exists to this very day. Hence, blackness is a debilitating schizophrenic condition/prison to which “black” racialized subjects are trapped; inexorably locked in a perpetual state of non-recognition. Ultimately imprisoned and attached to a reality/world that does not authentically reflect or acknowledge their true being. The black BEing is rendered, powerlessly and inescapably, obligated to the epidermal limits of an alien (objectified and fetishized) body. The black body is a racialized body, perpetually stigmatized and predetermined, and it is to this reality that black existence remains trapped in a state of constant derealization (and utter stagnation). Mind you, the epidemiological truth of this (race based) malady is that it is, in fact, a socially transmitted Dis-Ease, actualized and reproduced as a result of relations mediated between, BOTH, blacks and whites. It is our collective attachment to the (socially reified) monument/prison of race that perpetuates and constantly breathes new life into the objective reality/fact that is racism and white supremacy.

White supremacy’s existence is dependent upon the fact of blackness (as established through black recognition). And blackness (rooted in shame and inferiority), made to struggle for WHITE recognition, must always constitute/define itself in relation to whiteness. Hence the black BEing, by design and nature, remains in (direct and indirect) recognition and subjectivity to whiteness. Such is the nature of this socially orchestrated call and response established upon the construct of race – a fact, perhaps best framed in this quote (on the dynamic of race) put forth by James Baldwin: “As long as you think you’re white, there is no hope for you.  As long as you think you’re white, I’m going to be forced to think I’m black.” It’s a tragic cycle of master and slave, in which both (master and slave) are enslaved and incarcerated to a prison of their own maintenance. Wherein: “The black man wants to be white, [and] the white man slaves to reach a human level” (Frantz Fanon 4). Perhaps the real issue that “black” people still face today is that, as racialized BEings, we fail to intuit that our subjective and fanciful pleas for justice and equality (based on the notion of reason) has no objective or tangible basis in a society/world objectively established by white supremacy. In this regard, the blacks supplicating pleas for white recognition of their humanity (BLACK LIVES MATTER) in a society/world where the black has been objectified and Othered as non-existent, is a fatuous waste of time and energy. At the same time, blackness constituted and defined merely in response to whiteness is still ultimately subordinated. And yet, make no mistake, while the immediacy of black BEing (a being-for-itself), as realized in direct contrast and reaction to whiteness, is an imperative step in the formative process of a black consciousness. Beyond this initial reactional phase, however, blackness (racialized existence) – as radical liberating agent – in and of itself, ultimately reaches a limit. As again, blackness that asserts itself simply as a “reaction to whiteness” (Zia Sardar, 2009, para. 22), does not stand as actual and absolute negating agent to the objective (structural and material) power of white supremacy. Instead, blackness on this basis still (in the end) ultimately validates whiteness. As it (blackness) merely posits itself as a comparative measure to whiteness, thereby, acknowledging and “affirming the white man as the [supreme] measure of all things” (Zia Sardar, 2009, para. 22). Hence blackness, by relation, is still rendered inferior. Such is the case with black’s obsessive and desiderative pursuit for equality and inclusion in this (white objectified) world –  as expressed and celebrated through achievements that supposedly exemplify “black dignity” and “black excellence”. In truth, such achievements cannot be true expressions of dignity if they are accomplishments measured and recognized in relation to a white standard i.e., black’s ability to rise and be successful (particularly financially) in a “white” society. Essentially blacks believe that through inclusion, merely inserting black bodies and faces into picture frames (prestigious positions, spaces and places) traditionally occupied by whites, they can ultimately prove or validate themselves as equals (the ability to essentially measure up) and therefore worthy of white recognition. In this context blackness does not stand FREE to determine itself, as (again) it can only realize itself in light and relation to, whiteness. Rather it be, FIRST BLACK [insert accomplishment here], or proclaimed through titles such as BLACK [e.g., scientist, artist, writer, composer, doctor, chef, dancer, lawyer…]. Blackness that must posit, validate or qualify itself – that must literally announce itself upon crossing “white” thresholds – on this basis is still functioning as a dependent/non-essential consciousness (essentially locked in black subject-hood) as it is ultimately determined by a complex of inferiority. This blackness (the racialized self) – merely an expression of the objective relations of a white supremacist society – actively composes and reproduces itself, as a result of its (inferior) social position or relations in society (Fanon Theory of Race, 2015, para 31). Therefore, whiteness remains the theme and center of black determination/existence. Hence, this black consciousness is not self-determined or liberated. And as such, this blackness – a subject of white (epidermis inspired) dictated and engineered, shame and inferiority – cannot BE, a true expression of dignity (which implies and necessitates one’s ability to determine their own existence). Here paraphrasing Fanon when he wrote, the black body (negated) dons a white mask in a desperate attempt to cover the shame of its externally imposed (and exposed) negativity – WAKE-UP SLAVES…. If our sense of self, or “being-in-the-world,” is actualized, or authentically enacted and perceived to the extent it corresponds to, or expresses our desire and ability to shape the world (Fanon Theory of Race, 2015, para 35). We must therefore assert our power in defining and determining our (“black”) existence in the world, as opposed to our (“black”) existence being defined and determined by the (“white”) world – i.e., we remain subjects to the externally produced (internally consumed/metabolized) fact of blackness.

It is the internalization of white induced, negativity absorbed into the black epidermis through hundreds of years of (historical/scientific/psychological/economic/institutional/religious) racial persecution that has left the black BEing – essentially bound and gagged – drowning and paralyzed in the hellish hole of toxic (and psychologically debilitating) shame and inferiority. It is in this regard that black (racialized) beings remain enslaved and attached to the natural conditions of race – a false construct born out of a false history. Mind you, it is now through the agent/drug NEED (as opposed to chains and whips) as established through capitalism – via the green acid tab that is the dollar (the ultimate agent/totem of white supremacy) – that the black (racialized) body remains dependent upon white supremacy, and the white established world. It is through the agency of capitalism, that white supremacy manifests its objective power in the world. And it is capitalism that essentially keeps the black BEing in check, obsequiously attached and dependent upon whiteness. It is capitalism (“conscious capitalism” or otherwise) that ultimately keeps the black, slaving away chasing the almighty dollar (steady picking that green cotton) on this white plantation. And although the black man may go through the frivolous, symbolical and perfunctory, motions of expressing his/her outrage in the face of white supremacy and injustice (e. g., via messages on t-shirts, hats, mugs and any other pragmatic and permissible acts of “protest” and “civil disobedience”). In the end, however, they ultimately remain acquiescent to the white master. They will not outright negate the white world. They will not seek to disrupt and dismantle the masters house. They will stop short of such measures. For they are too fearful of taking any REAL risk, extremely mindful as to not cross the line – that may result in the loss of job and money – and bite the proverbial hand that feeds them. (I can’t afford to stand up. I NEED to survive. I NEED to feed my family. I NEED….)

Indeed, it is the black BEings fetishistic devotion to the almighty dollar that keeps him/her obsequiously devoted to the white master – I NEED THEE OH LORD I NEED THEE (C. R. E. A. M)! It’s an unwavering faith in the (white supremacy founded) religion of capitalism that keeps him/her hopelessly chasing a fatuous notion of equality in a white world, via the path of economic security/freedom, through a fictitious notion of “conscious capitalism” ….

(There is no such thing as conscious capitalism. Capitalism is capitalism. Human exploitation is the soul and life’s blood of capitalism – it could not exist without it. Furthermore, capitalism – as product and property of white supremacy, born out of slavery the institution founded upon the brutal exploitation of black bodies – is by design made to essentially maintain the structural and material power/integrity of white supremacy. Therefore, capitalism by any means and/or conditions will ultimately serve this end. As it is a tool of white supremacy – here employing the wisdom of Audrey Lorde: The master’s tools will not dismantle his house – it cannot serve as tool/instrument for black liberation)

And yet, time and time again (to no avail) the black man is awakened to the harsh reality (of capitalism) that although perhaps, those little green sheets of cotton laced paper will afford a living in the white world; they will not however afford true agency and equality; or the right to TRULY be FREE to determine one’s own existence in a white established world. That is to say, at the end of the day, the almighty dollar with all its divine and magical (white supremacy instilled) properties will not afford the black man an exit out of the alienating land of NIGGERDOM. This is because in a white world founded upon, and dictated by race, no matter how much progress and success the black man achieves, he/she will always be racially determined, and as such will always (ultimately) exist as an object and expression of the white will. Make no mistake, for as long as this world stands, the black man – as the overdetermined property of the white manufactured construct that is race (the construct that ultimately made possible the birth of capitalism itself) – will ALWAYS remain under a white warranty. And as such, the white master will remain in possession of the title/receipt that is “blackness”.

Bottom line, the black man, although no longer bound by whips and chains, remains bound as a slave and prisoner to his own appearance (i.e. racialized existence) – made prisoner to, “the fetishized expression of a false history”, socially reified and articulated in a white supremacist society (Fanon Theory of Race, 2015, para 40). And it is on this basis that blacks have been housebroken and domesticated to the oppressive conditions of their racialization. It is to blackness that they must always, ALWAYS, remain accountable. It is to blackness (the white constructed property of race) that they must always – having been trained/conditioned over hundreds of years – answer to and for. The black man must always BE true to race. He/she must always be black (for both whites and blacks alike) before and above ANYTHING. And it is through the socially reified apparatus of race that the white man keeps the black man bound and circumscribed to the (human-less) dungeon of alienated existence – shackled to the complex of inferiority he has constructed for him/her – in this/his world. It  is on this foundation that the white man ultimately maintains his grip on the black man, and the entirety of black existence itself – via history, philosophy, science, culture, language, capitalism, religion etc.… And, it is upon this construct that he has been able to stand and erect himself as the divine and superior sum of ALL things. The black BEing has been MADE to recognize and apotheosize the supremacy of whiteness EVERYWHERE and in EVERYTHING. The black BEing, even when trying to determine itself, cannot do so without (subconsciously) honoring whiteness – as in so doing he/she must always acknowledge and pay homage to the oppressive white construct and monument that is, RACE. As racialized subjects, the black must always exist in the shadow of whiteness. (Again, “The black man wants to be white, [and] the white man slaves to reach a human level.”) In this white (objectified) world, black has been established as inferior corollary of white.

White is to black as positive is to negative. White as the color of light, represents life. It is the symbol of purity, divinity, innocence, beauty, salvation and righteousness. Black (as the direct opposite) is the cursed hue. Black is the hue of darkness, it represents death and dearth. It is the symbol of evil, negativity, ugliness, sin and immorality. There is no escaping this fact, it has been reified (over hundreds of years) and established as objective fact in the white world. These truths are engraved on the walls of ALL monuments and institutions; as they are written into EVERY dictionary and holy book. And it is on this basis – as established upon the objective facts/axioms of this world – that freedom, justice, intellect, morality, beauty and humanity can ONLY exist as the divine values and properties of whiteness. It is on this basis that the black man must always chase whiteness – even when he/she is chasing freedom. His/her quest for freedom, is a white (determined) freedom. His/her cry for justice, is a white (determined) justice. His/her pursuits of dignity, is a white (determined) dignity. His/her pursuits of success, is a white (determined) success. His/her notions of humanity, is a white (determined) humanity. Even his/her ideas of spiritual salvation and god are ultimately determined and dictated by whiteness. Rather it be the, self-loathing, black coon/sellout that (dreams of being white) desperately chases white validation and acceptance; or the black revolutionary that dreams of a black world. Both, as racialized subjects, are still nonetheless the (house and field nigger) properties of white masters trapped on the white constructed plantation of race – the foundation of the white world. It is on this plantation (the white racialized world), as an alien to his own racialized body, that the black BEing remains confined to the uniform of his oppression and (objectified) thing-hood. That many blacks believe that the most radical and revolutionary THING they can BE is BLACK, ultimately speaks to the fact that the black BEing is still a being attached to its (objectified) THING-HOOD. While perhaps it is true that the most radical/revolutionary THING the black can BE (in the context of race) is black … the most radical/revolutionary BEing the black can BECOME, however, is a being liberated from the prison of racialized existence – that is an (absolutely) FREE and self-determining, HUMAN BEING. Again, black existence constituted and determined within the racialized construct of the white world, is still a consciousness trapped on a white plantation. Black existence, essentially, ruled by the externalized epidermal conditions on which it has been defined and circumscribed is still, nonetheless, an identity that’s dependent upon the natural conditions of a (white supremacist) world that was essentially established to negate it.

Unfortunately, it is in blackness that the black man has been conditioned to exist. And as such, he/she is doomed to remain as a racialized alien in a white (objectified) world. It is in blackness that he/she has been circumscribed as a powerless observer in this world. Very much the same as with capitalism, by conditioning the black man to honor race, the white man has been able to fundamentally keep them in their assigned place. It is the very idea that you’ve been brought into being to take part in this amazingly profound and unique experience called life. You were brought into this world as a human being (an agent of freedom) – and as such, no different than any other human being – yet, your existence (as a black man) has somehow been predetermined for you. You’ve been made to exist between lines that another being has drawn for you. Everywhere you go and in everything you do, you must always answer to your appearance – check the box of your assigned race. No matter how successful you become, no matter what great things you accomplish, ALL accomplishments must follow (must come second) to your race (see: first BLACK president). Yeah, you’re black. You’re black. You’re black. You’re black. YOU’RE BLACK! But what exactly does your blackness amount to in a world where its not allowed to write its own rules, chart its own course, or breath its own air. What does blackness amount to if its existence must fundamentally adhere to (is essentially dependent upon) whiteness – and the socially constructed standards of race? What value is blackness that must ultimately (affirmatively or negatively) respond to the stereotypical axioms that have been predetermined for it? (I repeat, “BLACK” achievements are not real achievements until and unless they can be recognized in accordance with standards of whiteness – as being established as objective truth in the white world.) It is the stigma of blackness (as defined and determined by white slave masters) that the black man desperately desires to escape and/or erase. However, what the black man has yet to comprehend is that his/her true liberation cannot be achieved in blackness (racialized existence). To be truly free, he/she must act to negate the white world itself and lay the foundation for a brand-new world. A world, absent of race (with its intrinsic property of alienation), and hence the limiting conditions of racialized existence. Such action, however, requires the black BEing to risk death and the stability of its, socially constructed, confines. It requires them to step outside of the externally imposed uniform/spacesuit of blackness to confront and brave the atmosphere of the unknown.

Yet, it is the unknown that the black has been made to fear and reject. After-all, how would he/she even exist without the white world? It is after all, to paraphrase Fanon, the only decent world he/she knows. Who would the black man be without the uniform of (his/her oppression) blackness – a racially constructed identity? Where else would he/she live if not in the past? And where would he/she exist if not amongst the dead? Who would blacks be if not the racialized objects they’ve been made? It is in this context, that the black man’s struggle towards liberation is not driven by an actual desire to be free, but merely to be elevated to the equal status of whites. The black (racialized) BEing simply seeks acceptance and validation in the existing white world. Yet, I reiterate, the white man is dependent upon his manufactured supremacy. He absolutely needs it to preserve his world, and in order for this to remain true, he needs the black man to remain trapped in the alienating inferiority of racialized existence – essentially locked outside of their own humanity. It is only when the black BEing comes to the realization that the true sum of their existence can never be determined, measured or fully realized in racialized existence. As race, essentially precludes true freedom and as such poses a disservice to us all (both white and black alike) as it ultimately alienates us from our true humanity – “in order to be a “human being,” the objective basis of [our] existence as racially oppressed [BEings], and as [BEings] alienated from [ourselves], is an absolute limit that must be overcome. The objectivity of [black] existence has its own necessity that [we] must obey, and therefore, by necessity must destroy in order to live at all” (Fanon Theory of Race, 2015, para 43). It is ONLY when we truly confront and eradicate race itself – and the world that has been built upon it – that we can truly liberate ourselves from racial oppression. It’s only when the black BEing discovers that buried deep in the heart of his/her blackness is the light of a brand-new world; it is only when they embrace (ACT) and become that light that they can burn away the old and shine the new into existence…. In the end black liberation cannot merely be about the liberation of black people from white injustices, it must be about the liberation of the black body from racialized existence, and hence the very construct of race itself. It is in this regard that black liberation must ultimately focus on the liberation of the black racialized BEing from the limiting conditions of blackness itself. As such, our ultimate focus and energy should not be geared towards the elevation of blackness so much as it should be geared towards the salvation and elevation of our humanity. Therefore, our task – if we are to usher in a new world – must be to reinvent the world and thus ourselves. We must be determined to introduce a new human content into the world. A content that embodies and reflects the universal spirit, principles and qualities of TRUE freedom and humanity. And this requires an absolute negation of the current social relations that reproduce the construct that is race, and hence the objectivity of the white supremacist world. In other words, our ultimate struggle is not to be black. Our ultimate struggle, is a struggle for the salvation of ALL HUMANITY! Such a struggle requires the absolute eradication of ALL BLOCKS. Again, inserting the profound wisdom of James Baldwin: “[No] label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and indeed no religion is more important than the HUMAN BEING.“ The real issue is not black or white. The real issue is black and white. Race does not bring us closer to humanity, it runs us farther away from it….

RACE IS A DYING PLANET. HUMANITY IS THE FINAL FRONTIER. YET, TO DISCOVER IT, WE MUST FIRST MURDER OUR (RACIALLY CONSTRUCTED) DARLINGS.

In the end, race needs our compliance and recognition to exist. Thus, it is the natural condition to which we are ALL attached. My aim is not to elevate myself in union with the white established world, but to interrogate, deconstruct and abolish it one action at a time. It is also the realization that my blackness, albeit an epidermal/socially constructed matter of fact, is not something to be fought for or against. Nor is my blackness something to which I must remain accountable to or for. i am not fighting for blackness. i am fighting through blackness! I’m fighting for (TRUE) freedom and humanity, as fomented by the immediate conditions/experience of my racialized existence – that have made me aware of its (humanity’s) absence.

NOTHING and NO ONE will make, circumscribe, define, or DETERMINE ME! Fuck their/your whiteness. Fuck their/your blackness. Fuck THEIR world. My mission is freedom. i define myself. i, FREE MY FUCKING SELF!!!

*Notes:

James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket (St. Martin’s Press, 1985) 704

Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 2008) 191

HiFi, Fanon and the Theory of Race (unityandstruggle.org, 2015)

Zia Sardar, Fanon and the Epidemiology of Oppression (frantzfanoninternational.org, 2009)

[shitonionsays]

한(恨): Korea’s Undying Vengeance (Part I)

From: https://seoulcomplex.com/posts/2017/08/476/%ED%95%9C%E6%81%A8-koreas-undying-vengeance-part-i/

Understand Han, and you’re finally on your way to understanding the Korean people.

  I had a look on wikipedia for reference and found an interesting quote from a theologian, stating that Han is “feeling of unresolved resentment against injustices suffered, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against one, a feeling of acute pain in one’s guts and bowels, making the whole body writhe and squirm, and an obstinate urge to take revenge and to right the wrong—all these combined.”

There are some words in the Korean language that does not have a direct translation to any other language. The closest translation is 恨 (hèn) in traditional Chinese. This character was the result of  an approximation that old scholars used, since Korea had yet to develop its own writing system.

As far as I understand, 恨 in China has come to mean something closer to hatred, animosity, or resentment in modern times; the contemporary definition differs enough from the spirit of Korean “Han” to be considered misleading.

  What exactly is Han?

Han is difficult thing to explain but it is one of the major concepts that, when understood, would explain so much of what makes Korean people so “Korean” to outsiders.

Han is a culture that is taught not directly as a lessson to Korean children but is absorbed as part of the culture.

  It is accepted that everyone sus a Han on behalf of the nation and the people, but also harbour personal Han from life experience.

Ever since I was a child, I can remember my mum always telling me that South Korea was a small nation and that we had to fight and scrap for anything that we will get; for someone who moved to a predominantly white country at a young age, both the overt and the passive racism that I experienced probably tempered and also complicated my personal Han in many ways.

This sense of shared injustice probably has fed into another cultural aspect of Koreans, the Jeong that we feel for our homeland and for people who share our ancestry. It’s the basis why Koreans seem to typically “stick to our own kind” when studying or living abroad.

It’s a type of bond that makes people empty out their own personal wealth to pay for national debt when the government goes bankrupt… even in the late 1990s.  That’s a subject I will cover in the future.

  Why so dramatic?

There are many nations, many peoples, many cultures that suffer inhuman, barbaric and chronic injustices, so why do Koreans make it the centre of their psyche?

  Sure, we were treated worse than animals while we were occupied and colonized by Japan, solely based on our nation of origin. We had our family names and national treasures stolen from us. We had our fair share of invasions and enslavement… but many other nations have had similar if not worse experiences.

  I think what sets the Koreans apart is how hierarchy formed the backbone of and still continues to shape of society. Meritocracy is still dependent on the bending of the knee to a superior, bowing to one’s seniors no matter what the circumstances; it is a system that disallows certain types of social leapfrogging in almost any form.

The feelings of Han is rooted in a frustrated, unfulfilled state and so naturally it is more wholly fulfilled with the injustice committed by a superior agent, one who is beyond the reach of the wronged, than with the injustices committed by an equal or lesser. With this hierarchy system so ingrained into Korean society and tacitly accepted as the eternal status quo, you can begin to see that any social institution and every person within them are under the influence of Han.

The Korean psyche begins with a deep-seated sense of grief and grievance that we have been somehow served injustices or live under the constant injustices of a powerful agent.

If that injustice somehow takes on a human form, like in the recent presidential scandal involving Choi Soonshil’s exploitation of businesses and institutions, Koreans have no problem marching out and protesting for weeks on end.

We are talking about allegedly 30% of the national population coming out to protest peacefully in the middle of the capital city, without a single arrest or criminal activity among the demonstrators.

Han is part of what feeds the Korean people their feeling of entitlement to justice and to be outraged by a physical manifestation of society’s injustices.

  Han, the collective spirit

I’ve seen people attribute so many of the stereotypical Korean actions to Han. Even if you spend a day with a group of Koreans, there is begging for forgiveness, lamentation of injustices and outbursts of frustration.

Seeing this as simply loud complaining or negativity will only frustrate a foreigner because attributing those actions to the familiar will result in Koreans still being somehow unpredictable.

  Korea will forgive people for great wrongs or demand retribution for the smallest of slights based on the shared conscious Han. They will groan and swear under their breath while completing and moving on to another task while at work. It is almost unnatural for someone doing serious work to be seen to be happy at work, since work is supposed to be a cross that one bears.

This shared conscious cultural process is why Koreans will understand emotional outbursts from other Koreans, while foreigners and tourists may find emotional outbursts among Koreans of all social backgrounds completely unpredictable, or too dramatic to be justified.

Even the exchange students and native English language teachers are likely to find such expressions difficult to relate with because Han very much depends on the Han of the moment, factors that are unseen below the surface that can be sensed more quickly and accurately by someone who shares that consciousness of Han.

  Trigger warning

Korea is a tiny region that suffered as a vassal, a battleground, slave provider, colony and whatever else to nations and kingdoms more powerful itself, many times over. We were a poor nation with a life expectancy of 23 in 1908 (that’s not a typo), ignored by the League of Nations as Japan finally destroyed our status as an independent country, was torn apart in a civil war driven by the world’s two superpowers…

  If I told you now that national Han shared similarities with grudges in that Han was additive and cumulated over time, you can imagine that the accumulated Han for the Korean people is incredibly intense and reasons numerous.

The slightest trigger could spark a self-feeding cycle of a feeling of injustice that can make a Korean display an intense outburst of emotions. For many, the safety release valve that tempers some of this is to share a drink with another person to talk freely about each others’ own Han.

You may have seen “going out to drink together for the first time” being referenced on variety shows and drama, but a reference this social custom is not just for mutual social enjoyment but a symbolic reference to the forming of a bond.

As someone who has lived in both Korea and the UK as an adult, I can tell you that this is much less “I want to have a beer with that guy” and more “I would like us to trust each other”.

This sharing of emotions is so intense that one evening and six bottles of soju are often enough to convince two people that they will henceforth be inseparable brothers (or sisters).

  My first compliment at work by a senior was when I finally snapped over the phone at a colleague from a different department, admittedly won the argument and slammed the phone down and swore in Korean.

Odd but I have incorporated that mindsets into other parts of my life and it has definitely brought people much closer to me.

Korean people don’t want to be around other people who are perfectly at peace all the time. They are conscious of their own human emotional imbalances and find someone who has Han to be more relatable. Yes, a positive person, a Dalai Lama is lauded and praised as a breath of fresh air, but Han never seems to go away.

I’ve come to learn that for some, hearing others lamenting about the present is somehow reassuring. Perhaps they want to know that they aren’t the only ones suffering injustices in life, finding a brother or sister in the suffering.

    [Stay tuned for Part II, where we will be covering what Han has meant for modern society, and why I think it will be an ironic roadblock preventing Korea from becoming the great nation it aspires to be]