#waging war on a concept such as terrorism is just a tyrannical way

[foxgl-ove]

there’s something to be said about celebrities that have performed as protagonists in dystopian films or media that were fighting against genocide/ethnic cleansing/fascism and them choosing to support israel

like, there’s something intrinsically revealing of hollywood, western society, etc. when it’s boiled down

[fishoutofcamelot]

Zombie symbolism in media? Body snatchers? That sounds extremely interesting 👀👀👀

OOOOOOOOOOH ARE YOU READY FOR ME TO RANT? CUZ I’M GONNA RANT BABY. YALL WANNA SEE HOW HARD I CAN HYPERFIXATE???

I’ll leave my ramblings under the cut.

The Bodysnatchers thing is a bit quicker to explain so I’ll start with that. Basically, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released in 1956, about a small town where the people are slowly but surely replaced and replicated by emotionless hivemind pod aliens. It was a pretty obvious metaphor for the red scare and America’s fear of the ‘growing threat of communism’ invading their society. A communist could look like anyone and be anyone, after all.

Naturally, the bodysnatcher concept got rebooted a few times - Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978), Body Snatchers (1993), and The Invasion (2007), just off the top of my head. You’re all probably very familiar with the core concept: people are slowly being replaced by foreign duplicates. 

But while the monster has remained roughly the same, the theme has not. In earlier renditions, Bodysnatchers symbolized communism. But in later renditions, the narratives shifted to symbolize freedom of expression and individualism - that is, people’s ability to express and think for themselves being taken away. That’s because freedom of thought/individuality is a much more pressing threat on our minds in the current climate. Most people aren’t scared of communists anymore, but we are scared of having our free will taken away from us. 

The best indicator of the era in which a story is created is its villain. Stories written circa 9/11 have villains that are foreign, because foreign terrorism was a big fear in the early 2000s. In the past, villains were black people, because white people were racist (and still are, but more blatantly so in the past). 

Alright, now for the fun part.

ZOMBIES

Although the concept has existed in Haitian voodooism for ages, the first instance of zombies in western fiction was a book called The Magic Island written by William Seabrook in 1929. Basically ol Seabrook took a trip to Haiti and saw all the slaves acting tired and ‘brutish’ and, having learned about the voodoo ‘zombi’, believed the slaves were zombies, and thus put them in his book.

The first zombie story in film was actually an adaptation of Seabrook’s accounts, called White Zombie (1932). It was about a couple who takes a trip to Haiti, only for the woman to be turned into a zombie and enchanted into being a Haitian’s romantic slave. SUPER racist, if you couldn’t tell, but not only does it reflect the state of entertainment of the era - Dracula and Frankenstein had both been released around the same time - but it also reflects American cultural fears. That is, the fear of white people losing their authoritative control over the world. White fright.

Naturally, the box office success of White Zombie inspired a whole bunch of other remakes and spinoffs in the newly minted zombie genre, most of them taking a similar Haitian voodoo approach. Within a decade, zombies had grown from an obscure bit of Haitian lore to a fully integrated part of American pop culture. Movies, songs, books, cocktails, etc. 

But this was also a time for WWII to roll around and, much like the Bodysnatchers, zombie symbolism evolved to fit the times. Now zombies experienced a shift from white fright and ethnic spirituality to something a bit more secular. Now they were a product of foreign science created to perpetuate warmongering schemes. In King of Zombies (1941), a spy uses zombies to try and force a US Admiral to share his secrets. And Steve Sekely’s Revenge of the Zombies (1943) became the first instance of Nazi zombies. 

Then came the atom bomb, and once more zombie symbolism shifted to fears of radiation and communism. The most on-the-nose example of this is Creature With the Atom Brain (1955).

Then came the Vietnam War, and people started fearing an uncontrollable, unconscionable military. In Night of the Living Dead (1968), zombies were caused by radiation from a space probe, combining both nuclear and space-race motifs, as well as a harsh government that would cause you just as much problems as the zombies. One could argue that the zombies in the Living Dead series represent military soldiers, or more likely the military-industrial complex as a whole, which is presented as mindless in its pursuit of violence.

The Living Dead series also introduced a new mainstay to the genre: guns. Military stuff. Fighting. Battle. And that became a major milestone in the evolution of zombie representation in media. This was only exacerbated by the political climate of the time. In the latter half of the 20th century, there were a lot of wars. Vietnam, Korea, Arab Spring, Bay of Pigs, America’s various invasions and attacks on Middle Eastern nations, etc. Naturally the public were concerned by all this fighting, and the nature of zombie fiction very much evolved to match this.

But the late 1900s weren’t just a place of war. They were also a place of increasing economic disparity and inequal wealth distribution. In the 70s and 80s, the wage gap widened astronomically, while consumerism remained steadily on the rise. And so, zombies symbolized something else: late-stage capitalism. Specifically, capitalist consumption - mindless consumption. For example, in Dawn of the Dead (1978), zombies attack a mall, and with it the hedonistic lifestyles of the people taking refuge there. This iteration props up zombies as the consumers, and it is their mindless consumption that causes the fall of the very system they were overindulging in.

Then there was the AIDS scare, and the zombie threat evolved to match something that we can all vibe with here in the time of COVID: contagion. Now the zombie condition was something you could get infected with and turn into. In a video game called Resident Evil (1996), the main antagonist was a pharmaceutical company called the Umbrella Corporation that’s been experimenting with viruses and bio-warfare. In 28 Days Later (2002), viral apes escape a research lab and infect an unsuspecting public.

Nowadays, zombies are a means of expressing our contemporary fears of apocalypse. It’s no secret that the world has been on the brink for a while now, and everyone is waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. Post-apocalypse zombie movies act as simultaneous male power fantasy, expression of contemporary cynicism, an expression of war sentiments, and a product of the zombie’s storied symbolic history. People are no longer able to trust the government, and in many ways people have a hard time trusting each other, and this manifests as an every-man-for-himself survivalist narrative. 

So why have zombies endured for so long, despite changing so much? Why are we so fascinated by them? Well, many say that it’s because zombies are a way for us to express our fears of apocalypse. Communism, radiation, contagion - these are all threats to the country’s wellbeing. Some might even say that zombies represent a threat to conversative America/white nationalism, what with the inclusion of voodooism, foreign entities, and late-stage capitalism being viewed as enemies.

Personally, I might partly agree with the conservative America thing, but I don’t think zombies exist to project our fears onto. That’s just how villains and monsters work in general. In fiction, the conflict’s stakes don’t hit home unless the villain is intimidating. The hero has to fight something scary for us to be invested in their struggles. But the definition of what makes something scary is different for every different generation and social group. Maybe that scary thing is foreign invaders, or illness, or losing a loved one, or a government takeover. As such, the stories of that era mold to fit the fears of that era. It’s why we see so many government conspiracy thrillers right now; it’s because we’re all afraid of the government and what it can do to us.

So if projecting societal fears onto the story’s villain is a commonplace practice, then what makes zombies so special? Why have they lasted so long and so prevalently? I would argue it’s because the concept of a zombie, at its core, plays at a long-standing American ideal: freedom.

Why did people migrate to the New World? Religious freedom. Why did we start the Revolutionary War and become our own country? Freedom from England’s authority. Why was the Civil War a thing? The south wanted freedom from the north - and in a remarkable display of irony, they wanted to use that freedom to oppress black people. Why are we so obsessed with capitalism? Economic freedom.

Look back at each symbolic iteration of the zombie. What’s the common thread? In the 20s/30s, it was about white fright. The fear that black people could rise up against them and take away their perceived ‘freedom’ (which was really just tyrannical authority, but whatever). During WWII, it was about foreign threats coming in and taking over our country. During Vietnam, it became about our military spinning out of control and hecking things up for the rest of us. In the 80s/90s, it was about capitalism turning us into mindless consumers. Then it was about plagues and hiveminds and the collapse of society as a whole, destroying everything we thought we knew and throwing our whole lives into disarray. In just about every symbolic iteration, freedom and power have been major elements under threat.

And even deeper than that, what is a zombie? It’s someone who, for whatever reason, is a mindlessly violent creature that cannot think beyond base animal impulses and a desire to consume flesh. You can no longer think for yourself. Everything that made you who you are is gone.

Becoming a zombie is the ultimate violation of someone’s personal freedom. And that terrifies Americans.

Although an interesting - and concerning - phenomenon is this new wave of wish fulfillment zombie-ism. You know, the gun-toting action movie hero who has the personality of soggy toast and a jaw so chiseled it could decapitate the undead. That violent survivalist notion of living off the grid and being a total badass all the while. It speaks to men who, for whatever reason, feel their masculinity and dominance is under threat. So they project their desires to compensate for their lack of masculine control onto zombie fiction, granting them personal freedom from obligations and expectations (and feminism) to live out their solo macho fantasies by engaging in low- to no-consequence combat. And in doing so, completely disregarding the fact that those same zombies were once people who cruelly had their freedom of self ripped away from them. Gaining their own freedom through the persecution of others (zombies). And if that doesn’t sum up the white conservative experience, I don’t know what does.

So yeah. That’s zombies, y’all.

Thanks for the ask!

[adambibliophile]

9/11 is it fiction or reality?

It is no secret that the September 11 incident caused major psychological troubles to the American people during the next six months, as it caused great damage to its economy and its history.

Many researchers, writers, scholars and technical experts have considered this fictional story and narration as the biggest lie in modern history and that is impossible to swallow or believe it.

Francesco Cossiga, the former president of Italy commented on this incident that the September 11 attacks were orchestrated by the CIA and the Israeli Intelligence Service, Mossad, stressing that this thing is well known to most International Intelligence Agencies.

Regardless of the accusation he referred to above, those who spoke about this conspiracy proceeded from many facts, the most important of which are:

First: The process required high techniques that are only available at the level of major developed countries. Afghanistan's accusation of undertaking the operation contradicts this concept.

Second: The analysis of many aviation specialists cast a lot of doubt about the type of aircraft used in the attack, as it became clear that the civil airlines' planes could not be directed and of the type that was said to have been used in the attack in the manner in which it was carried out, which suggests that other means were used to blow up the two buildings.

Third: The specialists in the bombings noticed that the operation was carried out according to a highly efficient technical study and based on the availability of accurate information about the two buildings and their foundations, the type of iron used and other information that can only be available to certain and specific authorities in America.

Fourth: The size of hole that was seen in the building and which was said to have been penetrated by another passenger aircraft is not proportional to the size of an aircraft, it is just a very small hole and did not cause much damage.

Fifth: What was said about the number of Jewish Americans who usually work in the World Trade Center did not show up that day for work.

Sixth: From what analysts mentioned in the list of names of passengers for the hijacked planes on the day of carrying out the attacks issued by American Airlines, they did not get any name for an Arab passenger, then the list was changed suddenly, then it became clear from the new list that it was fake by only one evidence, which was the names of people in it they died years before the accident, and other people proved that they were working elsewhere on the day of the accident!

Thierry Meyssan is a French journalist, conspiracy theorist and political activist. He is the author of investigations into the extreme right-wing, as well as into the Catholic church. In his book 9/11: The Big Lie, he challenges the official account of events of the September 11 terrorist attacks as he insure that the attacks wasn’t done by a simple aircraft and that Osama bin Ladin remained as an agent for CIA.

This whole made up story was done for a good reason and that which to give the country a reason to be in Afghanistan and Iraq in a more acceptable reasonable way. It’s another way of saying it’s time to increase the US military presence in Southeast Asia and other regions. These attacks are a paradigm shift in which aspects of America from economic to military country for the sake of total tyrannical domination of the world.

The aim of the attacks was for America masterminding a huge incident and then attaching it to external powers (Muslims) with the aim of waging a comprehensive strategic war in the region to control over resources, re-draw maps to the size of the United States, in addition to reactivating the armament program, raising the defense budget and activating a new scheme related to space armament with the aim of the consolidation of the ultimate control of the United States over the world and to design an everlasting war against the Muslim world under the name of “The War Against Terrorism”.

The bottom line is, US administration is willing to sacrifice American citizens in the context of carrying out campaigns against what it claims to be terrorism or what it claims is against the interest of the United States, as happened in September 2001 to achieve America's supreme and great interests led by a group that works for the benefit of other than the United States of America.

[shadowdragonlost-blog]

This may seem political, but it is both a one-time thing, and just an info dump to do with as you will.

So unless if some politician is trying to ban Tumblr, politics will never be seen here on this blog; outside of this one moment.

Before I say anything else though, keep in mind that I do not identify with a party, and am actually a moderate, so if anything that I say here does not seem moderate; then that is a result of your views and environment. But here starts the list of a few things that few people know about the american political parties.

1. They are both run by white elites: as much as I do not have the names on-hand; both parties are run by white elites; so what does that mean? It means that at the end of the day all they’ve been doing is just playing at the emotions of the entire country to try and play at taking power from each other. Either party can follow any ideals at any time, and will do so to obtain power. That also means that solving your problems is not their primary objective, they only care about continuing to have members get elected and fill offices, problems being solved, and people learning to talk and compromise with each other would only solve all of the divisive issues and bring people together to a degree that manipulating emotions would become difficult since there would be less issues to “feel” about. This is also made worse in how they are always declaring an enemy, be it the other party or a specific group; which brings people further away from actually talking to and listening to each other; which only makes it easier for us to accept whatever the hell they tell us is right, when honestly a right answer may not even exist.

2. Some controversial information that tends to be overlooked, as of 2016; 7 of every 10 suicides has been a white male. Pretty strange right? It’s almost as if being the class that’s in power has stripped away certain rights and privileges that other classes have been given, such as being able to share their pains without being ridiculed, being able to act weak or vulnerable or ask for help. I will also state that a lot of these suicides occurred in the middle-class. Make of this information what you will, just know that many people tend to ignore how one class had its ability to actually express itself stripped-away and replaced with being taught to resort to violent tendencies as well. That is also why the fight for equality on all fronts is both necessary and difficult, it’s because when every other class is getting to obtain privileges and the ability to treat and share their own sufferings, one class that never actually was taught to accept those privileges, and was ridiculed for exercising them just finds itself losing some of the only privileges it had to a group of people that may seem whiny to them.

I am not saying to excuse any of their actions, I am just saying that there is more than what shows on the surface, and this piece of information could help to better unify us all. I should also state that for every male attempt at suicide; there are four female attempts. Which could be linked to what I said earlier; when a man is considering attempting suicide, or talks about it THEY WILL LIKELY FOLLOW THROUGH because THERE ARE FEW CULTURAL AND SOCIETAL OUTLETS THAT THEY ARE GIVEN TO SHARE THEIR PAINS; whereas women are more-likely to have many people waiting with open arms to help them recover. And before you try to hate on this statement, keep in mind that until very recently; all a man got in response whenever they shared a pain, hardship, or fear was along the lines of “why don’t you grow some b$&@s you p$&sy?! You should just man up!”.

3. And now for some of the more right-leaning people. Did you know that completely removing firearms from selected areas would actually prevent gun-violence?! Because nobody has a gun?! Wow; who’d have thought, but seriously, our second amendament right exists purely for the protection of ourselves from our GOVERNMENT, and preaching that it will protect you from immigrants or criminals will only lead you to shooting somebody. Keep a gun if you plan on overthrowing a tyrannical government, not to shoot your creepy-looking neighbor. But for everyone else who wants to remove firearms altogether; that is why it is so difficult; is because the bill of rights does not exist to protect Americans from each-other, it is to protects Americans from the American government, so if you decide we should remove any of our rights as citizens, you better hope it wasn’t because a politician said we should because *blank*, it does not matter the reason; rights have to be removed because they are not needed, and so long as anyone has any fear for our government becoming tyrannical, it will become impossible to remove any amendment without a tragedy occurring (wait a minute, maybe that’s why after a shooting or an event like 9/11 the government cracks down on removing and abolishing our rights, because those are the only moments in which that can occur, and it’s not like we are getting those rights back are we?)

4. Terrorism isn’t actually that much of a problem for us in america, most attacks that happen in our country are done by our own citizens; from those on the far right and left ex-millitary (majorly the far-right though, but not by too much over the far left, like a few percent from the overall total), terrorists are not a big problem to specifically us, just our own citizens who get too emotionally wrapped-up in things.

5. Immigration; if not done legally, actually really sucks for american citizens. Why? Because without a social security number it is impossible to take action in america in a non-criminal way, even working a job is illegal from both an employee to an employment level. Why does this matter? Well for many reasons. It enables specific businesses to get illegal under-the-table labor where they can just have immigrants deported instead of being illegally punished, and we all still have to pay taxes, whereas any benefits granted to them (but more specifically their children) are benefits that they aren’t paying taxes for, and still cannot legally use here but those taxes are felt mostly by either the middle class (which is dying out fast) and the upper class. I am not saying that illegal immigrants are bad people, just that they enable some shady things and can potentially harm the middle-class.

6. The minimum wage is both a heaven and a hell because it enables the lower class to have more money, but also raises the amount of money required to live. It really saves everyone who is working a minimum wage job, but everyone who worked forever to earn a raise will almost never get another raise to make up for now working minimum wage again, and the prices of everything will eventually adjust to that new minimum wage. This effectively kills the middle class (keep in mind is made up of all of those people who are killing themselves), and renders any money that people have saved up to be valueless the more the minimum wage increases, leading the elderly to grip more-heavily onto their social security (which is currently what most of our nation’s debt and spending can be traced back to), and to save that money as well, removing it from the system, leading to another raise in the minimum wage, etc... but not all is lost. If you are in the upper-class; investment values tend to adjust to inflation so you are the only unaffected class; which will just increase the wage/wealth gap; as it has been doing today; placing most people ever closer to being either impoverished or wealthy, which will further create a political divide, which will separate our country more (just read the first piece of information in this list for that whole spiel)

7. I believe that at the end of the day, equality is all that matters to ensure a healthy and unified nation, but I also believe that abolishing the concepts of gender entirely is a means of doing so. I can be incorrect, so please do not rage all over the internet labeling me all of the mean and cruel titles that you could muster up and just read what I have to say first; you can disagree and fine; I’m not cruel; I will not force this belief on you or anyone, I will only explain why I believe this. I believe that in using genders to further identify or group ourselves; we are starting to divide ourselves into tinier, more identifiable groups. And as much as some of that may seem good, being able to be labeled is literally the only thing that is needed to make a group or person a target or enemy; why that matters? Say I start to dislike weaponized battle-toasters, and actively stand out against them and their rights and beliefs, then I become their enemy as well, if not my entire class or identification group. Why this matters? It will enable the both of us to dislike each other to the point in which we will actively avoid equality amongst each other. Identifying also enables people to enpower specific groups, and it enables each group to be given roles and privileges, like how men were made the majority power group, and how women were designated to stay out of work, but were also given the privilege of true emotional expression once they started to approach a more-equal level (not that they are equal today, there is always distance to cover), but men and women were the two gender groups of our society for a while, and as much as identifying to express oneself, or for any other means may help now with any problems; it can and will eventually become a tool to fight true equality amongst everyone because of how it can be assigned roles/other stuff that I’m too lazy to share too. I do not want a gender war, so I just believe that the existence of zero genders; where we are all just people may eventually help to solve some equality issues, not that I’m intelligent enough to know how to do that; I’m just some 18 year old homo sapien who just so happens to want a happy ending for as many people as possible.

8. Bonus!!! Did you know that Bisexual people are actually often misunderstood by straight, gay, and lesbian people, and that they are actually picked on by all three other groups. That is why bisexual rights movements are normally ignored is because they are either lumped under straight or gay rights, or are cast out of both entirely, and also because they are different and do not fit fully into any of the mainstream groups. I hope that this was just some rumor, but if the LGBTQ group has any ideas on removing the B, that shouldn’t happen, but that could always just be some silly rumor, so you can just ignore that tidbit. Also... how come sexuality has started to become a label much like genders have been? I wish we all could just let people be with the ones that they love, regardless of what their bodies resemble or contain.

There are plenty more things I can say, but unless if anyone has any questions or complains, I will forever halt anything political about this blog here. I am sorry.

[maitreya666al-daijal]

"THE SPIRITUAL ARMOR OF LUCIFER" Hallo, This was my first attempt at making an art piece, I get pretty annoyed from time to time when the followers of "Abrahamic Faith" (Jewism, Christianity & Islam) doctrines say that their way is the only way & how they (ESPECIALLY the hypocrites) are quick to condemn others for following spiritual alternatives that seem to work much better than theirs...... Just about any thing that contradicts "Abrahamic Faith" doctrines gets labelled as "Being Satanic" or *Evil* (doesn't matter as it is all the same to them), they often like to brag about their philosophical concept of "The Spiritual Armor Of God" when ever they make claims of being victorious against Our Benefactors & us Gentiles who are proud of our heritage...... I studied thoroughly as I have watched their moves & observed their tactics, it is then that I had learned of their weaknesses that which is their own contradictions in those scriptures they like to blindly preach so often about. Some even like to steal ideas from other cultures/faiths that pre-date their own as part of A foolish-yet cunning effort to preserve their deception...... The time for us to fight & be proud of our heritage is NOW. But every Satanist (or Militant Pagan) needs to be properly prepared for the battle that lays beyond all realms, it is here that I wish to provide the perfect solution to to better combat the so-called "Spiritual Armor Of God". I now present to you my latest creation in the fight for our Independent Sovereignty from these malicious Oppressors & their vile tyrannical *god* they call "Allah/Jehovah/Yahweh". Special thanks goes to Halphas & Phoenix for inspiring me to do this ProJect! I PRESENT UNTO YOU: "The Spiritual Armor Of Lucifer". >1. The Sash [Of Initiation & Loyalty]: The sash involves two places, our hearts & our minds. It is when we have been initiation & proclaimed our loyalties to Humanity's True Father, that shall make all the other pieces of the armor more effective in our personal endeavors. The sash makes us stand out among the crowds as the individuals we are... >2. The Cuirass [Of Courage & Pride]: With this Cuirass in place, we proudly march in to battle wish neither fear nor regret holding us down. The Oppressors who worship their false god constantly bombard us with their misguiding doctrines & flash their charms at us. The Satanic Super Soldier should not hesitate to make their presence known, be proud to express your inner true self & not be subjected to their standard of conformity! >3. The Boots [Of Adaptation]: The Boots allow us to step freely as we adapt to the environment that surrounds us, keeping our selves unnoticed enough so that the unaffiliated don't report to The Oppressors. They in our adaptation to any situation as we remain agile in our movement & vigilant in our struggle against The Oppressors! >4. The Gauntlets [Of Inner Strength & Will]: With these Gauntlets, you shall over-come all odds that haf been stacked against you & help bring about success. The Gauntlets protect protect both of your sword arms as to not be demoralized in your battle, you are going to need strength & will if you have any plans on making an attack against The Oppressors. By having Inner Strength & Will, you shall take what-ever punishment that had been dealt unto you & throw it back at The Oppressors twice as hard! >5. The Great Helm [Of Knowledge & Wisdom]: To defeat your enemy, you must know their flaws. One should spend considerable time in studying the enemy before making an attack, The Great Helm protects our minds from being deceived by the pressure in to believing the false doctrines of The Oppressors. 'Read' your enemy & watch for flaws that you can exploit against them, doind so shall grant you A bold victory against The Oppressors! >6. The Twin-Blades [Of Fear & Terror]: Take these Twin-Blades powered by Deimos & Phobos so that you may wage war against The Oppressors. Instill fear & terror in to the hearts of The Oppressors as you break their 'shield' with one blade while decapitating their 'sword arm' with the other! The Twin-Blades make for an excellent weapon of offense as they are brutal & fast in their strikes, as what we should be against our foes. Fortresses, Arguments, Propaganda & Thoughts are all weapons the enemy uses against us. With The Twin-Blades Of Fear & Terror, the initiated are equipped to deal with them. We need to expose the enemy for what they truly are: Bigots, Con-Artists & Hypocrites! We need to trust in the REAL truth presented by Lucifer's Torch as we are on the correct path & must be vigilant in our spiritual journey. Be confident during your journey to achieve the Godhead, get A hunger & desire for it!    -666 Ecarinu Satan!,       ~Maitreya Al-Daijal [s.s.s.] 🌹