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mrdanielbond · 3 years ago

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Wild Nights, Wild Hearts (Mikael Blomkvist x Reader) Chpt. 2

“Let’s be professional...”

[Main characters: Mikael Blomkvist X Reader]

Plot: The mystery man is now a guest lecturer at your university but while his popularity expands, things remain tense as you remain unimpressed...

[A/N: Another fic in the same week??? I KNOW! So I had no idea the first chapter would be so popular! All I wanted to do was to bring a little piece that would be entertaining but I’m glad to post another chapter at least because I’m interested to see where this dynamic goes too :)) ]

You still froze at the man before you. His eyes still widened as neither of you realised you were still surrounded by students. That was until, of course, he turned back and cleared his throat. He started to talk, maybe it was to introduce himself or talk about the syllabus, you weren’t too sure. What you were certain of, however, was the fact that you failed to pay attention until the end. You could’ve sworn this man was going to have nothing to do with you after this morning. How the hell did he end up in front of you anyway? You were propelled into a cruel joke, and you had no idea how to stop it from getting out of hand. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction but for someone with an apparent awful hangover, he was almost as good as you out there with professionalism.

“...Millennium magazine, which is a hit across Scandinavia. I've travelled across the world studying corrupt organisations and organised gang violence in European countries. But like I said, I’m here to help guide you through what could soon become one of your own greatest passions, investigative journalism. Now, from what I know, while Dr Y/N is the head of this module, I will host a lecture fortnightly on Wednesdays and hold my own office hours that same afternoon. However, this is all new to me and I'm sure with help from Dr Y/N and all of you, we can make sure that my presence during this module is worthwhile for everyone. Thank you.”

The body of students in attendance gave a round of applause as Mikael stepped back and before you knew it, you had to snap out of your thoughts! This man was handsome, charming even to everyone but you could never admit any of this about him. Not in broad daylight. Especially not after the night you shared. The only thing you can admit is that you wanted nothing to do with him. You were sure of it. You don’t know how you were going to manage that but there had to be a way.

Mikael stepped outside the room with Andrew, barely glancing your direction as his part was done. That left you to finish the lecture on your own, discussing exams and assessments throughout the module as well as a future plan of what the lectures were going to be like. Before you knew it, the lecture was over, and students made their way down filled with excited chatter amongst them for the module they were about to take part in.

Once the last pupil left, you dropped to your seat. Silence. That’s all you needed. You sipped your coffee but realised you were due for a refill. Praying for your sanity for a moment, you refused to move. This could not be happening. The mystery man - well Mikael as he was no longer a mystery, could not be working on the same module as you! You expected a passionate fling but now you faced the consequences of enjoying yourself. Eventually, you got up and started packing your bag, considering it was your shortest day of the week. At least today was going to be an easy day to get over. No seminars, just one morning lecture. But this was how it was going to be now. You’d have to host a morning lecture with Mikael present, every week. Was he going to be present for ALL your lectures? Or was he going to be one of those lecturers who would only go his days and not turn up? The latter you were incredibly hopeful for. You couldn’t take any more surprises from Andrew. Not anymore.

So, you decided to make a pit stop to the department’s lounge on your way to the office. The lounge was filled with staff members, all filling up their teas and coffees, sharing jokes. To your misfortune, however, Andrew stood with Mikael. The newest member of the team already appeared to be popular as he already entertained everyone because staff surrounded him, laughing at his stories. Unluckily for you, the man was a hit. But you rolled your eyes, refusing to register his voice and filled up your coffee at the machine.

“So, yeah I guess that's how I managed to embarrass myself in front of the Duke of Varmland.”

Everyone laughed once again. One of your co-workers, Clare already leaned into him, her hand on his arm as she appeared comfortable laughing beside him.

“Stop! Mikael, you’re going to kill me if you keep going!” She laughed again, this time holding his arm tighter. You didn’t want to read his reaction, but you were pretty sure there was hidden alarm in his smile. Those same eyes that stayed on you, even when you weren’t paying attention to him. Just as you finished filling up your drink…

“Uh, Y/N here actually is teaching with our esteemed visitor.” Oh for goodness sake. You turned anyway, giving everyone a wave avoiding Mikael’s eyes. “Yeah. Should be fun.” You knew Mikael was still looking at you but you couldn't make eye contact. Not now, at least.

Andrew started, “Don’t you want to stay here a little longer for a catch-up?”

“Actually, I should head to my office. Still got a bunch of assignments that I need to finish marking.”

This made Andrew laugh. “Of course. Especially after your wild night out, it’s probably for the best.” You froze. He did not just...but Andrew couldn’t have known. He wasn’t there. What you hadn’t noticed was that Mikael had choked on his coffee slightly, his eyes widening. “You have to be more careful next time with these things.”

“Try saying that the next time you have a heavy night out, mate.” You snarkily retorted, causing everyone else to laugh as you left the room.

"Don't mind her, she's always like that." Clare quietly commented, holding Mikael's arm. The man watched on with a frown.

You entered your office, dropping on your seat. You start to immerse yourself in your work. You don’t know how long it had been but as you moved to the next stack of papers and started to see dotted lines everywhere. You hadn’t realised there were a few knocks on the door. Yet you refused to pay attention to it. You had to get the assignments marked. The door clicked open.

“My office hours start next week. There’s a sign on the door.” You said without looking up from the screen.

“I was hoping you'd make an exception.” The baritone voice caused you to freeze. “I kind of have to be here.”

“Exceptions are a not so subtle way of demonstrating favouritism. I’m not really for it.” You tried to snap back, turning back to the stack of papers in front of you.

“Alright, then. Well, I apologise in advance if I make any noise with the boxes. Just moving some of my stuff in and I’ll be out of your way.”

This caused you to spin your chair quickly. “What do you mean moving your stuff?” By the time you took a proper look at him, he was already on the other side of the office with a box of his belongings. You could’ve sworn you had no room in your office. Your eyes followed him and that’s when you noticed something different. When did that get there? Were you that hungover you didn't even see the slightest change in your office?

“All part of the experience, I was told by Andrew.” The boxes soon forgotten, Mikael turned to you. “He thinks if we’re going to be co-running a module, we should frequently meet, plan lectures and seminars together, that sort of thing.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re assisting me. You’re a guest lecturer. I didn’t agree to co-running a module I fought to have the last few years.” Oh you were not happy with this man. You didn’t know whether it was the hangover that made it worse or the sudden burst of your double espresso that had you shaking but your patience wore incredibly thin with this man.

Mikael shook his head, “Well, just know it wasn’t my intention to find myself in this predicament." He mentioned. For a moment, you could see his clear blue eyes lost. He was contemplating something for a while, and then he said, "I think we should probably discuss last night.” Mikael brought a chair round in front of you.

“So what? We can set some boundaries?” You turned back to your papers, refusing to look back at him. You needed a distraction. Any distraction to look away from those eyes.

“Can I make a quick observation-” He started.

“No.” You quickly interrupted, yet it was obvious he was going to continue anyway.

“You’re not as nice when you don’t have five tequilas in front of you.” He sharply snapped.

“Well, I didn’t realise that I’d be forced to work with a one night stand on my passion project, the next day. I have no problem remaining professional. So, you can either turn up to the lectures that you are running or you can leave now and I’ll run the whole module myself. Either way, we are away from each other.”

“You know I’m not picking either option. I may be a guest lecturer but we’re still teaching the same students. I think it is highly unprofessional to hinder their experience just because of the discretions you may have against me.”

Your mouth dropped. “You want to question me on professionalism? Is THAT what you’re saying?” Red. That’s all you could see. Red. He had to stop talking. Now.

“You know what? Forget about what I just said.”

“That’s what I thought.” You retorted. “I think it’s best if we pretend as if last night never even happened and we stay out of each other’s way.

Mikael wanted to protest but he wasn’t prepared to say anything else. At first he did feel sorry for you. Then he saw your true colours. You weren’t like this at three in the morning, cosying up in the comfort of his arms in his bedroom. He didn’t want to doubt himself, of course, he was smitten by you the night before. But that must have been the alcohol. There was absolutely no way he could have been attracted to you without it. He certainly wasn’t going to tolerate any disrespect, that was for sure.

“You know what? I’m way ahead of you. In fact, I’m going to see if I can get a different office just so we're out of each other's way...and I don’t feel the arrogance seeping in from being around you Ms Y/L/N.”

You snapped your head up quickly, “Actually, I’m a Doctor. Don’t know why you’re deciding to get it wrong now, Mr Blomkvist but for the sake of work, I hope that gets sorted.”

He muttered something under his breath and you snapped your head up but by the time you could respond the door slammed shut.

What he hadn’t heard was the frustrated sigh that left your lips as he disappeared. Of course he was attractive in broad daylight, dressed in smart-casual clothing yet his hair was left a mess. You didn’t want to pay attention to the way his glasses loosely hung over his face or his smooth voice filling the room – considering you heard it all raspy in the middle of the night before, you couldn’t let it fool you. Work and pleasure was something you didn’t mix and as long as you were working here, you would not allow Mikael to indulge in the latter. You would not give him the opportunity to remember the night you had.

Once you finished marking more assignments, you decided to call it a day and head home. It was 6.00 pm so you were most likely one of the last few people in the building. As you made your way to the car, you found Mikael stood outside his car invested in a conversation with someone. When you took another look, you realised it was Clare. In all her glory, she was overly flirtatious with him, which made you roll your eyes. Mikael seemed to be enjoying her company as he laughed at something she said. But when he looked up and noticed you, his smile faded slightly.

October continued to be overwhelmed with downpour. Finally making it home, you changed into a comfortable pair of joggers and a baggy shirt. You had a bottle of cider from the fridge on the ready and turned on the television. You still couldn't believe the hilarity of the situation. Mikael was actually going to be working with you...and all you had asked for was a fun night with that mystery blonde and to never see him again. But now he was a part of your daily life and it irked you. While a movie was on in the background, your phone pinged. As often you couldn’t separate yourself from your job, you knew it was your work email notifying you. Usually, you would shut off, but you were surprised to already see an email with you cc’d into the subject titled: ‘Monday’s Lecture’…and who else to title it, none other than your colleague Mr Blomkvist himself.

Dear class,

For next Monday's lesson, I will be teaching you on the press surrounding the Assassination of former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. As this is a sensitive subject, if anyone has any concerns they would like to disclose, please feel free to email me and I will get back to you as soon as possible. I have attached the readings for the lecture in this email and further reading recommendations will be uploaded online tonight. I expect all of you to come prepared as this will be interactive and beneficial to all of you. Look forward to seeing you soon!

Best,

Mikael Blomkvist

Co-Owner, Millennium Magazine

You dropped your phone! Shit! That was what you had planned for a first lesson. Maybe teaching this module was going to be WAY more difficult than you thought without communication. With that, you downed your cider a lot quicker than intended, trying to calm yourself down…

#mikael blomkvist #mikael blomkvist x reader #daniel craig #daniel craig x reader #romance #fanfiction #alternate universe #the girl with the dragon tattoo #millennium #angst

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kgyst · 3 years ago

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There is a lots of uncertainty about what exactly is happening in Afghanistan, or what is going to happen. So, here an attempt to sort out at least the few corner stones of this affair. As always, I’m trying to avoid being impressed by what we do get served by the mainstream media: its superficial reporting is neither providing backgrounds nor context. This is why so many people do not understand Afghanistan, nor what is going on there.

1.) How did the Taliban secure all of Afghanistan ‘in a matter of days’?

The impression that the Afghan armed forced folded up and the Taliban overrun all of Afghanistan in a matter of days is wrong. It’s created by the mass of the media and you all not following the situation there, before ‘suddenly’ focusing on it. Actually, the Taliban were in quite firm control over more than 50% of the country already the last year, more than 70% about a month ago, and the Afghan armed forces began falling apart almost as soon as the USA signed the cease-fire with the Taliban and announced its intention to withdraw (see Doha Agreement of 2020) last year. That said, no doubt: the last two weeks saw them rapidly taking over numerous major urban centres, too. How comes? The ‘tactics’ in question is actually nothing new: it was applied by the Taliban already during their first advance, back in 1994-1996, and by the USA during its intervention of 2001. I call it ‘advance-by-bribe’. The essence is: the advancing party bribes top military and civilian authorities in the area of its interest; these order the armed forces under their command to give up. The advancing party then moves in. There is very little fighting, actually, but have no doubts: an operation of this scale and extension is taking years to organise and months to execute. Just think about all the necessary negotiations with corrupt Afghan governors and military commanders…

2.) Who took over/is taking over there?

It’s three parties:

a) Crucial party is Qatar, which – in 2008-2014-period – took over as the primary sponsor of al-Qaida, Nusra, Hamas, and the Taliban - represented through its government and diverse private financiers, and operating through its Qatar State Security (local equivalent of the CIA and the FBI). Qatar is the ‘enabler’.

b) Second most important is Pakistan. Acting through the Afghan Bureau of its Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI, which is the local equivalent to the CIA), Pakistan was instrumental in organisation of the original Taliban, and is – traditionally (see: since 1994) – exercising the command and control over Taliban armed forces (the ISI is running about 20 training camps for Pakistani, Kashmiri, Taliban, and different foreign jihadists in Pakistan already since decades; its tentacles have been traced all the way from the USA via Nigeria to the Philippines over the time). Pakistan is the ‘executor’.

c) Taliban, led by Amir al-Muminin (leader since 2016), and his three ‘political deputies’ Mullah Abdul Ghani Bardar (co-founder and leader of the ‘Political Office’ in Doha); Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob (son of Mullah Omar, original Taliban leader); and Sirajuddin Haqqani (leader of the Haqqani Network). Taliban are the ‘tool’.

3.) What’s the aim of this alliance?

This is hard to answer for the lack of details. Obviously, as an US ally, a country housing a major US military base, and one of biggest customers for US (and West-European) weapons systems, Qatar is not keen to propagandise its motivation and activities related to supporting (quasi)Islamist extremism. On the other hand, it’s powerful enough to avoid being sanctioned into oblivion – as one would expect to happen with a country sponsoring really all the major jihadist ‘outlets’ there are. That said, it seems the Qataris are curious to establish some kind of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as evidence that this kind of state can ‘work’ nowadays.

Pakistani aims are gravitating around securing the reasons for that country’s existence, and the resulting conflict with India: Islamabad is thus searching for gaining ‘strategic depth’ vis-à-vis New Delhi, and ‘converting the Afghan barbarians’ to the ‘right religion’. The Pakistanis are going to tell you that they are ‘the same’ with the Afghans; Afghans have their own opinion in this regards; indeed, most of those I happen to know despise Pakistan from the bottom of their hearts… …and the Taliban are an inter-tribal movement (that’s what’s making them so ‘superior’ to most of other major actors in Afghanistan), striving to create a state of the kind they’ve been indoctrinated to create in Madrassas (religious schools) and ISI’s training camps of Pakistan. This comes from the fact that originally, the Taliban were anything else than ‘Afghans’: at least 30% (some say two times that) were foreigners (Pakistanis and Arabs), while the mass of Afghan members grew up in refugee camps of Pakistan. That said, there’s no doubt that over the last few years they did attract lots of ‘genuine’ Afghans: youngsters primarily from the countryside, deeply disgruntled by endemic corruption of the US-crafted Afghan government, and lack of outlooks.4.) What’s going to happen with Afghanistan next? In short term, the Taliban are going to establish themselves in power, kill whoever is opposing them (summary executions of local notables are already going on – of course, well away the cameras of Western news-teams). Qataris are going to continue sponsoring them (while maintaining friendly relations to all the Western powers), and the Pakistanis are going to continue commanding and advising their armed forces (while continuing to pretend being the ‘most important non-NATO ally’ of the USA). Turkey under Erdogan – which is already neck-deep in an alliance with Qatar – is likely to join this alliance. China might follow provided the Qataris offer enough commercial incentives. And then they’re all going to face the same problems the US & NATO were facing for the last 20 years. Then, by now it should be clear that bringing Afghanistan under control – primarily with help of bribes - and retaining and securing that control, are two entirely different things. That said, as long as Qatar is flush with cash, and continues financing this, and most of the Western powers remain keen to cash from maintaining their ‘friendly relations’ to Doha while looking away at its links to jihadism, they should have no major problem in reaching their short term aims. What’s going to happen in the long term: no idea.

Note for those who might have doubts about all of this, or demand sources, I recommend reading this:

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115hhrg26427/html/CHRG-115hhrg26427.htm?fbclid=IwAR3l_dGe0tPFKNjeYGTZNqMgedOAekZpOmz2t8YsoKFlZd9l_PlvWmlMzB0

That's as far as Qatar goes. For full understanding of the local circumstances in Afghanistan, the coming-into-being of the Taliban and the Hakkani Network etc: check Lukas Müller's Wings over Hindu Kush.

via Tom Cooper

#Afganisztán

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opiatemasses · 4 years ago

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The Truth Behind the Exploitation of Pacific Island Rugby

Anyone who follows international rugby will know of the Pacific Islands and the excitement they bring to the game. The Pacific Islands comprise Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Rugby is the national sport and heart of the islands’ communities, produce some of the world most talented athletes. More than a quarter of the players in the global game come from the Islands, and yet they have a combined population of only 1.5 million people (less than the population of West Yorkshire).

This clip is a personal favourite of mine, illustrating some amazing skill, I could watch this all day.

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This shows the other side of the Pacific Island players, the sheer brute force they possess.

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And yet the Islands are being exploited in direct contradiction to World Rugby’s values. I’d like you to keep these values in mind as we explore these issues.

Power Imbalance

This inequality underpins the other issues. The Pacific Islands along with tier two and three nations have limited influence over decisions made for the global game.

There are 10 nations in tier one, each receiving three votes making up 60% of the World Rugby Council. In contrast, tier two and three comprise 120 nations and are allocated nine votes between them, and make up 20% of the Council. The other 20% is made up by regions, representatives of the continents.

How can the global game grow and develop when decision-making is skewed in the interests of tier one nations, at the expense of the other 120 nations?

A system where votes are shared more evenly would be more representative of the global game. In an interview, Ben Gosper (CEO of World Rugby) shut the proposition of Pacific Island nations achieving a three-vote status down swiftly; laughing he said - “I can’t see this happening while I am here”.

This dismissive attitude isn’t in the best interests of the global game and needs to change for the game to move forward and to give these nations a chance to thrive.

This table illustrates how votes are allocated. Notably Japan have recently gained two-vote status, representing an improvement in their ability as they challenge the tier one nations (who can forget that South Africa game). However, it has coincided with an increase in the amount of Pacific Island players in their team with 10 of their 30-man squad at RWC2019 being of Pacific Island heritage including captain and Japanese rugby hero, Michael Leach. World Rugby are rewarding Japan for ‘poaching’ these players.

Importing Pacific Island Players – Eligibility Rules

Pacific Island players have to move abroad to earn a living, not only at club level but often to play for a different nation with no return to their home nation because of the “one nation for life rule”.

Over 600 players with Pacific Island heritage play in the European leagues and more in the Super League, including some of the world’s best like Billy Vunipola and Ardie Savea. This is because there are no pathways for young talents in the islands, with limited funding and no professional teams. The financial draw is huge as players are expected to pay back into their Islands economy and help their family and village, so much so that overseas rugby players contribute about 20% of national GDP to the Islands. This is more than tourism, hospitality and agriculture combined contribute to the UK’s GDP.

Is it ethical to be taking these players - some as young as 13 - having them sign contracts and move to another county with massively different cultures? (which could have negative effects on players wellbeing). With players moving at such a young age they are eligible to play for the nation they now reside. This is understandable as other nations pay considerably more. An England player is paid £25,000 per international match, whilst a Tongan player earns £80.

This causes problems for the Pacific Island teams. Not only do they lose the majority of their best players but even when tier one nations discard them they are unable to return to play. A prime example of this is Charles Piatau. He has Tongan heritage but played for New Zealand 17 times, however is now surplus to requirements. He has stated “I’d love nothing more than to be able to represent Tonga.” A player such as him beneficial for Tonga’s development.

Image from Charles Piatau’s Twitter (@CPiutau)

There is an obvious fix to this situation. This would be to amend the eligibility laws, which would allow players to return to their heritage nation after a sufficient ‘cool-off period’ (for example, two years), where they haven’t played for their tier one nation.

This potential solution is currently blocked by World Rugby and its Council. Ben Gosper claimed that the Council, rejected the idea. Why? One possible explanation is because the Council is made up of 60% tier one nations and allowing tier two nations to grow in ability is not in their best interest. This brings us back to protectionism and clear disregard of their own values of ‘respect and integrity’.

Unevenly distributed funds

The issue here is the share of revenue from international fixtures. Currently the home nation takes all of the revenue from tickets and match day earnings, which is ordinarily payed back with a reverse fixture. However, the Pacific Island teams have drawn sell-out crowds against the home nations 12 times and had the favour returned only twice in the past 10 years. This would bring more exposure to rugby on the islands, but is not viable. In 2016 Samoa hosted New Zealand and made a loss of $1 million; because the host nation has to pay for the flights of the visiting nation and Samoa’s stadia are too small and tickets are priced at $4 each to ensure locals can watch, and therefore cannot support the inherent costs.

If we take a look at England vs Fiji in 2016, the game sold out. There was a total of £34 million earned from the game, each England player received £22,000 whilst each Fijian player was paid £400. The rest was kept by the RFU and nothing was given to Fiji’s union. Fijian rugby gained nothing from this game in terms of development or growth, barring some exposure to high level rugby for their team and supporters.

I suggest profit sharing, where Pacific Island teams play tier one nations but take home a share of the profits they help generate. If a model was put in place to share the profits 80/20, losing this 20% wouldn’t have a significant effect on tier one nations but would have a hugely positive effect for the Pacific Islands, who could grow the game in their region become a stronger team and a greater competitor.

Corruption within the islands

These issues are all important, however the corruption, poor governance and leadership within the islands must be addressed before anything meaningful can change.

Due to the lack of external funding and income from home games, Pacific Island rugby relies on their government and public funding for up to 60% of their finances. This means that politics and politicians retain a tight hold on the sport.

In preparation for the 2011 RWC the Samoan public raised 6 million Samoan Tala (£1.8 million), to pay for the players wages, accommodation and equipment. However, the players were the lowest paid at the tournament (£1000 a week), their accommodation was poor. Captain Seilala Mapusua reported they turned up to training to find there were no balls.

Where did this money go? An independent audit of their finances found that it went missing at the hands of the Board members who took the money for themselves. Even more astonishing is that the Prime Minister of the country is one of the Board members (for more information read here or watch here).

Arguably more shocking is the governance of the Fiji Union where the President is Frank Bainimarama, who is also the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Union is Francis Kean, Frank’s brother-in-law. This displays a corrupt path to power which more often than not leads to the wrong people running an organisation.

They were both involved in the coup of the Fijian government in 2000 and 2006. Francis Kean was also convicted of man slaughter in 2006 and served one week in jail before his bother-in-law released him, yet he remained the Chairman of Fiji Rugby and was even nominated for promotion to the World Rugby Executive Committee in early 2020. This nomination was withdrawn only after protests from players and fans, and he was stood down less than a month after his nomination, not on grounds of being a convicted killer but on homophobic allegations. World Rugby claimed they were unaware of his background. For more information on this click here

Image from Netani Talei’s Twitter (@NetaniTaleiE)

This governance leads to further issues for the players as many of them are scared to speak up and express their concerns; as C (former Fiji captain) said in an interview “Frank can make you fucking disappear”.

Politics runs deep in Fiji rugby, as Ben Ryan who led Fiji 7s team to an Olympic gold medal in 2016 said he would have the military come to the gym telling him what players to select and to not pick players because their parents weren’t supporting Franks political party.

Image from Ben Ryan’s Instagram (benryan7s)

These issues of governance need resolving, but if reform can’t come from within the Islands it must come from World Rugby. I suggest a programme from World Rugby to appoint specialist and leaders to the Pacific to, in the short-term aid in running their Unions and checking the finances but in the long run to train the next generation of leaders for the Union and set-in place the standards of governance that must be met, in order for them to start making progress on and off the field.

What needs to be done?

There are 5 key actions:

We need to change the way we view these nations and give them a hand up to help them develop in the long-term instead of handouts to keep them afloat in the short-term.

World Rugby need to take responsibility for the governance of these nations.

World Rugby need to change their voting system and stop the blatant protectionism of tier one nations.

Pacific Island teams need to receive a fair share of revenue they help to generate.

A simple change to the eligibility laws, to give players freedom to play for their heritage nation.

Ask yourself, if you consider the RFU and WR values to be legitimate and worthy, why are they not being upheld in relation to the Pacific Islands?

Leave a comment below with your thoughts on this issue. I’d love to hear them.

What can you do to help?

Please share this blog post and help to spread awareness.

Support Pacific Island Rugby Welfare– they are a charity that do great work in supporting Pacific Island rugby players and their families and are really the front line in battling these injustices.

Make sure to support their posts and petitions and stay up-to date on this issue by following them on twitter - @pacificwelfare.

Support them with whatever you can through Patreon.

I would also highly recommend you watch the documentary ‘Oceans Apart’ on Amazon Prime if you wish to educate yourself further on these issues. (Watch here).

There are links throughout the blog to articles which expand further on what we have covered here, so please read them and educate yourself further.

Remember to leave a comment and let me know your opinions on this issue.

N0802218

References

Kihl, L., Skinner, J., & Engelberg, T. (2016). Corruption in sport: understanding the complexity of corruption. European Sport Management Quarterly, 17(1), 1-5.

McDonald, B. (2014). Developing ‘Home-Grown’ Talent: Pacific Island Rugby Labour and the Victorian Rugby Union. The International Journal Of The History Of Sport, 31(11), 1332-1344.

Naha, S., & Hassan, D. (2017). Introduction: ethical concerns in sport governance. Sport In Society, 21(5), 721-723.

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kylewalker-peters · 4 years ago

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for me it's the way like yes ok tottenham vs barcelona seemingly looks like a done deal but we've seen great upsets because the underdog has had a good season and beat others and earnt the right to play against the best in the world. there's this element of belief like: well we've got this far why not? this is just. we're in this league together so. yay let's play.

the football world has been a corrupt little playground for rich owners for years and uefa and fifa can come out and say what they like and i will let them for now because they’re fighting on my side but truly they’re awful organisations who need to be held waaaaaaaay more accountable for their own corruption and generally shitty actions

but at the end of the day despite the clear wealth gaps and advantages that big clubs have theoretically football has always, ALWAYS, been able to continue as a sport that people can have faith in. can have hope in. and THAT is why the sport is so captivating. THAT is why fans will always come back matchday after matchday because of their pure belief that their club can do the impossible be it in their domestic league or in europe

i mean fucking hell look at spurs doing what we did in the UCL in 18/19 (i know we’re shitheads who went along with the ESL and fuck levy but it’s my club and my blog so im picking the example) like there’s a squad that’s fucking dying in the league, had no transfers for what felt like 84 years, and we fucking got ourselves to the UCL final! i mean god can you imagine

imagine having UCL nights snatched from you. imagine having the importance of PL games snatched from you all to play in a league where there is no relevance there is no importance

if you lose the first idk 4/5 games of the ESL and you have no chance of winning what could you possibly be playing for? you’re just stuck in an endless cycle of matches that tires your players out that fans have no reason to care about because oh well we’ll just come back next year. but that’s not the point of europe. the point is that European game nights are special and they are EARNED. and i know it’s different for different fans like there are some clubs that can and will qualify for europe on a yearly basis but for clubs that don’t. for clubs that dream and pray for just a shot at even getting to europe not even winning the whole bloody competition HOW could you take that from them??

the PL and UCL work because they work together. the PL works because unless you’re a mid table team you’re always playing for relegation or europe or to win there’s ALWAYS something to engage yourself with. the UCL works because it’s special and it’s important and it’s an HONOUR to see your team play in the biggest stadiums in Europe knowing you deserve to be there and earned your place there. knowing your team worked their asses off to go play amongst europe’s elite. and the competition means more because you know you’re actually playing against the best in Europe who worked their way there and not just whoever managed to buy their way there even if their squad is absolute dirt. knowing that who you play this year won’t be who you play next year (if you get there).

this whole thing yes it’s all about money but truly at it’s core it’s just proof that the people in charge of our clubs have no understanding of why football is special. they don’t know why fans care so much. perez can shout and scream about what he thinks fans want till he’s blue in the face but all he’s doing is proving how much he doesn’t and will never get this sport

#im so sorry because i feel like i completely derailed your ask for a rant that makes no sense im so so so so sorry #Anonymous #esl

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cetospandiglia · 4 years ago

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Ywsterday (sunday february 14th of 2021) there was an election in Catalonia and I feel like talking about it so I'm gonna explain it briefly (a brief explanation, a long post mayne 10 or 15 min read) for my American & international readers out there. (This will have a clear bias, I'm no journalist. That said, I don't belong to any of the parties discussed in this post.)

First, a bit of context for those completely unaware. Catalonia is a historical region of Spain with its own language (which has been marginalized and banned to various degrees during the last 3 centuries, which stirs controbersy to this day) and a separatist movement that has had moments of relevance and irrelevance along the last ~100 years.

Independence as a social movement has had its ups and downs, 25 years ago it wasn't very relevant but in the 2010s it started gainign traction ending in an unsuccessful unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 which resulted in the arrest or exile of most of the government (President Puigdemont is exiled in Waterloo, vice president Junqueras has spent years in prison now).

With that out of the way, to talk about the players in this election first we have to understand how does one get to be president of Catalunya.

Catalunya, as well as Spain as a whole and many other european countries and regions, doesn't have Presidential elections, they only vote for the parliament members: voters choose a party and once the Parliament is made up they vote for the president. In this particular case, the Parliament has 135 seats so if some party gets 68 seats they have an absolute majority and can govern by themselves in most cases (some things require 2/3 majority but to elect a president and to pass most laws it's just half+1).

The thing is, this election the winner didn't get anywhere near 68 seats, they got 33 so whoever ends up governing needs to pact. It's time to know the players:

To start, we're going to talk about the parties in the previous, independentist government:

THE INDEPENEDENTIST FORCES:

Junts per Catalunya (together for Catalunya) is a big, centrist coalition of organisations with left leaning and right leaning sectors. The left sees them as right wing and they're the only catalanist right wingers, so the rest of the right fucking hate their guts. They were in power for decades (under the name Convergència i Unió, the history of this party is convoluted) since the end of the fascist regime and did a lot of work to reestablish the place and institutions of the Catalan language (Franco was infamously against any languages in Spain that weren't Spanish). This is the party that the exiled president Puigdemont belongs to. Of the main 2 parties in power this was the bigger one until last night.

Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalunya, republican as in opposed to monarchy): Left wing, cataln nationalist run-of-the-mill european social democrats. They defend the catalan culture and language as JxC has done, they were in power as a part of the "tri partit" (three parties) with other left wing forces from 2003 to 2010 to avoid more years of JxC government. Then, independentist movement started to gain traction, the more conservative faction of JxC left and they (JxC & ERC) formed a government together with the complicit votes of CUP.

CUP (Candidatura d'Unitat Popular, Candidature of Popular Unity) is a far-left, socialist, quasi-anarchist organisation that used to have a few members of local councils but didn't even bother going to Catalan elections, then independence happened and have had a few MPs ever since. Not enough to pass any radical laws, but enough so that the JxC and ERC coalition needs their votes to govern: they vetoed Artur Mas, an infamously corrupt president and actually got what they wanted.

ELS COMUNS (the commons?) is neither independentist or unionist, they're a left wing party (less radical than CUP but also with less relevance and votes in the general Catalan panorama, although they have the Mayor of Barcelona). They try to pass progressive left leaning legislature and even though some of them want independence, they don't believe it's a pressing issue for the catalan people. Their Spanish Counterparts, Podemos, are in power as the 2nd, more "radical", left leaning force of a center-left coalition in the Spanish governent with PSOE.

THE UNIONISTS:

PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, Socialists' Party of Catalunya) is the Catalun branch of PSOE (socialists etc etc español), a center-left party that is currently in the Spanish government. PSC used to have catalanist sectors and when they were in power in Catalunya (as the 1st force of the Tripartit) they passed laws to defend catalan etc (to this day since the death of Franco no regional government of Catalonia has been against defending Catalan). Those positions towards the language and culture probably remain but now they're explicitly anti independence. They're not super left but if you don't count Comuns as unionists, PSC is the farthest left you can go in the unionist side.

PP: the strong Spanish right wing party since the 90s, where all the francoists ended up after the transition in the 70s, they held the Spanish governent '96-2004 and 2011-2018 and do not want to defend catalan. They won't usually say it out right though, they'll say things like "spanish speakers are oppresed in Catalunya", and that's the same for all anti-independentists. In Catalonia, though, they have very bad results.

Ciudadanos (citizens) is basically a split from PP that formed in 2006 in Catalonia to be explicitly anti-catalanist. For a hot second it seemed like they could be the new strong party of the Spanish right but now the party is crumbling and in Catalunya specifically they've gone from 1st force (they still didn't govern) with 36 seats to second to last with only 6. Rumours say that the party will dissolve before the next election.

Vox is a far right party that likes Donald Trump and fucking hates independence and Catalunya, they're a new party and rn the strongest of the spanish right wing forces in Catalunya in 4th place in the parliament.

Now you know all the players I can explain THE RESULTS:

(the big hemicircle is yesterday's results, the little one is last election's)

PSC has had a slight edge over ERC but they haven't been able to reflect that in more seats. Cs has crumbled from first place to 8th. Vox has appeared out of nowhere, but the rise in unionist seats (26) between PSC and Vox is still smaller than the 30 seats Cs has lost.

In the independentist side, ERC has gained 1 seat, JxC lost 2 and CUP gained 5 for a total gain of 4 seats for the independentists.

Even thoug an explicitly far right force has entered the parliament, this election shows a trend towards left wing forces: unionists towards PSC rather than Cs, and independentist towards ERC and CUP.

Even though the JxC+ERC coalition is a mess, all analysts and journalists agree that ERC's Pere Aragonès has the best chance to become the next President. All evidence points to the fact that CUP will have an easier time voting for a leftist President from ERC than a centrist/right winger from JxC, and some rumours say that ERC could be looking for Comuns' support. They don't want independence but maybe they can be brought in to strengthen the left wing stance of this new government.

The opinions of analysts and the rumours I mention come from last night's TV3 election special.

Election results:

If you've read the whole thing thank you and I hope this has been useful 😊❤️

#election #catalonia #europe

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plasticoveredfurniture · 5 years ago

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𝖜𝖗𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙

archive of our own account

𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖙𝖘

𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔫.

ever since the break up, yoongi's days all look the same. rainy. gloomy. painful.

비가 오는 짙은 색 서울 그 위에 거긴 아름답지 못한 내가 날 보고 있어

-yoongi centric drabble -angst, unhealthy coping mechanisms, post break-up -basically just a day in the life of min yoongi 921 words

𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔩𝔡 𝔞𝔰 𝔰𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔣𝔯𝔬𝔪 𝔥𝔬𝔪𝔢

what stories were left unheard and we'd be able to bring to everyone's attention if only walls could talk? we might never know, but that won't stop Taehyung from wondering.

-mild angst, mentions of terminal illness and hiv, original characters -tae moves into a new apartment and thinks about all of the things that happened in there and he'll never know of 477 words

恋の予感 𝔨𝔬𝔦 𝔫𝔬 𝔶𝔬𝔨𝔞𝔫

恋の予感 (Koi No Yokan): The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall into love.

-vmin -not so loosely inspired by true events -long distance relationship, happy ending, fluff 850 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰

ring noun a small circular band, typically of precious metal and often set with one or more gemstones, worn on a finger as an ornament or a token of marriage, engagement, or authority.

[Nobody really knows Namjoon and Yoongi are dating until one drops to one knee in front of them.]

-namgi -a very self indulgent proposal fic 704 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔡𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰

mindless adjective acting or done without justification and with no concern for the consequences.

[Hoseok and Jimin have known each other for what feels like a lifetime, and they have always been deeply, wholly, and carelessly in love with one another.]

-jihope -childhood friends to lovers, heavy angst, homophobia, mcd, terminal illness and hiv, i cried a lot writing this 832 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔟𝔞𝔦𝔱

bait noun food placed on a hook or in a net, trap, or fishing area to entice fish or other animals as prey.

[Yoongi and Seokjin have always been very close, but the never had anything in common until Seokjin organises a fishing trip for the two of them.]

-yoonjin - "platonic" date, they go fishing, extremely self indulgent and fluffy as fuck 740 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔣𝔯𝔢𝔢𝔷𝔢

freeze verb -be so cold that one feels near death (often used hyperbolically). -become suddenly motionless or paralysed with fear or shock.

[Whenever Jungkook is cold he always goes to Hoseok for warmth.]

-hopekook -kook is cold so hoseok cuddles with him. that's literally the plot. -fluff 716 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔟𝔲𝔦𝔩𝔡

build verb -construct (something) by putting parts or material together. -make or become stronger or more intense.

[Taehyung and Jungkook have always built each other back up, but what happens when that isn't enough anymore? How far can you bend something before it breaks? How many times can you put something back together before it's destroyed for good?]

-taekook -angst. -ambiguous relationship status, possible cheating, substance abuse, unhealthy coping mechanisms 762 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔥𝔲𝔰𝔨𝔶

husky adjective (of a voice or utterance) sounding low-pitched and slightly hoarse.

[Jimin fell in love with Yoongi's voice before they even knew each other.]

-yoonmin -college au, strangers to friends to lovers -fluff 825 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔡

enchanted adjective -placed under a spell; bewitched. -filled with delight; charmed.

[Seokjin is a practicing witch, but living in a world were people don't believe in his craft makes it hard for him to talk about it even with those he loves the most.]

-platonic taejinmin -modern witchcraft, fluff, self indulgent as always 723 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔣𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔩

frail adjective (of a person) weak and delicate.

[Jimin has a problem with food. Jungkook notices, but it's fine. Until it isn't.]

-jikook -heavy angst, eating disorders 885 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔰𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔤

swing noun -a seat suspended by ropes or chains, on which someone may sit and swing back and forth. -a style of jazz or dance music with a flowing but vigorous rhythm.

[The razzle dazzle of jazz is fascinating, but sometimes it makes people do careless things and not knowing why something is wrong doesn't make it any better in other people's eyes. Taehyung and Jimin learn that at their own expense. They also learn that things change with time and that family isn't defined by blood.]

-vmin -past setting, period typical homophobia, jazz clubs and gay bars, drag queens -angst and a bit of fluff 2039 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] ��𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔫

pattern noun a particular way in which something is done, is organized, or happens.

[Jungkook is the younger brother Namjoon never had. Or so he thinks.]

-namkook -childhood friends au -slight tention, fluff with a happy ending 1845 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔰𝔫𝔬𝔴

snow noun -atmospheric water vapour frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer. verb -mislead or charm (someone) with elaborate and insincere words.

[Jung Hoseok is in love with Min Yoongi. The feeling is not quite mutual.]

-yoonseok -unrequited love, friends with benefits dynamics, deception, angst with no happy ending 483 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔤𝔬𝔫

dragon noun a mythical monster like a giant reptile. In European tradition the dragon is typically fire-breathing and tends to symbolize chaos or evil, whereas in East Asia it is usually a beneficent symbol of fertility, associated with water and the heavens.

[A story of a dragon tattoo and a family not bound by blood, but choice.]

-yoongi centric, platonic ot7 -tattoo artists au -everyone is lgbt+, includes trans characters -lots of fluff 1513 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔞𝔰𝔥

ash noun the powdery residue left after the burning of a substance.

[Taehyung has been the most powerful person in all of Daegu for years now. All it takes to make him falter is a baby-faced journalist named Min Yoongi.]

-taegi -kind of a banana fish au (ash lynx!tae, eiji okamura!yoongi) -organised crime au, violence, guns, all that great stuff -angst, but this has a happy ending -some fluff here and there 1941 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔤𝔯𝔬𝔴𝔫

overgrown adjective grown too large or beyond its normal size.

[Jungkook finds it hard to leave his feelings for Yoongi in the past. When he decides to stop trying to push them down he finds his chest is exploding with all the roses he had kept from blooming for years.]

-yoonkook -childhood friends, unrequited love-it gets better and then so much worse, i'm sorry 1292 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔩𝔢𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔡

legend noun a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated.

[Jimin is a fox in a city where people think they can get away with anything if they have enough money. Little do they know that no one stands a chance against the fox. No one except for Kim Seokjin.]

-jinmin -roughly inspired by Sharleena 's UKIYO -gumiho!jimin, brothels, mentions of murder and police corruption 2950 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔡

wild noun a natural state or uncultivated or uninhabited region.

[Taehyung and Seokjin share a summer of beautiful romance, but fall and winter aren't as kind to them.]

-taejin -summer camp au -fluff and angst, homophobia, domestic violence, alcoholism, mentions of drug use, long distance relationships 1825 words

[𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯] 𝔬𝔯𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱

ornament noun a thing used or serving to make something look more attractive but usually having no practical purpose.

[It's Jungkook's first Christmas away from his family and his hyungs want to make it special.]

-jungkook centric, platonic ot7 -christmas au, just lots of fluff 502 words

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖋𝖎𝖈𝖘

𝔦𝔱 𝔱𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔰 𝔞 𝔟𝔦𝔱 𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔢 (𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔫 𝔶𝔬𝔲)

yoongi moves to crown his dream of opening his own flower shop and makes a home in six boys he meets unexpectedly.

-flower shop and tattoo parlour au -taegikook -slow burn, a bit of angst, lots of fluff

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔫𝔢 - 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔫𝔞 𝔣𝔦𝔫𝔡 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢, 𝔴𝔢𝔩𝔩 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔴 𝔴𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔦𝔱𝔶 𝔦𝔰

a beginning.

-very fluff -there’s alcool drinking, in case it makes some of y’all uncomfortable -drunken banter 3536 words

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔴𝔬 - 𝔴𝔢'𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔞𝔪𝔢, 𝔴𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔞 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔪𝔢

in which they become part of each other('s routine)

-more fluff -just,,, so much fluff -mentions of abuse -backstories explained in this chapter 2851 words

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔢𝔢 - 𝔡𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔣𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔦𝔫 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱

a not-so-platonic valentine's day date and a birthday party. alternatively, yoongi loves his family.

-valentine's day and a little not-so-platonic date -bogum is introduced -plus hobi's birthday -a lot of fluff -so much fluff, seriously 4220 words

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔬𝔲𝔯 - 𝔦 𝔥𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔨 𝔞𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔰𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔟𝔬𝔡𝔶 𝔢𝔩𝔰𝔢

a home, warmth, and the colour pink.

-lots of descriptions in the first half -very fluff, very domestic -ot7 get drunk, what's new -bogum is a **** 5439 words

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alexsmitposts · 5 years ago

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A League of Perpetual Peace: An Impossible Dream? “Article 1 The High Contracting parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.” “Article II The High contracting parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.” So says the Kellogg-Briand Pact signed by the United States, and other countries in 1928. There we have it, the high point of diplomacy and civilisation in the 20th century; the renunciation of war by the great powers of the time, predating the UN Charter but coinciding with the existence of the League of Nations, which, despite its signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the USA never joined. The parties to the Kellogg-Briand Pact in fact declared a new stage in world history; a future of perpetual peace. But, since the signing of the document, we have had nothing but perpetual war. The idea of establishing a world community for peace goes back centuries and received philosophical support from among other thinkers and idealists, Immanuel Kant, in his famous essay, “A Perpetual Peace, A Philosophical Sketch,” written in 1795, and it was President Theodore Roosevelt who, on receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace stated, “It would be a masterstroke if those great powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace.” But of course his county and many others were never honestly bent on peace when war was more profitable. The eternal quest for more profit drove the modern imperialist nations to rely on plunder and pillage as a regular means of income just as much as the empires of the past. The claim by early capitalists and philosophers that free trade and commerce would lead to peace and not war, out of pure commercial self-interest, and the ruinous cost of wars, was proved wrong as soon as the claim was made. We see similar claims made today by world leaders who every day wage war on other states, or resist the wars conducted against them. Morality, law, ethics, these are empty words for those who the capitalist system makes into thieves and murderers. But then, when the working population is composed of wage slaves, whose labour power is taken from them every hour of the day without compensation, the only way by which profit can be derived from industrial production, when the whole basis of the economy is theft, how can we expect the governments of such nations, the captains of this slave system, to be anything else except murderers and thieves. And since the United States has been the preeminent capitalist power since 1945, a world imperialist power, we witness the United States, and its servant nations in the NATO, and other vassal alliances, forcing the world to the edge of world war in a continual and never-ending cycle of crises. Its actions against Russia, against China, against Iran, against the DPRK, even against its own allies, can push us over that edge into the abyss at any time. The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans, warn the American leadership, warn the world, again and again that the consequences will be catastrophic for the world; but the irrational leadership of the United States, corrupted beyond redemption by the presumption that their power gives them the right to dominate the world, only increase their aggressive rhetoric and actions, blinded by hubris and an ignorance of reality. They think they can triumph over the world and threaten to reduce it to a radioactive wasteland. Kant, in his essay, and others since, including the founders of the failed League of Nations, of the failed United Nations, claimed that when sovereign nations join together with mutual assurance of peace and intentions to disarm that peace would soon follow. But this has not happened. The League of Nations fell apart as soon as it was created and the United Nations has never prevented an act of aggression when the aggressor was intent on war. It is now just a forum for speeches and bluster, form without substance; a good idea killed by imperialism. Kant thought that democracy, that republican forms of government, in which the people ruled, would necessarily lead to peace among nations as democratic rule spread among nations. But we have seen through history that so long as the debt system allows nations to have standing armies and to spend huge sums on creating weapons of unlimited destructive power, so long as the quest for profit remains the basis of the economic system, which leads inevitably to imperialism and colonialism, so long as governments pay men and women in their standing armies to kill, to be killed, for the benefit of others, to be reduced to expendable machines of death, we shall risk incessant war and annihilation. What better example of this is there than The President of the United States of America threatening to “obliterate” North Korea, to “obliterate” Iran. This is the vocabulary of the deep evil that rests within the heart of the system, evil because it knows no morality, no law, and regards itself to be superior to humanity itself. Democracy works only when there is a free exchange of ideas, but they control the ideas, control and manipulate the people, blind us with a world-wide system of propaganda using the mass media, and more and more, the social media, to mould our opinions and actions, or inaction. Independent media that are dedicated to peace and dialogue between peoples are becoming fewer or are compromised. So few are able to see the reality, to understand how the system works, how they fit into the system and how they can overcome it. During the Soviet period, after the defeat of European fascism, the idea spread through the world of the equality of peoples, of nations, of international cooperation, of the community of mankind, of economic systems designed to produce social wealth for the benefit of the people instead of private wealth, making money for a few. Che Guevara wrote a book about the new human beings that this system needed and would produce. But instead, we have a world in which the oldest capitalist powers are ruled by cutthroats and mobsters. The United States acts as captain of a world order of bandits; all of them dressed up in the clothing of democrats. They want world order, but their “order” is state of world servitude to their moneyed interests. The Russians, the Chinese, and other still independent nations, call for a new order, one of multi-polarity, but this is to replace the world order of American autocracy with the order of a world aristocracy, still the rule of big powers over small, however well-intentioned they may be. But what is needed is a just world order in which all nations and peoples are equally respected, and have a real voice in solving global problems, an order which exists for the benefit of all the world’s peoples. We need a world League of Perpetual Peace to replace the United Nations, which, because of its undemocratic structure and control by the great powers, has not been able to accomplish its objectives. Armies need to be abolished, for if all armies are abolished, no one can have the excuse to create one. Differences among nations have to be solved peacefully and this cannot be done if armies and weapons of mass destruction are in the possession of nations. Without the means to make war, there cannot be war and so the only way to solve disputes has to be by peaceful means. But the reader will ask, how is this to be accomplished when we know that those who profit from war and ruin will reject the idea with disdain, as an idea of utopians, not realists. And once again, it comes down to each of us to push for a worldwide campaign of world disarmament as a first step. Not just nuclear disarmament, though that is urgent and crucial, and there exists now the Treaty on The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that the citizens of each country should push their governments to adhere to. We know governments ruled by moneyed interests will not act unless they feel threatened and so the masses of citizens must make it clear that they will not tolerate world war, nuclear war, any war. If you hear of a peace group in your area, join it, an anti-war group, any group affiliated with the World Peace Council, and like organisations, join it; making sure they are not hijacked by the “humanitarian war” lovers who are the most vile of them all because they pretend to be for peace and humanity, while taking one side and advocating violence against another, or attempt to confuse people by equating both sides in a conflict, when it is clear who is the aggressor and who is not. If there are no groups in your area, start one. Unless we make our voices not only heard but make ourselves into a force for action that cannot be ignored we count for nothing and Kant’s plea for a League of Perpetual Peace will remain an impossible dream and war will remain our constant nightmare.

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grimoiresontape · 6 years ago

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Collyries: Cosmetics and Magical Gazing

This is a blog post about 'collyries', which I don't feel terribly bad about referring to as early modern magical cosmetics. I have frequent misgivings when Cool-Trying Historians attempt to excite interest in their topic by drawing clunky comparisons to some modern phenomenon ("hey fellow kids did you know books were, like, the iPads of medieval monastries?!") but, the thing is, these sorcerous 'confections' are fully designed to adorn the visage and literally empower and amplify the magic which comes out of faces. Gazing. Ensorcelling words. Enchanting breath. The evil eye. The look of love.

"Magical make-up" seems especially fair when we consider the mythic origins of cosmetics. In the Apocryphal Enochic materials, a particular fallen angel of the Grigori – the Watchers – is named as the explicit teacher of the violent and deceptive secrets of both weapons and cosmetics.

"And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives and shields and breastplates; and made known to them the metals [of the earth] and the art of working them; and bracelets and ornaments; and the use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids; and all kinds of costly stones and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways." [Book of Enoch 8:1–3a]

This tutelary patron, Azazel, is blamed fairly extensively by the Enochic God: ‘The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.’ [Book of Enoch 2:8] Quite the reference for a curriculum vitae there.

So, 'collyries': a word describing magical preparations applied to the face, most typically the eyes. Thus, when Renaissance occult philosopher Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa warns of the power of sorcerous 'bindings', he offers some initial context for how these salves, pastes, and powders were considered:

'Now there are such kind of bindings as these made by Sorceries, Collyries, Unguents, love potions, by binding to, and hanging up of things, by rings, by charmes, by strong imaginations, and passions, by images, and characters, by inchantments, and imprecations, by lights, by sound, by numbers, by words, and names, invocations, sacrifices, by swearing, conjuring, consecrations, devotions, and by divers superstitions, and observations, and such like.'

Practically speaking, these collyries could come in the form of salves or washes. I am going to draw a line - however arbitrary - between the magic of beautifying or buffing oneself with compounds, and using these specialised magical preparations to imbue a 'magical expression' with greater potency. The former are employed to enchant oneself, whereas the latter I would argue enchant what one is throwing out, from evil side-eye to come hither glances. For instance, beyond this disclaimer, we will not consider the use of belladonna eye-drops - to widen the pupils and thus beautify the 'good lady' using them - despite these arguably being collyries, because they do not help with the "launching outwards" of a particular magical working, as much as they do glamour oneself. Likewise, the term 'collyrium' is sometimes used in medical herbalism to denote health-giving eye-washes and salves. I would also qualify these uses as internal 'buffs' like beautifying cosmetics. Now, this internal/external definitional divine falls apart in practice, I accept. If one is intending to stir the passions of lust in someone at a bar, we have two modes of looking: what we look like and how we look at them. For now though, if only for an artificial simplicity's sake (and brevity), I am going to concentrate on the latter. To reiterate for the herbalists: collyries can of course be employed to bolster health or affect one's physickal constituency, but for now we will content ourselves to consider those used to affect magical expression, especially gazing.

So how did such sorcerous eyeshadows and lipsticks work? In order to answer this we need to take a foray into understanding one of the underlying medical, occult, and cosmological models of the pre-modern magic: humoural theory.

But What Even Are A Humourals Theory Humoural theory formed the central operative European medical model for (at least) one and a half millennia, surviving from ancient Greece well into the early modern period. It was simply one of the most historically embedded, best regarded and most widely used medical models in the early modern period. It charted typologies of personality and behavioural proclivities of emotional expression, and indeed emotional experience. As Nogah Arikha puts it, ‘humoural theory explained most things about a person’s character, psychology, medical history, tastes, appearance, and behaviour.’ [Nogah Arikha, Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), xvii] It is proper to consider humoural theory as a magical principle concerning the organisation of the organic naturally magical cosmos, for the humours were considered the biological corollaries of the four classical elements.

Humoural theory posited substances (literally, ‘moistures’) that ‘controlled the whole existence and behaviour of mankind, and, according to the manner in which they were combined, determined the character of the individual.’ [Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art (Nendeln: Kraus reprint, 1979), p. 3] Moreover, they linked humans and their environment in that they ‘corresponded, it was held, to the cosmic elements and to the divisions of time’. [Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl, p. 3] These cosmic elements, these 'originall grounds of all corporeall things' are of course understood by an occult natural philosophy of what Agrippa calls 'elementated world'. [Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy (London, 1651), 8] These classical four elements were corresponded to the humours: choleric Fire, sanguine Air, phlegmatic Water, and melancholy Earth.

As a brief but important note, the sanguine humour was often called 'blood', but the term could be used to refer to the actual sanguine humour, to the gross carrier liquid of all humours (which is why phlebotomy was thought to void all deleterious humours not just the sanguine ones). Sanguinity could even on occasion refer to 'subtle' sanguine vapours or aerial spirits in the body. Crucially also 'seed' (both male and female) and breastmilk were considered forms of rarified blood. Semen, especially, ‘as Galen had explained, was concocted out of blood’’[ Arikha, p. 164-5. For more on seed and blood, see Lesel Dawson, Lovesickness and Gender in Early Modern English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 25-6, 85-6, 165-6, 209] This resulted in a further level of association ‘that those that are of a sanguine Complexion, are generally very Amorous’. [James Ferrand, Erotomania or A Treatise Discoursing of the Essence, Causes, Symptomes, Prognosticks, and Cure of Love or Erotique Melancholy (Oxford, 1640), p. 141] There is a rule-of-thumb that dictates that, in a way, prior to the wider acceptance and application of Paracelsian ideas about the organs, that all medical pathology was the study of malfunctioning or 'wounded' blood.

Humoural theory worked with connections between physiological and psychological affectivity in an incorporated and ensouled mind-body subject. It offered discourses for the distempers of the passions to be just as important to physical as to mental health. After all, at least potentially, ‘passions distemper the body, loose the spirits, ingender the humors, and produce diseases’ - moreover, ‘inordinate passion, is [itself] a most sharpe and violent disease: always dangerous and deadly…’ [M.I. Abernethy, A Christian and Heavenly Treatise: containing Physicke for the Soule (London, 1622), p. 264] This was no mere complaint about hysteria: 'the idea that heightened passion causes diseases and even death was common wisdom.’ [Michael MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth Century England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 181.]

The elements and their humours were apprehended by occult philosophers and astrologers (when those even were distinct personages!) through the elemental 'Triplicities': the four elementally-based groupings of the twelve signs of the zodiac, as when we refer to Aries, Leo and Sagittarius as 'Fire signs'. This created a greater degree of specificity of the elements and humours as apprehended in time, as when the Sun passed through these as the belt of zodiac revolved over the course of a year. What was time after all, mused Proclus (and, crucially, quoted Agrippa), but the movement of the celestial bodies? The wandering stars of the seven classical planets were also afforded elemental and humoural identities and associations, adding to the nuance of astrological diagnosis of humoural imbalances, and indeed to the range of astrological magical interventions, to either down- or up-regulate the humours of oneself or others, to balance or imbalance.

Such planetary humouralism and humoural planetary magic survives fossilised in idiomatic and figurative language to this day: we speak of people as saturnine, or mercurial, or having a sunny disposition, or even of lunacy itself. Such humoural theory did not simply set stringent "personality types", it articulated proclivities to particular experience and expression of passions. As one seventeenth-century passion theorist phrased the relationship, 'Passions ingender Humors, and Humors breed Passions'. [Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Minde in Generall (London, 1601), p. 64.] Such was the passional-humoural feedback loop of expression and habituation: a hot-headed angry Martial person not only lived in an angry world, but made themselves more likely to become angrier more easily. As we shall see, by the porous or "leaky" early modern self, such a choleric feedback might even extend its influence through and beyond the body, breath and speech of the angry person to begin to innervate and galvanise the natural choler of 'elementated world' around them. The angry person makes their world angrier. A stray furious look here, a bitter word there. Ripples in the imaginal fields of affect and contagion.

Express Your Bad Self The power of the humours - like other occult virtues - could be stirred, gathered, directed and deployed through words and signifying representational images, even images conjured and fixated in the imagination. This was most easily performed with humours and passions by being somewhat predicated on concepts of plethora (excess): from ‘the common Proverbe, ex adundantia cordis os loquitur, from the abundance of the heart, the tongue speaketh’. [Wright, Passions, p. 78-79] One could not help venting humours and passions when one expressed oneself. This welling tide of humours motivates us to speak up or pull a face at all. Indeed, the ex-pressive as well as behavioural affectivity of the passions was founded on the notion of the impassioned ensouled mind-body complex producing and being subject to inordinate unbalancing excesses. Impassioned and passionate, one simply had to get the words out.

Facial expressions, and especially the eyes, were some of the primary means to read and diagnose impassioned states. Yet this very readability also made them an excellent means of transferring passions. The seductive glance conveys a magical image as potentially powerful as any Venusian talisman of a maid holding a comb and mirror. Not only was this because ‘the countenance is the Image of the same’ passion prompting and enacted by it, but due to the origins of affections in the soul; for ‘by the eyes as by a window, you may looke euen into the secret corners of the Soule: so that it was well sayde of Alexander that the eyes are the mirror or Looking-glasse of the Soule.’ [Helkiah Crooke, Mikrocosmographia: A Description of the Body of Man Together with the Controversies Thereto Belonging (London, 1615), p. 8-9] The eyes did not merely convey meaning, but affectivity: the signifier was also the signified. An angry look carried an affective seed of anger itself. Thus a magnifying glass could also be a mirror, and this sense of reflection has a deep occult significance, as the ‘Looking-glasse’ looked both ways. As ‘the Eyes wonder at a thing, they loue it, they desire it; they are the bewrayers of loue, anger, rage, mercie, reuenge: in a worde; The eyes are fitted and composed to all the affections of the minde; expressing the very Image thereof in such a manner’. [Crooke, Mikrocosmographia, p. 9. Emphasis added.] Again, “expression” was a literal as well as figurative term. To think of expressions in both behavioural and idiomatic light, malefic choleric expressions and their dangerous martial qualities are preserved in much modern idiom: the sharp tongue, bitter words, cutting remarks, seeing red, staring daggers.

Gaze Amplifiers A particular expression while gazing was not the only way to augment magically affective ‘overlooking’. The clearest example is that of ‘Collyries', magical salves to smear upon the eyes to magnify the effects of fascination. Here is Heinrich Agrippa on their potencies:

‘Collyries, and Unguents conveying the vertues of things Naturall, and Celestiall to our spirit, can multiply, transmute, transfigure and transform it accordingly, as also transpose those vertues which are in them into it, that so it cannot act only upon its own body, but also upon that which is neer it, and affect that by visible rayes charmes, and by touching it, with some like quality. For because our spirit is the subtile, pure lucid, airy, and unctuous vapour of the blood; it is therefore fit to make Collyries of the like vapours, which are more sutable to our spirit in substance, for then by reason of their likeness, they do the more stir up, attract, and transform the spirit. The like virtues have certain ointments and other confections.’ [Agrippa, Three Books of the Occult Philosophy, trans. 'JF' (London, 1651), p. 90]

Such 'Collyries' would be made from ‘the gall of a man’, which was the main depository of yellow bile, and thus powerful for strengthening choleric gazes. Consider the very phrase "having the gall": filling with fiery boldness. Such collyries could also be compounded from animal ingredients, such as ‘the blood of a lapwing, of a bat, and of a goat’. [Agrippa, Three Books, p. 134] These animal components were considered sources of appropriate occult virtue. One reason for this consideration was the idea that humours and passions were regulated by the rational faculties of the human soul, faculties that animals lacked. So the beasts of the earth were considered to express and even, in their use as spell components, enmatter unadulterated humours and passions. Raw feelings, to be marshalled and manipulated. Wolf parts were choleric, as their howling indicated. Cats were melancholy... as their howling also indicated. For more on this fascinating dimension to Shakespearean witches' brews, see Gail Kern Paster's 'Melancholy Cats, Lugged Bears, and Early Modern Cosmology: Reading Shakespeare's Psychological Materialism Across the Species Barrier', in Reading the Early Modern Emotions, edited by Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson.

Now, I hope I do not need to state the importance of knowing the chemical and biological as well as magical affectivity of any materials you might chose to use in this manner. I do not wish to speak down to anyone by stating "do not rub random blood into your peepers". But, yknow, maybe don't. There are a wealth of herbs and other ingredients that contain the appropriate occult virtues to work as collyries that won't cause other problems. Consider adapting planetary correspondences for plant allies you already work: choleric humours respond to Solar and Martial virtues; phlegmatic humours to those of Venus and the Moon; jovial Jupiter is considered especially sanguine; and Saturn is well known as the ruler of melancholy. Again, to disclaim, I must strongly advice that if you are pregnant or might be pregnant, do not attempt any working, magical or medicinal, where you are taking herbs or other substances internally or through a mucous membrane like the eyes.

By these means of compounding humourally and passionally-charged materia, the humours expelled through the eyes and the passions expressed, vivified, and received were empowered and amplified by the virtues of these salves and eye-washes: for ‘such like passions also can magical confections induce, by suffumigations, by collyries, by unguents, by potions, by poisons, by lamps and lights, by looking-glasses, by images, enchantments, charms, sounds and music’. [Agrippa, Three Books, p. 135] Such magical eye-washes were not some half-baked tacked-on gimmick; they were as core a part of magical tool use as lamps, images, and incantations.

Yet amplifying the ejection of a sort of astral poison out of one's eyes was not the only use of such preparations. Agrippa goes onto to foreground the importance of sight and vision in terms of the all-too-real magic of the imagination:

'Now the sight, because it perceives more purely and clearly than the other senses, and fastening in us the marks of things more acutely and deeply, doth most of all and before others, agree with the phantastic spirit, as is apparent in dreams, when things seen do more often present themselves to us than things heard, or any thing coming under the other senses. Therefore, when collyries or eye-waters transform visual spirits, that spirit doth easily affect the imagination, which indeed being affected with divers species and forms, transmits the same by the spirit unto the outward sense of sight; by which occasion there is caused in it a perception of such species and forms in that manner, as if it were moved by external objects, that there seem to be seen terrible images and spirits and such like. So there are made collyries, making us forthwith to see the images of spirits in the air or elsewhere...' [Agrippa, Three Books, p. 134]

There is also a strong dimension by which collyries affected the imagination. For ‘when collyries transform visual spirits, that spirit doth easily affect the imagination’ either of oneself – in order to ‘make invocated spirits to be seen’ – or of others, in order to manipulate their senses and passions. (Those interested in magical preparations for seeing spirits might find this blog post compiling grimoiric instructions for such material useful.) These perceptual distortions of the magical gaze upon the overlooked’s imaginations could induce targets to ‘hear horrid, or delectable sounds’ making them ‘angry, and contend, nobody being present, and fear where there is no fear’. [Agrippa, Three Books, p. 134-5] Here occult passion manipulation is working directly on the imagination, through the inducement of impassioned hallucinatory states.

Lest this talk of imagination sound "too psychologising", we should bear in mind Agrippa is also clear that 'by divers rites, observations, ceremonies, religions and superstitions; all which shall be handled in their places. And not only by these kind of arts are passions, apparitions and images induced, but also things themselves, which are really changed and transfigured into divers forms...' The field-like qualities of the pre-modern magical imagination did not mean "it's all in your head". Rather, that something moving through your head (and heart!) - the tides of choleric boldness and anger, phlegmatic fear and hope, sanguine love and lust, and melancholy cogitation - flowed through us, into and out of the world, reminding and reanimating 'elementated' components of the responsive interconnected cosmos of their own natural magic. Nature itself could also be charmed, in this continually unfolding dance of attraction and rebuffing; the inhale and exhale of sympathia and antipathy expressing itself through the actions of a dancefloor or cast shade, variously as majestic and cutting as the turning celestial orbs spinning to the music of the spheres.

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cabiba · 3 years ago

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In 1998, the urban planning student Mohammed Atta handed in his masters thesis at Hamburg’s University of Technology. Examining in depth the architecture of Aleppo’s historic Bab al-Nasr district, Atta’s thesis presented a picture of the human-scale “Islamic-Oriental city,” whose winding cobbled streets, shaded souks and alleys carved from honey-coloured stone had been violated by the concrete and glass boxes of liberal modernity.

Le Corbusier’s rectangular forms, the alien importation of French colonial planners, were aped by Syrian planners after independence, Atta’s thesis observed, an architectural symbol of Islamic civilisation’s total subjection to the West. Three years later, Atta’s critique of modernist architecture as a symbol of Western domination assumed its final form when, as the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, he flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center, the glittering towers in the heart of the liberal empire standing as a symbol for Western modernity itself.

The Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni, a student and admirer of the late Sir Roger Scruton, likewise sees in the Middle East’s modern architecture a tragic symbol of “a region where even the application of modernism has failed,” where “we traded our close-knit neighborhoods, our modest and inward houses, our unostentatious mosques and their neighbouring churches, our collaborative and shared spaces, and our shaded courtyards and knowledge-cultivating corners, leaving us with isolated ghettos and faceless boxes.”

For al-Sabouni, the anomie of liberal modernity was built into its very architecture, bringing desolation in its wake. An opponent of Islamism, she nevertheless shares the Islamist analysis that the Middle East’s instability is not inherent, but comes from the West’s exporting the structures of liberal modernity to the somnolent peace of Islamic civilisation, setting in train chaos.

“Losing our identity in exchange for the Western idea of ‘progress’ has proved to have greater consequences than we could predict,” she claims. “This vacuum in our identity could not be filled by imported ‘middle grounds’, as was once naively thought; this vacuum was instead filled by horrors and radicalizations, by sectarianisms and corruption, by crime and devastation — in one word, by war.”

It is natural to read a culture’s attitudes to its monuments as expressions of its social health. They are the symbolic repository of any given culture, and deeply imbued with political meaning. When civilisations fall and their literature is lost to time, it is their monuments that serve as testaments to their values, to their greatest heroes and their highest aspirations. Statues, great building projects and monuments are stories we tell about ourselves, expressions in stone and bronze of the Burkean compact between generations past and those to come. As Atta’s thesis states, the architecture of the past is imbued with moral meaning: “if we think about the maintenance of urban heritage,” he wrote, “then this is a maintenance of the good values of the former generations for the benefit of today’s and future generations.”

It is only logical then, for the terminal crisis of liberal modernity to play out in culture wars over monuments, as the fate of a monument stands as a metaphor for the civilisation that erected it. It is for this reason that conquerors of a civilisation so often pull down the monuments of their predecessors and replace them with their own, a powerful act of symbolic domination.

The wave of statue-toppling spreading across the Western world from the United States is not an aesthetic act, but a political one, the disfigured monuments in bronze and stone standing for the repudiation of an entire civilisation. No longer limiting their rage to slave-owners, American mobs are pulling down and disfiguring statues of abolitionists, writers and saints in an act of revolt against the country’s European founding, now reimagined as the nation’s original sin, a moral and symbolic shift with which we Europeans will soon be forced to reckon.

On our own continent, the symbolic, civilisational value of architectural monuments was expressed last year when the world gathered together online to watch Notre Dame in flames. The collective grief that for one evening united so many people was not just for the cathedral itself but for the civilisation that created it, a sudden jolt of loss and pain that came with the realisation the skill and self-belief it took to erect it had vanished forever.

Like Dark Age farmers tilling their crops in the crumbling ruins of a Roman city, we realise we are already squatting inside the monuments of a lost and greater civilisation, viewing the work of our forebears with the wonder and sadness of the Anglo-Saxon poet of The Ruin:

This masonry is wondrous; fates broke it courtyard pavements were smashed; the work of giants is decaying. Far and wide the slain perished, days of pestilence came, death took all the brave men away;

For many observing from outside liberalism, the current iconoclasm of the West is just such a cautionary tale of civilisational collapse. “Statues are being toppled, conditions are deplorable and there are gang wars on the beautiful streets of small towns in civilized Western European countries,” Hungary’s defiantly non-liberal leader Viktor Orban remarked in an interview last week, “I look at the countries advising us how to conduct our lives properly and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

In contrast, in a recent speech to mark the centenary of the hated Treaty of Trianon, Orban specifically cited the historical monuments of the Carpathian region as a testament to the endurance of the Hungarian people throughout history: “the indelible evidence, churches and cathedrals, cities and town squares still stand everywhere today. They proclaim that we Hungarians are a great, culture-building and state-organising nation.”

It is notable that this speech, laden with architectural metaphors, saw Orban for the first time situate Hungary in a separate Central European civilisation outside the West, adopting the language of anti-colonialism in a marker, perhaps, of his shift towards China as a geopolitical patron. Raging against the “arrogant” French and British and “hypocritical American empire”, Orban claimed that “the West raped the thousand-year-old borders and history of Central Europe… just as the borders of Africa and the Middle East were redrawn. We will never forget that they did this.” But these days are over, Orban exulted: “the world is changing. The changes are tectonic. The United States is no longer alone on the throne of the world, Eurasia is rebuilding with full throttle… A new order is being born.”

It is striking, and meaningful, that the self-conscious civilisation states rising to challenge the collapsing liberal order express their neo-traditionalist value systems in reimagined forms of their pre-modernist architecture, with stone and brick giving concrete expression of the ideal.

In Budapest, Scruton’s city “full of monuments” where “in every park some bearded gentleman stands serenely on a plinth, testifying to the worth of Hungarian poetry, to the beauty of Hungarian music, to the sacrifices made in some great Hungarian cause,” Orban is engaged in an ongoing project to erase the modernist architecture of the communist era. The concrete boxes of the rejected order are now shrouded with neoclassical facades and the long-demolished monuments of the glorious past are being re-erected stone by carved stone.

In Russia, Putin’s new Military Cathedral, an archaeofuturistic confection fusing Orthodox church and state in an intimidating expression of raw power, symbolises the country’s apartness from collapsing liberal modernity. The cathedral is a symbol of a civilisation that links its present with its past and future, expressed by Putin in overtly Burkean terms in his recent essay on the Second World War as the “shared historical memory” that foregrounds “the living connection and the blood ties between generations”.

Erdogan’s Turkey similarly expresses its desire to return to its imperial heyday in the elaborate mosques, palaces and barracks in neo-Ottoman style springing up across Turkey itself and its former imperial dominions. In architecture as in political order, the stylings of modernity already seem old-fashioned and stripped of all vitality, the sunlit optimism of the Bauhaus degenerated over one bloody century to the vision of Grenfell Tower in flames.

Like liberalism, the architecture of the postwar order conquered the world, for a time, and is now being rejected by the liberal order’s challengers in favour of the styles that immediately preceded modernity, a civilisational kitsch rejected by al-Sabouni as merely “mimicking the creations of our ancestors”.

In a recent essay, the influential software engineer and thinker Marc Andreesen urged the West to start building again, to recover civilisational confidence, but what should we build? What does our architecture reveal about our political order, in the greater West and here in Britain? What are the greatest recent building projects of our times? Perhaps the glass and steel skyscrapers, temples to our financialised economy, that dominate our capital? The Nightingale hospitals, hurriedly converted from conference centres to deal with the mass casualties of a disease of globalisation?

Perhaps the airport is the fullest architectural expression of liberalism: the liminal symbol, both within the nation state and outside it, of global travel and optimism; a temple of bored consumption where the religions of the pre-liberal order were tucked away, all together, in the bland anonymity of the prayer room; until, that is, Mohammed Atta’s blowback to globalisation soured this post-historical dream, forcing the architecture of liberalism back to its early roots in Bentham’s surveilled and paranoid Panopticon.

The problem, at heart, is we can take down our monuments but have nothing to replace them with. As Scruton notes, monuments “commemorate the nation, raise it above the land on which it is planted, and express an idea of public duty and public achievement in which everyone can share. Their meaning is not ‘he’ or ‘she’ but ‘we’” — but perhaps there is no We any more, with the nihilism of the American mob an expression of a far deeper malaise.

It is surely no accident that this is a moral panic driven by millennials, an evanescent generation without property or progeny, barred from creating a future, who now reject their own past in its entirety. This is the endpoint of liberalism, trapped in the eternal present, a shallow growth with no roots from which to draw succour, and bringing forth no seeds of future life.

For Scruton’s pupil al-Sabouni, the salvation of Islamic civilisation is to be found in an architecture rooted in its past, where, she states, “we must be sincere in our own intentions toward our own identity. We must realise the desire to regain it in order to regain peace. And in order to do so, we simply have to do exactly what any dedicated farmer does to a plant: cultivate the roots and carefully prune the branches.”

But a civilisation that uproots itself will soon wither and die. Able to destroy but not to build, the fading civilisation of liberalism is now a grand, crumbling old edifice whose imminent collapse is wilfully ignored by its occupants, because they have too much invested in it, and can’t imagine what can possibly replace it. But as its unstable masonry keeps falling onto the streets below, the risk of a more spectacular, uncontrolled collapse gathers every day.

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dwestfieldblog · 4 years ago

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REVELATION: 2021

...’Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth...see, the home of God is among the mortals.’ Hope you are staying sane. Meanwhile, from my war room (arf) inside a deep (astral) state within a non binary body...hallucinating realities...

Imagine, if you will, millions in a democratic country, who gladly make (and addictively want to) their private thoughts known via social media and are quite happy to tell random pollsters on the street their feelings on any subject of which they are asked. And plenty on which they are not. So pleased to be asked their righteous opinion, so ego led deluded that anybody might ‘like’ their words that they will spout the hatred their hearts feel on issues of the day and in their lives without a care where such information goes. They want to be heard and so, they are. Now imagine a computer driven listening and watching station with instructions from media masters, political leaders, and advertising companies paying close attention to the data gathered. Not actual facts as such but almost all emotion led opinions, collated to show the group mindset of a subsection of a country.

An algorithm can be created for what products would most likely appeal to that mass. Guns, (for random example), waterproof bibles, clothing for survivalists. You have direct knowledge of this already when You tube, your email, Alexa etc ‘suggest’ something you might/should like, based on what you have ordered, written, or spoken online. This year I have been getting dozens of spam emails for bad eyesight, Viagra type stuff and hair loss. HA. My age must be written somewhere. Not much stress on imagination to see how simple it is for organisations like the ex Cambridge Anal lytica etc to capture and utilise such info via Facebook. Or how enemies of a country could understand in no short order what makes a country really tick below the surface and how to manipulate those emotionally crippled, poorly educated AND those who seek power over others. Psychographic profiling...stop giggling at the back there...

Cui bono (who benefits) from seeding disorder? Follow the money, ‘it’s only business’. An algorithm which reveals just what people believe and who can then be exploited en masse as useful idiots to disrupt the usual inbred spastic normality of daily life in a human country. And it is dirt cheap because people WANT to reveal themselves and a rival country need only a minimum outlay of actual infiltrating agent provocateurs (many of whom will be actual natives.) A set up involving ‘sock puppets’ which serves the same purpose as APs...the legendary bots and fake identities rattling off tweets and false flag Facebook pages, rallying the disaffected faithful. ‘More evidence that the targeting works and predicts our behaviour’.

Now, once the group targets have been identified, seek out those among them who long for their moment of fame, their years of special importance and time of power. They will have already made clear their characters in online posts. Weakling Alpha types cowering their insecurities behind a loud voice. They hunger for followers, to be ‘liked’, (a basic larval human need for most) and admired for their rightness. Show them support, aid their voices to spread, mysterious donors for the message; Anybody not similar to you MUST be the opposite...and therefore, the enemy. Step by step, the daily hormone rush reprogrammes and the opinions become a self fulfilling prophecy, imprinting over all sense of reason. So now you have your moronic masses (and those dumb enough to want to lead them) most of whom are too stupid (or busy surviving) to realise they are being manipulated from afar by those who understand what is within and do not have their countries’ interests at heart. Bombarded with attack ads and propaganda... ‘Until they saw the world the way we want them to’...

Some of the leaders, big or small, will actually know they are puppets but will think it acceptable as long as they are given a little pat on the head via position and power. And a lot of money. Most, (whether mass or leader of such infiltrated countries) will be certain they are doing what they do in the name of Freedom and Democracy, while all the time, being used to further limit the same. Hilariously, bleakly, deathly ironic. From hubris to nemesis.

Yes, I am writing about Brexit and Trumpists and Q Onan. Et al, etc. Ad infinitum. Almost. Those in democratic countries who are ceaselessly working unbeknown to themselves against most of what they demand the most. ‘To take back control’. No children, you are creating a system where you will have less and less of this. ‘Follow the white rabbit’? No, you are following an algorithm in highly predictive patterns to those who own it and by extension, you.

‘I love my country!’ Do you? Why are you working free of charge for another who only wants to see your Union and partnerships broken? You vote for ridiculous men like Trump and Farrage because they are not the government and think you are rebel anarchists who will herald a new dawn of purifying flame...by substituting yet more slime who care only for their own power.

Someone points the finger, uses a trigger word and you do the Pavlov dog. Someone claps their hands and you pay unquestioning attention to their misinformation. Look over there, the world is being run by Satanic, child abusing faggot socialist liberals and foreign scum. Arf. So why are you obeying one of the above mentioned groups in the name of taking back control of your freedom? Because they already know how you will react. Because you created the infamous All Seeing eye yourselves by feeding information into the data base. Because you are so easy to trick into believing you are thinking for yourselves. ‘They’ don’t need to insert chips or vaccines with nano bots, they can just implant you with audio visual media and Nuremberg style rallies.

Take two blonde, fat stupid white men. Liars to the highest degree. One an entitled megalomaniac spoiled child and the other with half the megalomania. A glance at their track record and into their eyes should have told you all. Seems it didn’t. It took over four years and up to the week Trump left, for the rats to finally start jumping ship and for the band of the Titanic to start changing their tune. Twitter took four years to decide to cut off his fix. Nero played golf while America burned with Covid. 414,000 dead. Incitement to riot? Incitement to riot. Investigate his wannabe aristocratic family and do not allow his children anywhere near politics. Or Smug petulant Kusher anywhere near business.

Over 74 million still think Trump is a go to guy rather than a take a running jump at kicking him up his arse. He pardoned various criminals, including Bannon, (lest the fascist scuzzball fink on him)...and no pardon for Maxwell... who still could, unless she also should manage to ‘kill herself’ by accident fnord in prison. Seems likely Donald could run for office again, form his own party....What? Pence announced ‘Space Force’ personnel will be called Guardians; yes really...this year will see their first battle against the children of Thanos. Thanos, thy name is Trump. But lacking the compassion or humour.

Good morning to billionaire Mr Robert Mercer...a ‘Christian’ Conservative, gun lover, climate change denier, donor of over 100 million dollars to right wing candidates, 15 million of which went into Cambridge Analytica/Brexit and more to Breitbart and Trumps 2016 campaign. On the face of it, both he and his second daughter Rebekah would seem to have their fingers hard on many triggers of chaos, all of which serve only the rich and Russia. Breaking up partnerships, friendships, splitting unions and sowing discord. Check. Encouraging the working and middle class to merely shift their belief across to another band of disreputable rich guys by telling them how corrupt the other rich guys are. Look out! They might be Socialists! A lot of them are Europeans! They eat children and want immigrants to swarm over your town! Works like a charm. It would be so nice if billionaires would actually behave in a decent moral way (yes, sarcasm) and actually help out more, regardless of whether there is a return on their ‘charity’, instead of being the James Bond villain scum they act like.

And speaking of Q...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Arf. That narcissist prick in horns Jacob Chansley of Arizona...Shaman? Shame man. Bullhorn? Bullsh...t. No hanging lawmakers for you boy. He only eats organic food? So what? A lover of nature? Which is why he wears fur and horns and wishes death upon fellow Americans who are ‘traitors’. The Kremlin and Mercer have done a job as sweet as they did with Brexit divisions. Just let the rabid cretins do all their work for them splitting unions. Well, it’s what the CIA did so well against communism. Now it is our turn. Watching yanks and brits demand more control of their democracy while pulling it apart. Hilarious. Q Onan wanked their conspiracy to death and are now confused the Golden One has not led them to the revolution...not exactly levitating the Pentagon are you?

They believed the world is run by a paedo satan worshipping elite who plot against Trump and operate a global child sex trafficking ring. Yes really. So you can see how they appeal to the deranged righteous Christian gun toting hordes and internet savvy youth against the Deep State. Arf arf arf. The Kemlin will have studied key points as to what gets the average American and British goat and exploited it. People are so keen to share their beliefs, ideas and fears on social media that it is simple to collect and combine such info...(as happened with Cambridge Analytica) and use it for manipulating gain. Putin/Mercer probably told Trump the nature of the beast. ’If you want followers, do this...’Follow the algorithm. Dying covid patients continue to deny they even have it in South Dakota etc...that is how well the misinformation works.

Boris. A pathetic deal with Europe after an endless mantric blather of an ‘oven ready Brexit’. The chumocracy in full force as Ayanda Capital receive a 150 million pound PPE contract and provide no masks at all. And tax exile Tory donor (Lord) Ashcroft’s firm lands a 350 million pound vaccine contract (without a tendering process). Well, rather help a pal than put money into the National Health Service eh Boris? In 2019, the music industry brought in around 5.8 BILLION pounds, whereas the fishing industry netted (arf) 446 million. Sunak and Johnson have not seen fit to grant work permits for musicians to play in Europe and bands from outside will find it harder to get visas to tour in Plagueland. ‘Health’ secretary Matt Hancock said it was ‘Peculiarly unusual’ why British people went to work when they were ill. ‘Why in Britain do we think it’s acceptable to soldier on and go into work if you have flu symptoms...’Hmm. Germany pays 100 percent of sick pay. Czech Republic pays approx 60. The UK? 26. Good enough answer you prick? This guy also voted against food parcels for children, and then reversed only after an outcry.

The ever lovely Good Catholic William Rees Mogg called UNICEF’s feeding of poor English children during a pandemic at Christmas a ‘publicity stunt’. Hmm...well in 2019 the charity received 6.4 billion in contributions of which the Tory government of the UK donated 494 million. Perhaps UNICEF wanted to make a point that the UK has the largest number of food banks in the democratic world (over 2000, Germany has 900) and that it was a little beyond shameful that this was necessary. Still making money from selling birth control/termination pills in Indonesia after having said all contraception even in cases of rape was wrong Billy? The English gentleman also said he found the rise in food bank usage as being ‘rather uplifting’. Verrry Christian man. And that rotting British fish are ‘happier’ now out of Europe. A joke? The 2019 EU clampdown on tax avoidance will be avoided by him thanks to Brexit. Heavenly off shore interests, Glory! ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God’. It easier for a camel to piss through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god. Mark 10 21:25. Good luck Billy.

Met a Christian guy again who tried to tell me a parable of sorts. A little bird was flying and suddenly fell into a field dead, a cow walked over and took a dump on the little bird and the heat of the manure brought the bird back to life. Overjoyed he started to sing and was heard by a cat that killed it. The moral being, don’t interfere with God’s plan. I wondered if that had been where Christ went wrong...perhaps he should have left lepers to die...but obviously no...he was a special case. Aha, so nobody should try and help anybody ever if they have a problem or are suffering. No one should help their own children, no doctors or surgeons...but priests are allowed because the intermediaries through whom the pious live vicariously are essential workers. Great parable. If you believe in God, don’t help anyone else. That’s the story of Christ eh?

The man who told me the story also said Donald was a great guy...I need to remind him Trump has broken every single one of the Ten Commandments (apart from direct murder) The burning cross is a T for Trump... ‘The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning’. ‘The function of theology? The recitation of the incomprehensible by the unspeakable to pick the pockets of the unthinking’. RAW. Natures God. Hilaritas Press.

The most wisdom from China since Confucius was tweeted several weeks ago to the smug frog like Nigel Farage who had written ‘Christmas cancelled. Thank you China.’ Upon which, the Middle Kingdom between Heaven and Earth replied ‘Wear a mask and stop talking s..t’. Wonderful...shame the state media Global Times then spoiled it by writing a pot/kettle article which suggested that such politicians...’care only about their political ambitions and see ordinary people as roadside grass.’ From a regime which mowed its own teenage children down in tank fire, ran over their bodies and sent the price of the bullets used in the execution of young rebels to their parents.

Meanwhile, back in the temple of ketamine far away from all that nonsense... Universe will respond non locally to my thought...All pure chance as exists cross divided in all encircling mode, arf...non-local effects...’the ‘maybe’ in between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in Quantum Logic, of ‘solid’ ‘objects’ that are superimpositions of waves, according to one quantum model, and of ‘minds’ that are superimpositions of waves if the ‘minds’ are transactions involving brains and the brains are made of cells which are made of atoms which are made of electrons which are superimpositions of waves’. RAW THE NEW INQUISITION. Yes. And...

The hidden variable theory of consciousness asserts (1) there is a subquantal level beneath the observational/theoretical structure of ordinary quantum mechanics; (2) events occurring on this subquantal level are the elements of sentient being. Drs Walker and Herbert.

‘Consciousnesses in this model is not ‘in’ our heads. Our brains are merely local receivers ‘consciousnesses ‘is’ ‘an aspect of the non-local field’ The ‘ego’ then is the locally tuned in aspect of this usually not-tuned-in non local field.

‘...we find that our consciousness controls physical events though the laws of quantum mechanics.’ Magick. Rise in Love, ‘arouse the coiled splendour within you’ :-)

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jamesginortonblog · 7 years ago

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James Norton and Juliet Rylance lead the cast in McMafia, the BBC and AMC’s global crime drama about a family of Russian ex-gangsters struggling to stay respectable.

Langleybury House, a splendiferous stately home on the outskirts of London, oozes opulence. The drawing room boasts a set of matching statement chandeliers and enough oil paintings to fill several rooms at the National Gallery. There are two classical columns in the middle of the room and a gigantic marble fireplace across one wall. The room screams megabucks.

When DQ visits, however, ‘megaroubles’ might be more accurate, as the sumptuous home is doubling as one of the residences of the fictional Godman family, a clan of former Russian gangsters who have made serious money from illicit activities around the world.

When you look around their home and eye items such as the incredibly ornate drinks table – where surely they only mix White Russians – your first thought is, ‘Who says crime doesn’t pay?’

On the back of their dodgy dealings, the family have turned respectable. They have whitewashed their stained past and become a worldwide corporation, with a lucrative franchise on every continent. They are the McMafia.

This sweeping new eight-part drama, also called McMafia, is produced by the BBC, AMC, Cuba Pictures and Twickenham Studios and distributed by BBC Worldwide. It’s adapted by Hossein Amini and James Watkins from Misha Glenny’s bestselling 2008 non-fiction book, McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime.

The story centres on Alex Godman, played by James Norton with the same suavity he brought to the role of another powerful and charismatic Russian, Prince Andrei in War & Peace. Now an upstanding businessman, the English-raised Alex has spent his entire life attempting to extricate himself from the tentacles of his family’s mafia history. Forging a legitimate business as the head of an ethical hedge fund, he is trying to escape his background and build a law-abiding existence with his girlfriend Rebecca (American Gothic’s Juliet Rylance).

But when the Godmans’ criminal legacy comes back to haunt them, Alex swiftly becomes enmeshed in a sinister underworld and is obliged to reassess his values in order to shield those he loves from peril.

This ambitious thriller investigates how the rise of globalisation has dramatically narrowed the gap between the corporate and the criminal. When businessmen and gangsters wear the same hand-made suits and inhabit the same first-class lounges, how can you tell the difference?

Amini, who previously wrote the highly regarded screenplays for The Dying of the Light, Jude, The Wings of a Dove, Drive and Our Kind of Traitor, takes a seat in the luxurious mansion to explain what drew him to McMafia. “The book is factual and there are no storylines as such, but what was really exciting is that the world Misha’s book painted was so interesting,” he says. “It was such a potentially exciting canvas. The book gave us great characters and a great world, and it’s easy to invent scenes for that.”

The Iranian-British filmmaker continues: “I’ve always loved the gangster genre, but even shows like The Sopranos, which I loved, are all about the end of that genre and the end of the gangster. They told us about the death of that in the 1990s.

“But then I read this book, and it was all about how gangsters were being reborn globally. Suddenly the triads were dealing with the cartels who were competing with the Russian mafia. It was like Game of Thrones with mobs.”

The authenticity of McMafia is underlined by the fact the producers insisted Russian actors played Russian characters, Israeli actors played Israeli characters, and so forth.

Watkins comments: “There was a big conversation we had with AMC and the BBC first off, which is that I didn’t want to do that thing where, not naming any other productions, you cast a big-name British actor to play Alex’s Russian dad.

“It feels false straight away – I can smell it. It’s costing us quite a lot to fly all the actors in, but it’s worth it in terms of the reality it gives. When you’ve got four actors from Tel Aviv playing a scene in Hebrew, you can’t fake that.”

The director, whose other works include The Woman in Black, Eden Lake and The Take, adds that this approach has enhanced the verisimilitude of the project. “It’s fantastic, because as a director you want truth. This is not about heightened drama, it’s about truth. It’s about understated performance, and I think some of those European actors really bring that. I don’t know what’s in the water, but it’s really amazing. Less is more.”

The Russian cast members have clearly relished the experience of working on a British drama. A big star in her own country, Maria Shukshina plays Alex’s Russian mother, Oksana. “I’m very happy James is now my son,” she says, laughing. “He has a big following in Russia, a lot of fans. When I was coming over here, all the ladies were telling me to say ‘Hi’ to him and saying, ‘Give him a hug.’ So I said, ‘Of course!’”

Shukshina says she has found very little difference between the shooting techniques in the UK and in Russia. “It’s absolutely the same, apart from the lighting. It’s a lot darker on set here, there’s no light. It’s only natural light, really.

“I gave a Russian doll to the director of photography as a celebration of International Women’s Day and now he puts up a light panel when they’re doing wide shots of me – I know what I’m doing!”

Filmed in no fewer than 11 countries (including the UK, Russia, India, Israel, Turkey, Qatar and Croatia), the project is conceived on an epic scale and Watkins has evidently had to summon up great depths of energy to make it.

He spent seven weeks just filming in India, for example, and has also been leading the McMafia crew all over London. “We’ve shot in the Sky Garden at the top of the Walkie-Talkie building [the distinctive skyscraper officially named 20 Fenchurch Street] and we had a huge Russian banquet scene in the Victoria & Albert Museum. We’re trying to use London as this city where anybody can buy their way in.”

Norton, who has also starred in Happy Valley, Black Mirror, Grantchester, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Life in Squares, pulls up a seat beside the filmmakers and chips in: “When we talk about the Mafia, it is so tied up with those portrayals that we’re so used to in The Sopranos and The Godfather. But what’s so lovely and fascinating and so relevant about this story is that it shows how the mafia is a totally new phenomenon.

“It’s now a globalised corporate entity. It straddles all these different countries and financial systems. It’s no longer just a protection racket. It’s the Panama Papers, it’s corrupt presidents and prime ministers, it’s even in the possible link between the Kremlin and the White House and how that’s facilitated. That was a real eye-opener for me, and I hope that’s what the show will reveal.”

Another intriguing aspect of McMafia is the fact that even though Alex is very much an anti-hero, viewers are – almost in spite of themselves – still drawn to the magnetic central character. Watkins describes him as “The Russian bear in the bowler hat.”

So is it a case of ‘the devil has all the best tunes?’ Norton believes it’s more nuanced than that. “It is fascinating, and it’s kind of sexy and empowering because there is this whole underworld of people who don’t abide by the rules and do what the hell they want – and it’s exciting. You get seduced by it, but you’re never quite sure how much you’re being seduced.

“Alex convinces himself that it’s about protection and survival, but there’s another side to it, and the beauty of Hossein’s writing is that he and the audience are never quite sure. Each choice Alex makes – is it to do with survival or is it a bit more to do with the fact that he just wants to go deeper and deeper and gather more control and money? So, McMafia is brilliant because it’s never about villains and heroes – it’s all about that wonderful mess in between.”

Before he is called back on set, Watkins expresses his hopes about what viewers will take away from McMafia. “You look around you and realise crime is everywhere. The point of the book and the series, really, is that it’s invisible, but that it’s all around us. We’re all, in some way, complicit. If someone buys a fake watch, say, they’re part of the problem.

“Or look at illegal labour. That affects people in ways that they don’t necessarily realise. McMafia is about the blurring of those lines between governments, corporations, intelligence, police, criminals. Particularly in a ‘post-truth’ world, people aren’t clear what those boundaries are.”

The director continues: “I think McMafia is very timely. For me, the best drama has some kind of grip on the world and touches on that. I hope that it’s not only entertaining, but also that on the way home, or in the pub, people talk about it. It’s not Chekhov, but you’re hoping it has something that has a little bit of grit.”

Amini closes by homing in on one tiny detail in McMafia that underlines the authenticity of the drama. “Misha told us about a gangster whose hobby is going to dog shows. I could never have invented that.” Did that make it into the series? “Yes, it’s in. You can’t ignore a thing like that.”

#mcmafia #james norton #hossein amini #james watkins #drama quarterly #article

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sananscario · 5 years ago

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Why isn’t Spain a democracy?

For lovers of historical series, here is one recommendation. Hořící keř is a Czech HBO miniseries that depicts the moral corruption and the political and judiciary misery of the former Czechoslovakia during the communist dictatorship. In January 1969, Jan Palach, a young student of history, alights himself in the centre of Prague in protest against the Soviet occupation that takes place months earlier, and against the lack of freedom and prospects in a hopeless country. In order to prevent the event from triggering a widespread protest challenging the order imposed by Soviet tanks months before, some regime leaders engage in lying about the event and the circumstances surrounding it.

The three episodes of the drama then focus on the lawsuit filed by the leading character’s mother, and the subsequent trial, against the party’s high officials who have tarnished the memory of her son, and recount how the state uses various legal tricks, political manoeuvres, journalistic distortion and pressure on the environment to make the lawsuit fail and take all of this to their advantage to crack down on dissent. The series, directed by filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, shows what a dictatorship is all about in detail. Under an appearance of legality, of separation of powers, of a Constitution that defines the state as “popular” and “democratic”, which boasts rhetoric of equality and socialist values, a group of people who act arbitrarily is concealed, using all the mechanisms of the state to retain their own interests, more group than class.

Watching Hořící keř can be a good exercise to understand why Spain is not a democracy, even though it hides behind a Constitution of great principles and scarce results, an appearance of separation of powers and belonging to the club of European countries. It is not difficult to draw parallels between the Czech dictatorship of the 1960s and the current Spanish “rule of law”. We should also reread the works of Milan Kundera or Václav Havel in order to have a better understanding of ourselves. The trials against the “Catalan procés” seem to have been filmed by Agnieszka Holland, a Polish film director who is perfectly aware of what it’s like to live under a dictatorship based on fear, repression and, above all, lies. But even Pablo Iglesias himself, a moderate leader of the opposition to the regime, knows what it’s like to be watched by the political police, like Havel was, monitored by the (not so) secret services. Or it is just enough to watch the impunity of an extreme right who can physically attack citizens without having to face a judge while people who have taken part in peaceful protests, have been persecuted, slandered, fined, imprisoned, exiled or confined, without evidence, because of extrajudicial pressures (often very real), as in the case of Tamara Carrasco or various musicians or social activists.

But let’s not fool ourselves. Spain has never been a democracy. Right now the masks are falling off. The so-called “Regime of 1978” was the continuity of Franco’s regime by other means, although 20 or even 30 years ago we probably wouldn’t have made this statement. The difference is that at the moment dissent against the regime is much more consistent and widespread, and that is why the dark forces of the deep state are abusing repression in order to defend themselves against those who question an increasingly fragile status quo. We simply need to examine how they have reacted since the turn of the century to the pressure of those who claim historical memory, the interesting (and still poorly and badly analysed) police infiltrated and violently repressed 15-M, the emergence of a force like Podemos (counteracted by the State operation with Ciudadanos), the substitute bill submitted by independence parties, and the growing emergence of a new republicanism. Decades ago, in the 1980s or 1990s, arbitrary repression was just as unfair, though to a lesser extent and impact than it currently is. To give an example, in 1981, holding a pro-independence banner in Barcelona resulted in dozens of detentions and mistreatment by the police. The same thing happened in the days leading up to the 1992 Olympics, when dozens of political activists were imprisoned and tortured on fabricated charges. Recently I have been reading the draft of an interesting memoir Joan Martínez Alier, an intellectual and professor of ecology (and an anti-Franco dissident) who was arrested that same year for preparing a campaign to condemn the indigenous genocide during the Fifth Centenary festivities.

Spain is not a democracy. Next, I am going to give some reasons that reinforce this.

1. The current regime was originally flawed by an imposed monarchy

It is no secret that the continuity between Franco’s regime and the Constitution was personified in the Bourbon. A Bourbon shielded from criticism and the law who enjoys unsustainable impunity based on indications of questionable family behaviour, professional incompetence, lack of neutrality, and growing evidence of tampering with government or expressing sympathies for the far right. It was a legal continuity dictated by Franco’s own law of succession and the dictator’s will. The Constitution itself served to regulate the chaotic legislation of Franco’s regime, incorporating most of the content of the Fundamental Laws. The imposed monarchy secured the permanent leadership of the State by avoiding a referendum, which, based on the revelations by former President Suárez, would have been adverse. From a legislative and political point of view, an attempt was made to preserve the brutality of the dictatorship and to cover up its crimes, in particular through the (self-)Amnesty Law. In other words, with respect to the balance of power between war winners and losers, the regime of 1978 is an update of the regime of 1939. The failure to repair and to prosecute war crimes (and criminals) is very indicative of what happened next. The main obsession of “democracy” was to keep the power, the influence and the privileges of those sectors that benefited from Franco’s regime intact. That is why the repressive bodies were left untouched, especially the armed forces, the police and the judiciary, but also the church or the media.

2. There is a flagrant absence of a democratic culture

The damage caused to Spanish society after four decades of dictatorship was so profound that it determined its regenerative capacity. Repression to the very foundations of dissent and order through fear produced generations of Spaniards, as Jarcha’s song said, who were obedient even in bed. Sociological Francoism, which came to believe that the precarious welfare propaganda was the result of the regime’s development, turned out to be a brake on the prosecution of the Francoist crimes, the “Spanish Holocaust”, in the words of the British historian Paul Preston. In a way, the submission of the Spanish population to the escalating regression of recent years, and their support, by action or omission, for the repression of the Basque Country or Catalonia illustrates the extent to which authoritarianism has been internalised within society itself, becoming more and more like the fearful and mistreated peasants in Miguel Delibes’ The Holy Innocents. The electorate’s behaviour, supporting those who demand more nationalism (Spanish nationalism, of course), more repression, more regression, despite the high unemployment rates, precariousness and poverty, is a good barometer to explain how internalised the country’s hierarchical world view is. But also, the idea that democracy is a mechanism for majorities to impose themselves on minorities is also a sign of the degree to which authoritarianism is installed in the subconscious. Democracy serves to manage conflicts on the basis of pact and compromise, seeking consensus and making mutual cessions to reach solutions. But this does not seem to be happening.

3. Unsubtle mechanisms of censorship and the silencing of dissent

As it happened with the Czechoslovak dictatorship, it is risky attempting to dissent in the face of repression in Catalonia, in the Basque Country, or questioning the impunity of Franco’s crimes. There are dozens of mechanisms of repression, not always subtle. Here are a few examples. During the anti-Catalan demonstrations following the return of the documents of the Generalitat from the Salamanca archive in 1995, the few journalists in the local press who understood the motives of the Catalans had their media pages closed forever. Many of those who questioned the repressive policy in the Basque Country were prosecuted for “apology of terrorism”. Judges, like Garzón himself, who tried to investigate the Franco regime’s crimes, were expelled from the judiciary, as were so many others who dealt with sensitive issues. Six lads who attended a demonstration in Madrid in support of the October 1 referendum are being prosecuted. Some of the events organised in support of the independence supporters in the state have been banned (unlike the far right’s events). MPs such as Joan Tardà were unable to lead a normal life in Madrid because incidents in which they were reprimanded or threatened due to their republican ideas were frequent. Members of the military who have dared to report their superiors’ Francoism have been dismissed. Journalists who have exposed corruption scandals are being harassed by mafia groups or by the police forces themselves. To be a dissident in Spain, when the interests of Franco’s heirs are targeted, is a risky exercise… as with those who backed Jan Palach’s mother in her search for justice.

4. The impunity of Francoism

The Regime of 78 was built to safeguard the old order of 39. As the Falangist Antonio Labadie explained in 1974 when faced with the uncertainty of the changes to come, “we will fight tooth and nail to defend the legitimacy of a victory that today is the heritage of all the Spanish people”. And, given what we have seen, the bunker got away with it. Not a single Francoist has been judged. Despite the fact that Spain is the country, after Cambodia, with the highest number of missing people, the state has only obstructed any policies of memory and reparation. The Valley of the Fallen continues to be a place of pilgrimage for the far right, where the ethos of violence and fascism are spread. In fact, fascism is legal in this country. Democracy was never used to extradite dozens of internationally hunted Nazi criminals, such as the Belgian León Degelle, following 46 requests from Brussels. He died peacefully in 1994. In addition, following the 1977 (self-)Amnesty Law, dozens of crimes committed by the far right or cases of torture carried out by the police have either remained unpunished or been systematically reprieved. It is clear that a democracy cannot be built in such a way. After all, the lives of many Spaniards are still affected by the crimes of Franco’s regime which the Transition was unable to put right. Without justice and equality, no democracy is possible.

5. A systemic and protected corruption

Linked to all this, it has to be said that Franco’s regime worked, above all, towards granting impunity to the benefactors of 1939, and this resulted in a free pocketing of money, turning the whole of Spain into the spoils of war of the Francoists. Corruption, protected through privileged connections with power, which was systematic under the regime, continued during the so-called democracy. Unlawful enrichment, through contacts with the highest echelons, particularly through a promiscuity between political, economic, legal and administrative powers, continued without excessive problems. The Nóos case, for example, is a great illustration of how influence at the highest levels made it possible for certain protected elites to use public funds as ATMs. But, above all, the culture of impunity was set up in such a way that the nepotism and the endogamy existing in the judiciary, diplomacy, high administration, and revolving doors, with an IBEX 35 full of pro-Franco sagas, turned the State into the assets of a few families. To top it all off, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Franco regime do not even blush when they display master’s degrees and university degrees that we all know are fake. This is the kind of deep-rooted “you don’t know who you’re talking to” in Spanish daily life.

6. Poorly pluralistic media

Spain is the country where facts and the media narrative have no connection, even beyond ordinary lies. The Spanish press often explains how the facts should have happened along the lines of a political party. The following statement, written by Georges Orwell during the Spanish Civil War, could be applicable today. “In a deeply divided society with no democratic tradition, information is a mere trench“. In recent decades there has been a shift from a generalised functional illiteracy, which was the result of the lack of educational policies during the Franco regime, to a media illiteracy, promoted by the mainstream TV channels. The Franco regime created a propaganda model mainly based on the audiovisual information monopoly, which could not be renovated during the constitutional stage. Nowadays, there is an oligopoly in which the big media are connected to an endogamous economic power where large media groups broadcast the interests of the authoritarian elites. We have seen this in recent years, when, for example, not only the Basque nationalism has been criminalised because of their highly consultative and deliberative debate structures, but also the 15M or the Catalan independence movements which originate from a highly organised, self-managed and profoundly democratic and plural civil society, but which the media potrays as a blend between North Korea and Leni Riefenstahl, based on the harshest possible media manipulation, and fuelling hatred in similar terms to Yugoslavian television in the months leading up to its dramatic disintegration. Over the last few decades, television and the media have been working to convey an image of a homogeneous Spain that does not correspond to reality, concealing, for instance, the 10 million Catalan speakers in the state, shutting away Euskera or Galician, or making up facts that should fit together with one’s own prejudices, as Orwell said. And we all know that without a free and pluralistic media, there can be no democracy.

But even those uncomfortable and dissenting voices have been silenced, and those who, through meticulous research, have brought uncomfortable truths to the table have been sanctioned. Journalist Xavier Vinader was persecuted and forced into exile after exposing the dirty war in the Basque Country. Recent investigations into the fake academic titles of PP leaders, the Bar España, corruption networks or the abduction of children by institutions related to the regime have given the authors quite some grief, making them worthy of a Pulitzer award.

7. A political police and, worse still, the inability of Spanish society to react

The revelations about the Spanish police tracking and monitoring Pablo Iglesias is the tip of the iceberg. The forces of law and order seem more concerned with carrying out actions of discredit and siege against the opposition and dissent than with prosecuting the many varied crimes committed by those in excess of power. Many people are unaware of these various actions, involving the fabrication of false evidence to discredit Mayor Xavier Trias, the illegal persecution against Catalan independence, the inexplicable role (as in not allowed to be explained) of the secret services in the Jihadist terrorist attack in Barcelona in August 2017, the actions to damage public health and many more scandals that have not prompted the slightest reaction from Spanish public opinion. These actions have even benefited from a television boycott, despite their remarkable audience and authenticity. In Spain there are several Watergates every year, and very few people react. And that is unlike a democracy. It is appalling that, as in the case of Jan Palach, the police are used to prevent people from reacting, to maintain an order that quite clearly goes against the common interest.

8. Almost total Francoist control in key institutions

This is obvious in the genealogy of the state elites and in the Catholic Church (which, unlike what happens in the rest of the world, is neither being investigated nor prosecuted for abuse, child abduction, exploitation, etc.), the IBEX 35 companies, the judiciary (where judges who “poke their noses where they shouldn’t” are removed without hesitation), the high-ranking officials, the army, the security forces, as well as the complicity with a far right that seems to enjoy strange immunity in spite of hundreds of criminal acts (unlike peaceful activists).

9. The hegemony of its symbols

No. The Spanish flag, the anthem, the monarchy, or certain traditions are not the symbols of all Spaniards, but the symbols of the Spain of 39. There has been a policy of imposition and appropriation of symbols that do not seek consensus, but the staging of the victory of Franco’s regime, to the point that a large proportion of a coward and self-conscious left is adopting them as their own. The most logical would be to reconsider a new symbolism that should be debated and agreed upon. But this is not the case. The discomfort of radically anti-Franco societies such as the Basque and Catalan do not accept them. And it is much simpler to claim one’s own than to try changing those that represent a rather non fraternal Spain and so hostile that it does not hesitate to be the chromatic and musical complement of the “a por ellos” pack. (Translator’s note: The military police leaving from cities all over Spain to stop the referendum vote in Catalonia were seen off by crowds gathered with Spanish flags and chanting “Go get them!”). It is no secret that a significant part of the national cohesion is manufactured based on the external or internal enemy. But this identity is toxic, based on hatred and despise. And hatred and despise are the feelings that feed dictatorships. A democracy seeks agreement and consensus. No one should be afraid to create new symbols accepted by all, but a territory and society should also be structured on the basis of new agreements.

Unfortunately, the unionist vision of Spain represented by its excluding symbols will end up dissolving it, because, after all, the exhibition of the Spanish flag is a way of resisting an agreed solution, that is, a democratic solution.

10. Catalonia and the sham trial

The analyst Joe Brew, in his studies on audiences and social networks, highlighted the scarce interest that the trial against the independence leaders in the Supreme Court is generating among the Spanish public opinion. The analyst Joe Brew, in his studies on audiences and social networks, highlighted the scarce interest that the trial against the independence leaders in the Supreme Court is generating among the Spanish public opinion. It is obvious that for a vast majority, the shame of a televised farce in which the sentence has already been written, the testimonies of the accusation openly lying, witnesses and key evidence of the defence are vetoed, renders a public image of Spain similar to that of Saudi Arabia. Yet few voices are raised in the face of such injustice. In a way, the trial against the Catalan leaders is a supreme act of prevarication, not only from an administrative point of view, but, especially, from a moral point of view. In dictatorships, everyone keeps silent in the face of injustice. In democracies, a conflict as serious as the Catalan one would be dealt with through dialogue, always uncomfortable, always difficult, always unsatisfactory, but much more practical than causing an irreversible break that will end up turning against those in power.

Conclusion

Surely, this article will generate some indignation among those who prefer to live in a state of oblivion. Like Josep Borrell, Minister of Foreign Affairs, many will shout their heads off, claiming that Spain is an exemplary democracy. But as the proverb goes, “tell me what you brag about and I’ll tell you what you lack”. The authorities of the communist Czechoslovakia never grew tired of describing paradise on earth, the best of all possible worlds that their democratic and popular republic represented. So why should they attack those who defended the honourability of the young Jan Palach’s gesture? Spain is not a democracy. It won’t be until the toxic Franco heritage is shaken off; that of the institutions, but even more importantly, the one that still permeates the subconscious of millions of Spaniards.

Author: Xavier Diez

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loheryn-blog · 5 years ago

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21st century guide to a free world (Updated 26.08) Foreword Have you thought about why is it that as time goes by society gets more dangerous to live in. There are more mentally ill people, more psychopaths, more pollution, more cancer, more illnesses, more selfishness, more loneliness. Why isn't it going the other way around like more freedom, safety, wellbeing, trust and connection between people? Why is it that every aspect of our lives is monetized? To understand how the world has come to be so you have to know our past as well as the present situation. Christinity has shaped Europe and it's people since it's creation. Many of our social customs and ways come directly or are greatly influenced by it. At the core of Christianity is a belief that Man is a sinner, a fallen being whose only salvation is in letting God's blood. Oddly enough God rants very angrily at people in old testament about people "eating his flesh and drinking his blood", yet this God angering sinful activity is the cornerstone of all Christian sects. An awake and aware 21st century person knows that one is what one thinks and believes. Said person is also aware that sacrificing someone else for your own gain is evil. Especially a blood sacrifice. Doesn't matter that it is imaginary, it is still gross and wrong. After the medieval crusades, templars, returning from Middle-East pondered that the God presented in Bible could be the bad guy and the Snake, who confronted Eve with an offer, actually a good guy. They called him Lucifer. Thus was born one of the most powerful organizations in the whole of the world. Luciferianism. This cult established the first international banking system and soon grew rich and very, very corrupt. Consider the following points: * Templars adopted kabballistic( a jewish esoteric teaching) knowledge as their own. *They took the baseline corrupt christian dogma, despite it being so obviously the opposite to what Jesus preached as a reason to think that the Biblical character, the devil was actually a good guy. * John the Baptist called jews “You are of your father the devil” * Jews veritably hate Jesus even today. * Templars went underground in 14th century and soon emerged as the Freemasons * Freemasons have a hierarchical power structure. You don't get to the highest degree unless you are a major world player financially and politically * All Freemasonic cults, of which Skull and Bones is one, operate clandestinely. In the beginning they needed to hide their true views and activities for fear of being persecuted by the Catholic Church. These days they are surely well versed in keeping out of sight. * To even join Freemasons you must be rich and active in cultivating the society. (Who made our world such a mess?) * Both Freemasons and Jews are usually the money people. * Irish had a spell for getting the devil and his money out and away from one's life. *Jews and Israelites were at odds and even at war with each other. * No one nation is evil, Jews are no different. They have Zionism and orthodox religion which justifies violence toward other people. Just like whites, blacks, asians, etc have religious "justifications" for hating others. * America was created by Freemasons, which is why that country stands by Israel by default, no matter what horrible deeds Israeli military commits on the Palestinians. * Judaism is a religion, not a race. Jews branding their critics "anti-semites" is an ages old method of the guilty blaming others of their own faults. In fact Palestinians and Arabs are Semitic. When you criticise Catholics that doesn't make you racist. Yet criticising Jews does. Wake up from the slumber! *Jews view gentiles with contempt. Remember, Freemasons inherited their religion from the Jews. By the looks of how they degrade our education, society, culture and our self-identity, it seems they also inherited their superiority complex. *Goyim is not a jewish word of endearment for non Jews. It's more likely to mean useless eaters, cattle, mindless animals than "Gentiles". Would this self-superior religion view others as more gentlemanly than themselves? * Jews sacrifice lambs. It is a satanic ritual. Freemasons sacrifice people. So who's the worst? Here are few resorces for you to study this whole matter and get a more in-depth view. Europeans Are The "Lost" Tribes Of Israel - A Rare Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbbSVjVWX-4 Then consider this statement by a jewish activist. https://youtu.be/G45WthPTo24?t=38 An orthodox Christian view on Jews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbLd688gXoI Rabbi Dovid Weiss: Zionism has created 'rivers of blood' | Talk to Al Jazeera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUppu2OHVTY Christian view on Freemasons. Beside being funny it's on point too. https://youtu.be/fDizgM5DUaY So that's what they teach themselves "We are God" Yet to public they propagate a culture of trashiness. At point 34:52, aliens consider humans "limited" https://youtu.be/hKJzAXbjlbQ No wonder if we are being totally controlled by out of control loony religions, like Luciferianism. Satanic child sacrifice rings all go hand in hand with moneyd and powerful groups, just the exact circles in which Freemasons operate. https://youtu.be/rvVb_cVcwB4 There's so much more to study. About templars, the Lost 12 tribes of Israel, etc. It all points to the same. There are a few wealthy and powerful running satanic, deceptive religious orders and cults. And, just like in society most members of those cults have no clue whatsoever about their organizations true end goals. Let us continue with the modern state of the world. What is Satanism. In essence it is a cult of selfishness. It's adherents seek to exploit others for their own gain. What do Freemasons do: *Operate in secret *Pretend a good cause *Are in control of modern culture, media, movies which are full of lewdness directed at children, violence and general decadence. How is that not Satanic? They are satanists with another name. If it walks like a duck and quacks like duck then it is a duck. Look at our business and political arena. *You succeed the better you can lie and manipulate other people. * You make more money if you exploit people and their needs or weaknesses. * All world power centers are rumored to be hotspots of child abuse, human trafficking and sacrifice. Vatican, Brussels, London, New York. * Governments are supposed to represent people. No one has the right to force someone against their will or hold captive anyone without being threatened in the first place. Yet, the government can force people to do anything. That in itself shows that you are a captive of the government and not represented by the government. So if the Freemasons are supposed to be wealthy and influential players in our modern world then why isn't our world getting safer and better like their public humanitarian declarations claim as their goals? Have you seen a one Freemasonic Lodge which, after a thorough study and observation does not come out to be involved in crime, perving, underage sex slaves, etc, etc. Here are few interesting videos to get to know the whole picture. There are many more. Go explore and learn. The Masonic Religion is Luciferianism https://youtu.be/tjPQ_ZXqkWI Skull and Bones were involved in JFK assassination https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ka_vjCU-qg J Edgar Hoover was a Freemason and one of the main organisers of JFK assassination. A secret military industrial syndicate was responsible for 9/11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbdxXWN4DGk So Donald Rumsfeld, himself a Mason or Skull and Bones initiate, orders 3000 people, Americans, to their deaths at 9/11 Here's a further tidbit to consider. The word pagan means satan. That's what the Catholics called all non-christians. Horned god worshippers, satanists. Makes it real funny seeing some people identify themselves as neo-pagans. A cult which involves a horned god and making pacts with that god. Do you realize now, that we live in a mad Luciferian/Satanic world where the masses are docile slaves? The Guidebook to becoming Free People. Start making loving, caring connections with people. Don't exploit anyone. Refuse to do so. Instead enact mutual care toward everyone and demand the freedom to do so. Protest being treated like a mindless will-less cattle. Legal code applies to players in the arena. It's like in the wrestling world. You are not in the ring, the code does not apply on you. Legal code is not the Law. Nor does it even matter what it is. It works on the basis that the authority has power and right to rule over you. Only a slave has a master who decides what the slave can do or can not do. A free person is fully responsible for one's freedom and actions. Stop looking at the government as your savior, it's the system of your imprisonment and it's maintainers are not interested in letting you go. Become self responsible. Start working for your and everyone's wellbeing. Stop being a selfish asshole with an excuse "everyone does it and i need money to buy food". The more you separate from other people the less you have and the more you need money to get what you need. Those who created and run the economic system are always going to be it's masters and can do whatever they want. So, what? You want to mass exploit people and murder your way to the top? People who think like this will end up lonely, mad wrecks who can find no love, no company, no solace. They get their love from perving on and raping others. Is that what you want to become? Crazily enough there are many budding businessmen looking to become just like that. The key to unraveling the system of evil is to not consent, even if you say yes to the authorities. Just think that it is a lie to save yourself and they will get all the karma from abusing you. If you don't know then authorities corralling you around is authorities corralling you around like rancher does it with his cows. Got it? You're a human being. Your life is about freedom and living according to your own understanding while respecting others at the same time. We are not meant to be someone's elses property to command and do as they would. Eject all ideas about creating a business or making money or becoming a politician to save the world. These things are meant for selfish people to control others. You can't change them, only demolish or reject them. Alternatives are needed. Not every politician or freemason is evil. Demand changes and common sense. The evil system can be and has to be left behind and a new way of truly taking care of each and every one has to be established. It can only happen if you make it so. Give and receive freely. For giving is receiving and receiving is giving.

#freedom #freeworld #realeducation #freehumanity

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ocgreenrelief · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on

New Post has been published on https://ocgreenrelief.org/cbd/cannabinoids-pre-neo-post-natal

Cannabinoids; Pre- Neo- and Post-natal

What do breast milk, tea and Cannabis have in common? Quite a bit, it turns out. In addition to providing a soothing sense of comfort and bliss, they also facilitate in stimulating and nourishing the Endocannabinoid System (ECS). For a variety of legal and moral reasons, adults generally do not indulge in a glass of breast milk when they need comfort. Instead, many enjoy a cup of tea. Black, white and green tea all come from the same species of plant, Camellia sinensis. They contain an anti-oxidant known as catechin which responds to cannabinoid receptors (CB1) in the same way cannabinoids do, providing anti-inflammatory and neuro-protective health benefits. When the cannabinoid known as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is released into the body and interacts with the CB1 receptors, it causes a temporary increase in dopamine. As a result, the user experiences a sense of relaxation and pleasure.

proxy.jpeg Cannabinoids, like those found in Cannabis, occur naturally in human breast milk

Breast milk has been revered for generations as the most wholesome and beneficial source of nutrition that a mother can provide her growing infant. The human body has an intricate system of proteins known as cannabinoid receptors, specifically designed to process cannabinoids such as cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), two of the primary active components of Cannabis sativa L., (Cannabis). And it turns out, based on the findings of several major scientific studies, human breast milk naturally contains many of the same cannabinoids found in Cannabis, which are actually extremely vital for proper human development. Since cannabinoids exist in breast milk, clearly, humans are designed to utilise them.

Cell membranes in the body are naturally equipped with cannabinoid receptors. The two receptor types found in the body, CB1 (in the brain) and CB2 (immune system and the rest of the body), respond to cannabinoids, whether from human breast milk for newborns, or from juiced Cannabis, for instance, in adults. When activated by cannabinoids and various other nutritive substances, they play a critical role in protecting cells against viruses, harmful bacteria, cancer and other malignancies, boosting immune function, protecting the brain and nervous system and relieving pain and disease-causing inflammation, among other things. Cannabinoids are naturally occurring chemical compounds that promote homoeostasis by interacting with specific receptors found in the human body which essentially means the human body was built for cannabinoids and an intricate system of cannabinoids, receptors and other binding substances manufactured in the brain make up the ECS (Endocannabinoid System).

Breast milk is an abundant source of endocannabinoids, a specific type of neuromodulatory lipid that teaches a newborn how to eat by stimulating the suckling process which is essential for an infant’s development. According to a 2004 study published in the European Journal of Pharmacology, cannabinoids found in breast milk activate the CB1 receptor which in turn activates the oral-motor musculature, imperative for suckling. It is also believed cannabinoids promote an infant’s desire to eat, much like an adult cannabis user getting the munchies. If it were not for the cannabinoids in breast milk, newborns would not know how to eat, nor would they necessarily have the desire to eat, which could result in severe malnourishment and even death. Newborns who are breastfed naturally receive doses of cannabinoids that trigger hunger and promote growth and development. “Endocannabinoids have been detected in maternal milk and activation of CB1 (cannabinoid receptor type 1) receptors appears to be critical for milk sucking … apparently activating oral-motor musculature”, says the abstract. “The medical implications of these novel developments are far reaching and suggest a promising future for cannabinoids in paediatric medicine for conditions including ‘non-organic failure-to-thrive’ and cystic fibrosis”. Even given the above information, the more conservative ‘public’ are still concerned about how Cannabis use will affect children. Given the masses of misinformation still being fed to many communities by ignorant and (if not actually then morally) corrupt public health and government officials in various jurisdictions around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, across the Asia-Pacific region and Australia this is unsurprising. Many parents who consume Cannabis, including new mothers, do have unaddressed (due to a lack of education on Cannabis or illegality or just plain ignorance) concerns about the effects of their Cannabis use and whether or not they should breastfeed their babies. The American Academy of Paediatrics suggests pregnant women or nursing mothers should not use Cannabis, however, their concerns appear to be totally unfounded.

“Cannabis exposure during the prenatal period … at the very least we can say there is no harm”. This quote is from Dr Melanie Dreher, co-author of what has become more commonly known as ‘The Jamaica Study’, Prenatal Marijuana Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica: An Ethnographic Study. Dr Dreher’s study set out with the objective of identifying neuro-behavioural effects of prenatal Cannabis exposure on neonates in rural Jamaica. The study was, by design, based on ethnographic field studies and standardised neuro-behaviour assessments during the neonatal period in the setting of rural Jamaica, traditionally a ‘heavy-Cannabis-using’ population. The participants were twenty-four Jamaican neonates exposed to Cannabis prenatally and 20 non-exposed neonates. Exposed and non-exposed neonates were compared at 3 days and 1 month old, using the Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale, including supplementary items to capture possible subtle effects. There were no significant differences between exposed and non-exposed neonates on day 3. At 1 month, the exposed neonates showed better physiological stability and required less examiner facilitation to reach organised states. The neonates of heavy-Cannabis-using mothers had better scores on autonomic stability, quality of alertness, irritability, and self-regulation and were judged to be more rewarding for caregivers. Dr Dreher and her fellow researchers concluded that the absence of any differences between the exposed or non-exposed groups in the early neonatal period suggest that the better scores of exposed neonates at 1 month are traceable to the cultural positioning and social and economic characteristics of mothers using Cannabis that select for the use of Cannabis but also promote neonatal development. As a nurse and anthropologist, Dr Melanie Dreher has enjoyed a distinguished research career and was principal investigator for several cross-cultural studies examining Cannabis in the context of Caribbean society. As a doctoral student in anthropology at Columbia University, she conducted the first ethnographic study of ‘ganja’ (Cannabis) in Jamaica. That early work opened the door to three decades of funded research on the social context of Cannabis and the impact on health, development and performance of adults and children. Dr Dreher has authored and co-authored two books on Cannabis, numerous peer-reviewed articles, and several government reports.

Throughout her career, she has been a consistent advocate for an objective and scientific appraisal of Cannabis and its relationship with society. In addition to her academic role, she has taken on the responsibility of speaking to community groups, professional organisations and academics, using her leadership positions in health and education to enlighten the public on the history of Cannabis and its role in other societies. She has served as an expert witness in Cannabis-related cases in several states. As Dean of Nursing at the University of Iowa, her College of Nursing hosted the first clinical conference on Medical Cannabis almost 20 years ago, with the goal of exposing clinicians to an informed and reasoned use of Cannabis as medicine. Dr Dreher was awarded the first ‘Lester Grinspoon National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Award’ for her sustained commitment to seeking the truth about Cannabis. While conducting her research, she received the Ambassador’s citation for her humanitarian work in Jamaica.

In a 2013 interview, Dr Dreher discussed the 40 years of studies she was involved with in Jamaica. There, Cannabis is used for a variety of medicinal, therapeutic and preventative uses. These studies refuted many of the assumptions attributed to Cannabis use, particularly regarding pregnancy and infant development.

https://youtu.be/RDV5HhmP4UI

At the International Cannabinoid Research Society’s 2014 Symposium, a 2013 study, Role of 5HT1A Receptors on the Neuroprotective and Neuro-behavioural Effects of Cannabidiol in Hypoxic-Ischaemic Newborn Pigs, highlighted the amazing potential of cannabidiol (CBD) for premature babies: At one day old the piglets were robbed of oxygen to the brain to mimic hypoxic-ischaemic conditions: the brain damage caused by the oxygen deprivation often brought on by severe apnoea and/or cardiac stress events premature babies sometimes experience multiple times per day. Following verification of the induced brain damage the piglets were given cannabidiol (CBD) oil – one group received one dose of CBD oil thirty minutes after the event and another group was given only three very, very small doses over the course of six days. Later the piglets brains were compared against those of normal, healthy piglets. In looking at each of the eight regions of the piglets brains, the researchers were “shocked and amazed” to report full restoration and not just that, “full restoration in each of the eight sections of the brain and evidence of neuro-protection in all cells”. The piglets were dosed with considerably small amounts of CBD oil; 1 milligram per kilogram of weight “there were no differences between piglets receiving one dose or three doses of CBD”. What that means for premature babies is a neuro-protective result from less than 1 milligram of CBD oil. Less than 1 mg (there are 1000 mg in each gram of Cannabis oil).

In Australia, in 2011, 8.3% of babies were born pre-term (before 37 completed weeks gestation).

Extremely pre-term (

“The American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suggests that pre-term birth rates have increased because of a dramatic rise in late pre-term births, defined as births between 34 weeks and 36-6/7 weeks of gestation. Late pre-term newborns are the fastest growing subset of neonates, accounting for approximately 74% of all pre-term births and about 8% of total births”.

USA Pre-term Birth Rates (National 2007) Pre-term birth rates per 100 births in each specified gestational age category.

less than 37 weeks’ gestation 12.7

less than 28 weeks’ gestation 0.8

less than 34 weeks’ gestation 3.6

34–36 weeks’ gestation 9.0

One tiny gram of CBD oil could potentially treat up to 1,000 babies (1,000 premature babies born weighing less than a kilogram [2.2 lbs]) and induce “neuro-protection”, that which is so desperately necessary for these high-risk infants. Premature babies are at high risk for hypoxic-ischaemic brain damage. Many do not survive their premature birth with few long-term effects. Most struggle to survive, sometimes for the rest of their lives due to the circumstances of their birth and the pharmaceutical manner in which many of their conditions are treated. Can any parent or grandparent sit idly by knowing there is a non-toxic, low-dose traditional, complementary medicine that is an option – scientifically proven – that’s being overlooked because so few medical professionals and policy makers know anything of the science of Cannabinoid medicine? Few have ever heard of the ECS (Endocannabinoid System) and its amazing ability to heal the body and protect, not harm, the brain. Researchers have spent many decades looking for safe, non-toxic remedies for a wide-variety of illnesses and conditions. In 1988 the ECS was discovered, so there is still much that medical science hasn’t explored. Fortunately, some jurisdictions are beginning to see the stigma lifted from this research arena (Israel, Canada etc.). It’s time for the science to reach the masses so the entire world can learn there is a safe, non-toxic (and cheap) choice, an option beyond the current raft of often hazardous and toxic treatments.

In the United States the science required to remove Cannabis from their Schedule of Controlled Substances has been conducted and is far more than adequate (there are more studies done on Cannabis than on many FDA approved pharmaceuticals) and every citizen with an ECS (100%) and every citizen who supports the Americanisation of Cannabis (87%) still waits for the federal government to take action. In Australia we are still in the grip of archaic ‘reefer madness’ even though the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP) has debunked the most common misinformation about Cannabis with their Cannabis Claims campaign.

The educational chasm between endocannabinoid researchers and family physicians is greater than the gap between patient and doctor or even patient and researcher. Many of today’s patients are self-educated and rely heavily on other patients for information, plus they embody a specific type of knowledge regarding the use of Cannabis, one that still fails to reach researchers, medical professionals, policy-makers, or the masses to a significant degree. Understanding the ECS (Endocannabinoid System) will continue to shed light on the natural role cannabinoids play. While there is still a great deal of research that needs to be done before we can fully understand how Cannabis works, there is already substantial evidence that this plant has exceptional medicinal value.

Expanded from Cannabinoids Like Those Found in Marijuana Occur Naturally in Human Breast Milk and Dr Melanie Dreher The Jamaica Study and Ganja Research, Common Link Between Breast Milk, Cannabis and Tea and Cannabis Beats Placebo : CBD Promising for Treating Brain Damage in Premies, Birth-Preterm Australia, Survival Rate For Premature Babies

Source;http://hempedification.blogspot.com/2015/10/cannabinoids-pre-neo-and-post-natal.html?m=1

#Cannabinoids #cannabis #Cannabis Oil #CBD #children #Endocannabinoid System #endocannabinoid system (ECS)#healing #Health #Hemp #Homeostasis

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justfinishedreading · 6 years ago

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Part 1 – Historical Background

The most important thing to know about Felizmente há luar! is that it was a product of its time; this play was written in 1961 during the rule of Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, and it is now studied in Portuguese secondary schools because of its themes on politics, corruption and censorship. In researching the historical background of this work I’ve… ended up writing an essay on Salazar and in the process learnt quite a bit about my country. The following is information I found interesting from Wikipedia and which I’ve copy and pasted, and reworded and condensed:

The End of the Portuguese Monarchy

After the revolution in 1910 when the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown, the country fell into chaos with continual anarchy, government corruption, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution. The next 18 years saw the inauguration of 8 presidents, 44 cabinet re-organisations and 21 revolutions. According to official police figures, 325 bombs burst in the streets of Lisbon between 1920 and 1925. The public began to view political parties as elements of division and become more tolerant to the idea of being governed by an authoritarian regime.

António de Oliveira Salazar

Salazar became Minister of Finance in 1928, before that others had tried to persuade him to enter politics, but he found the state of parliament so chaotic that he refused. He finally agreed when the state of Portugal become too dire to be ignored. He agreed under the condition that he would have a free hand to veto expenditure in all government departments, not only his own. Within a year Salazar balanced the budget and stabilised Portugal's currency.

In 1932 he became Prime Minster. Now Salazar is quite an interesting figure to study, he did a lot of good for Portugal, but every good sentence written about him can be countered with something bad. He brought order to a country in chaos, but he did not believe in democracy, he used censorship and a secret police to crush opposition and ensure that he continued to be Prime Minister from 1932 until 1968.

World War II

Salazar had lived through the hard times of World War I, in which Portugal participated, so when it came to World War II Salazar kept Portugal neutral. From the very beginning Salazar was convinced that Britain would suffer in the war but remain undefeated and that the United States would step in and the Allies would win. However because Portugal was neutral, the country was forced to supply materials used for military purposes to both the Allies AND the Axis. In May 1943, the USA wanted to take control of Portuguese islands for strategic military use, the British responded that forceful measures weren’t necessary, Salazar would honour the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. In August of that year when the British requested military use of those islands, Portugal allowed it.

Salazar’s upbringing was religious, he studied at a seminary for eight years and considered becoming a priest. He was a devote catholic and nationalist but argued that Portuguese nationalism did not glorify a single race because such a notion was pagan and anti-human. In 1938, he sent a telegram to the Portuguese Embassy in Berlin, ordering that it should be made clear to the German Reich that Portuguese law did not allow any distinction based on race, and that therefore, Portuguese Jewish citizens could not be discriminated against. On 26 June 1940, four days after France's surrender to Germany, Salazar authorised the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Paris to transfer its main office to Lisbon.

In July 1940, the civilian population of Gibraltar was evacuated due to imminent attacks expected from Nazi Germany. At that time, Portuguese Madeira agreed to host about 2,500 Gibraltarian refugees, mostly women and children, who remained there until the end of the war. Portugal, particularly Lisbon, was one of the last European exit points to the USA and a few hundred thousand to one million refugees found shelter in Portugal and escaped through there.

Portuguese Colonial Rule

Portugal can be proud of its action during the Second World War, but not so much of its colonial rule (…can any country ever be proud of colonialism?). Portugal had an extensive colonial empire that included Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola (including Cabinda), Portuguese Guinea, Mozambique in Africa, Portuguese India in South Asia, and Macau and Timor in the Far East.

In 1947, Captain Henrique Galvão, a Portuguese parliamentarian, submitted a report disclosing the situation of forced labour and precarious health services in the Portuguese colonies of Africa. The natives, it said, were simply regarded as beasts of burden. All African men had to pay a tax in Portuguese currency, the government created a situation in which a large percentage of men in any given year could only earn the amount needed to pay the tax by going to work for a colonial employer. In practice, this enabled settlers to use forced labour on a massive scale, frequently leading to horrific abuses. Galvão's courageous report eventually led to his downfall, and in 1952, he was arrested for subversive activities.

Following the Second World War, the colonial system was subject to growing dissatisfaction, and in the early 1950s the United Kingdom launched a process of decolonization. Belgium and France followed suit. Unlike the other European colonial powers, Salazar attempted to resist this tide and maintain the integrity of the empire. In order to justify it and Portugal's alleged civilising mission, Salazar ended up adopting Gilberto Freyre's theories of Lusotropicalism, which propose that the Portuguese were better colonizers than other European nations because they had a special talent for adapting to environments, cultures and the peoples who lived in the tropics, this talent helped them build harmonious multiracial societies and promote pro-miscegenation.

Side note, we Portuguese are very proud of our history during the 15th century, the age of discovery, when we set out to map the world, many consider it our golden age. Less talked about is our involvement in the slave trade, the first European to actually buy enslaves was Antão Gonçalves, a Portuguese explorer in 1441 AD. The Spanish were the first Europeans to use enslaved Africans in the New World. I’ve just done a little googling to try to find out how many slaves the Portuguese took from Africa, it’s not easy finding a straight answer, about 20 websites later I find three that agree that officially the total number of Africans shipped by the Portuguese is conservatively put at 4.2 million. However this excludes the millions that died crossing land to get to the Portuguese slave ships or during the horrible Atlantic passage. Just to be clear these facts are regarding Trans-Atlantic Slavery, unfortunately the concept of slavery has existed in all societies long before that.

Anyway that’s a bit of a digression from the main topic of Salazar, moving forward to 1960-1, armed revolutionaries and scattered guerrillas were starting to become active in Mozambique, Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. The Portuguese just about managed to keep control in some parts but the Portuguese military warned the government that this was not a long term solution, the military would not be able to keep order for long.

1961

And now finally I’ve reached 1961, the year Felizmente há luar! was written. For the western world the 60s were the decade of cultural revolution: ‘Make Love, Not War’, just like the American hippies were protesting against the Vietnam war, the Portuguese were protesting against colonial wars they could not win and which were wrong to begin with. This was an age of liberalism, of drug and sexual experimentation, of artistic creativity. And yet those liberals and free thinkers were being governed by a 72-year-old Salazar, a conservative, nationalist and catholic whose motto was "Deus, Pátria e Familia" (meaning "God, Fatherland, and Family"). There was no free speech, anyone opposing the dictatorship was imprisoned and tortured. Portuguese laws and government procedures were changed to enable those in power to stay in power. Felizmente há luar! was written by Luís de Sttau Monteiro and censored, prohibited from ever being performed. That is until 1975, the year after the government was overthrown.

Wrapping Up Part 1

Phew, I haven’t even started reviewing Felizmente há luar! yet, I could have just written “the play was written during a time of great oppression of freedom of speech and during a reign of political dictatorship” and left it at that. But, it’s curious to know how things came about, extreme political movements don’t just suddenly manifest, they are born out of circumstance, and it is important to understand what gives raise to the systems that change our lives.

In Part 2, I’ll actually review Felizmente há luar! By the way it’s actually set in 1817, when real life general Gomes Freire de Andrade was accused of leading a revolt against the Portuguese government – so... yay even more history XS

Most of this text on Salazar was taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Oliveira_Salazar

Review by Book Hamster

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