The Akhenaten Material

This is a peculiar lecture, posted on YouTube by the Theosophical Society Adyar. Or not so peculiar, since many esoteric and new agey groups claim that ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten was a spiritual master of some kind. The reason is, of course, his monotheism. It´s possible that Akhenaten´s cult of the sun disc (the Aten) was the world´s first monotheist religion. Since monotheism is considered "good" in the Western imagination, while polytheism is "bad", Akhenaten has usually been cast in the role of ascended master of the White Lodge. Or even as Moses! 

This lecturer goes even further, and projects an entire channelled New Age message onto the old pharaoh (with the inevitable space aliens), complete with a "revolutionary" message that sounds heavily anachronistic. He attacks "the one percenters", claims that Akhenaten liberated the Egyptians peasants, and that he was subsequently overthrown by the "military-industrial complex". In Egypt 3,300 years ago? The message from the aliens seems to be "The Law of One" (alias "The Ra Material"), which I haven´t read, but which is currently very popular in New Age and metaphysical circles. 

As for Akhenaten - the real one - he was probably a mad king of the classical sort who wanted to create a hyper-centralist Egyptian state with a cult centered on himself as the only true prophet of the Aten. Thus, his attacks on the powerful polytheist priesthoods were wholly self-serving. Indeed, he may have come close to completely destroying ancient Egypt in the process. Once again: the only reason why he is considered interesting in the modern West is his "monotheism" and some "Epicurean" traits. For all we know, Akhenaten wasn´t a pristine revolutionary, but rather Egypt´s very own Joe Stalin! But thankfully a much less succesful one. 

With that, I leave you for now. Commander Ashtar, over and out.

Lolbertarian confusion

Libertarians are confused after the God-Emperor (you know, Trump) decided to send federal marshals to Portland to straighten out the local ANTIFAs. Styx (the guy in the clip above) argues that libertarians can support Trump´s actions. 

Except, of course, that they can´t. 

If the night watchman state can´t protect your ass, then it´s essentially grassed. You can´t ask *the Departement for Homeland Security*, established by George W Bush under the Patriot Act, to bail you out. This is known as "cheating" and simply shows that libertarianism is LOL-bertarianism and just a meme ideology at this point, unable to cope with the world IRL. 

Libertarians have two options in the 100 days ahead. One is to oppose the GEOTUS as he is preparing to send even more federal police officers (and perhaps military) to Portland, Seattle and other cities where the ANTIFAs are running amuck. Or they can rethink their libertarianism, and rejoin the rest of humanity. 

That choice shouldn´t be hard. 

Peter Wahlbeck är "baserad"

Jag visste inte att Peter Wahlbeck (han med "Smash" och "Nyfiken på Gud") hade *den här* typen av politiska åsikter!

Hmmm.... 

How to convert the Republican Party to climate change affirmationism

The article linked below is from The National Interest, one of the more interesting foreign policy establishment publications. For being "up there", even spouting Henry Kissinger as their editor emeritus, they publish surprisingly heterodox articles. Here is another example. If you want to turn the GOP from climate change denialism to, shall we say, greener geopolitical pastures, you apparently have to pitch them like this... 

Will Russia weaponize its wheat?

Politisk böldpest

Högerextrema "Fria Tider" är en riktig knäppo-blaska. Den är pro-rysk, men utkommer i Estland och har en bild av Karl XII i tidningshuvudet. De senaste sex månaderna har Svobodnaya Pravda drivit en kampanj som underligt nog går ut på att Stefan Löfvén måste utlysa undantagstillstånd mot corona?! 

Nu verkar det dock som att Peter den stores horder har hittat ännu ett argument för att krascha den svenska ekonomin. Just det, en böldpestepidemi har utbrutit bland murmeldjuren i norra Mongoliet och TÄNK OM DEN KOMMER HIT. 

Ja, vad skall vi göra då? Tänk om ryska posten hade kunnat påpeka att det faktiskt finns antibiotika mot böldpest. Om det finns antibiotika mot politiska pester, återstår att se... 

Varning för böldpestepidemi på Fria Tiders redaktion

Year of the Dragon

You may not be interested in China, but China is interested in you

I haven´t read the book this article is referencing, but it does look interesting. About the slow but steady rise of China to hegemonic world power. Can the United States meet the challenge? Under a Democratic president, would it even want to? Libertarians and neo-liberals have been predicting China´s collapse for literally decades now (cuz "muh free market absent"), and yet, it seems the Dragon just keeps on rising... 

Buffer Overflow (and smallpox)

A pessimistic article on the future (or "future") of work. Whoever wrote it, is probably right. But perhaps there is a solution (or "solution") to the problems mentioned in the article. See article immidiately before this on the blog timeline. 

Next week, I´m gonna tell you about smallpox lurking in the wilds of Siberia. You really think it has been eradicated? MUH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH.... 

Buffer Overflow: The Ghastly Future of Work

I can´t be bothered

This seems to be the study which triggered the recent flurry of globalist propaganda about the need for mass immigration from Africa, especially Nigeria. 

The same people also claim to believe that climate change is a clear and present danger. And oh, we have to close down everything (including, I suppose, the Nigerian border) due to pandemics. Will they ever get their propaganda priorities straight, I wonder? 

As for the study itself, who the fuck cares? Less people is a good thing on a finite planet... 

Jaw-dropping global crash in population

Hade Heyerdahl rätt, trots allt?

Nya rön kan ge Heyerdahl rätt om Påskön 

Nya forskarrön tyder på att Polynesien (inklusive Påskön) hade kontakter med Sydamerikas fastland under 1200- och 1300-talen. Om jag har förstått saken rätt så handlar det antagligen om en polynesisk befolkning som blandade sig med "indianer" i nuvarande Colombia, för att sedan migrera vidare till Påskön. 

Jag är inte förvånad över dessa resultat. Polynesierna har länge varit den starkaste kandidaten till "andra än vikingar" som nådde Nya Världen före Columbus. 

I nästa nummer av Nature förväntar vi oss en diskussion om varför vissa "indianer" i Amazonas har samma gener som Australiens aboriginer... 

Eller nej?

The rise of...what exactly?

The rise of right-wing feminism in France

It´s not clear whether this is a serious and growing movement, or simply a weird sect of some kind, but it is interesting nevertheless. From "The American Conservative", a magazine I assume isn´t feminist in any way, shape or (arguably) form.  

Very liberal Catholics

Churches cope with the corona lockdown in different ways. One of the strangest methods is the one used by this little parish in Australia, the St Thomas´ Liberal Catholic Church in Melba, a suburb of Canberra. There are several groups calling themselves "Liberal Catholic", the original one being C W Leadbeater´s Theosophical front organization. It´s not clear to me who the guys in Melba might be. 

Due to the corona pandemic, the holy mass is celebrated by three people only, one of them being the priest. To fill the empty pews, the Church uses teddy bears! You can see this most clearly at time stamps 58:00 - 1:02:00. The scene where the priest carries the monstrance around (to be worshipped by the toy bears?) is almost priceless. 

It struck me that many churches might be forced to use this method of celebrating the eucharist even when the pandemic is over, unless the Holy Ghost decides to speak out really forcefully in the near future, filling the pews with human converts! 

Or, at the very least, the Australian government comes up with a vaccine against corona... 

This is Sweden

I´m sure this is all completely normal. 

Gender dysphoria diagnoses soar with 1,500%

A modest proposal

In Shia Muslim theocratic Iran, trans-women are considered to be women. At least if they have actually "transitioned". Does this mean we can lobby Ayatollah Khamenei and make him issue a fatwa against J K Rowling? You know, a bit like when his illustrious predecessor Khomeini attempted to cancel Rowling´s distant collegue Salman Rushdie? Asking for a friend named Dumbledore. 

The secret history

"Fred och fruktan: Sveriges säkerhetspolitiska historia 1918-2000" is a book by Wilhelm Agrell, a Swedish historian specializing in topics related to the Cold War and Swedish national security policy. The book was published in 2000 and is only available in Swedish. When Agrell was a rookie scholar during the early 1980´s, he was kindly informed that everything related to Sweden and the Cold War was "boring" and not worth looking into. Besides, the Cold War had ended already in 1963?! Agrell later realized that the "boredom thesis" was part and parcel of a gigantic cover-up of national security policy. Nominally non-aligned during the Cold War, Sweden was really a Western (US/NATO) ally and asset. This was the best kept public secret in the country, and everyone was expected to play along...

Only a very short summary of the book´s contents can be attempted here. As indicated by the title, it starts long before the Cold War with two other controversial episodes: Swedish action (or non-action) during the Winter War and World War II. During the 1930´s, Sweden had built a close alliance with Finland, an alliance obviously directed against the Soviet Union. But when Stalin actually attacked Finland in 1939-40 (the Winter War), Sweden choose to break the alliance, rather than send the Swedish military to Finland´s aid. (Swedish volunteers were permitted to participate in the war, though.) Agrell doesn´t believe that a Swedish military intervention would have changed the outcome of the war. However, it did create an enormous credibility crisis for Sweden. During World War II, Sweden got into similar problem with Norway, which had been occupied by the Nazis. Sweden wouldn´t allow Norwegian resistance fighters access to Swedish territory, instead permitting Nazi Germany to transit troops through Swedish territory. Sweden also continued exporting large amounts of iron ore to Germany. Yet, the Swedish government claimed to be neutral in the war! When it became obvious that the Allies were going to win, Sweden seamlessly changed tack and became de facto pro-Allied instead. The complex great power games could lead to situations as ironic as they were tragic. During the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Sweden recognzied the Soviet annexation of the Baltic republics. When the Western powers were allied with the Soviets, Sweden had to extradite Baltic refugees who had served on the German side in the war, back to the Soviet Union. Thus, Sweden ended up "anti-Baltic" on both occasions!

But the bulk of "Fred och fruktan" is of course about the Cold War. Norway and Denmark joined NATO, while Finland became "Finlandized" by the Soviet Union. "Finlandization" could be described as a kind of imposed neutrality. Sweden, by contrast, remained voluntarily neutral. Or did it? Agrell describes Swedish politics during this period (circa 1948 to 1989) as almost schizophrenic, with politicians and even military at every level engaged in a kind of doublethink. In 2000, when the book was published, there was no longer any doubt that Sweden had secretely cooperated with the United States and NATO, despite official assurances to the contrary. Swedish military air fields had been rebuilt to accommodate NATO fighter planes in the event of a crisis. Meanwhile, Swedish military planes carried out spy missions over Soviet territory. To mention just two examples! 

Ironically, Agrell believes that the Swedish military doctrine during the Cold War was all wrong and could have led to extremely dangerous consequences had a war actually broken out. The Swedish political and military leaderships were convinced that Sweden would not be the Soviets´ first target in the event of a war. Instead, the main theatre would be Central Europe. This would give Sweden advance warning and ample time to mobilize its forces, thereby making it harder for the Soviet Union to invade it at a later date. This idea was a virtual dogma during the Cold War. It was also combined with the idea that aid from the Western alliance would be forthcoming at this point. After the end of the Cold War, it was revealed that the real Soviet plan was the exact opposite: to attack Sweden in full force almost immediately in the event of a huge military conflict in Europe. Sweden´s Western ties would have been completely useless. (These scenarios all presuppose a conventional war between the superpowers, at least initially.) 

Agrell seems baffled by two national security topics, and I don´t think he is alone in this. One is the seeming U-turn in Swedish foreign policy under Social Democratic leader Olof Palme (Prime Minister 1969-76 and 1982-86). Palme was a harsh critic of the United States in general and the Vietnam War in particular, and under his premiership Sweden established amicable relations with various national liberation movements in the Third World generally considered to be in the Soviet orbit, such as the Sandinistas in Nicaragua or the ANC in South Africa. When Palme was assassinated in 1986, many on the left suspected that the unknown gunman worked for some foreign intelligence service or domestic far right group. Yet, while Palme was busy condemning the US, the Swedish military continued cooperating with NATO as if nothing happened! Agrell seems to believe that Palme was faking it, while Gunnar Wall (whose book "Konspiration Olof Palme" I review elsewhere on this blog) believe that the controversial Prime Minister was killed because he genuinely turned to the left. The other baffling topic are the submarine intrusions into Swedish territorial waters during the 1980´s and early 1990´s. At the time, Sweden clearly accused the Soviet Union. Agrell doesn´t know what to think. Some of the "submarine sounds" picked up by the Swedish navy could have been made by animals, while observations of submarines and alien divers made by the public smacked of mass hysteria. Even more weirdly, the mystery submarines kept coming even after the collapse of the Soviet Union! Since it´s difficult to believe that the military could be so amateurish, Agrell nevertheless reaches the conclusion that Soviet submarines were active in Swedish waters... 

The most disturbing - and fascinating (after a fashion) - phenomenon described in the book is the official lie about Swedish neutrality during the Cold War, how it was perpetrated on all levels of society (remember the "boredom thesis") and how many in the general population were brainwashed into believing it. This raises obvious questions, not raised by the author, if there are *other* official lies, perpetrated for just as long, perhaps still today? The most obvious candidate would be the claim that Olof Palme was killed by a lone gunman, but there are many others. Swedish immigration and integration policy has long been a shipwreck, yet nobody is supposed to talk about it, and few did until recently. In the near future, the claim that we are actively fighting climate change might become another official lie. If an entire nation (or is it faux nation) can be turned into a Masonic fraternity once, why not again? 

The cat that walked through walls

"Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World´s Greatest Physicists" is a collection of articles edited by Ken Wilber, an American writer and spiritual teacher. Ann Niehaus is credited with being the author´s research assistant. Wilber´s system, known as Integral Theory, has changed somewhat over the years, but could be characterized as a synthesis of Mahayana Buddhism, Jean Gebser, transpersonal psychology and Theosophy-derived notions (among others). In this book, he also makes frequent references to Traditionalist writers. I have the revised edition from 2001. 

Within the New Age, it´s common to argue that quantum physics somehow prove the spiritual worldview. Fritjof Capra´s famous book "The Tao of Physics" take this line. Wilber, interestingly, takes the exact opposite position. Physics do *not* prove the spiritual worldview, indeed can´t prove it at all, even in principle. My interpretation is that Wilber wants to save sprituality and mysticism from the atheists by placing them in an ontological and epistemological dimension completely separate from that of science. The idea is somewhat similar to Stephen Jay Gould´s NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria). Wilber also fears that a spiritual worldview based on science would be disproven if  (or when) the scientific theories change. Thus, an ostensibly scientific spirituality would in effect be subordinated to science (and subject to constant change). To Wilber, quantum physics is not about spritual phenomena, but deals entirely with material realities. The book debunks claims that Quantum Mechanics (QM) somehow prove mind-over-matter, that the observer can directly influence an experiment, that Schroedinger´s cat is neither dead nor alive until somebody takes a look, or that the strange properites of light (both a "wave" and "particles") are somehow magical or occult.

The volume contains texts by Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, De Broglie, Jeans, Planck, Pauli and Eddington. It´s interesting to note that so many prominent quantum physicists were dualists or panpsychists. The main reason seems to be that in their opinion quantum physics didn´t explain mind and consciousness. Some kind of dualism became inevitable when it turned out that all the weirdness of QM was purely material in character. Many quantum physicists also felt that modern science no longer describes objective reality as it is. Rather, the theories have become highly abstract mathematical equations. Scientists succesfully manipulate symbols, but they don´t seem to correspond to anything "out there". Perhaps *all* scientific theories are really models of this kind, rather than descriptions of anything "real"? But if so, what if there are things outside the models? A mystical mind, perhaps? Another common argument, by contrast, said the opposite: the fact that the universe can be described mathematically at a "deep" level, suggests that mathematics aren´t a human construct but rather something the mind discovers. But if so, where does the correlation between cosmos, mind and math come from? 

Wilber suggests that the mathematical structure of the cosmos is ultimately derivable from a higher spiritual dimension, and hence represent a kind of Platonic form. I was somewhat surprised by the fact that he integrated math into his spiritual dimension of reality - since math is closely connected to science, I had expected him to argue that it belongs wholly to the physical realm. 

One quantum physicist conspicuous by his absence from Wilber´s collection is David Bohm. This is ironic, since Bohm is usually considered to be the most spiritual of them all, no doubt because of his coversations with Jiddu Krishnamurti, the former "World Teacher" of the Theosophical Society. Bohm believed that science *could* prove the spiritual worldview, which I suppose explains why Wilber doesn´t even mention him. I find this somewhat ironic, since you might as well argue that Bohm tried to integrally integrate physics, mysticism and even politics at a higher level. 

This is obviously a very short introduction to "Quantum Questions" and its contributors, so let me end by saying that both Wilber´s contributions and the old articles by Heisenberg & Co are very interesting in their own right... 

"Five stars". 

You can´t beat the enemy while raising his flag - Dimitrov tries it

70% bad?

"Revolution" was the theoretical magazine of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. This is a review of the issue dated June 1981, which may be of some interest to left-watchers. The RCP was originally a fairly regular Maoist organization, but veered sharply "to the left" (as in ultra-left) after the death of Mao, when the RCP leader Bob Avakian decided to support the so-called Gang of Four in China. That´s the crazy faction around Mao´s widow Jiang Qing which wanted to continue the Cultural Revolution! What the RCP believes in today, is anybody´s guess.

Judging by this issue of "Revolution", the RCP´s ultra-leftist turn was surprisingly consistent. Several articles explicitly repudiate the Popular Frontist line associated with the Seventh Congress of the Communist International and Georgi Dimitrov. One article argues against the politics of the Communist Party of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The RCP believe that the Communists should have formed a Red Army instead of joining the Popular Front government! While this Communist army would be in tactical alliance with the forces of the Republic against Franco, it would nevertheless be an independent force. (This is simply Mao´s line in China projected onto the Spanish situation.) The articles on World War II, while not arguing against the Soviet Union or Mao joining the Allies, nevertheless take the position that the war was at all times an inter-imperialist conflict. That a socialist state was forced to join one side, doesn´t change this basic fact. Once again, popular frontism is condemned, as is Stalin´s "On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union", a collection of speeches from the war years. While the RCP still uphold Stalin (the Soviet Union didn´t become "state capitalist" until after his death), they do admit that "revisionism" started to spread like wildfire already while the great leader was alive, and that his errors contributed to this situation. 

The problem with the RCP is that they can´t really give a materialist analysis of why "revisionism" developed at all. The Trotskyist analysis is that Stalinism had definitive material roots in the bureaucracy and its material privileges, which led it to see "the defense of the Soviet Union" (really the defense of its privileged position as a ruling stratum) as central, while working class struggles and revolutions elsewhere could be betrayed if they didn´t fit the momentary needs of Soviet foreign policy. Both the "theory" of "socialism in one country" and popular frontism were logical outgrowths of such a situation. RCP, by contrast, defends the theory of socialism in one country, while seeing the "line" of Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party as a series of political and ideological mistakes and shortcomings. The whole take feels strangely idealist. Or not so strangely, since the RCP (in good Maoist fashion) presumably believe that the "line" is paramount. 

The most well known article in this issue of "Revolution" is titled "You Can´t Beat The Enemy While Raising His Flag" and is illustrated by a bizarre faux American flag, in which the stars are replaced by spiders, while the stripes have turned into snakes! The article argues against any political adaptation, no matter how symbolical, to nationalism in the imperialist nations. Once again, various Communist policies from the Popular Front period are attacked. Avakian says that the American proletariat must learn to "hate the American flag" and that the American bourgeoisie can keep it. Communism, it seems, is no longer 20th century Americanism. In an accompanying article, the RCP polemicizes against the Marxist-Leninist Party (MLP), which during this period had evidently still not broken with Hoxhaism and *its* pop-frontist aspects. The MLP argued that the smaller imperialist nations are oppressed by the United States. In an intriguing twist, the RCP believes that both Hoxhaites and Eurocommunists really want the Western European nations to join the Soviet imperialist camp!

The magazine ends with a "joint communiqué" directed "to the Marxist-Leninists, Workers and Oppressed of All Countries", signed by 13 Maoist groups, including the RCP. (Interestingly, Sendero Luminoso in not one of the signatories.) It´s obvious from the declaration that the RCP still accepts Mao´s version of popular frontism ("New Democracy"). The communiqué even defends Pol Pot´s Cambodia against Vietnam - the standard Maoist position - while condemning both sides would be more logical. The Khmer Rouge, after all, had ties to Hua Guofeng´s "revisionist" regime in China, which overthrew the Gang of Four! The 13 left-Maoist groups decided to launch an international journal, "A World To Win", which later became the publication of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM).                                                                                                                                                 

With that, I end my review of "Revolution, June 1981". 

The rehabilitation of Uppland

"Det svenska rikets födelse" (The Birth of the Swedish Kingdom) is a book by Dick Harrison, a Swedish professor of medieval history. The book is part of a long series of short popularized books on Swedish and European history written by the same author. However, it sounds more scholarly than most of the others, perhaps because the Swedish Middle Ages is close to Harrison´s main field of expertise. 

During most of the 20th century, the standard view among Swedish historians was that the Swedish kingdom emerged during the Viking Age, more specifically the 11th century, and that the center of the kingdom was Old Uppsala and Uppland more generally. After all, this was what the written sources suggested. To take just one example, in Snorri Sturluson´s "Heimskringla", Old Uppsala is prominently featured everytime the Icelandic writer mentions Sweden. While it´s true that Snorri was often retelling mythology, it could still be asked why *that* particular mythology? Archaeology also seemed to confirm the importance of Old Uppsala and Uppland. However, at the end of the 20th century, a new paradigm emerged which argued that the Swedish kingdom didn´t start to emerge until the 12th and 13th centuries, with the culmination point during the time of Birger jarl (de facto ruler 1248-1266). Even worse for the Uppland local patriots, this new scenario suggested that Götaland, Västergötland in particular, was the cradle of the Swedish kingdom, while Uppland was peripheral. One of the foremost popularizers of this perspective was novel writer and media personality Jan Guillou. Another was Dick Harrison...

Personally, I have no horse in this game, but I always found the Götaland hypothesis somewhat problematic, since it´s obvious that Uppland couldn´t have been a "periphery" in any meaningful sense of that term. Why did king Olof Skötkonung (who was indeed baptized in Västergötland) build a new town in Uppland, Sigtuna, which had the right to mint coins? Why were there royal halls in Uppland? What about all the runestones? And although no "real" Swedish kingdom existed during the 5th century, the gigantic burial mounds at Old Uppsala surely suggest some kind of powerful chiefdom? And what about those pesky written sources...

I therefore find it interesting that Harrison seems to have abandoned the Götaland-centric perspective of his previous popularizations. Instead, he paints a more sophisticated and therefore more believable picture of constantly evolving interactions between Götaland and Uppland. These interactions in turn were part of even broader networks of trade, political alliances, Church missionary activity and cultural diffusion, spanning all of northern Europe from England in the west to Kievan Rus in the east. In this scenario, there is no longer any "cradle of the Swedish kingdom", the whole concept being an anachronism (of course, in a sense it was an anachronism under the Götaland hypothesis, too, since kingdom-formation was seen as a gradual process). 

However, on one point Harrison is adamant: if there is a "founding father of Sweden", it really is Birger jarl. On that point, he is surely correct. Birger Magnusson (his real name) was the first Swedish ruler who created a "real" kingdom with a centralized administration, bailiffs to collect taxes from the peasantry, castles as outposts of the central power in various provinces, and national laws on top of the local ones. After Birger jarl, even virtual civil wars between factions within the nobility were about control of the state. Before Birger jarl, there essentially was no state. A very succesful ruler could create a vast "kingdom" or dominion by prowess in battle and/or clever marriage alliances, but the construction was unstable since it was tied to the king´s person and dependent on support from various local elite groups. Erik Segersäll comes to mind. But, of course, this is not the same thing as a kingdom sensu stricto. 

The main take aways from this extremely interesting book is that the Swedish kingdom evolved slowly through constant interchanges between different regions, that the process could have ended otherwise (perhaps with a much smaller Sweden, or with a Scandinavian kingdom, or with Scandinavia becoming a northern outpost of Germany), and that the process didn´t really reach its fruition until the mid-13th century. It´s also interesting to note the role of Christianity in the kingdom-building process. At this time, Christianity was the "royal" religion which legitimized the idea of an elevated ruler - one god, one king. Which makes me wonder what would have happened if Scandinavia remained pagan...

With those reflections, I end this review of Dick Harrison´s "Det svenska rikets födelse". 

On "Strasserism" and the decay of the left

An Afro-Swedish leftist and self-declared "Strasserite" analyzes the present political situation. 

On "Strasserism" and the decay of the left

Black Nazis against the KKK?

Another weird incident during the recent unrest in the United States. This is a Black supremacist militia (sic) protesting a KKK-related monument in Georgia (the one on the picture above). 

I can´t find the relevant link just now, but the leader of the No Fucking Around Coalition apparently believes in a bizarre hoax according to which Hitler knew that the Negroes are the true Hebrews! See second link for a Snopes fact-check of that truly remarkable claim. 

Black militia in Stone Mountain Park, Georgia

Hitler and the Black Hebrews

Boogaloo Lives Matter?

The right-wing militias known as "Boogaloo Bois" or "Boogaloos" have in some cases *joined* the BLM protests against the police and Donald Trump. Yes, really! The first link goes to a tweet showing heavily armed Boogaloos at a Black Lives Matters protest in Richmond, Virginia. The other is an article about this particular militia movement. I admit that understand less and less of what is happening in America... 

Boogaloos join BLM protest

Militias evaluate beliefs, actions as president threatens soldiers in the streets

 

Thomas Sheridan is angry

It seems the V-shaped recovery in County Sligo has been cancelled. Modern pagan and chaos magician Thomas Sheridan has something to say to the politicians who smashed the Irish economy by imposing a hard lockdown, and everyone who sided with them... 

The hard porn of Quantum Mechanics

This is an interesting documentary about David Bohm, who developed a controversial new theory about quantum mechanics, still mostly rejected by the scientific community. Bohm also had creative discussions with Jiddu Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher originally associated with the Theosophical Society. 

While Bohm was a scientist, he clearly wanted to bridge the gap between science and spirituality. The makers of this documentary want to use Bohm´s ideas to promote some kind of vague "holistic" notions. Bohm´s concept of the "implicate order" has obvious similarities with the Hindu notion of Brahman, but perhaps also with the more esoteric idea of Shakti, since the implicate order is active and creative rather than passive. There are also similarities to Whitehead´s process philosophy. Bohm was originally a leftist, perhaps even a Communist, but later developed a more "idealist" and spiritual understanding of human transformation.  

Some episodes in Bohm's life are rather absurd. Bohm couldn´t get a security clearence to Los Alamos due to suspicion that he was a Communist. Yet, it was his supervisor Robert Oppenheimer who spied for the Russians! This fact is not mentioned in the documentary, though. At the hight of the Cold War, Bohm had to leave the United States for Brazil and the UK, since he refused to testify before the HUAC. Meanwhile, other quantum physicist, including his erstwhile mentor Oppenheimer, decided to simply ignore him after having failed to disprove his alternative version of quantum mechanics. A problem with "Infinite Potential" is that you already need to have a working knowledge of Bohm, Krishnamurti and the basics of quantum physics in order to really appreciate it. 

And yes, the title of my review is a reference to a claim made in the documentary. Apparently, Bohm´s theory became jokingly known as "the hard porn of physics", presumably because his theory was considered "X-rated"... 

Mörkt och splittrande

Det här ser ut som rena dårhuset, eller kanske något slags smygfilmat sektmöte, men det är faktiskt offentligt material, närmare bestämt en sändning från ett möte med "Community Education Council District 2", som är en skolstyrelse i New York City. 

Det här är ett ganska bra exempel på den bisarra småborgerliga hysteri som just nu sveper över USA, där allt och alla blir anklagade för "rasism" på väldigt lösa grunder. Den här typen av närmast maoistiska "struggle sessions" kommer att bli vanligare i takt med att tokvänstern blir alltmer etablerad inom den byråkratiska apparaten. 

Jag vet inte vad ni tycker, men det här är INTE något jag vill ha hit till Sverige. Någon måtta får det väl vara på den amerikanska kulturimporten. Observera än en gång att det här är alltså är myndighetspersoner... 

Amerikanska medier beskrev Donald Trumps tal vid Mount Rushmoore som "mörkt och splittrande" (dark and divisive), men trumpen låter ju som ett under av rationalitet jämfört med de här galningarna!

Ryssland och Kina skrattar åt USA. 

Cancel Joe Biden

When will the woke mob cancel this racist basement-dweller? Asking for a friend named Donald. 

Joe Biden says leave Washington and Columbus statues alone

It takes a cult to remain sane

I do realize that the Socialist Equality Party (formerly known as the Workers´ League) is weird and cultish, but it seems it takes a cult to remain sane at a time like this. Therefore, without further ado, I introduce to you...the SEP´s attack on the crackpots who want to tear down Lincoln statues?!

Racial-communalist politics and the second assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Without apologies

Several feminists have been "cancelled" lately due to supposed "transphobia". Among them J K Rowling. However, there is a *very* significant difference between these feminists and the males who are cancelled by the woke mob. The males often grovel before their accusers, say they are sorry, claim to really-really love Blacks, women, Muslims, trans-people or whoever they have been accused of not loving. "Transphobic" feminists, by contrast, never apologize. 

Hmmm...

Sure wonder why that would be?

It´s almost as if feminists (or women) have a vested interest in the topic, somehow. Which implies that the males who pretend to love Blacks, women, Muslims or trans-people *don´t really* have a vested interest in the fate of Blacks, women, Muslims or trans-people. That´s why they can take whatever position is most opportune at the moment on such topics.

Womyn, lesbian womyn in particular, can´t. They must stand where they stand.

As I said, sure wonder why... 

Welcome to the crisis

Erika Bjerström is a Swedish reporter and former environmentalist activist. "Klimatkrisens Sverige" is her recently published book about the climate crisis. Or rather the climate crisis in Sweden. It´s interesting comparing it to Jonathan Jeppson´s "Åtta steg mot avgrunden", reviewed by me elsewhere, another book on the climate crisis published in 2020 by a Swedish journalist. Jeppson´s book sounds apocalyptic, while Bjerström describes the climate crisis as something creeping and gradual. Ironically, this actually makes her book *more* scary than Jeppson´s. Although I don´t doubt that climate change could lead to apocalyptic consequences, the apocalypse meme as such feels old and worn out. We are being sold one every other week, it seems. But what if climate change is instead a slow decline that sneaks up on us, becoming "the new normal", until it´s suddenly too late? (Btw, I don´t believe Jeppson and Bjerström necessarily disagrees on the facts. I´m refering more to the general atmosphere of their respective books.) 

Sweden is warming twice as fast as the global average, since the country is situated very far north. The average temperature has increased with 1.7 degrees centigrade compared to preindustrial times. The climate zones in Sweden are moving north with about eleven meters per day. In the future, the mountain ranges in northern Sweden will no longer have an Alpine climate. The tree line has moved steadily upwards, with 230 meter in 100 years. The pristine Alpine landscape will be turned into an enormous forest of conifers and birches. More rain will make mosquitos and flies super-abundant. One of Sweden´s foremost tourist attractions will be turned into "a shrubby mosquito hell". In Abisko national park, the local Arctic flora and fauna is heading for a mass extinction. The average temperatures in the park have increased with two degrees since 1913. Trees now grow at places where there have been none for 7,000 years! Meanwhile, Swedish glacials have lost one third of their total area since 1916. The growing season in the Arctic has increased with four weeks in a century, according to detailed studies made in Abisko. The plants become higher, the winters milder. When the permafrost thaws, quicksilver leaks out into the food chain. This can eventually lead to detrimental consequences for both reindeer and the Native Sami population. The entire reindeer herding business might disappear, for this and other climate-related reasons. 

Climate scientists predict that the annual average temperatures in Sweden will increase with 3 to 5 degrees until the end of the century. In northern Sweden, the increase might be 10 degrees! There will on average be more rainfall, although it´s possible that some areas will become drier instead. Heat waves will increase in numbers, more people will die of the heat and various diseases which thrive in warmer climactic conditions. Due to disturbances in the jet stream, both high-pressure and low-pressure areas might "get stuck" above Sweden for longer periods than usual, leading to extreme weather. Clean water will become more scarce as groundwater supplies are diminished, lakes turn dystrophic, or becomes poisoned by cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Warmer water temperatures means more virus and bacteria. Swedish towns built around lakes and rivers are flooded already today, and this too will only get worse in the future. Of course, water purification and air conditioning will still be operational - but this requires enormous amounts of energy, and might led to higher energy prices. 

Another problem are "invasive species". The author does point out that such species are invasive only from a utilitarian human viewpoint. Nature doesn´t have a "viewpoint" at all, it´s simply out there. Ticks can already be found all over Sweden. More ominous are the "monster ticks" Hyalomma marginatum and Hyalomma rufipes, which can spread dangerous tropical diseases such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. But Sweden is also invaded by regular tick species from Russia, which live by sucking blood from farm animals, often spreading disease in the process. Aphids are spreading in the new climate. The profitable Swedish forest industry could in the near future be attacked by the emerald ash borer and a moth known as black arches. They could also destroy city parks. Blueberries and lingonberries might disappear from Swedish forests, devastating another local industry. Other plant species will thrive: ferns, nettles or the Asian knotweed, which grows everywhere and slowly kills all other vegetation. 

Swedish agriculture was for a long time in denial about the consequences of global warming. It was rather seen as an excellent opportunity to introduce soy, quinoa and edible maize, three cash crops not grown in Sweden at present. Today, such dreams have been replaced by cold (or rather hot) realities. Climate change will lead to bad harvests. The production of dairy products, meat and beer will also be negatively impacted. Consumer prices will rise. Sweden has a self-sufficiency rate of only 45%, having an extremely globalized economy dependent on international supply chains (including food). A more ironic effect of climate change will be that the most privileged people in Sweden will be hit first by rising sea levels (in the so-called Third World, it´s usually the poorest that are impacted first). The luxury houses at Falsterbo in southern Sweden might be literally flooded at some point in the future, destroying property valued at a total of 70 billion kronor! 

While Bjerström´s book is about local conditions in Sweden, it´s obviously impossible to avoid the global big picture. At some point, the area around the Mediterranean Sea will become literally impossible to inhabit, due to average temperatures around 40 degrees centigrade. And even before that, agriculture will become almost impossible. Millions of people from southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East will move northwards, where the climate - despite everything I just said above - will still be tolerable compared to Mediterranean standards. They will be followed by even larger migrations from the tropics, which will also become uninhabitable. What will happen to Swedish democracy and hospitality when tens of millions of refugees want to get inside, perhaps desperately? One of the scientists interviewed by the author suggests that 50 million people might live in Sweden without any problems! (Today, Sweden has a population of 9 million.) Clearly a pro-immigration fanatic, since 50 million people *obviously* isn´t sustainable given all other facts mentioned in the book (and here above in the blog post). As a good liberal, Bjerström never calls for closed borders, but it´s difficult to see how this can be avoided already at much lower levels than 50 million. The book ends with some comic relief: an interview with an official optimist named Svante Axelsson who believes that of course we can solve all problems, blah blah.

My main take away from "Klimatkrisens Sverige" is that Nature will always find a way, even in the Anthropocene. The real challenge is for modern civilization, or at the very least the human species, to survive the coming storms. As long as the changes are as gradual as described in this volume, it´s still within the realm of the possible to adapt to them. Which doesn´t mean it will be easy! It requires a degree of national solidarity and resolve not seen in this country for a very long time. The problem, of course, is that Sweden ultimately cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world, or the rest of the atmosphere. Indeed, our little country might become a *very* valuable piece of real estate when the tropics and sub-tropics are emptied of human inhabitants, most of them moving north. Another problem is of course that the collapse will come even faster if we really would stop using fossil fuels tomorrow morning, suggesting that it won´t be done. The very same fossil fuels that "fuel" climate change in the first place... 

Perhaps the differences between Erika Bjerström and Jonathan Jeppson aren´t that large, after all. 

Time to die

"Åtta steg mot avgrunden. Vårt framtida liv på planeten" is a book by Jonathan Jeppson, an editor at the Swedish daily Aftonbladet and a reporter covering topics related to climate change. In translation, the main title reads "Eight steps towards the abyss." The book combines factual descriptions of the climate emergency with reflections rooted in the author´s own personal and professional crises (including the suicide of a sibling at the age of 17). Jeppson forthrightly says that he wrote it as a kind of personal therapy. If the author is right, the rest of us will need something much stronger than therapy during the decades ahead! 

The book is extremely dismaying, and essentially says that humanity is screwed. We´re not going to make it. Melting glaciers, rises in sea level, extreme weather events, more tsunamis, the return of smallpox (when the corpses of buried victims in Siberia reemerge due to the thawing of the permafrost), more and larger forest fires...the list of problems or potential problems triggered by global warming seems almost endless. Add to this peak oil, peak fish, general limits to growth, and the idiot optimism of the establishment!

Jeppson tears apart the late Hans Rosling´s book "Factfulness" (Rosling was a Danish professor), a typical example of official optimism. Rosling seems to think that increased consumption is a good thing, oblivious to the fact that this is connected to environmental degradation and climate change. Some of Rosling´s factoids proving eternal capitalist progress are downright comic, such as a graph about "the number of guitars per capita". It turns out that the guitars are made by illegally harvested timber, often from threatened species of trees! Rosling also gleefully points to Mozambique (sic) as a nation with a bright future - after all, its long coast at the Indian Ocean must be excellent for a thriving tourist industry. Jeppson points out that Mozambique was hit by a cyclon when Rosling´s book was published, killing thousands and making 1.9 million people dependent on foreign aid. Tropical storms are believed to be more abundant due to climate change. The tourists probably won´t go to Mozambique...

Our splendid politicians do nothing, the global usage of coal actually *increases* (largely due to China), CCS is a "zombie technology" (it´s been disproven many times but nevertheless raises from the grave at a semi-regular basis), and so-called green energy is dependent on rare earth minerals (many mined in China) and produces enormous amounts of waste. Add to this about one billion climate refugees within a couple of decades. Small wonder Jeppson believes that humanity is, more or less, on the verge of extinction. In about 150 years, we might even get a new "Permian mass extinction" in which 90% of all species of living organisms will simply die out due to global warming in overdrive.

The only thing I can say after reading "Åtta steg mot avgrunden" is that I sincerely hope the climate change denialists will be proven right, and we can all go home around 2030. Don´t count on it, however. If Jeppson is right, not even dragon ships might save us in the end...

Cracid extravaganza

"Curassows and related birds" is a 476-page volume published in 2004 by Lynx Edicions (Spain) and the American Museum of Natural History. The birds in question are curassows, chachalacas and guans. Together they form the family Cracidae within the order Galliformes. They are thus evolutionary cousins of chickens, turkeys and pheasants. 

The work is a new and fully updated edition of a book originally published in 1973 (under the same title). Most of the original text and illustrations are included in the 2004 version. The authors of the original version were Jean Delacour and Dean Amadon, the paintings were provided by Albert Earl Gilbert and others. The original was sponsored by John H Phipps, a Florida businessman and polo player who supported various conservationist projects. The 2004 edition has been updated by Joseph del Hoyo and Anna Motis. Del Hoyo is the chief editor of the multi-volume "Handbook of the Birds of the World" (HBW), and wrote the chapter on curasows and their allies. He is considered a leading expert on cracids.

The cracids are found in South and Central America. Many species are threatened by extinction at the hands of humans. They are tame, hunted for their meat by the rural population, and many live in the Amazon. The good news is that two species believed to be extinct in 1973 were later rediscovered! 

Just like HBW, "Curasows and related birds" is an information overload extravaganza. It includes essentially everything there is to know about cracids: the wing-drumming mating display of the guans, variations in the windpipe (trachea), wattles and other beak ornamnets, hybridization... The systematics of this group is frequently confusing, with unclear numbers of species, subspecies and even superspecies. The species presentations contain information on range, habitat, nesting and birds in captivity. 

It´s obvious that the teams making this book looked pretty much everywhere for facts pertaining to cracids. Sometimes, *they* were involved in the original research. Thus, we learn that a pair of chestnut-winged chachalacas were sent to Delacour already in 1910. And who could have imagined that some children once stole the eggs of a nesting bare-faced curassows from the zoo at Chester, England? (Not clear whether some of the authors´ kids were involved!) There is also a discussion about whether the rufous-vented chachalaca was introduced by humans to the Grenadines (quoting a letter from 1925) and if so, when it happened. I believe the update says Tobago during the late 1600´s. Some cracids still have secrets: nothing is known about the breeding of the chestnut-bellied guan in Brazil and Bolivia. 

The color plates are spectacular. The plates from the original version have been kept, and new plates show downy chicks of many species. The new edition also includes the cracid plates from "Handbook of the Birds of the World". 

Recommended, even if you are completely uninterested in Cracidae and their ultimate fate. The book is so well-produced that it´s a "must have" for all book collectors! 

God on the couch

"Answer to Job" is a slightly bizarre book, written by controversial Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. It contains Jung´s analysis (pun intended) of the Biblical "Book of Job", or perhaps his answer to the unfortunate Job. Jung apparently feared that the book would be considered both heretical and blasphemous by many readers. He was probably right on that score. Often, he comes across psychoanalyzing God! To paraphrase C S Lewis, Jung is placing God on the couch. Ironically, however, Jung´s answer to Job is even worse than the standard Christian one...

Jung´s central claim is that both good and evil comes from God. There is a fundamental dualism or antinomy within God´s own nature between light and darkness. Originally, Yahweh was completely amoral, had contradictory feelings (often evil and destructive ones), and absolutely no self-insight. Yahweh is an "unvarnished spectacle of divine savagery and ruthlessness". Job´s cry for a Vindicator expresses a faith in the duality of God, that God has a good side alongside the evil-amoral side with which he crushes Job. However, Yahweh himself is unconscious of the contradictions within himself. He is obsessed with the object (humanity) precisely because he has no insight nor self-reflection as a subject. Yahweh needs humans to become conscious of himself, and in this sense, humans are in a sense "higher" than God. Job was the first human to realize God´s antinomy. By dint of his morality, Job is higher than the stars and sees "the back of Yahweh", the "sherds" (kelipot), i.e. Yahweh´s evil aspects. 

Yahweh has forgotten his original unity with Sophia in the pleroma. He is constantly tricked by Satan. However, God´s failure to corrupt Job, his most faithful follower, has cleansed the divine nature. God realized that Job was higher than him, and that he must therefore become man himself. God´s nature changes when he incarnates as Jesus. Jung interpreted Mary as an incarnation of Sophia, God´s long-lost partner. Satan was banished from Heaven only at the time of the incarnation. This makes God good and just. Jesus suffered on the cross as a reparation for a wrong done by God to man. 

However, there is still a risk that the dark side might come back. This is proven by the Lord´s Prayer in which humans ask God not to lead them into temptation. Another piece of evidence is Paul, who was a split personality, at the same time both an apostle and a sinner. An even better example is the murder and mayhem in the Book of Revelation! Ultimately, however, Jung embraces and affirms the antinomy within God. "Salvation" and "redemption" means to become conscious of God´s "oppositeness" and experience torment and suffering just as God does. For this reason, Jung dislikes the last chapters of Revelation, where God once again becomes wholly good and identifies with his pneumatic (and pleromatic) side. The Biblical apocalypse isn´t a "reconciliation of the opposites", but rather their final severance. Bizarrely, this is unacceptable to Jung, who rather wants there to be no solution at all, the antinomy being eternal. His concept of the Divine is really pantheistic, but a pantheism leaning towards the dark and infernal side of existence. 

"Answer to Job" could be read as a dramatic metaphor for Jung´s version of psychoanalysis. Does it also tell us something about God? That´s less likely. Had I been a complete skeptic, I would have argued that Jacob Böhme´s mysticism (probably one source of inspiration for Jung´s book) is really a warped description of the individual unconscious, and how the Self and goodness arise from a psyche that is originally in chaotic turmoil. Since I´m not, I might as well offer the following speculation: yes, the being Jung calls "Yahweh" or "God" has indeed forgotten his origins in the pleroma, but that´s because he *isn´t* God to begin with but rather the Demiurge or World-Soul which has to gradually win its way back to the pleroma. In general, I think Jung (who in my opinion was an occultist rather than a scientist) was too oriented "downwards", towards spiritual dimensions that are disctinctly unpleasant. 

I´m not sure if that counts as a good answer, neither to Job nor to God... 

Crickets

I previously posted an ironic mock review of this book. Now I´m ready to review it for real!

The book´s title is "Field Guide to Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Crickets of the United States" by John L Capinera, Ralph D Scott and Thomas J Walker. It was published in 2004. It really is a field guide to Caelifera and Ensifera (and hence Orthoptera), describing about one third of the species found in the United States (or perhaps North America minus Mexico - the book isn´t entirely clear on this point). 

After a detailed general introduction to orthopterans, the reader can immerse himself in species presentations, which include drawings of cerci, supra-analplates and furculae. There are also diagrams of the "song" of some orthopterans. Color plates showing most of the described species form a separate section in the middle of the volume. 

I have to say that orthopterans have extremely long and colorless vernacular names. How about glassy-winged toothpick grasshopper, leather-colored bird grasshopper, and common short-winged katydid. Let me guess, it´s common, short-winged and indeed a katydid? But OK, I did find some names that were entertaining: mischievous bird grashopper, Mormon cricket, differential grasshopper, ponderous spurt-throated grasshopper and handsome Florida grashopper. LOL! 

The Mormon cricket is the critter from the well known "Miracle of the Gulls", but this piece of ethnographic lore is not mentioned by the authors. 

I readily admit that I have no idea whether this field guide is good or bad, not being particularly interested in grasshoppers, katydids or crickets (not even Mormon ones), and at the first sight of a gryllacridoid I would probably start running in the other direction! But that´s me. 

If you are some kind of super-nerd, or perhaps a gull, this might come in handy on a shiny summer day somewhere in the Sierras...