The Divine is real, I have pics to prove it

 

Good riddance, 2020

 

I think it was Time magazine which recently said that 2020 is the "worst year ever". The chutzpah of the establishment is boundless. Last time I looked, it was *they* who made 2020 the "worst year ever" by deliberately crashing the economy, transferring billions from workers and small businesses to banks and giant corporations, calling out their stormtroopers to burn down about a dozen American cities, and with outmost probability rigging the elections when the people turned against them... 

And that´s just one country!

Add to that all the structural problems of "the system", sharply revealed by the corona pandemic. 

But sure, after sitting indoors almost an entire year watching the world burn, I´m willing to say "RIP, 2020". Besides, everyone knows the worst year ever was 536 AD! 

Across the ocean

 

"Greta" (called "I am Greta" internationally) is a documentary by Nathan Grossman. It follows teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg from Sweden as she addresses or scolds world leaders, joins protest marches, talks to Arnold Schwarzenegger, meets the Pope of Rome, sails across the Atlantic, and fights her private depressions and anxiety. "Greta" also features the girl´s parents, her father Svante in particular, who seems to be her constant companion and thus something of an activist in his own right.

The documentary is interesting, after a fashion, and I don´t doubt Greta´s sincerity (or that of the others). However, I nevertheless have a problem with it. It´s, ahem, not a documentary sensu stricto. 

In Swedish mainstream media, "Greta" has been heavily promoted as an extremely revealing tell-it-all, and Grossman´s role as silent observer is said to be downright sensational. Except, of course, that it isn´t. Already in 2018, Greta´s mother Malena Ernman published an entire book, "Scener ur hjärtat", which revealed pretty much every problem the family has struggled with for the past 10 years or so. The whole concept of a little girl with emotional problems nevertheless being able to challenge the powerful is part and parcel of the campaign itself. The media likes Greta´s "precocious" and "intelligent" criticism of the world leaders, and her "insight" that they don´t really mean what they say, but this too is part of the campaign, a campaign the purpose of which is to scold the masters of the universe precisely for being insincere, and so on. (Note also that the scolding simply continues, even after the leaders have been "exposed".)

In other words, "Greta" isn´t sensational objective reporting. *It is PR material from the climate change campaign itself*. Which may or may not rub you the wrong way, presumably depending on your political inclinations.

My own inclination when it comes to the climate change campaigns are pretty pessimistic. The demand to simply stop using fossil fuel (or cut it by half) is clearly utopian. It simply won´t happen, since it would turn planet Earth into a pretty good imitation of a low budget zombie flick faster than you can say "Anuna de Wever". The problem, of course, is that *not* stopping fossil fuels will eventually *also* turn this rock into a hard place (unless our scientists have some *really* good solution up their sleeves - let them now step forward). Add to that overpopulation and diminishing resources, including (ironically enough) oil. 

The perspective is one of more resource wars, perhaps even some kind of eco-wars, super-exploitation of remaining resources, refugee crises, pandemics, and illiberal regimes demanding that the people "tighten their belts" because of the crisis. It´s very difficult to see how a left-liberal reform campaign for more wind turbines can possibly stop this avalanche. But then, it´s difficult to see how anything else can possibly stop it either, short of the Second Coming of Christ!

And, of course, that´s just a myth. 

If humanity solves the problem of climate change, it will be solved in the bumbling, fumbling, messy, imperfect way in which humanity always solves its problems...until the next crisis. Nazi Germany and the Axis weren´t defeated by the Quakers, the White Rose or even Herschel Grynszpan. They were smashed by terror bombings and nuclear bombs, administered by an alliance of the world´s largest colonial empire, a butcher almost worse than Hitler, a nation with race segregation over a large portion of its territory, and a whole bunch of fascist turncoats. Otherwise known as "the Allies". And this was actually a pretty neat scenario, all things considered. Don´t get me started on how Communism was defeated...

On the basis of the above, you can probably make out how climate change might be taken care of. 

The Castaneda cult

A disturbing article, claiming that Carlos Castaneda wasn't just a literary hoax.

He may actually have been the leader of a suicide cult!

Oh, and note that the "founder" of Castaneda's alt-religion was a purely fictitious character. So yes, Siri, such things do happen...

The dark legacy of Carlos Castaneda

Performing postmodernism

"What is New Materialism?" is an introductory essay on the matter by Christopher N Gamble, Joshua S Hanan and Thomas Nash. It deals with a revolutionary new approach in Continental Philosophy. Yes, folks, the French (and their Californian hangers-on) have discovered the existence of an objective mind-independent outside world. And they're not happy? (Thanks for noticing, by the way.)

The authors believe that the term "New Materialism" has become a broad umbrella for several quite distinct currents of thought. There is "speculative realism" and "object-oriented ontology" (a.k.a. OOO) which seems most consistent in actually believing in a purely material world "out there", a world which moreover seems fundamentally alien to human understanding. From this, the former postmodernists have drawn extremely pessimistic conclusions. Essentially, we are all doomed to perish in a "post-human" world we can't even begin to comprehend. So unless we can become everything we like to be just by "constructing" it (the usual postmodern position), we might as well jump into the lake?

Another form of New Materialism is dubbed "vitalist" by the authors. It's associated with the notorious Gilles Deleuze. His philosophy seems to be a postmodern form of Bergson's creative evolution. But while Bergson believed in a kind of teleology, one possible for humans to divine, Deleuze took the position that "anything goes", a more congenial take from the vantage point of postmodern identity politics (and also from that of the current neoliberal-left liberal hybrid status quo). The authors have another criticism of the French thinker, however. They believe that his vitalism is really a form of dualism, that the vital form is an un-constructed "essence", and that somehow Deleuze therefore prioritizes a perspective based on this vital force. For instance, he prioritizes life over death!

The authors want to take a philosophical stance that doesn't prioritize any perspective above any other, in other words a "posthumanism" that sees "agency" everywhere, even in unanimate things. Nor should there be any dualism between life and death. Also, "indigenous ways of knowledge" should be upgraded.

The authors call their alternative "performative New Materialism". At first glance, it looks like an interesting metaphysic. It could perhaps be described as a dynamic form of pantheism in which the dualism between matter and spirit is completely done away with in favor of seeing "matter" (or rather reality-stuff) as inherently active or "alive". Perhaps we could call it animatism? Life, death, brute matter, spirit...everything is "performed" by the reality-stuff. I'm sure a Vajrayana Buddhist might find this interesting. 

However, the authors then make a hasty and dramatic retreat. They declare that performative New Materialism is a purely "regional" ontology, and absolutely "not a metaphysic". So what is it, then? I have a guess. It's simply the old postmodernist position dressed up in new clothes. The position that humans can construct whatever identity and reality they feel like, since (at least regionally - in our region of space, presumably) "matter" is whatever we like it to be, is the position the "speculative realists" want to move away from. 

It seems postmodernism comes back through the window, if you throw it out through the door! 

Link:

What is New Materialism?

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO MY AMERICAN READERS

 

Right-wing hippie FINALLY making sense

 

Finally, after a hard two years or something, Styx is making some sense in this clip about alien intelligence, titled "No, we´re not alone". 

My take on Fermi´s paradox is that intelligent life is very common in the cosmos, but most such species look like whales, and are perfectly happy chilling in a primordial green sea under a binary star, rather than building fucking radio beams to communicate with some bipedal bipolar douchebags in another galaxy...

😎

The vindication of Christmas

 

From Wikipedia: 

>>However, in 17th century England, some groups such as the Puritans, strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast".

>>Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647. Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.

>>In Colonial America, the Pilgrims of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas.The Plymouth Pilgrims put their loathing for the day into practice in 1620 when they spent their first Christmas Day in the New World working – thus demonstrating their complete contempt for the day.Non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England.Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659.

Hmmm...

Every year around December 25, I become very High Church!

In the land of the political chameleons

This blog has a rather obvious love-hate relationship with World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), the cyber-incarnation of David North's Socialist Equality Party (SEP), better known to Trot-watchers under its old name, the Workers League (WL).

Here we go again. This is a polemic against a "Morenoite" group in Brazil (perhaps the Brazilian co-thinkers of the Argentine ex-homosexual faction) concerning alternative medicine in general and HCQ in particular, with WSWS opposing the drug in question. Note that their polemical target is a former Posadista!

OK, I admit that I couldn't help myself linking to this...

Trotskyist polemix at their proletarian best. 

Morenoite-Posadista blocs with Bolsonaro

At the Rubicon with Donald Trump

 

This is not really a "prediction", since predictions seem off the table in 2020. Or 2021! Rather, it´s a reflection about the possibilities.

I don´t think the current tug-of-war between Trump and Biden´s handlers will be solved by Trump "crossing the Rubicon", declaring martial law, or something to that effect. He simply doesn´t have that kind of support. The Democrats oppose him and control the House. They may soon control the Senate, as well. Many people in the military top brass are opposed to Trump, and the same is true of the foreign policy establishment and the intelligence community. SCOTUS and that fat pig Mitch McConnell have already betrayed him. Inside the White House, Jared Kushner and Ivanka are essentially liberals. 

So unless Trump has some *really* good aces up his sleave (preferably both of them), the Dems and the RINOs will kick him out before January 20. Note also that the Dems and the GOP aren´t yet *that* far apart, despite all the election hysteria. The corona bail out was adopted *unanimously* by Congress, and the new corona bail out already has bipartisan support. Both mostly favor big business, showing who is *really* in charge...

There is still a large amount of whiggle room for BAU.

So what could Trump do to turn the situation around? There does seem to be one possibility. If Trump has conclusive evidence that China heavily interfered in the US election process, he could perhaps put pressure on SCOTUS, Congress and/or state Congresses to recognize the GOP-appointed "dueling electors" and hence stay in power. However, it would have to be really good evidence, so good that it´s almost a causus belli against China. Otherwise, the BAU Republicans won´t be swayed, and neither will the military. And even that might not work, since a large portion of the US establishment works with China and presumably doesn´t want a war with that nation. 

That the Biden team is now bullshitting about Russia again perhaps shows that they suspect what Trump´s strategy could be. Also, how strong is Trump himself? Isn´t this the same Trump who was hiding in the White House bunker during the riots at the advice of Kushner? Does he have what it takes to cross the Rubicon? Or will he just grab his supporters´ money and run with them, in a gigantic Rubi-Con?

None of the above means that there will be a "reset" to the situation pre-Trump. The United States is clearly stuck up shit creek without a paddle. The Democrats have spent four years trying to delegitimize the 2016 elections. Now, Trump will probably spend four years trying to delegitimize the 2020 ditto. None of the problems which made Trump possible have been dealt with. They are rather getting worse and worse. 

The Democrats have nothing to offer except mass unemployment, corona bail outs for the rich, new wars that will destabilize the rest of the world and lead to more terrorism and refugee crises, and an increasingly authoritarian "liberalism" pandering to the bizarre pastimes of the White suburban Karen class and their psychologically disturbed children. How this is going to stop a Trump Mark II (or the Mark of the Beast) is extremely unclear, although I suppose mail-in ballots might do the trick for another three or four elections...

The downward trajectory of the United States will continue, whoever wins the present jousting about the White House. 

I never thought I would miss America. But then, who knows, maybe I really won´t... 

The diamond of reincarnation

 

Cyrus Kirkpatrick discusses reincarnation from a somewhat unusual perspective. 

Christmas Protest

 

Just because it´s the Winter Solstice, I just have to wish everyone A MERRY CHRISTMAS. 😈

The aquatic dinosaur

 

"Bigger than T Rex" is a National Geographic documentary about Spinosaurus, the largest predator ever to walk the Earth. Except that it didn´t. New research suggests that Spinosaurus was - wait for it - aquatic! Which actually makes a lot of sense. The dinosaurs were (or are - birds are dinos, remember?) one of the world´s most succesful animal groups. Yet, no fully aquatic dinosaur has ever been found. Until now...

OK, let me guess. The sequel to "Jurassic Park" will be really interesting? 

"Det kommer inte att ske"

Någonting så märkligt som en kritik från vänster av ex-Socialistiska Partiet...märklig, eftersom den är skriven av en grupp socialdemokrater! 

Slå samman Vänsterpartiet och Reformisterna? "Det kommer inte att ske"

THE GRAND MUTATION IS HERE

It's happening as we speak. Of course it's in 2020!

The planet of expansion meets the planet of constriction in an air sign ruled by the planet of crazy.

What could *possibly* go wrong?

Happy Winter Solstice by the way. 

Why hasn't Trump been arrested?

Before the elections, we were told by the Democrats that Trump is an evil Nazi and Russian kompromat asset who will steal the elections by force, and that the 2020 elections were therefore the most important ones in American history...

Well, the Democrats won. So why hasn't the Donald been arrested yet? I mean, he is still president, you know! It's almost as if, I don't know, the Dems were exaggerating just a little bit for propagandistic effect...

Think about it. This must be the first time in world history that an impending Nazi Machtübernahme could be stopped by mail-in voting during a pandemic lock down. American exceptionalism indeed!

Somehow, I find that difficult to believe. Even apart from the fact that no Trumpista stormtroopers were stomping through the Black inner cities on election day, physically stopping citizens from voting...

Yes, there is a tug-of-war between Trump and Biden's handlers over the election results. It started already in 2016. Is it a harbinger of worse things to come? Probably. But as of now, the power struggle is still fought on the terrain of "bourgeois democracy" (the constricted US form of it).

And judging by those election results, the Proud Bois would have been in the wrong hood anyway. Biden's strongest support is in...affluent White suburbs. 

Peace and proxy wars in our time

Joe Biden is taking aim at Russia with the usual Neo-Con/Clintonite sabre-rattling. Translation: al-Qaeda in Syria will finally get those quality drones they been denied for the past four years.

I'm not the biggest fan of Russia or Iran, but somehow I never thought promoting quasi-Wahhabi terrorist networks is the best solution, especially not since the fall out tends to be thousands of dead Americans and Europeans. And millions of dead Mideasterners...

So Biden wants a war with Russia, while Trump is sabre-rattling against China. Meanwhile, Russia and China have formed a de facto military alliance! They also seem more than pleased having a weak leader in La Casa Blanca. Yes, that would be Joe.

But perhaps I'm overthinking this. I mean, the threats to attack other great powers might simply be a brief moment in the shouting match between Biden and Trump, the purpose of which is to scare Liza Murkovsky, Mittens Kittens or Senator Whatever from the East Kansas Agricultural Board to "do the right thing" on Jan 6.

Then, everything will of course go back to normal. 

Right?

The frenzied anti-Russian campaign in anticipation of a Biden presidency

Vi bryter för ett viktigt meddelande

Med anledning av den senaste coronautvecklingen...

Krönika av Wolfgang Hansson i Aftonbladet. 

Spelar det någon roll vad vi gör?

Facing Russia

"The Socialist Alternative to Bolshevik Russia: The Socialist Revolutionary Party, 1921-1939" by Elizabeth White is, despite the general title, a book specifically about the Prague branch of the Right SRs during the period mentioned.

The SRs were one of the largest political parties in Russia before the October revolution, representing the "populist" or "Narodnik" revolutionary tradition, which called for socialism based on the peasantry. Alexander Kerensky, the de facto leader of the Provisional Government, was an SR. Victor Chernov, the speaker of the Constituent Assembly, was also an SR. The Bolsheviks overthrew Kerensky in 1917 and dissolved the Constituent Assembly in 1918...

Under the impact of the October Revolution, the SR Party split in two. The Left SRs supported the Bolsheviks and were briefly part of a Bolshevik-dominated coalition government. They broke with the Bolsheviks during the Civil War. The Right SRs, by contrast, fought the Bolsheviks from the start. Both Kerensky and Chernov were Right SRs. After the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War, Kerensky went to France, while Chernov set up shop in Czechoslovakia. 

The Right SRs were split into several different factions, with the group in Paris being "on the right" within the Party. Their "socialism" was probably nominal. The Paris SRs cooperated with the "bourgeois" Kadet Party and moved closer to religion, seeing Orthodoxy as a genuine expression of Russian national identity. The Prague SRs, by contrast, upheld the socialist-Narodnik line, and represented the SR Party in the Socialist International. They were thus the left wing of the Right SRs! 

Strictly speaking, the Prague SR was a fusion of two factions, the group around Chernov being the most leftist. Chernov had opposed Russian entry into World War I and even participated in the famous radical socialist anti-war conferences in Zimmerwald and Kienthal. The other group consisted of "defensists" who had supported the Russian war effort but broken with the pro-Allied line when the Western powers intervened in Russia during the Civil War to aid the White Guards. (As democratic socialists, the Right SRs had conflicts with both the Bolsheviks and the monarchist Whites.)

Czechoslovakia supported the Right SRs and other Russian emigre groups during the 1920's. The collaboration began during the Russian Civil War, when the Right SRs worked with the Czechoslovak Legions in Siberia. When the Legions finally left Russia, some Right SRs accompanied them. The liberal or moderately socialist Czechoslovak leadership seems to have promoted the Right SR group in Prague above all other Russian factions. The Prague SRs were funded by the Czechoslovak government. Both president Masaryk and future president Benes were personally involved in supporting the Prague SR group. 

Interestingly, most Prague SRs were not impressed by the New Economic Policy or NEP launched by Lenin after the Russian Civil War, despite its supposed "pro-peasant" orientation. They regarded the NEP as a mere tactic, and even criticized it "from the left" for being too capitalist! SR magazines printed articles about peasant resistance in the Soviet Union during the NEP, resistance directed against tax collectors. The lack of democracy and attempts by the Soviet regime to control the cooperative movement were sharply criticized. Most Prague SRs didn't like Bukharin, who had rallied the Bolshevik "masses" against the SRs during the anti-SR trial of 1922. The Prague SRs correctly predicted that the Bolsheviks would abandon NEP, despite the defeat of the United Opposition. However, they didn't expect Stalin's "left" turn to be succesful, instead predicting a collapse of the entire Soviet system. 

Chernov and his sub-faction had a somewhat different line. Chernov was more positive towards Bukharin. Above all, Chernov called for the right of non-Russian territories to leave the Soviet Union. To promote cooperation with non-Russian SRs (above all Ukrainians), he formed the Socialist League of the New East. This provoked a de facto split between the Chernovites and the ex-defensist group. The latter defended the territorial integrity of Russia and opposed non-Russian self-determination with nationalist and chauvinist arguments. 

The split between the two factions making up the Prague SR paralyzed its activities. Chernov's position on Ukrainan self-determination was extremely unpopular in Czechoslovakia, which controlled a territory with an ethnic Ukrainan population, Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. By 1932, the Czechoslovak government had stopped funding both sub-groups of the Prague SR. In 1935, Czechoslovakia recognized the Soviet Union and signed a friendship treaty with it. The Soviets demanded that Benes must curtail Russian emigre activities in Prague. 

The Prague SRs took a "defensist" stance towards the Soviet Union during World War II. Despite this, the SRs who had remained in Prague during the war were arrested by the Soviets and sent to prison camps in the Soviet Union. 

Chernov spent some time in Palestine, fascinated by the "agrarian socialism" of the kibbutzim and moshavim. He was also involved in failed attempts to establish  agricultural communes in Canada and Mexico. Eventually, he settled in the United States. 

Chernov's anti-chauvinist position seems to have been his only redeeming trait. Otherwise, he comes across as an abstract elite intellectual. His analysis of the October Revolution was that Lenin had turned to the Lumpenproletariat. In reality, the "dark masses" of unskilled workers were the majority of the Russian working class. Many of them had only recently left life as impoverished peasants. Note the irony: a "socialist" leader of a "peasant party" repudiating both workers and peasants! 

With that, I close this review. 

China still on socialist road, strengthens unity with Second World!

First Beijing Biden. And now Tienanmen Trudeau!

Canada actually contemplated training the People's Liberation Army in winter warfare techniques until Trump told them not to. 

Wow. Just wow. 

Canada planned winter training with Chinese troops

"Asylrätten har blivit en handelsvara"

Aftonbladet är oroliga för att asylrätten kan komma att försvinna.

Krönika av Wolfgang Hansson. 

Rättigheten som blivit en handelsvara

Kina: globo-liberalernas Frankensteins monster?

Kina har börjat flexa lite mot Australien. Liberala Expressen är oroliga.

Lägg märke till att Expressen erkänner att globaliseringen i Kinas fall inte lett till mer öppenhet och demokrati. Kina verkar vara den nya världsordningens Frankensteins monster. Det verkar som att monstret är löst och har tagit sig "down under"!

Lägg också märke till den positiva synen på Donald Trumps Kina-politik...

Kina mobbar Australien

När botemedlet dödar patienten bredvid

Aftonbladets krönikör Wolfgang Hansson har ju länge agerat som ett slags "förnuftets röst" under den pågående coronapandemin.

Så också i denna krönika där han påpekar att de flesta länder som infört hårda restriktioner *inte* har lyckats stoppa smittspridningen. Undantagna är länder som kombinerar nedstängningen med aggressiv smittspårning och regelrätta karantäner. Exempelvis Kina!

Ett annat problem är givetvis att ekonomin går på knäna, att fler blir arbetslösa, och att den sociala isoleringen leder till fler dödsfall än själva sjukdomen. Hansson talar om framtiden - jag säger att framtiden redan är här!

Jag är inte "mot" nedstängningarna, per se, men man måste kunna ha en demokratisk diskussion om olika åtgärder när det verkar som att medicinen dödar patienten...eller patienten bredvid.

Kräva hårdare åtgärder är det enkla

Styr druider och frimurare Älmhult?

Just när man trodde att man sett allt, eller åtminstone det mesta...

Styrs Piteå och Älmhult i själva verket av frimurare och, host host, "druider"?

Druider? I Norrbotten år 2020. *Efter* Kristus?

Åååååkej. ☮️

Styr druider och frimurare Älmhult?

Hemliga män styr hel stad

Is "Beijing Biden" on the list?

Oh no, it seems the Red Menace is real, after all! Or was it the Jade Peril?

Not clear whether Uncle Biden or that prodigal son of his are on the list, though. 

Major leak "exposes" members and "lifts the lid" on the Chinese Communist Party

Strasser of the Week

Or perhaps this week's anti-Strasser? The weirdly misnamed Jacobin magazine - actually a front for the DSA - takes on the latest American oxymoron: "pro-worker" conservatism. Or is it?

The siren song of "pro-worker" conservatism

It was all a lie

A leftist or liberal comes clean and admits that all the alarmism about Trump being a Nazi dictator in waiting was just bullshit. Otherwise known as "Democratic Party propaganda". 

To manipulate the leftists, perhaps? It seems to have worked just fine!

These guys are laughing at you. 

But sure, I could be wrong. Maybe the Simulation still has some surprises in store for us...

If so, I'll graciously pardon the author of this article. Then, I'll laugh.

It's all over, Trump wasn't an evil genius after all

Lurking in the shadows

An interesting little piece by Michael Tracey. My take on the situation is that the current American system is slowly sinking, and that a Trump "shadow presidency" is just another example...

Enter Trump: America's first shadow president

Everything is possible: The Strange Journey of Georges Valois

"From Fascism to Libertarian Communism: Georges Valois against the Third Republic" by Allen Douglas is a book about Georges Valois (1878-1945), a French political activist with a very colorful career. Valois started out as an anarchist, turned to monarchism and fascism, only to rejoin the far left later in life. Indeed, he is one of the few people I'm familiar with who evolved from right-wing to left-wing activism at a fairly advanced age. Valois died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.

As a young man, Valois saw himself as an anarchist rebel, but was soon drawn to the more constructive side of anarchist ideology in the form of Kropotkin and anarcho-syndicalism. His first political mentor was Ferdinand Pelloutier, his second (more ominously) was Georges Sorel. When breaking with leftist syndicalism, Valois would join the monarchist and proto-fascist Action francaise headed by Charles Maurras. He also became a Catholic. Sorel, too, expressed some sympathy for Maurras. During the 1920's, Valois founded an explicitly fascist party, La Faisceau, which seems to have clashed with the Action francaise even more often than it fought leftist. I mean that quite literally: both Valois and Maurras had access to impatient young men functioning as stormtroopers... 

During the 1930's, Valois went back to a form of revolutionary syndicalism and libertarian communism, while maintaining an ecumenic outreach to all leftist currents except the most reformist ones. He also left the Church and seems to have become an atheist. 

Douglas is clearly fascinated by Valois, but can't really explain his peculiar political gyrations. Perhaps no explanation is readily available. He describes Valois as a "utopian", constantly working on blueprints for a future society. Did he think too much? Like many other utopians, Valois had a tendency to "take an idea and run with it", in his case currency reform. He was something of a "money freak", obsessed with the gold standard, although I have to admit that I often don't understand what on earth the man was talking about! And while Douglas paints Valois as a fairly conservative family man, he did have a mercurial streak in his personality. Why would a young anarchist travel to Russia and work as a tutor in an aristocratic family? Why did he abdicate leadership responsibility in order to work at a plantation in Reunion, or in order to walk on foot from Paris to Lourdes as a Catholic pilgrimage? His whole approach to politics and coalition building was unpredictable and eclectic. He was also a litigious person, but so where his opponents. Perhaps this is typically French? 

Interestingly, Valois was for the creation of Red-Brown blocs as a right-wing activist. As a leftist, by contrast, he warned against all forms of collaboration with fascism, and perceptively realized that some reformist "neosocialists" (such as Henri de Man) could end up becoming fascists - which they indeed did. Valois thus wasn't a "Red-Brown leftist". He really did change almost his entire worldview when returning to the left. As a monarchist reactionary, he had opposed the French revolution, while extolling the virtues of hierarchy, war and tradition. And yes, he was anti-Semitic. His philosophy had been a pessimistic one. Humans are by nature lazy, and all progress is therefore the result of stern leadership (including the whip) over the mediocre masses. As a leftist, by contrast, Valois was optimistic, dreaming of progress and a coming space age. He opposed war, militarism and hierarchy in favor of a society based on mutual aid. 

Yet, there was *some* kind of continuity even in the mind of this strange Frenchman! One was the fixation with monetary reform. After abandoning the pro-gold "deflationist" position when he turned left, he actually went back to a gold bug position while still a leftist. Another constant was an orientation to winning the working class, something Valois never seem to have accomplished in any of his political incarnations. Still another common theme is the idea that the state shouldn't direct the economy. During his right-wing period, he certainly saw the state as necessary, but economic life should be in the hands of "corporations" (in the corporativist sense). As a libertarian communist, he would rather dispense with the state altogether in favor of syndicates (labor unions), cooperatives, etc. By contrast, state planning was "plutocratic" and opened the door to fascism (and Stalinism). It's also interesting to note that Valois used biological metaphors both during his far right and far left phases. As a leftist, he argued that the human body functions "democratically" due to energetic factors. 

Final point about my copy of this book. It's apparently a print on demand edition, and it seems the printer made a weird mistake. Under the same cover, there are two books, the other one being "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy" by none other than Nikola Tesla! I'm sure Georges Valois would have approved of the sentiment... 

Lies blancos tell themselves

I often wondered how small groups of Spanish conquistadors could defeat the most powerful New World empires within months, or why the Natives were so naive that they actually thought the conquistadors were gods... 

OK, here's a clue, blanquito. It didn't happen that way... 

Mathew Restall tells the story in "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest". Apart from some unfortunate nods to postmodernism in the introduction, the book is quite good and really does "deconstruct" the pervasive tall tales about the Spanish conquista. 

The book speaks for itself, but here are some of the highlights. 

Columbus wasn't a lone genius in a hostile and uncomprehending world. Actually, he was one of many players in a process of exploration and conquest that was much larger than himself. Indeed, he might just have been lucky. The cult of Columbus is mostly modern, driven by Italian and Irish immigrants in the United States. The Admiral of the Ocean Sea wasn't even on bad terms with Amerigo Vespucci! 

Cortes and the conquistadors defeated the mighty Mexica (Aztec) Empire with the aid of Native warriors. Their exact number is unknown. Figures range from 6,000 to 100,000 or even 200,000. Cortes took the lead in what could almost be seen as a Native civil war. Nor was Cortes unique in this regard. It was standard Spanish policy to recruit Native allies. One of the main reasons why the Conquest was succesful was Native disunity. The Inca Empire fell for the same reason. 

Did the "Indians" see the Whites as gods? Probably not. The story of how Moctezuma mistook Cortes for Quetzalcoatl is Fransiscan propaganda. And while its true that Moctezuma's speech at his first meeting with Cortes sounded extremely deferential ("my empire belongs to you now"), this was simply standard diplomatic protocol among the Aztecs. Restall also points out that the definition of "god" was much broader in the New World cultures than among Christian monotheists. The Native rulers themselves were "gods". Jealous gods with no intention of sharing power... 

On one point, the standard narrative is true. The Americas did experience a demographic collapse due to Old World disease. Tenochtitlan fell in large part because a smallpox epidemic decimated the city's defenders. Smallpox reached Peru even before the conquistadors did. Despite the deadly epidemics, Native culture in Mesoamerica and the Andes proved remarkably resilient. Only the first phase of the Conquest was swift and dramatic. It took centuries before the Spanish had really "pacified" their colonies. The Spanish and various Native elite groups often interacted with each other in complex ways. The "Indians" didn't really disappear. They simply adapted to the new conditions. 

Even details in the standard narrative are bunk. No, the Natives weren't afraid of horses. Gunpowder was mostly useless in the tropical climate. The Spanish *did* have superior weapons, though: their excellent steel swords! And while the Spanish were, of course, brutal conquerors, they were hardly irrational. Their seemingly crazy "thirst for gold" was a rational economic activity, since gold was indeed the most important currency in early modern Europe... 

The author ends by pointing out that the Conquista, despite everything, wasn't an absolutely unique or uniquely important event in world history. In the bigger scheme of things, it was part of a global process of late medieval and early modern empire-building, which started with the Russians and Ottomans, and which even included the Aztecs and the Incas themselves. Their empires, after all, were established during the same period. Even in Europe, the Spanish were late-comers, Portugal being the original European global power during the period in question. The author believes that this phase of globalized conquest and food control is still ongoing... 

An interesting perspective! 

Recommended. 

The Fire of the Phoenix

Queen Christina (or Kristina) was the ruling monarch of Sweden from 1644 to 1654. Her father Gustavus Adolphus (Gustav II Adolf) had been a prominent Protestant leader during the Thirty Year War, during which he was killed in battle. During the war, Protestant Sweden became a regional great power. It therefore created quite a stir when the great warrior-king's successor abdicated her throne, left Sweden and converted to Catholicism! Christina died in 1689, and is one of the few women buried in the Church of St Peter in Rome.

However, it seems that everything wasn't quite right with the former Queen's conversion. Already during her lifetime, there were rumours that Christina was a lesbian, a libertine and a pantheist. The rumours haven't subsided since. Was she "intersex", an atheist, or the lover of a Roman cardinal? There are other, even stranger, whisperings as well. A mysterious alchemical monument in Rome, Porta magica, is associated with the renegade queen. Unknown personages from a foreign land supposedly helped her in her alchemical laboratory before vanishing. Today, an initiate of the Golden Dawn claims to have a letter in the queen's own handwriting confirming that she was an Adept of the arcane arts...but refuses to publish the document.

"Fenixelden: Drottning Kristina som alkemist" is a book by Susanna Åkerman, taking us deep into the maze surrounding the royal maverick. The author is currently a librarian at the Swedenborg library in Stockholm, Sweden. Ironically, given the subject-matter, her book is scholarly, detailed and frankly boring. But yes, it does make you wonder about the Catholic orthodoxy of Christina, and the real reasons for her conversion...

My impression is that Christina didn't really convert to the Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation, but rather to the dynamic 17th century intellectual culture, a culture inbued with Hermetism and other forms of esotericism, but also heresy, free-thinking and libertinism. In many nations, this culture was nominally "Catholic". Åkerman suspects that Catholicism was attractive to the queen since it was possible for a woman to stay celibate without necessarily losing her social standing. This would be an almost bizarre irony if true: did Christina become a Catholic because she was gay?

Christina almost self-identified as male, and cultivated a pseudo-masculine image around herself. It's possible that her deviation from the prevalent norms went even further. Her interest in alchemy might have been connected to a desire to "transition" and in some sense become male (compare the notion of the divine androgyne). The former queen's private library was well stacked with books about alchemy, the esoteric aspects of music, angel magic, Neo-Platonism, Jewish and Hermetic Kabbala, utopian writings, and Joachimite prophecy. She did have an alchemical laboratory in Rome, although nobody really knows how far advanced her experimentation was. Was she a dabbler, taken advantage of by the usual quacks? Or did she succeed in becoming an Adept of the occult inner circle? Was she actually their *leader*, as some modern "adepts" seem to think?

With that, I close this little review. Don't worry, if I ever find the philosopher's stone, I'll let you know...

The graven images of really existing Judaism

"The Hebrew Goddess" is a book originally published in 1967. An enlarged edition from 1990 is readily available. The author, Raphael Patai, was a Jewish-American-Israeli scholar specializing in Jewish folk religion. The book looks slightly "alternative", but is actually well argued.

Judaism is usually depicted as a strictly monotheist religion opposed to "graven images". Also, its view of God is held to be masculine and therefore patriarchal. Both Jews and Protestants picture Judaism this way.

There's just one problem with the standard opinion. It's not really true...

Alongside the "orthodox" form of Judaism, there are strong strands of folk religion and mysticism where a de facto goddess figure takes center stage. A goddess that's eerily similar to the goddesses of other (pagan) Mideast peoples. But even "normative" Judaism turns out to be problematic, assuming there even is such a thing in the first place!

The Bible constantly condemns the Israelites and their kings for falling away from pristine monotheism. Nobody denies that the children of Israel worshipped Asherah, Astarte and Anath. Even a zealous Yahwist like king Jehu, who massacred Baal worshippers, couldn't or wouldn't destroy the Asheras or the golden calves. The Jerusalem Temple, that supposed bastion of orthodox normative Judaism, was strikingly similar to pagan temples. Indeed, the First Temple was *built* by pagans. Walls and veils were adorned with depictions of cherubim. Most famously, two large cherubim stood on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. "Graven images" indeed.

Patai believes that the cherubim in the Second Temple eventually were depicted intertwined with one another, that is, in sexual embrace. (Some Talmudic sources actually suggest this.) Jewish pilgrimages to the Temple were orgiastic, just like pagan temple worship. This was eventually stopped about one century before the Temple's final destruction. The idea that the two cherubim were of different genders is strikingly similar to the "paganizing" idea that Ashera was actually the wife of Yahweh!

But the most far-reaching goddess worship is associated with the Kabbala, the mystical tradition within Judaism which for centuries influenced the folk religion. Here, God really does have a wife, known as Matronit or the Matron. Matronit is both the daughter and the spouse of God. She is a virgin, yet has sexual intercourse with "the King" (Yahweh). She is also the goddess of war, death and destruction. Patai compares her with Kali! She is also strikingly similar to Ishtar or Pallas Athena. Her motherly aspect and role as Queen of Heaven is often compared to that of Mary in Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Interestingly, Mary was often reinterpreted as a war-leader, probably modelled on Pallas Athena.

Other female goddess-figures discussed in the book include the Shekina, the Sabbath, and even the demonic Lilith (since she takes the place as God's wife during the exile as a kind of anti-goddess). 

Patai's interpretations of the Hebrew Goddess are often "Freudian" and psychoanalytical. That's hardly surprising, due to the explicit or implicit eroticism surrounding her. Why is the Matronit both a virgin, a faithful wife, a whore and a deadly destroyer? I admit that Freudian takes are almost inevitable here. Note the implication: the goddess is really the product of the male gaze in a patriarchal society! So much for empowering women...

Another thing that struck me was the similarity between folk Judaism and Mormonism. It's all there: sex between a god and a goddess begets spirit-children, anthropomorphic deities, the Queen of Heaven, Temple worship, implicit polytheism, etc.

But what struck me most was the fraudulent character of "aniconic monotheism". So ancient Judaism opposed graven images...except in the innermost sanctum of its own temple?! This must be the hight of chutzpah!

Jokes aside, I think it's obvious that most forms of invisible-god-smash-the-idols-monotheism are nothing of the kind. The Muslims worship at a pagan temple complete with a black meteorite, Christians actually pray to a man-god and believe in a trinity, and really existing Judaism has a family resemblance to the abominable paganism of the goyim...

But perhaps that's just as it should be. Maybe God shows himself - or is it herself - according to our level of understanding? Or folly!

Endgame?

This lawsuit, brought by the State of Texas, could be "the beginning of the end" of the post-election fight in the US. Unless QAnon is right and Michael Flynn has the Dominion software proving Charlie did it.

The significance of this lawsuit seems to be that it indicates support for Trump from a section of the Republican apparatus. Which raises all kinds of questions about what will happen to the GOP if it fails. Or even if it succeeds...

Apparently, Ted Cruz has offered to argue the case before SCOTUS. Obviously an attempt to promote himself as a 2024 primary challenger...or the next SCOTUS pick. 

Trump obviously needs the support of the GOP apparat to stay in power (unless you think or hope that he will actually stage a Tonkin incident in Philly and call out cloned imperial stormtroopers from a hideout in Area 51). What could possibly make the GOP-e support Trump? Either a rotten deal about a new war in the Middle East, or fear that a Biden administration will pack SCOTUS and the Senate with liberals, thereby breaking whatever power the establishmentistas may still have.

The Texas challenge is part of scenario number two. 

Texas challenges election directly at Supreme Court

God loves Greta Thunberg

It seems I forgot to link to this extremely important piece of news. God loves beetles. And Swedish girlz with an attitude?

New species of beetle named after Greta Thunberg

My republic for a horse

A fascinating article about one of the first animal rights crusades. The year was 1872.

Note the similarities with modern environmentalist activism. Bergh (the woke animal rights guy) was super-rich, aristocratic and had the support of a "progressive" state. His opponents were "capitalist", to be sure, but he also made working class people miserable. Eventually, technological development rather than woke preaching or state legislation made life easier for the horses (and, I suppose, the workers).

And no, I'm not a cornucopian libertarian or horse-hater. I'm just reminding the young and the idealistic about what they are really up against. Somehow, the situation in 1872 sounds eerily reminescent of something closer to our own time...

Flu virus shut down the economy by infecting horses

Trilobite times

Trilobites lived on Earth (well, in the oceans actually) for 270 million years before the last ones were finally did in...by global volcanic eruptions that lasted for 2 million years!

Wtf?! But we're the crown of creation because...

Yeah, because of *what* exactly? Because we just elected an old fossil US president? Maybe Joe is a trilobite!

So far, we haven't come up with anything that could make our species last for 270 million years...

Why trilobites went extinct

Finally: Genetic evidence for ATLANTIS?

Did these people live during the "Atlantis window" and then mysteriously VANISHED?

I often wondered why the genetic evidence doesn't seem to prove the Lost Civilization, but what if it actually does so? The article linked below is about a European population that mysteriously vanished at about the same time as the hypothesized Lost Civ. Unless I completely misread something. 

Interestingly, the vanished "Ice Age" population wasn't really European in our sense of the word, but more related to Asians. Proto-Dravidians? Lemuria??? 

It would be grossly ironic if Atlantis was inhabited by colored people! 

Ooops. 

Ancient Europeans vanished after Ice Age

Monolith mystery continues

Funniest diversion this year...

Yes, it's that monolith again, LOL.

Monolith mystery continues

Veckans Strasser

Jag visste inte att Peru var så jäkla "baserat"...

Från Wikipedia. 

Ethnocacerism

Agricultural People's Front of Peru

Peak 2020

So this is how Fidesz defends Western civilization? Hmmm...

Peak 2020 has arrived. And we still have a month left! 

Anti-gay Hungarian politician resigns after being arrested by police fleeing 25-man orgy through window

Israel Only Full of It Preterists?

There are strange religions. And then there are *really* strange religions. And then there's Israel Only Full Preterism (IO)...

I mentioned this peculiar current before. They believe that Jesus only came to save the Jews (as in literal blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). The "Gentile mission" was about finding the lost tribes of Israel. When all righteous Jews had been saved, the Temple was destroyed in AD 70. Since that time *nobody* can or will be saved. God and Jesus have abandoned Earth and humanity, perhaps the entire universe? This is a *very* weird take, and it's hardly surprising that some IO proponents have become atheists!

Atheist gadfly extraordinaire Richard Carrier recently posted an extensive critique of IO (see link below). It was apparently "ordered" by a web-based atheist group. Perhaps they wanted to investigate if IO really does contain arguments that can profitably be used by atheists. Not so, says Carrier. IO are just a bunch of cranks. None of their arguments hold up to closer scrutiny.

For instance, while it's true that the earliest Christians did see Jesus as an exclusively Jewish savior, anyone could join Judaism (it was a missionary religion at the time), so salvation was in *that* sense for everyone, not just for "ethnic" Jews. Paul of course went further, de-Judaizing what was originally a Jewish sect.

What makes IO so strange is that they de facto combine a kind of alt-fundamentalist reading of the Scriptures with something that sounds almost like misotheism. Carrier says relatively little about this aspect of the group, but it's surely the most interesting one. Why would anyone want to join *this* group, rather than, say, a strongly Judaizing Adventist Church?

With that, I leave you in the hands of Carrier... 

The Incompetent Crankery of the Israel Only Movement

An astrological interlude

One thing just struck me. Maybe I'm wrong, but I do believe that both Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are Scorpios.

And Scorpio is the sign of dark secrets, conspiracies, revenge and a very long memory. It's ruled either by Mars (the planet of war) or Pluto (the planet of death).

Donald Trump, by contrast, is a Gemini. Geminis are fickle, mercurial, opportunistic, hard to pin down, indeed, the "salesman type".

It's very hard for a Gemini to defeat a Scorpio. Could this explain the Donald's current contretemps?

However, Gemini natives might have one advantage over Scorpios. Geminis are unpredictable. Scorpios, by contrast, change very slowly...

Make of that what you will. 

Btw, Mike Pence is also a Gemini. Funny with a Gemini who is always loyal to his boss. Hmmm...

Technological Taoism

Why is Richard Carrier a materialist and atheist? His entire philosophy or world outlook sounds spiritual and non-materialist.

Matter is made up of energy. But energy isn't simply matter under another form. No, energy seems to be something distinct from matter, and its character is presently unknown. Further, the universe comes from an eternal energy-field by way of a Big Bang. Also, energy is somehow connected to our consciousness. But if so, why isn't "energy" simply another name for Spirit? Or the Tao, if you like.

Carrier (a former philosophical Taoist) still likes to meditate and considers Lao-tse to have been a great human being.

Perhaps he became an atheist-materialist after drawing the conclusion that nothing truly supernatural exists. As a Taoist, he had several mystical and paranormal experiences. Also, he rejects personal immortality in all forms.

But perhaps there is a loophole even for that in Carrier's thinking. His solution to Fermi's paradox is that super-advanced aliens might indeed exist. Invisibly to us, they live in interstellar space, completely preoccupied with surfing the virtual realities of their AI computers, not giving a damn about other life forms.

In other words, they look like a merry band of cosmic immortals!

I say the main gadfly of New-New Atheism is really a technological Taoist...

Everything is well on the third planet from the Sun. 

Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

Be careful what you wish for

I actually wrote the text below and posted it on Christmas Eve 2019. Note the references to world economic crisis, rumors of wars and pandemics! Chilly as f*ck. Perhaps I should refrain from making predictions about 2021...?

"My fear is that 2020 won´t be the Aquarian super-year some optimists on the more spiritual end of things are claiming it will be, but rather something much, much darker and more negative. As in world economic crisis, wars and rumors of wars, pandemics and so on. The Fourth Turning is about to happen, and it won´t be pretty. 

But sure, in a best case scenario, the people (and a section of the establishment?) will wake up and do what´s necessary to save our Titanic from those icebergs...

If not, well, I suppose there´s always the life boats...and the dragon ships. Merry Christmas everyone!"

Here is the original posting:

Merry Christmas and run for cover!