On the topic of civil rights: "Juneteenth Is for Everyone."
It's just sick-making. I see people (not here!) calling it a "senseless tragedy." I prefer something more along the lines of "heinous crime."
Look, I don't wanna be "that guy" or whatever, but doesn't this kind of elide the history of Black extra-legal and illegalist resistance? Cudjoe, Queen Nanny, Cinque, Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Frederick "I-appear-before-you-this-evening-as-a-thief-and-a-robber" Douglass, Dangerfiled Newby, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Fred Hampton, Huey Newton, Malcolm X; plus all the unknown black heroes and heroines of the labor movement, the gay liberation movement, the feminist movement, the disability rights movement -- many of whom were acting outside the law for some or all of their activist careers. I agree with the underlying sentiment of course, I mean, this is what I'm always on about, people taking back power. But it's gotta be power-from-within, not power-over or we're right back where we started. Laws are cobwebs for the rich, and chains of steel for the poor.
"Dangerfield", of course, blessings be upon him and peace.
I'm not sure if I made my point as well as I ought. For every Bayard Rustin or Zora Neale Hurston, you've also gotta consider the Black men and women who realized that your first duty as a prisoner of a settler-colonialist power is to destroy that power. Whether or not they did it respectably. Like, what does it take to be Iceberg Slim, to be so warped and distorted by oppression as to turn yourself into a horrifying monster, and then, miraculously, to somehow turn that inside out and recognize just what the abuse you suffered did to you. How many people are that strong that they could agonizingly reappraise their life to that extent? Or some anonymous 23 year old on the streets of Watts or Ferguson, just letting go? That final scene in Come and See, that's what it's all about -- destruction is the wages of oppression. Why are YOU afraid of ruins?
Shorter Natilo: Neither party is mine, not the jackass or the elephant.
There should be a law enforcement officer/criminal anarchist comedy duo called "Cop and Blow".
If you don't like religion you can be the Antichrist...
Two folks on Twitter -- @EMQuangel and @HenryKringle -- did a reverse WHOIS and found the Charleston terrorist's online manifesto. Not linking bc it's not authenticated yet. Called The Last Rhodesian.
It's here. Reads like a sophomore term paper for Stormfront U.
This guy is _very_ far from being the last Rhodesian.
I have to admit I laughed when I got to that part.
Negroes have lower Iqs, lower impulse control, and higher testosterone levels in generals. These three things alone are a recipe for violent behavior.
The complete lack of self-awareness there strikes me as a marker of authenticity.
Further to 12, I was just reading today about what the real last Rhodesians have been up to - doing good work in northern Nigeria pushing back Boko Haram from the towns and villages.
Why read it?
Its useful to know where this kind of poison draws its influence from. i.e., "The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case."
LA cops shot an unarmed white guy last night. Not sure what this says about the arc of history.
I'm not going to read it until I'm convinced it's his.
Well, whoever wrote it writes pretty convincingly in the voice of a racist dumb-shit who is likely to shoot people.
It seems to be hosted on a Russian server, which is a bit weird.
There's also a zip file from a link that says "Photos" on the home page but no way I'm downloading that shit.
I did! The Gold's Gym muscle shirt photos were worth it.
Slate bought it, says its real, quoted from it. Slate has photos. Says his favorite movie was Sion Shono's Himizu. Seen it, was just ok, don't remember all of it:typical mix of sadism, nihilism, metaphoric mise en scene, and maudlin sentimentality. Some good cinematography.
"bought it" was idiomatic, as in "believed it"
Himizu's soundtrack was dominated by Barber's Adagio, fer chrissake. Lots of inserted film of 2/11 destruction. Random knife killers, like on a city bus, is thematic.
Pretty rough stuff, not recommended for squeamish.
Oh. I guess I should mention, just realized that Himizu is very much about teenagers suffering horrific abuse from parents, bad enough to approach black humor. As in kill their kids for insurance payout, and discuss it in front of the kids. Beatings. Legacy debt owed by kid to yakuza.
If what's his fuck loved that movie, I wouldn't be surprised to find out...
So who took those pics of him? Did they have prior knowledge?
The argument I've seen that it's authentic is that if you do a historical reverse WHOIS search you get his name and his mother's address, from February when the website was set up. I don't have a good sense of how hard it is to fake stuff so I don't know how persuasive that is.
I keep seeing people ask who took the photos, and it seems to me to be a 50/50 chance that *no one* took them -- there are certainly enough ways to take a selfie these days that they don't seem to require any kind of second party.
the exif data on the photos show they were taken with a camera that has timed auto-shoot. probably he just stuck the camera on something.
17: the real last rhodesians are doing good works out in the world? in a "roland the headless thompson gunner way," or elsehow? "days and nights they battled/the bantu to their knees/they killed to make their living/and to help out the congolese."
Thanks for the earworm, alameida.
...
Local news hear says 9 children/teens shot at street picnic in West Phila. All in critical condition. Feeling really helpless and impotent. Just today I got to bring my four-year-old niece to an art museum (she loves staring at oil paintings, for no reason any of my non-artistic family can figure out). Can't imagine what those kids' families are going through now.
30: It's their way of combining their love of helping people with their love of hurting people.
29 Hadn't seen that but there you go then.
Wait a minute, there's an army of headless zombie Rhodesians battling Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and I never heard about it until now?
The IQ's of black people in the US taken as a whole are indeed lower on average than those of white's. There was a book that appeared in 1994 IIRC called «The Bell Curve» that essentially argued that this IQ discrepancy was for one of two reasons: either black people are inherently "genetically inferior" to whites or they are systematically underprivileged and therefore have a lower likelyhood of developing a more closer to average IQ. The authors [some of them renowned biologists] came down on the first option.
This of course belies the biologism that pervades our society as an easy answer to difficult to tackle problems. There was a book published in Germany in 2010, that fielded the same argument as the Bell Curve but in this case imparting its social darwinist theory on the "the problem" of immigrants of Turkish decent in that country. Of course blacks [and Turks] are underprivileged and of course their IQ has everything to do with systematized racism in our society.
There are many other facets to this problem though. Islam for instance comes to mind as a road block to integration of Turkish minorities in Germany.
Also, I want to point out, that it should be obvious that the perp in the S.C. terror attack was also likely intellectually challenged as well as probably not of what one could call "sound mind". I take the discourse over whether one best call this incident "terrorism" or "tragedy" as a symtpom of double standards in America and esp in the southern states.
The first thing to fall should be the confederate battle flag still flown on official memorial sites. Secondly, when will the US finally realise that the easier a person can get their hands on a firearm the more likely will firearm related crime occur? I don't give two shitsome whether the gun was acquired legally or illegally. Even illegal acquisition will drop if you make legal procurement much much harder. Just look at European countries FFS.
Wait a minute, there's an army of headless zombie Rhodesians battling Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and I never heard about it until now?
Didn't you know? It was some sort of Kickstarter project originally, I think.
The authors [some of them renowned biologists]
Actually, one Skinnerian psychologist with (genuine) expertise in animal learning experiments, but not in genetics (or developmental biology or neuroscience or even modern cognitive psychology), and one (to be polite) political scientist, but who's counting?
One, ah, ah, ah. Two, ah, ah, ah.
Also not "The IQ's of black people" but in fact "The scores that black people receive on our current IQ tests, which are very well known to give lower scores to people of different backgrounds to the people who wrote that particular test."
Since this thread is now past 40 and in danger of veering off into a tedious "Science(tm) proves that my awesome white guy IQ is the best" tangent, let me ask the following question that's been bothering me ever since alameida's comment 30:
Why has no one made a movie based on that Warren Zevon song? There have been horror movies about killer cars, killer slugs and killer rabbits (really), but it never occurred to anyone that a ghostly headless mercenary with a machine gun and a thirst for vengeance would be good starting point for a movie?
42. You set up the kickstarter and I'll chip in $5.
42 - If John Waters directed, you could get a special guest star.
Why has no one made a movie based on that any Warren Zevon song?
Unless An American Werewolf in London counts. Anyway, there's some great storying telling there that isn't referenced enough. It doesn't have to be any of his songs about mercenaries, even; I'd see a Mohammed's Radio movie.
Now I want to see a movie of "Gorilla You're a Desperado."
42.2's elevator pitch: "It's The Crow meets Sleepy Hollow!"
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obably
Reading:
Joe Bageant, profile in Baffler
Will Shetterly
Rosi Braidotti, radical feminism
And my slow slog thru Lacanian Discourse Analysis, but it is a beautifully dense slog, like shoulder high sunflowers
Watched Leviathan last night, Zvyagintsev, I thought 'j' instead of 'y'
A very very great movie, yes arthouse slow and subtle, and despair and depression to put Bergman to shame, but as beautiful and profound as it gets. Probably two levels beyond an indictment of corruption, perhaps in spite of the artist's intention. Perhaps very conservative.
Top level may be Job-level, the next level, still above moral outrage may explore neo-feudalism. Our protagonists do suffer and end terribly from their pride and arrogance, and yes I am talking about the "good guys"
Because an alternative is presented in the couple, the cop and fish worker, that do "accept their place," don't make waves, keep heads down, and end up accomplishing about the only decent outcome in the movie.
Unfair, unjust, total horrorshow, but if neo-feudalism has already won, resistance is not necessarily the moral choice. Not saying I agree, and maybe the making of the movie demonstrates some irony.
Not recommended, unless you can handle the void.
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A second opinion
We All Had a Lovely Time ...Ricard Seymour on the London anti-austerity march.
This is life or death for the left. Our mode of struggle, and our militancy, has to be adequate to the challenge. If we have no justification for existing, no relevance to the workfared and socially cleansed, the race-baited and brutalised, the exploited and oppressed, then we may well not exist. We need to go out solemnly, furiously, with rage in our hearts and tears in our eyes, and fists clamped shut with death-dealing hatred, knowing that this is life or death and that the stalemate of the Big Day Out means death. We need to mean business.
Very early in Leviathan, the evil overlord comes to viciously taunt our protagonist. Protag's lawyer friend says calm down, the law is on your side. This is very mistaken. Protag goes into the house (everybody is falling down drunk, this is Russia), and we know he is going to get his gun. But he doesn't come back out, and after Evil O leaves, we find him sitting at his kitchen table staring at the gun.
Looks like Tsipras and Greece are going to completely capitulate.
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I don't understand why continuing to suffocate the Greek economy is considered the responsible option here.
Guys commenting on my post above have clearly not read past the first sentence.