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Photo by Adalberto Roque/AFP.
This is Ike before exploding over Havannah, Cuba. According to experts this is the calm before the storm, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. This is what the future holds.
Watch a video of the hurricane Ike as it roars into Cuba here.
Previous posts related to this subject:
Planet Earth and misanthropy
Living with the dying
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One of these guys is Jim Goad. Guess who.
Jim Goad has been challenging the status quo of humanity and everyday stupidities for aeons. He’s probably most (in)famous for his and his late wife’s fanzine ANSWER Me!, where the fourth issue is known as “The rape issue”. The article “It’s a rape, rape, rape, rape, rape, rape world” can be read here (PDF).
As always, people judge the book by its cover. As always, people are wrong (I come to think of the awesome band Today Is The Day and the song title The cold harshness of being wrong throughout your entire life…). Most often it’s peoples’ own prejudice and ignorance that stands in their way of rational thinking and simple understanding. That’s why they’re living fake lives. There’s no time for understanding in these peoples’ lives, cuz there are TV shows to watch and shit to be bought. Exhume to consume.
Don’t let the truth anywhere near me, you crazy bastard! I ain’t got time for no truth, boy!
I’m interested in Goad’s truths, because I believe he’s got some in stock. The truth is one ugly motherfucker, but ugliness is not something we’d like to be acquainted with, so we choose the easy way out. Goad tends to choose the hard way. Always the hard way. And when you like it hard, you’ll be looked down upon with suspicion by Them -the evil minds that plot destruction, sorcerers of death’s construction…
Now check these quotes from various interviews and columns, straight out the mouth of this unholy Goat.
Many of the racial problems in America are caused by the fact that people are innately tribal, and politicians know how to exploit that biological fact. And since power is built on money, it is in politicians’ best interest to fan racial unrest—even when it’s done under the guise of anti-racist touchy-mushy let’s-all-hold-hands propaganda, because anti-racism still keeps everyone’s attention fixated on race—to divert attention away from financial inequities. They do this because they know that it works.
[…]
I tried to make it clear in The Redneck Manifesto that it’s unwise to ask a sociopath for advice about running society. I do think it’s ironic that people are more worried about words such as “nigger” than they are about the fact that most of the nation, black and white, is being squashed down into an abject, powerless peasantry whose government treats them all like prison inmates. But hey, it’s OK—even though our standard of living is shit compared to a generation ago, at least we don’t say “nigger” no mo’.
[…]
Back in ’95, when the District Attorney of Billingham, Washington, took a pair of newsstand owners to trial for selling ANSWER Me! #4, it was truly surreal to see layouts from my magazine blasted onto a white wall with an overhead projector. “Basically, it tells you how to rape everyone”, the DA told the jury. It’s always unsettling when a stranger seems certain of your intentions and motivations, when they couldn’t be further from the truth. This sense of anguish is heavily compounded when the stranger in question has the power to destroy your life.
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This whole idea of someone objectively “deserving” punishment for their actions is an antiquated, pseudo-biblical concept and almost entirely foreign to me.
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The Ebola virus and similar detergent products underpin what we’ve always said in ANSWER Me!: The best humanity can hope for is to be eventually crushed by nature.
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In my writing, I try to focus on things which seem obvious to me, but about which society is rampagingly hypocritical.
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I tend not to hold accidents of birth against people. I am much more attuned to willful decisions people make than skin color or genitalia. How do they deal with you one on one? How ethical are they?
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Any monotheistic religion is years behind any religion the East came up with. Apparently monotheism is one of the building blocks of modern society. I think the Hindus, Buddhists and Dhaoists are all light years ahead of Western religion.
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I remember when the Oklahoma City bombing happened, everyone immediately thought it was at the hands of Arabs. Wait a second. There are Americans so disgruntled that they blow things up? That was an exciting idea.
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Every black guy who was in my cell said he respected nazis and no one else because they presume everyone is tribal and everyone is a racist. They know where they stand with the nazis. They’re not going to stab them in the back. They will stab them while looking at them, which is preferable.
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I think we all know what is wrong with us. The question is – Do you have the bravery to confront it?
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You are not better because you are a black woman. You’re a human being. You are just as bad as I am. That’s egalitarian. These people who claim to be anti-sexist and anti-racist are sexist and racist. I don’t see equality in intellectual aptitude but everybody is prone to be an asshole. That’s the only equality I know of.
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Nothing that humans do surprises me but the way they tend to cover it up is what repels me.
More Jim Goad:
The redneck speaks
Prayin’ hard
Humanism without humans
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In this century it is of scant importance what language a European speaks and in what geographic area he was brought up. Of importance only is the spirituality that permeates his inner life.
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In this century the idea of vertical race is dead. We can now view race only in horizontal terms – the race one feels in oneself is everything. The anatomic-geographic group to which one belongs means nothing.
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Our touchstone of comradeship and belonging is spiritual-ethical, not the old one of birth-place, cephalic-index, eye-colour. In the 20th century, the century of elective affinities, materialistic tests are pure stupidity.
The Enemy of Europe (1953)
These are the words of Francis Parker Yockey, American born philosopher (who highly praised European high culture), most often labelled fascist, Nazi revivalist, anti-Semite, anti-American and far right mystery man.
I tend to enjoy reading about these guys and their ideas. I’m fascinated by their explicit ways of looking at the world, I find it dedicated and to the point (even though often narrow-mindedly romantic), whereas the mainstream equivalent philosophers and historians are extremely limited when it comes to sensitive subjects due to their political correctness. They often end up straight hypocritical or plain lame and grovelling, and I find that a waste of time.
I do not necessarily agree with everything I read, be it Spengler, Nietzsche, Pound, Yockey or whatever politically incorrect dude you might find in here. However, when I find something of importance to me, I treat it as I treat all kinds of knowledge. I don’t care if it’s right, left, wrong… As long as it means something to me it is of relevance. Simple as that.
And I think the above quote proves just that; even though you’re a dick in the public eye, you still might have some interesting stuff to communicate.
Here’s a review of the Yockey biography Dreamer of The Day (1999).
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“The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?”
Like most people ever interested in politics, independence and philosophy I’ve come to check out H.D. Thoreau every once in a while. I first read Thoreau back in 1989, when I was 14. I read Civil Disobedience, or Resistance to Civil Government as was its original publishing name in 1849, and it completely seduced my mind. Some of the first words are there forever: ”That government is best that governs not at all”, as well as ”I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government”. I believe that’s what started my political awareness/interest, reading a 140 year old lecture and finding so much modern truth. When I started reading about Holocaust revisionism some ten years ago and the way these revisionists are put in prison for asking questions I immediately remembered this quote as well: ”Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison”.
Walden or Life In The Woods (1854), appeared to me some years later, and I remember being quite disappointed since it lacked the immediate “instructions” and guidance I was hoping to find back then. Sure, I got the message, but I was looking for action, not contemplation.
Now, having recently seen the stunning movie Into The Wild, I picked up Walden and studied it again, this time with so much joy. It was as inspirational as when I first read Civil Disobedience, but on a completely different level. I found it quite cool to realize that a lot of the stuff he’s writing about in Walden is where my ideas are right now. It took me another 14 years to arrive there, and now I really appreciate Thoreau’s great piece of art.
I wonder where I’ll be in another 14 years… I’ve got so much more reading to do. Must prevail!
Check this page for thorough information about the man and his works.
Some excerpts from Walden:
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me — some of its virus mingled with my blood. No — in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one’s fellow-man in the broadest sense.
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Some show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there? You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it. Society recovers only a tenth part of the property then. Is this owing to the generosity of him in whose possession it is found, or to the remissness of the officers of justice?
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it.
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I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man’s uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own castoff griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.
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I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.
I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that “they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. — Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress.”
>I stumbled upon a guy this afternoon who had not seen Zeitgeist (go here for sources, subtitles and additional info). You may download it here (yes, it’s legal!). It’s a must see for everyone. Below is the remastered final edition, two hours of the most interesting conspiracy theories ever put on tape. Watch, digest and explore.
“It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.”
In my opinion this movie is about making a choice: Do you want to live your life through the eyes of someone else, or do you want to think for yourself? Question everything (Zeitgeist included, of course).
This YouTube channel has a bunch of interviews with the producer of Zeitgeist, Peter Joseph.
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Matthew Arnold, author of Culture and Anarchy, claimed that art is the criticism of life.
In our society people are viewed through a lens which magnifies wealth, power and bloodlines, where instead it should magnify the moral qualities of character. We tend to praise those who perform great deeds, but neglect those who aren’t that very explicit or ”successful”, the ones who lead their ”hidden lives”. The world only cares about status, and is completely blind to the worlds within us. This dependency on status is all we read and hear about wherever we go.
Art, literature and music may help us notice, understand and appreciate those hidden lives that are waiting to be born. Most of the times, the hidden values being offered through culture are those of most interest to the ones interested in moral qualities. This is where we find philosophy and radical ideas rarely talked about in the mainstream arena. This is where spirit and man collide, as opposed to society where spirit and man collapse.
Society teaches us to judge a book by its cover, to depend on status for credibility and to look up to the rich and famous. Culture might help as a cure to society’s sickness.
I do not wish to see men of culture asking to be entrusted with power; and, indeed, I have freely said, that in my opinion the speech most proper, at present, for a man of culture to make to a body of his fellow-countrymen who get him into a committee-room, is Socrates’: Know thyself! and this is not a speech to be made by men wanting to be entrusted with power.
Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1882)
Earlier posts related to this subject:
Intelligent misanthropy – Part 1
Intelligent misanthropy – Part 2
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Peter Sotos – controversial writer, thinker and musician, probably most famous for being arrested for obscenity because of his fanzine Pure (1984), as well as being a member of the power electronics group Whitehouse – is a man I’ve taken great interest in, pretty much because of what he says in interviews and what you can read between the lines in his explicit works.
Total Abuse is a collection of nearly all of Sotos’ texts between 1984-1995 (including Pure, Tool. and Parasite), and what I find most interesting with this book is the interview and introduction made by Jim Goad. I wrote about this in the paper issue of Ny Moral #1.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview where he talks about humanism and humanity.
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Jim Goad: I’d like you to comment on this [line] from PARASITE #5: “Like most humanism, it conveniently doesn’t include humans.” Where has humanism gone astray? What are they not understanding about humanity?
Peter Sotos: Well, I think we’ve been talking about it, really. These people have these dreams and fantasies, it’s like people who decide when they’re two, or when they’re going to their first prom, they decide, “You know, mom, I wanna have a really high-paying job, and I want to have two kids, and someone who loves me, and go out on Friday nights to balls and dances”, whatever they think, I don’t know. And just their whole life shows you that that’s not gonna happen… And they still cling to these things, not as sort of dreams or fantasies, by the end they’re just these sorts of religious beliefs… And humanists, people who are just so concerned with the human element, with others and everyone’s care and concern, so boggled by the actual information that exists. But once again, you say this sort of stuff, and you sound as if you’re – as if I’m – upset. When, you know, the opposite is true. I’ve come to this from – it just seems obvious to me… People aren’t going to have these rosy little lives.
It seems like it’s wishful thinking that gets misunderstood as some kind of ontological verity.
Yeah, right. They’re dedicated to, you know, “Well, this was promised to me.” And they drive themselves crazy. But the thing is, I do like what life has to offer. I don’t want to sound like, “Nah, this is terrible. Why don’t these people wake up?” I mean, it really isn’t like that. I just think it’s a much more realistic viewpoint.
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Read more about what Peter Sotos has to say right here.
And then read some more on the Fanzine site.