Betrayal reveals true allegiance. While religions are often based in love their corruption can lead to war. The true goal of spirituality is peace but the evil corruption of it is violence, oppression, and war. Idealism, including the American Dream, is a form of religion, an ideology of peace and love - but the corruption of it is a nightmare. And we are stuck in that nightmare, now, the horror of endless war -and we need to wake up and end it and rerturn to the pleasant dream. And the dream is the Truth, a spiritual truth, where the nightmare is a lie based upon lies - yet it has become our "reality."
This edition of the gagablog is about seeing through that reality to the deeper truth of love and peace beneath it. Various examples in the news and media have made my angle for seeing through reality, the cracked door, as "Betrayal" this time. The most striking news example this week was Trump and "America's" betrayal of the Kurdish allies the American military had in Syria to fight ISIS. Trump had met with Turkish President Erdogan and then announced a troop withdrawal which was followed by Turkey announcing they would invade Syria to eradicate the Kurdish troops there - and presumably displace the Kurdish civilians, too, as part of their plan to send millions of Syrian refugees back to Syria from Turkey. This part of the plan is a Turkish betrayal of humanitarian values - you don't kick out refugees and you don't go to war to make a place to put them. Trump has been all about kicking out refugees, of course, an this is an obvious betrayal of American values - the good ones - and we don't "own" or brand those values, either - they are the universal spiritual values of goodness and the heart of all Goodness in religions - help the stranger.
But we have a lot of news stories about Trump betraying the Kurds so I wanted to start with these reports and what they say about Trump's True Allegiance and also the True Allegiance of the USA Military. Trump did betray the Kurds - by removing troops he is "basically" saying "go ahead and attack the Kurds, our allies, just let us move the only people we pretend to care about, the American soldiers, first." And even though this was an implied message they said it even more explicitly in one of the news stories. There was a report of a Turkish attack on a Syrian city, held by the Kurds, in the first days of their offensive - and it included a report on some shells hitting near where American soldiers were still present. In the USA government objections to this attack they said that they had given the Turkish government all the positions of American soldiers so they would NOT be attacked - but this basically means they also gave the green light for Turkey to attack all the Kurdish soldiers and civilians they wanted to - as long as they weren't Americans.
Because Americans are the only ones Trump, and the USA military, even pretend to care about - and they are still just people after all and they don't care a fig about them, really, as evidenced by our terrible veteran's care, etc. But the point is that they don't even pretend to care about the allies, the Kurds - instead they turn the whole place into a giant banner of Betrayal. And it shows who they are REALLY allied with, when they give up their pretend allies to be killed.
Trump doesn't care at all about the American soldiers or any American people - he's completely obviously working for Russia and Putin and the Oil Companies. It's so obvious he can't even pretend. Since the USA backed coup attempt in Turkey and Trump taking office Turkey has become an ally of Russia more than the NATO ally of America it had been - and Trump is making America an ally of Russia, too, though of course it is supposed to be "secret."
People might want to say that Trump being an agent of Russia is "conspiratorial" but I'm not even trying to argue that point right now - just focus on the fact that betrayers WILL betray their true allegiances. This was born out by the next news story relating to Turkey's invasion of Syria - Trump said that he WOULD send American soldiers into parts of Syria - not the Kurdish held parts to protect them or help keep ISIS fighters prisoner - but to protect the Oil Fields.
This really stood out to me because of the way they reported it on the BBC radio, too. The host asked the reporter who owned the oil fields and if they were really targets and the reporter completely ignored the first question, said nothing about who owns them. Just as when the Trump administration objected to the attacks that came near Americans and said they had given them their positions - they don't care about the Kurds - when it came down to leaving Syria entirely to Russia, Trump's basic plan, he pulled out all the troops but then sent them back in to protect the Oil Fields - basically just so Russia won't have to do it, to save their military money and lives and time. But we will be handing it all over to Russia - and protecting the Oil, whoever "owns" it - if Trump has his way.
In a nutshell, Trump may say he cares about "people" but he really means only "certain" people and he really REALLY means "Oil" - and the Oil Barons and Oligarchs and Tyrants like Putin who protect them.
Facebook made the news for releasing it's Policies that ban hate speech - unless a Leader says it, then it will be permitted. It's basically an admission that now that they have helped install their cadre of Fascists around the world they are running with it, going fully and openly fascist. Of course I think they should be shut down, carved up and nationalized by each country, anything to stop their obviously evil, coordinated, "let's play stupid and innocent afterwards" agenda.
Anything Zuckerberg claims to uphold he as actually betrayed - Free Speech: he bans any leftist speech while promoting right wing hate speech, Democracy: he takes money and activity from Trolls to interfere with elections and doesn't even make a lot of money off of it so he is obviously doing it for ideological reasons, to elect the fascists he supports, Trump, Bolsonaro, etc.
I don't remember if the tabloids claimed that Gaga felt she was Betrayed by Bradley Cooper - they seemed to suggest that she felt led on and heartbroken over him - but as far as I can tell that was the whole plot of the movie, man uses power to oppress woman -in the guise of promoting her - and when she overcomes and creates her own power, beyond his, he throws a fit and tries to control her. I really thought the conversation around that movie when it was so popular would have turned to addressing abusive relationships - and i didn't see it when it first came out, so by the time I saw it, though that was my impression, it was apparent that wasn't the way people were talking about it, in the media anyway.
The deepest betrayal is any kind of faking love - and she would have every right to feel betrayed - but it's better to realize it IS a betrayal than continue to be taken in. Because fake love isn't love - it is betrayal itself, since love is the basic essence of everything. And of course there is "real" love, there is love, within it - but taking advantage of someone wanting love or being in love with you by using that to control them is the opposite of love.
This is my way of hinging to religion and something else i heard on the radio - an interview with the girl who left the Westboro Baptist Church and wrote a book about it. Also the way in general that they ALWAYS report, on the BBC and NPR, about ANY Nazi or right-wing nationalist party that does "twice as well as last time" in the election - even if they barely mention the radical leftist party that actually won the election. Most of the coverage, or all of it, will be about the rise of the far right. They will mention the rise of the far left, the Greens and environmentalist movements, that actually WIN, but only in passing because the "story" will be about the rise of the Right. This just happened today after the election in Thurulinga - someplace in Germany that I'm pretty sure is the modern word for the place "The Old Mam'selle's Secret" is set - a book I read just a few months, and mentioned here that the ideals in it could stop the rise of fascism and "ironically," magically, a month after I mentioned it in this gagablog they are reporting on this area for the first time I have ever heard in my life - and while the report SHOULD have been "The Left won the election" it is, instead, the Right did twice as well as last year - and under your breath The Left actually won with 30-something percent - so if you know math it suggests the Reich doubled their support from 10% to 20% - which is bad and alarming - but when they are ALWAYS reporting on the Right they are helping the Fascists only real chance of surviving, pretending they have wide support when they don't.
When they were talking to the girl from the Westboro Baptist church - who had converted out of it, seen the light and left - a few things struck me. One was that she got to repeat all her hate - speech, and she did not even sound truly disgusted by it - but she got to say things like "God Hates Fags - that's actually they name of their website" and other hate speech and because she was purportedly "mocking" it or disavowing it, it was okay for her to say it on air. But it was still really weird -especially since she just didn't seem honestly repentent about saying it. It makes me think that if she had never really left the group but decided, or was sent, to play "double-agent" after the peak of media attention to Westboro Baptist Church this would be her way of getting all the messages and info out there, claiming to now be against it, but really just sneaking it through these platforms where they act like "everyone listening is liberal" but no full well that conservatives hate-listen to it and many others are just neutral or absorbing it in different ways.
The problem is that even if she genuinely DID repent and she isn't secretly recruiting it STILL has that effect to put her on the radio like this. Just like the interview with the former KKK member whose Death Metal band is often quoted by mass murdering white supremacists. He has left the KKK and his organization helps get others out of hate groups, too - and that IS good to put him, and her, on the radio, specifically for that purpose, to help others out, to let others know there IS a way out. But there is also something weird about it, that struck me when I heard the interview - because I didn't think of the whole idea that she was actually faking it, a Spy, a Trump, until I was writing this.
What struck me at the time, besides that she got to repeat all this hate speech, was that the interviewer was asking her questions like "how should we approach trying to liberate other people like you who are stuck in hateful ideologies? How can we talk with them?" I had to compare this with the Drug War, in my mind. A lot of people grow up in conditions that are more likely to lead to drug trade or other criminal activities. Does anyone ask "what are the ways we can talk with these people, how can we approach them and discuss with them to liberate them from destructive conditions?" We don't ask that - we ask how can we arrest them.
Why don't we arrest hate groups? Why do we have to talk people out of being in the KKK and convince them and coerce them and plead with them and put people on the radio to let them know there is a way out? We don't do that with drug dealers, drug users, or prostitutes - we arrest them, no one is trying to talk with them or help them out. But when it comes to KKK terrorists or Westboro terrorists it's all about "what kind of candy do they prefer we could leave a trail of it to maybe entice them to come talk with us? And if we can convince them to stop hating, hooray, if not, I guess we will just try to ask even nicer next time, next year, or next century, or whenever, no rush."
Why are we like this? It's a byproduct of the evil side of religion - it's specifically White Supremacy in a White Supremacists system - it's evil - but there is a specific Christian component to it and we need to call that out.
The main thing that struck me as Ironic about the way the ex-Westboro girl was talking was all the things she was saying that Church believed, all these horrible things, were really just more extreme or more explicit versions of what MANY churches believe. They're all corrupt.
Are they SO corrupt that they can't be salvaged?
This question comes to mind because of one more radio report, the second to last one I will mention here: There was a piece on a "Congress" of Zoroastrians. The impression I have always had of Zoroastrianism was that it was the oldest religion still being practiced, that all other religions that were around when it got started aren't around anymore. I don't know how true or biased this impression is but I do think it is true that it is a really old religion. And there aren't many of them around anymore and they are scattered all over the world. So they have an annual congress to bring them together - basically to meet a wife or husband because the religion determines that you should marry within the faith - there is some debate from progressives who want to welcome converts but it seems they have "never" accepted converts before - hence they are few and scattered all over the world.
I wanted to mention it because in this "reduced" state the religion seemed to be showing it's "true" purpose, and no one was really trying to hide it: it tells you who to have sex with, who to fall in love with, who to start a family with. They mentioned that at the congress it was common for people to have boyfriends or girlfriends at home - non-Zoroastrians - and to take a break from them, or put that relationship aside, in order to explore a possible match within the religion. One girl said her family expected her to marry an Iranian Zoroastrian but there were only 100 in the world, only 10 within 10 years of her age, some of those would be gay, others would be weird so the only eligible, acceptable one would most likely be taken.
This is one side of religion, the side that deals with Love - some religions would encourage MORE love, between more people, instead of being restrictive - I personally believe since no spiritual paths come to mind already doing this the ones that emerge by doing so will be the ones that save the world. So far the only examples that stand out are cults where "leaders" prey on followers' shame and exploit them- which is why my ideas for sex cults are "quantum" and all center around each person's own actual desires and finding ways to spiritualize that not "one person's" desire at the expense of another's.
Most religions have some aspects of Love and telling people who to love - and where these are restrictive they aren't really the true spiritual truth of Love. On the other side there are always or almost always religious components to War - people go to war with religious fervor or leaders appeal to the masses religion to motivate them to war. And religious leaders even get in on the act. Religion is a big part of War.
Yet is War necessary at all? Is it possible ONLY an indication of how wrong we are, how far away from the True Path we are on? What kind of War could the Zoroastrians mount, with maybe 1-10 of them in countries all over the world? They couldn't - it's a ridiculous question to ask.
It should be that ridiculous to ask why ANY religion would support or cause a war - but it's not, they do it all the time. If there were only 10 of them left they would't do it, they would get to fucking and getting along and trying to get along with others around them, too, so their religion wouldn't die out.
If these small religions are forced to actually focus on loving each other and having sex - and even admit that's essentially the core of their religion, the whole reason for doing it (not to get big enough to have a war) - and they can't even cause a riot, much less a war - is the solution to have Much Smaller Religions? Is it just a problem with Religions getting "too big" - when they are all essentially collections of smaller sects, anyway, full of variety and diversity?
Should the religions just be broken up, like Facebook?
I don't think so - I think it's beautiful that so many people can connect around "the same" or similar things - I really like the popularity of Santa and Mario, for example, not to mention some versions of Jesus. But I do think there is a "bad" side to religion - violence, control, War - and a "good" side -peace and sex and Love.
I like the example of the Zoroastians, who CAN'T even have a war, can barely even have enough sex to continue, to show that of the two, War and Sex, sex is by far more important, more powerful, and more essential to Religion - to ALL religions. But War, Violence, Control - these have BECOME powerful, even seeming to be FAR MORE powerful - but they have only done so through corruption. They are NOT needed, they are add-ons, parasites, Evil Demons feeding on the Spiritual Paths open to us, diverting them and blocking them.
Imagine if there were no more War and no Religious ideas, from any religion, that suggested Violence. Imagine that whole "side" of spirituality is just Gone, we have evolved past it. We still might have "two kinds" of Religions. Instead of the "Two Kinds" of religions we have, now - religions that Might Start Wars, the Big Ones, versus religions that will probably Never start wars and focus on maintaining themselves and their people, instead - instead of those Two Kinds of religions there wouldn't be ANY of the War kind, but there could still be "two kinds": there could be the religions that encourage sex and love and families with "other" people and the religions that only encourage sex and love and families with "their own."
If this were the case and there were only these major differences between religions I think there woould still be "tension" and drama and "conflict" - of the story kind - but no more war or conflict of the violent kind.
If we accept that the spiritual path IS love and sex and coming together, not dividing at all, we will save ourselves and be fine.
This is just the real purpose of spirituality AND religion - people like to be "spiritual" more than "religious" these days because the religions are all corrupted by that "replace love with control" issue that leads to exploitation and War.
I said I would only mention two more stories but the one I just remembered is how the Catholic Bishops voted to allow priests in "remote" areas to be married - and how the conservative Bishops were upset and feared the practice would spread through the church and challenge Celibacy - oh, no, people actually going for what they actually want. I've never believed Celibacy was a good plan at all, I always presumed it was a source of evil and feel that inclination was justified by all their sex abuse scandals - it obviously isn't about "celibacy" for abusers it's about sex shame and fear of women so using nuns and children, those you have power over, for your own sexual gratification at their expense - the same model as the cults I mentioned above, honestly.
It's like if Americans, Trumpers, or Poilce officers were worried that "ending racism" was going to catch on and sweep through the institutions - of course it SHOULD and just imagining how the idea of it would scare them shows how they are committed to racism, betrays their true allegiance.
Sex and Love SHOULD spread through the Catholic Church - like an "infection" but more like a cleansing fire - because the infection and corruption has been celibacy all along. Just as the corruption of American Christianity has been Prudishness, Sexism, and Racism all along.
But these are always the WRONG part of religions and the religions CAN be redeemed and saved, evolve into a better form.
The last thing i will mention is some magic that was borne out in the news today - about a month ago I was at the Bernie rally in Denver with tens, maybe 100,000 other people - I've seen a bigger crowd there for 420, I think, but then again the smokers were all kind of spread out and the Berners were all gathered as close together and toward the stage as we could get and filled the park When he got to criticizing Trump I started to chant "Lock Him Up!" and my friend said afterwards "That was a Trump chant they used against Hillary, I can't believe you would say that!" and I was just like "Yeah use their own words against them, they will understand that." And today I heard the news that when they showed Trump and Melania at the Houston Astros and Washington nationals World Series game and put their image on the Jumbotron the crowd started to boo and thousands of people chanted "Lock Him Up!" - i'm not saying I started a trend just predicted it, magically, or have been seeing the truth of this coming for a long time.
I hope they get on with it and realize that when it all comes out the ones who delayed and held it up will go down with him, too - we might have to impeach Trump, Pence, AND Pelosi, just for starters.
The key is that these traitors have betrayed ALL of us, have betrayed America and the World - because when we ARE true to America, to our real ideals, when we Are true to ourselves as people and communities and part of Nature, when we are who we say we are we are true to the World and save the world, too - which is why the Green movement, environmentalism, which includes the nature of femininity and sexuality and restoring the Goddess to spirituality - is what will bring us all together - but only if we all come, too! Thanks for reading and sharing!
Monday, October 28, 2019
Friday, October 11, 2019
Shirley Fairies 6: Peace For Korea... and the World - gagablog 181
"I arrange mostly one-way journeys" and usually no one comes back, except one time in Houston... "Jerry Garcia is a member of what popular rock group?" the Governor's daughter asked Mr. Reaper on the Halloween episode of Benson, on now - 10-11-19 at 2:11 PM mountain time - my computer reads 1:11 as I'm typing this - I've waited about two years to finish this spell and now that I am doing it, and Benson is on, it is only fitting that quotes from it would seem magical - this was the scene that was on as my computer booted, it went to commercial when the Gov - now free pearls and a magical stone found at the base of the Himalayas selling Tanzanite and a free strand of pearls from Stauer on a commercial, and some specialized travel service with trips starting at $1,399, Collette - I used to like a girl in school named Collette. And I'm now reading "The Professor" which I believe is the precursor to "Villette" or vice versa - and I'm reading it because I found my copy of the DS game "100 Classic Books" and reread some "Shirley" before starting "The Professor."
"He's a traveller lost in a storm whose name happens to be Mr. Reaper... let's go have a talk with Mr. G. Reaper!" Benson just said and announced. Earlier they were speaking of death and one said that a man in Houston had died and came back - "to Houston?" Benson asked - "What do you say when people ask if you are Death?" "I tell them the truth - I Am Death" - I don't believe you - do you have a passport, Green Card?" "I have something infinitely more impressive than that" and he makes their spirits glow through them, with his hands raised above their heads - Benson is convinced and has to play him a game to save 41 school kids on a bus - if he loses Benson will be on the Bus and "A good prize to bring someone like him in early" - Trivia Pursuit is the Game: Lowest Point in America, Death answers Death Valley -says he never cheats, didn't make Benson pick that card - or lowest sea level, Dead Sea - Death Wish is the clue, which Bronson movie spawned two sequels, which Benson beats him after answering Sony Lister and Little Richard, for who Mohammed Ali beat and who recorded Tutti Frutti -and now the Pig on Green Acres, for the win: Wasn't Mr Ed, Flipper, the Fonz- Arnold! He got it!
"I'm going to miss you, Mr DuBois - but only for a while" 93 people died in Iron Town, as Death had implied, but Benson just confirmed. As if him disappearing after saying "Life passes like..." wasn't enough cherry on top.
"Yes, to Houston" they had answered him, earlier. "he said he saw a green field with lights all around and a hole in the middle of the sky" - "That's not Heaven, that's the Astrodome" Benson had told them.
This all makes me think of how our ideas of Heaven ARE conditioned by our experience of this world - and reminds me to remind you how this world can be as heavenly as we make it.
The whole Benson episode being on seemed to highlight this spell - as Nell just said "is there a "G" as in Gladys Knight and the Pips?" on Wheel of Fortune - and Addy says "Is there a V as in Vernal Equinox and the Pips?" after Nell guessed "Give me liberty or give me a car". The Spell was to make Peace in Korea - to avert any threats of War or attacks - to avoid nuclear disaster - but even further to make peace there. Earlier this year it seemed North and South Korea were poised to make peace - they only needed the go-ahead from Trump - because the USA is technically at war with North Korea. And of course Trump didn't let Peace happen - his business is War. OUR business, the USA, has been War for so long - but we're changing jobs.
I regretted that I couldn't find my DS copy of "Shirley" when peace seemed so close, at the end of 2018 and again early this year - and from Presidents Moon and Kim all along - I wanted to finish the spell and see Peace break out. I don't think I was "holding it up" by not just buying another copy of the game or book - I really would need the game since all my page numbers refer to it's pages, in the thousands - but so much has happened in the last two years, since I last wrote this.
While President Moon and Kim Jong Un have been meeting and preparing peace it wasn't going anywhere when it got to Trump's desk - but while there were no breakthroughs of peace there were also no breakouts of War, as were being threatened all the first year of Trump's term. So the spell was working, preventing war, but wasn't finished - Peace has not yet been declared.
If Trump HAD signed Peace with North Korea, even paving the way for re-uniting Korea, eventually, he would have gotten just credit as a Peacemaker - a truly good legacy, not that it would "outweigh" all the racist, Nazi, evil Nationalist stuff he has done but at least be ONE Good Thing. I think one of the Bushes might have done something good, or even Reagan - but it slips my mind if they did. But he didn't do it when they were basically just asking his permission - he didn't give it. And the progress of 2019, from the beginning when Peace seemed on the Table, but he wouldn't sit down, to NOW, well, so much has changed for Trump - so much that it seems, with impeachment looming and him making it worse trying to obstruct justice more - that he isn't even going to be a factor.
The sooner other world leaders realize that Trump does NOT represent the USA and going along with his plans is actually going against the will of most Americans, most Humans, the better we all will be. Trump has basically bullied everyone into complying with him and every time another country capitulates to his desires it's always a tragedy and makes me sad and angry - and anytime anyone stands up to him it makes me proud and happy. But people and countries you don't expect to help him, like in Central and South America, have, to some degree, or have tricked him into thinking they are complying - but without knowing the details it seems suspicious.
But now the tables have turned - all around the world people and leaders alike can see that Trump's term and reign of terror are coming to an end. He says he can "destroy Turkey's economy" and "(I've done before!" - but of course if he had "destroyed" it before it would be destroyed - besides it's just an empty threat and lying words. The Kurds will rightfully feel betrayed by Trump - he made an agreement with Strongman Erdogan to let him invade Syria and fight the US allies, the Kurds, who have taken over those Northern Syrian towns. It reminds me of the deal Bush's ambassador made to Iraq, Bush One, to allow him to invade Kuwait - then we turned around and invaded Iraq after promising we would look the other way. I'm not saying we will invade Turkey but I am saying the lies are the common tactic, the using people, especially "other people" and not caring about them being killed - that's the same playbook.
However, whatever Trump's plan for Syria, whatever his plan for Mexico or ANYWHERE, it doesn't really matter anymore because everyone is rightfully questioning if he will even lead the USA any more, or much longer. People can see, soon, the time when his policies will not only end but be reversed - and when we, Americans, get control of our government again and expose all the evil they have been up to, all along, we will find the will to undo this evil and make the bold progress we need to save the planet.
This reminds me how the other, non-Trump developments have occurred since I last wrote on the Shirley Spell for Peace in Korea - and the removal of all obstacles including Trump. Since then Bernie is running for President, again, and Marianne Williamson, too, with the same agenda and a spiritually empowered approach that promises to ignite a new Great Awakening in the USA.
I will talk more about these positive developments and what I hope will become the Marianne / Bernie challenge to Trump or whoever replaces him - but let me finish the Shirley Fairy Spell for Peace in Korea now that I finally have everything here in front of me - and the world seems laid out and ready for it, too.
I left off on page 6490 - when I wrote this, last, I was irritated that I had written much more, before, and lost it all in a computer accident - so I was racing through the notes to finish, after that. Now it has been so long since I read the book I reread some of it this morning, and just now reread the pages leading up to 6490 when she is talking about how she envisions him in the American wilderness with his bow and rifle killing buffalo - then they share some disparaging words for the Indians - and maybe another reason I didn't get into all the details of this book is it would take a while to justly call out it's episodes of racism and sexism. I know it may be considered a somewhat "feminist" book due to some female characters being the best ones in the book but even their ideas can be sexist, racist, and promote patriarchy. It rubbed me the wrong way and while reading it I slightly allowed the "excuse" of saying "it's the thinking of the times" - but THIS year I read a copy of "The Old Mam'selles Secret" from the same era, or earlier, and it presented MUCH more progressive ideas and characters than the Brontes' work ever does - and I suspect it influenced them, that they were even imitating it, but none of their books, much more famous than "The Old Mam'selles Secret" really compare to it - it really DOES challenge and seek to change the culture. I can't help but think promoting this book, originally German, could have helped the German society avoid the dangerous corruptions of Christianity that led to Nazism - and we could stand to learn the same lesson, now, in America.
But the Bronte's never challenge Imperial "Christianity" like this, they tend to enforce it with such racist depictions as the "unsuitability" of marriage to an Indian, for example. On page 6488-89 Shirley says "The savage is sordid. I think - that is, I hope - you would neither of you share your hearth with that to which you could not give your heart." She's implying "savages" aren't good enough for ... whatever his name is, he's the narrator and she hasn't said his name much.
We all need redemption from the cultural evil of making anyone into an "other" or inferior - this is the lesson of Trump, representing the evils of the KKK and racism, and also the lesson for Korea: they have been being "better than each other", North and South, but would do best to unite and stop fighting. And if they, as many cultures do, have some idea of "superiority" of their own Korean culture it would benefit them, and everyone, to overcome that - and they might learn to overcome the "othering" of "outsiders" in the process of overcoming the Othering of "themselves."
And this is a lesson to all of us, too - especially in America which claims to pride itself on being a Melting Pot. If we treated EVERYONE in America AS Americans it would be a wonderful, magical start to including ALL the world in a sense of united humanity. And ALL countries can really benefit from this lesson. It's key to bringing ALL of us together, all over the world, to get over Othering and all hierarchcal ideas - we literally have to put ourselves in other's place and invite others into "OUR" place when our actions have caused their homes to wash away or dry up. And the kids are all reminding us of this, the Climate Crisis and Extinction rebellion revolts - and it is just to credit the youth, today, for starting THIS round of activism it will ignite the Youth in ALL of us and involve all of us, not just kids, to help save the world in whatever capacity we can.
For me, I want to finish this spell and see Peace in Korea and what other developments, like dominoes falling or puzzle pieces falling into place, take place based upon this long, drawn out War being ended - and ALL War being ended, based upon the principles we discover and realize.
6492 - Shirley says she spoke "at hazard" when she supposedly guessed his intentions to go to America - but "hazard" is like "random" or chaos" and ventures into this world of Fairy magic. And he replies "your hazard sounds like divination." - emphasizing this magical connection, the way the Random IS Magical.
6495 - He says some racism, "Mine it shall not be to accept a savage girl as a slave, she could not be a wife. I know no white woman whom I love would accompany me, but I am certain Liberty will await me, sitting under a pine..." He actually got a rise out of Shirley speaking this way - she didn't blush at his abhorrent racism and realize he was never good enough for him, no, she shares the same racist ideas despite her 'progressive" spirit and plenty of idle time to learn differently that she instead fritters away in these Love Games with the Unworthy - kind of reminds me of Gaga, with all these Boyfriends who are never good enough for her. And I'm not trying to "otherize" them or put them in a class - many of them are celebrities seen as in her same "class," like Bradley Cooper - just saying she is an artist, a Goddess, and they aren't, yet, in who they are, at this time - but there are people who ARE who would be a companion she could really relate with and be in love with - that's how I imagine we would be, anyway, really good for each other.
Indians are only spoken of with racism in this book, in this section. As I type this, Victoria the maid in this episode of Maude is offering a natural cure - when Arthur is ironically on strike with the Doctors "I love people, if people can't see that then to hell with them" - when he opposed farmers strikes. Maude brings up the hypocrisy and he says "there is a difference between Doctors and Farmworkers" - showing it all relies on Otherizing. Walter is trying to convince him to treat him since he is sick, Arthur is refusing so Walter brought up their Army Days - which Arthur tears up for, they even sing a song that ends "Gee mom I want to go home" - to try and get back into his "friend, non-'other'" status - and Arthur insists that as his friend he would understand why Arthur wouldn't treat him - and they break up. "You're like all the other sick people in this town, all you ever think of is yourselves!"
"Victoria got lucky and caught a frog this morning!" Maude announced - that was her cure, the maid's, that Arthur disparaged and she explained that - even in the 70's - many doctors were acknowledging traditional medicine was efficacious.
Now Arthur is remembering his oath, remembering he can't go on strike as a doctor - that his hands have divine purpose. "We have the God-given gift to heal - if we deny that gift we are not fit to be called doctors - we aren't any better than dentists!"
But while they give some credit to Victoria and he natural cure it ends up merely being the basis for a joke instead of curing the sickness as I hoped would happen. Even trying to "honor" other cultures it ends up dismissing them - and maybe that's what Bronte was trying to do, just mention Indians, without realizing how racist she was being.
The whole "Issue" between whoever he is and Shirley is that he is a teacher - so low class -and she is an aristocrat, or high class. But they both talk like they are infinitely superior to the "savage" by being White. It's an example of how division, once it starts, is like a disease that spreads to other parts of culture. If you are willing to accept the idea of Women being Less than Men you are more likely to accept the idea that some Races are Inferior to others, etc - it's all based upon accepting ANY ideas of Superiority / Inferiority. Since the English, in this case, have not only put themselves, or White People, above others, that's not enough - division is never "satisfied" and they have further divisions in their own society, between White People, too. This heritage is the ancestor of Brexit - the extent to which people can't get over "Superior/Inferior" ideas are the threats to peace - as I typed Peace a notification for Marianne speaking at Cards Against Humanity Theater in Chicago, tonight, popped up. If we can't evolve past racist, bad ideas they will drag us down, as they are doing to England and America, now - but when we break free from them we will shoot forward like a slingshot, all the more powerfully for being held back.
6504 - He mentions Love, Passion, Truth and Devotion all as Spirits or fairies or Goddesses - but how they are all kept at bay by her station, her riches - if she was Poor he would be at her feet, etc.
6507 - he goes on to call Liberty, explicitly, a "nymph" and this is the only note I took for this whole section I've written all this about, looking back on the context - the mountain Nymph of Liberty he expects to find in America. But he compares her to "Solitude, which I once wooed, and from which I now seek a divorce" He personifies, or fairyifies, these emotions but even when he is talking, later, about an Orphan Girl, or the comments about "savages" - all of these are like fairy references because they represent Ideas of people, and not even like people since they are otherized so much. They are referred to like animals - by which I mean, otherized, but also as a compliment, that like when animals are mentioned they can also be seen as "Fairy references" when Orphans or Savages are mentioned, like on the The Lost Boys island of Neverland, we are, in our imaginations (since these characters have no experience of "Indians", only writings and tales) in Fairyland.
6507-10 - He continues on About fairyland, mythology, and it's a pretty eloquent passage - I wont quote it all but he mentions "Oreads...an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening, they inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty is the beauty of spirits; their grace... of seasons or scenes in nature.. the dewy bloom of morning - the languid flush of evening - the peace of the moon - the changefulness of clouds... this elfish splendor feels chill to my vision... I am not poet, I cannot like with abstractions." And he goes on to admit that she was right that he lives for the substantial, and
6512 - "Glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her with the solid powers of a solid heart, I would rather behold her through the eyes of a loved and lovely wife than through the wild orbs of the highest Goddess of Olympus." Orbs are a Marianne Williamson meme, now, btw. Shirley replies, 6513, that "Juno could cook a buffalo steak as you like it" - which recognizes Juno as the Highest Goddess, the mystical reality, and marries it with the real-world environment of America that he has hinted at - though America has, rightly, accidentally, been treated as "Fairyland" in his descriptions and imaginings. She is reminding him that he is threatening to go to America and be with "some other girl" - though when he keeps mentioning the "poor orphan" he would teach, then love, it seems like a reference or foil to Shirley herself, meant to chide her that were she only poor, since he had already been her teacher, she would be The One.
The main problem with Hierarchical thinking as it applies to relationships is always assuming there will be The One, and maybe being with someone and ignoring chances for other relationships with others - not even necessarily other lovers but friends, partners, and other kinds of Soul Mates. But the idea that each person has ONE "soul mate" or lover to find and forsake all others for is the danger of Hierarchical thinking and why I say Gaga can't find "the One" for her, as she seems to be seeking, and how it isn't like anyone isn't good enough for her for any reason of race, or class, or profession - the old reasons - but for Evolution, for Consciousness - and maybe to find Them, the ones who can truly be there for Gaga, more of them since she surely already has some - but to find the ones she is missing, the ones she seeks, maybe she just needs to stop looking for ONE person to be with and be more with many of the millions who want to be with her, in whatever ways become available and comfortable. Because thinking you can only love one person denies others and other KINDS of love, too, and Gaga, and all of us in this culture, have suffered from being taught this exclusionary, find the one for you, mentality - because it includes all the social conditioning of what "types" of people, races, class, or gender, are "acceptable" - and Love always denies and thwarts and overcomes those petty barriers, when it gets its way.
This is a personal example of something that happens on National levels as well. All Borders and Boundaries exist to enforce inequalities -when we all seek to be equal and advantaged, instead of making many disadvantaged to preserve the super-advantages of a very few, we will be able to ignore borders or they will just become site-seeing atractions but not "important." All of the tension about re-establishing a border in Ireland due to Brexit can be seen as the problem with Borders in a nutshell, and the problem with Brexit: you have Unity, which can be improved and turn into greater unity. retreating from that, returning to More Borders, is simply a bad idea and this course should be reversed. We can all work toward a world where borders simply don't matter, anywhere, and we will all be better off for achieving that state of statelessness.
6523 - he has again taunted her by saying he must find his "orphan girl" and marry her and she rebukes him by saying he would never marry and at the end she gives him a look which he describes as "her large, fine eye, that had, just now, the look of a merlin's." Merlin is lowercase, obviously a reference to the bird, merlins. I looked it up and it is a falcon native to America and Eurasia that preys on smaller birds - possibly a reference to her being superior to him in debates. But I see all bird references as fairy references, too, so I took the note - and also because the name Merlin is shared by the wizard who can see the future, or lives backwards in time - the quality of her examining his life and projecting into the future that he won't marry due to that nature, divining or prophesying again.
6530 - as she suggests that he take "any stout widow" (6529) who knows how to be a wife and he interjects "She must not be rich, then. Oh, these riches!" Her response to this plain objection - because no one said she would be rich, so he is obviously trying to bring the subject of "who is wife will be" back around to HER, is made by using dragon-imagery. She says "Never would you have gathered the produce of the gold-bearing garden." This sentence seems to be saying he wouldn't get the riches, anyway, but her choice of the word "garden" implies sexuality, not monetary "riches" - but REAL riches - though maybe that isn't intended and she just means "hoard" - but if she does mean sexuality, instead, then the meaning of the "dragon" changes as well, or deepens. She next says "You have not the courage to confront the sleepless dragon! You have not the craft to borrow the aid of Atlas!" She is saying h doesn't compare to Hercules who asked the Aid of Atlas, who holds up the world. Maybe she is making fun of him for manipulating her instead of having the courage to come right out with it, teasing her with America and the Orphan Wife ideas. She is basically saying he doesn't have to courage to "conquer" her, that she is the Dragon - or social convention is, but in either case she is not breaking convention, either, by "making the first move" - so she is represented by the Dragon - and in my estimation this is complimentary - I'm a dragon as is my lover - so I would suggest to her, as i did last time I wrote this, that she be with Caroline, another dragon, or find another one entirely - but break the rules of society for someone better than this "teacher" just because he doesn't have the consciousness she has, not for class reasons.
6540-41 When Shirley asks him what SHE is he says "Sister of the spotted, bright, quick fiery leopard." and she reminds him that the man he had said she was compatible with was "a kid" and goes on to talk about "the Millennium, being yet millions of centuries from mankind; being yet, indeed, an archangel high in the seventh heaven, uncommissioned to descend. Unjust barbarian!" As a leopard they make more of the fact that she can't be "tamed" too, but in general it reminds me of the fairy, animal spirit nature that I associate with, as well - I've always felt an affinity for a panther, at least to personify a "lonely" personality. I assume she means the Millennium as the End of the World - and the underlying reason it becomes so important to find the ONE for you, because of the belief you will spend Eternity together - and that is a long way off. But she also personifies, angelicizes, the End, as an actual Angel who hasn't been sent down yet.
This reminds me of why I included the Benson dialog to introduce this - it is like playing a magical game to avoid Death, to avoid the Death of Humanity we are on course for. To cheat the path we have been on and find a new path, instead.
Shirley is saying she knows that Sir Philip Nunnely wouldn't be good enough for her, implying he, her tutor, WOULD be - but maybe only because he is forbidden and being "hard to get" by insisting on marrying an American orphan - but he's really just being a jerk and I wish she could apply the same discernment to him instead of wanting him, but maybe since the point is that she wants to be "tamed" this is the author's way of saying he won her by "taming" her. In my vision we can all do better by staying wild.
6552 - She has already criticised his "monstrous" false modesty but now she says that "you are sensitive about the cut of your features because they are not quite on an Apollo pattern" and says he puts himself down to draw compliments from others and that they won't come - but that he falsely abuses his looks so he asks her of her opinion of his looks. She compares him (6554) to a half buried statue of Egypt then switches course, saying that is too "lofty" and compares him to her dog, Tartar. He takes this as a compliment because he know she loves her dog - and this is more fairy magic. They've gone from comparing themselves to Juno and Apollo, and Egyptian Gods - and saying they "fall short" in some respects - to comparing themselves to a leopard and faithful dog - and on these fairy / animal terms they can see how they can be together, like compatibility on the Chinese Zodiac. From this animal equality they finally break the human social barriers and start to come together - though even in the moments they finally meet they still retain the patriarchal views - because he really isn't "good enough for her" they don't evolve together - on page 6578 he says - after forgetting her gold and only seeing her beautiful girlish form - "My pupil" and she replies "My Master." - it's pretty sickening.
6579 - After this moment of meeting, of "union" he finally declares how long he has wanted her - four years - and says "I have to declare that you have bewitched me" and it's all by being herself, her "faults and virtues - beauties, rather" - but that is the magic that drew him in and had hold of him ever since. It's all the tradition of being the man, taking the lead -she says herself she would never accept a man she had to train but only one who would train her.
6590-91 When she says "Die without me if you will, live for me if you dare" he chooses the latter and says "I am not afraid of you, my leopardess, I dare live for you and with you from this hour to my death" - so the crucial oath at the crucial moment again returns to her leopard spirit - and the spirit of Nature he claims to worship whole heartedly that DOES make us all equals, all part of Life.
But when she asks, on 6592 if they are "equal, then, sir? Are we equal at last?" - which seems a somewhat strange question after he just said he has chosen his wife -her - and if he chooses to stay in England she will stay with him and if he chooses to go to America she will go, too. But she is asking if, as his wife, she will also be his equal - and she has laid out very clearly that she wants an Equal and wants to be seen as an Equal - and also that she thinks he is the one to be equal with. But his reply is (6593) "You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant than I." She already told him that someone her age would be like a kid, compared to her due to her maturity - the idea that she would "need" an older man. By contrast my lover and I, whom I'm so thrilled to be with again, are the same age and have never had inequality between us of any kind. "What happened to chivalry?" Alice just asked Mel and he said "It eloped with Women's Lib".
He says she is frail and feeble but she is as strong as he is and when he says he is less ignorant he just has it backwards - but maybe it's all about her wiles of letting him think that, or something. Her reply is to ask "Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?" it implies that while she claims to want equality she actually craves to be subjugated by someone - as long as he is nice.
When my DS ran out of battery and I smoked a bowl I thought of another way to express why I don't accept "product of their times" as an excuse for authors like Bronte perpetuating patriarchal ideas like this, the wife being subjugated to the husband, even an "exceptional woman." For one thing the actual role of Great Art is to be ahead of it's time, to break the restrictions of it's time by connecting with the mystical, magical world -with Fairyland. Also all of these classical authors had Shakespeare to look up to - he has been considered the greatest English writer for centuries and the other great authors would have been familiar with his works. I've only read a few but I started reading 12th Night a few weeks ago when I was at the library - charging my phone to play more Pokemon Go, just as remembering it was prompted by charging my DS just now. Even in the first pages it was obvious that there was a "cross-dressing" or homoerotic plot line developing with a girl dressing as a boy to join the court. I didn't know this was in Shakespeare but all these other authors would know it - it wasn't "new ground" after all. Yet just last week they published some recently discovered stories by Marcel Proust. They were his first short stories but were never published with his first book, as he intended, because of their themes which were considered "risque at the time" including physical and homoerotic love. But Shakespeare did it - these weren't new ideas and everyone knew it, culture had just gotten prudish without enough great art to improve us. Yet Proust, and others, DID write things that challenged these ideas, these norms- only the norms won, in this case - for a time. Because ultimately the stories were rediscovered and published. It shows how bad old ideas had power, then and now, but also shows that people were always challenging this power. And the greater power, the truth of Love, the magic of Art, wins in the end over those petty worldly powers.
6634 - Lares is a guardian spirit.
6660 "Pantheress! - beautiful, forest-born - wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her chain..." He compares her most favorably to this panther, honoring her wild spirit - it really turns him on. But maybe he fears her "dreams of wild woods, and pinings after virgin freedom" he associates with this nature and wishes Sympson would scare her into his arms again.
6667 - "spirit-like -a thing made of element -a child of breeze and flame - the daughter of ray and raindrop - a thing never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed." is how he describes her - very fairy.
6672 - "I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight" she says when he arrests her, again, on the cold balcony - then he says "Do Not - do not pass!" like Gandalf to the Balrog.
6676 - He says she was "hovering aloof like a white shadow." Or like she was barely there
6724 - The "Titan-boy uproots mountains in his game" is how she introduces a number of pages around the wars in June of 1812.
6726 - The "rude Cossack" who waits in Moscow for Bonaparte has his faith in "the Wilderness, the Wind, and the Hail Storm...the elements - Air, Fire, Water." She goes on in the next pages to imply cosmic, supernatural forces at work in War, which unjustly justifies war in my opinion - but altogether this section is to set the stage for the changing fortunes that allow Robert to propose to Caroline - so magically this section of showing how War relates to their romantic lives, in 1812, reflects how I am using this spell based upon this "romance" story to end War in 2019. I feel like the whole purpose it to honor the fairies, including Goddesses and Gods, mentioned in these works, even though they have been restricted by certain bad ideas in the books, to liberate them from being held back and ask them to help us make the needed transformations we need to save the world and end War.
The remaining notes just referred to fairy references that appeared along the storyline of Robert proposing to Caroline. She is watering a Rose when he meets her, page 6758, and looking at the sky where "twinkled a silver point - the Star of Love."
6765 ' I am looking at Venus, mamma. See! She is beautiful. How white her lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires." She turns and sees it is not her mamma but Robert, then he proposes. There are some more fairy references after this I failed to note but this is a good place to close this gagablog and end this spell - With Venus, Goddess of Love.
"He's a traveller lost in a storm whose name happens to be Mr. Reaper... let's go have a talk with Mr. G. Reaper!" Benson just said and announced. Earlier they were speaking of death and one said that a man in Houston had died and came back - "to Houston?" Benson asked - "What do you say when people ask if you are Death?" "I tell them the truth - I Am Death" - I don't believe you - do you have a passport, Green Card?" "I have something infinitely more impressive than that" and he makes their spirits glow through them, with his hands raised above their heads - Benson is convinced and has to play him a game to save 41 school kids on a bus - if he loses Benson will be on the Bus and "A good prize to bring someone like him in early" - Trivia Pursuit is the Game: Lowest Point in America, Death answers Death Valley -says he never cheats, didn't make Benson pick that card - or lowest sea level, Dead Sea - Death Wish is the clue, which Bronson movie spawned two sequels, which Benson beats him after answering Sony Lister and Little Richard, for who Mohammed Ali beat and who recorded Tutti Frutti -and now the Pig on Green Acres, for the win: Wasn't Mr Ed, Flipper, the Fonz- Arnold! He got it!
"I'm going to miss you, Mr DuBois - but only for a while" 93 people died in Iron Town, as Death had implied, but Benson just confirmed. As if him disappearing after saying "Life passes like..." wasn't enough cherry on top.
"Yes, to Houston" they had answered him, earlier. "he said he saw a green field with lights all around and a hole in the middle of the sky" - "That's not Heaven, that's the Astrodome" Benson had told them.
This all makes me think of how our ideas of Heaven ARE conditioned by our experience of this world - and reminds me to remind you how this world can be as heavenly as we make it.
The whole Benson episode being on seemed to highlight this spell - as Nell just said "is there a "G" as in Gladys Knight and the Pips?" on Wheel of Fortune - and Addy says "Is there a V as in Vernal Equinox and the Pips?" after Nell guessed "Give me liberty or give me a car". The Spell was to make Peace in Korea - to avert any threats of War or attacks - to avoid nuclear disaster - but even further to make peace there. Earlier this year it seemed North and South Korea were poised to make peace - they only needed the go-ahead from Trump - because the USA is technically at war with North Korea. And of course Trump didn't let Peace happen - his business is War. OUR business, the USA, has been War for so long - but we're changing jobs.
I regretted that I couldn't find my DS copy of "Shirley" when peace seemed so close, at the end of 2018 and again early this year - and from Presidents Moon and Kim all along - I wanted to finish the spell and see Peace break out. I don't think I was "holding it up" by not just buying another copy of the game or book - I really would need the game since all my page numbers refer to it's pages, in the thousands - but so much has happened in the last two years, since I last wrote this.
While President Moon and Kim Jong Un have been meeting and preparing peace it wasn't going anywhere when it got to Trump's desk - but while there were no breakthroughs of peace there were also no breakouts of War, as were being threatened all the first year of Trump's term. So the spell was working, preventing war, but wasn't finished - Peace has not yet been declared.
If Trump HAD signed Peace with North Korea, even paving the way for re-uniting Korea, eventually, he would have gotten just credit as a Peacemaker - a truly good legacy, not that it would "outweigh" all the racist, Nazi, evil Nationalist stuff he has done but at least be ONE Good Thing. I think one of the Bushes might have done something good, or even Reagan - but it slips my mind if they did. But he didn't do it when they were basically just asking his permission - he didn't give it. And the progress of 2019, from the beginning when Peace seemed on the Table, but he wouldn't sit down, to NOW, well, so much has changed for Trump - so much that it seems, with impeachment looming and him making it worse trying to obstruct justice more - that he isn't even going to be a factor.
The sooner other world leaders realize that Trump does NOT represent the USA and going along with his plans is actually going against the will of most Americans, most Humans, the better we all will be. Trump has basically bullied everyone into complying with him and every time another country capitulates to his desires it's always a tragedy and makes me sad and angry - and anytime anyone stands up to him it makes me proud and happy. But people and countries you don't expect to help him, like in Central and South America, have, to some degree, or have tricked him into thinking they are complying - but without knowing the details it seems suspicious.
But now the tables have turned - all around the world people and leaders alike can see that Trump's term and reign of terror are coming to an end. He says he can "destroy Turkey's economy" and "(I've done before!" - but of course if he had "destroyed" it before it would be destroyed - besides it's just an empty threat and lying words. The Kurds will rightfully feel betrayed by Trump - he made an agreement with Strongman Erdogan to let him invade Syria and fight the US allies, the Kurds, who have taken over those Northern Syrian towns. It reminds me of the deal Bush's ambassador made to Iraq, Bush One, to allow him to invade Kuwait - then we turned around and invaded Iraq after promising we would look the other way. I'm not saying we will invade Turkey but I am saying the lies are the common tactic, the using people, especially "other people" and not caring about them being killed - that's the same playbook.
However, whatever Trump's plan for Syria, whatever his plan for Mexico or ANYWHERE, it doesn't really matter anymore because everyone is rightfully questioning if he will even lead the USA any more, or much longer. People can see, soon, the time when his policies will not only end but be reversed - and when we, Americans, get control of our government again and expose all the evil they have been up to, all along, we will find the will to undo this evil and make the bold progress we need to save the planet.
This reminds me how the other, non-Trump developments have occurred since I last wrote on the Shirley Spell for Peace in Korea - and the removal of all obstacles including Trump. Since then Bernie is running for President, again, and Marianne Williamson, too, with the same agenda and a spiritually empowered approach that promises to ignite a new Great Awakening in the USA.
I will talk more about these positive developments and what I hope will become the Marianne / Bernie challenge to Trump or whoever replaces him - but let me finish the Shirley Fairy Spell for Peace in Korea now that I finally have everything here in front of me - and the world seems laid out and ready for it, too.
I left off on page 6490 - when I wrote this, last, I was irritated that I had written much more, before, and lost it all in a computer accident - so I was racing through the notes to finish, after that. Now it has been so long since I read the book I reread some of it this morning, and just now reread the pages leading up to 6490 when she is talking about how she envisions him in the American wilderness with his bow and rifle killing buffalo - then they share some disparaging words for the Indians - and maybe another reason I didn't get into all the details of this book is it would take a while to justly call out it's episodes of racism and sexism. I know it may be considered a somewhat "feminist" book due to some female characters being the best ones in the book but even their ideas can be sexist, racist, and promote patriarchy. It rubbed me the wrong way and while reading it I slightly allowed the "excuse" of saying "it's the thinking of the times" - but THIS year I read a copy of "The Old Mam'selles Secret" from the same era, or earlier, and it presented MUCH more progressive ideas and characters than the Brontes' work ever does - and I suspect it influenced them, that they were even imitating it, but none of their books, much more famous than "The Old Mam'selles Secret" really compare to it - it really DOES challenge and seek to change the culture. I can't help but think promoting this book, originally German, could have helped the German society avoid the dangerous corruptions of Christianity that led to Nazism - and we could stand to learn the same lesson, now, in America.
But the Bronte's never challenge Imperial "Christianity" like this, they tend to enforce it with such racist depictions as the "unsuitability" of marriage to an Indian, for example. On page 6488-89 Shirley says "The savage is sordid. I think - that is, I hope - you would neither of you share your hearth with that to which you could not give your heart." She's implying "savages" aren't good enough for ... whatever his name is, he's the narrator and she hasn't said his name much.
We all need redemption from the cultural evil of making anyone into an "other" or inferior - this is the lesson of Trump, representing the evils of the KKK and racism, and also the lesson for Korea: they have been being "better than each other", North and South, but would do best to unite and stop fighting. And if they, as many cultures do, have some idea of "superiority" of their own Korean culture it would benefit them, and everyone, to overcome that - and they might learn to overcome the "othering" of "outsiders" in the process of overcoming the Othering of "themselves."
And this is a lesson to all of us, too - especially in America which claims to pride itself on being a Melting Pot. If we treated EVERYONE in America AS Americans it would be a wonderful, magical start to including ALL the world in a sense of united humanity. And ALL countries can really benefit from this lesson. It's key to bringing ALL of us together, all over the world, to get over Othering and all hierarchcal ideas - we literally have to put ourselves in other's place and invite others into "OUR" place when our actions have caused their homes to wash away or dry up. And the kids are all reminding us of this, the Climate Crisis and Extinction rebellion revolts - and it is just to credit the youth, today, for starting THIS round of activism it will ignite the Youth in ALL of us and involve all of us, not just kids, to help save the world in whatever capacity we can.
For me, I want to finish this spell and see Peace in Korea and what other developments, like dominoes falling or puzzle pieces falling into place, take place based upon this long, drawn out War being ended - and ALL War being ended, based upon the principles we discover and realize.
6492 - Shirley says she spoke "at hazard" when she supposedly guessed his intentions to go to America - but "hazard" is like "random" or chaos" and ventures into this world of Fairy magic. And he replies "your hazard sounds like divination." - emphasizing this magical connection, the way the Random IS Magical.
6495 - He says some racism, "Mine it shall not be to accept a savage girl as a slave, she could not be a wife. I know no white woman whom I love would accompany me, but I am certain Liberty will await me, sitting under a pine..." He actually got a rise out of Shirley speaking this way - she didn't blush at his abhorrent racism and realize he was never good enough for him, no, she shares the same racist ideas despite her 'progressive" spirit and plenty of idle time to learn differently that she instead fritters away in these Love Games with the Unworthy - kind of reminds me of Gaga, with all these Boyfriends who are never good enough for her. And I'm not trying to "otherize" them or put them in a class - many of them are celebrities seen as in her same "class," like Bradley Cooper - just saying she is an artist, a Goddess, and they aren't, yet, in who they are, at this time - but there are people who ARE who would be a companion she could really relate with and be in love with - that's how I imagine we would be, anyway, really good for each other.
Indians are only spoken of with racism in this book, in this section. As I type this, Victoria the maid in this episode of Maude is offering a natural cure - when Arthur is ironically on strike with the Doctors "I love people, if people can't see that then to hell with them" - when he opposed farmers strikes. Maude brings up the hypocrisy and he says "there is a difference between Doctors and Farmworkers" - showing it all relies on Otherizing. Walter is trying to convince him to treat him since he is sick, Arthur is refusing so Walter brought up their Army Days - which Arthur tears up for, they even sing a song that ends "Gee mom I want to go home" - to try and get back into his "friend, non-'other'" status - and Arthur insists that as his friend he would understand why Arthur wouldn't treat him - and they break up. "You're like all the other sick people in this town, all you ever think of is yourselves!"
"Victoria got lucky and caught a frog this morning!" Maude announced - that was her cure, the maid's, that Arthur disparaged and she explained that - even in the 70's - many doctors were acknowledging traditional medicine was efficacious.
Now Arthur is remembering his oath, remembering he can't go on strike as a doctor - that his hands have divine purpose. "We have the God-given gift to heal - if we deny that gift we are not fit to be called doctors - we aren't any better than dentists!"
But while they give some credit to Victoria and he natural cure it ends up merely being the basis for a joke instead of curing the sickness as I hoped would happen. Even trying to "honor" other cultures it ends up dismissing them - and maybe that's what Bronte was trying to do, just mention Indians, without realizing how racist she was being.
The whole "Issue" between whoever he is and Shirley is that he is a teacher - so low class -and she is an aristocrat, or high class. But they both talk like they are infinitely superior to the "savage" by being White. It's an example of how division, once it starts, is like a disease that spreads to other parts of culture. If you are willing to accept the idea of Women being Less than Men you are more likely to accept the idea that some Races are Inferior to others, etc - it's all based upon accepting ANY ideas of Superiority / Inferiority. Since the English, in this case, have not only put themselves, or White People, above others, that's not enough - division is never "satisfied" and they have further divisions in their own society, between White People, too. This heritage is the ancestor of Brexit - the extent to which people can't get over "Superior/Inferior" ideas are the threats to peace - as I typed Peace a notification for Marianne speaking at Cards Against Humanity Theater in Chicago, tonight, popped up. If we can't evolve past racist, bad ideas they will drag us down, as they are doing to England and America, now - but when we break free from them we will shoot forward like a slingshot, all the more powerfully for being held back.
6504 - He mentions Love, Passion, Truth and Devotion all as Spirits or fairies or Goddesses - but how they are all kept at bay by her station, her riches - if she was Poor he would be at her feet, etc.
6507 - he goes on to call Liberty, explicitly, a "nymph" and this is the only note I took for this whole section I've written all this about, looking back on the context - the mountain Nymph of Liberty he expects to find in America. But he compares her to "Solitude, which I once wooed, and from which I now seek a divorce" He personifies, or fairyifies, these emotions but even when he is talking, later, about an Orphan Girl, or the comments about "savages" - all of these are like fairy references because they represent Ideas of people, and not even like people since they are otherized so much. They are referred to like animals - by which I mean, otherized, but also as a compliment, that like when animals are mentioned they can also be seen as "Fairy references" when Orphans or Savages are mentioned, like on the The Lost Boys island of Neverland, we are, in our imaginations (since these characters have no experience of "Indians", only writings and tales) in Fairyland.
6507-10 - He continues on About fairyland, mythology, and it's a pretty eloquent passage - I wont quote it all but he mentions "Oreads...an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening, they inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty is the beauty of spirits; their grace... of seasons or scenes in nature.. the dewy bloom of morning - the languid flush of evening - the peace of the moon - the changefulness of clouds... this elfish splendor feels chill to my vision... I am not poet, I cannot like with abstractions." And he goes on to admit that she was right that he lives for the substantial, and
6512 - "Glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her with the solid powers of a solid heart, I would rather behold her through the eyes of a loved and lovely wife than through the wild orbs of the highest Goddess of Olympus." Orbs are a Marianne Williamson meme, now, btw. Shirley replies, 6513, that "Juno could cook a buffalo steak as you like it" - which recognizes Juno as the Highest Goddess, the mystical reality, and marries it with the real-world environment of America that he has hinted at - though America has, rightly, accidentally, been treated as "Fairyland" in his descriptions and imaginings. She is reminding him that he is threatening to go to America and be with "some other girl" - though when he keeps mentioning the "poor orphan" he would teach, then love, it seems like a reference or foil to Shirley herself, meant to chide her that were she only poor, since he had already been her teacher, she would be The One.
The main problem with Hierarchical thinking as it applies to relationships is always assuming there will be The One, and maybe being with someone and ignoring chances for other relationships with others - not even necessarily other lovers but friends, partners, and other kinds of Soul Mates. But the idea that each person has ONE "soul mate" or lover to find and forsake all others for is the danger of Hierarchical thinking and why I say Gaga can't find "the One" for her, as she seems to be seeking, and how it isn't like anyone isn't good enough for her for any reason of race, or class, or profession - the old reasons - but for Evolution, for Consciousness - and maybe to find Them, the ones who can truly be there for Gaga, more of them since she surely already has some - but to find the ones she is missing, the ones she seeks, maybe she just needs to stop looking for ONE person to be with and be more with many of the millions who want to be with her, in whatever ways become available and comfortable. Because thinking you can only love one person denies others and other KINDS of love, too, and Gaga, and all of us in this culture, have suffered from being taught this exclusionary, find the one for you, mentality - because it includes all the social conditioning of what "types" of people, races, class, or gender, are "acceptable" - and Love always denies and thwarts and overcomes those petty barriers, when it gets its way.
This is a personal example of something that happens on National levels as well. All Borders and Boundaries exist to enforce inequalities -when we all seek to be equal and advantaged, instead of making many disadvantaged to preserve the super-advantages of a very few, we will be able to ignore borders or they will just become site-seeing atractions but not "important." All of the tension about re-establishing a border in Ireland due to Brexit can be seen as the problem with Borders in a nutshell, and the problem with Brexit: you have Unity, which can be improved and turn into greater unity. retreating from that, returning to More Borders, is simply a bad idea and this course should be reversed. We can all work toward a world where borders simply don't matter, anywhere, and we will all be better off for achieving that state of statelessness.
6523 - he has again taunted her by saying he must find his "orphan girl" and marry her and she rebukes him by saying he would never marry and at the end she gives him a look which he describes as "her large, fine eye, that had, just now, the look of a merlin's." Merlin is lowercase, obviously a reference to the bird, merlins. I looked it up and it is a falcon native to America and Eurasia that preys on smaller birds - possibly a reference to her being superior to him in debates. But I see all bird references as fairy references, too, so I took the note - and also because the name Merlin is shared by the wizard who can see the future, or lives backwards in time - the quality of her examining his life and projecting into the future that he won't marry due to that nature, divining or prophesying again.
6530 - as she suggests that he take "any stout widow" (6529) who knows how to be a wife and he interjects "She must not be rich, then. Oh, these riches!" Her response to this plain objection - because no one said she would be rich, so he is obviously trying to bring the subject of "who is wife will be" back around to HER, is made by using dragon-imagery. She says "Never would you have gathered the produce of the gold-bearing garden." This sentence seems to be saying he wouldn't get the riches, anyway, but her choice of the word "garden" implies sexuality, not monetary "riches" - but REAL riches - though maybe that isn't intended and she just means "hoard" - but if she does mean sexuality, instead, then the meaning of the "dragon" changes as well, or deepens. She next says "You have not the courage to confront the sleepless dragon! You have not the craft to borrow the aid of Atlas!" She is saying h doesn't compare to Hercules who asked the Aid of Atlas, who holds up the world. Maybe she is making fun of him for manipulating her instead of having the courage to come right out with it, teasing her with America and the Orphan Wife ideas. She is basically saying he doesn't have to courage to "conquer" her, that she is the Dragon - or social convention is, but in either case she is not breaking convention, either, by "making the first move" - so she is represented by the Dragon - and in my estimation this is complimentary - I'm a dragon as is my lover - so I would suggest to her, as i did last time I wrote this, that she be with Caroline, another dragon, or find another one entirely - but break the rules of society for someone better than this "teacher" just because he doesn't have the consciousness she has, not for class reasons.
6540-41 When Shirley asks him what SHE is he says "Sister of the spotted, bright, quick fiery leopard." and she reminds him that the man he had said she was compatible with was "a kid" and goes on to talk about "the Millennium, being yet millions of centuries from mankind; being yet, indeed, an archangel high in the seventh heaven, uncommissioned to descend. Unjust barbarian!" As a leopard they make more of the fact that she can't be "tamed" too, but in general it reminds me of the fairy, animal spirit nature that I associate with, as well - I've always felt an affinity for a panther, at least to personify a "lonely" personality. I assume she means the Millennium as the End of the World - and the underlying reason it becomes so important to find the ONE for you, because of the belief you will spend Eternity together - and that is a long way off. But she also personifies, angelicizes, the End, as an actual Angel who hasn't been sent down yet.
This reminds me of why I included the Benson dialog to introduce this - it is like playing a magical game to avoid Death, to avoid the Death of Humanity we are on course for. To cheat the path we have been on and find a new path, instead.
Shirley is saying she knows that Sir Philip Nunnely wouldn't be good enough for her, implying he, her tutor, WOULD be - but maybe only because he is forbidden and being "hard to get" by insisting on marrying an American orphan - but he's really just being a jerk and I wish she could apply the same discernment to him instead of wanting him, but maybe since the point is that she wants to be "tamed" this is the author's way of saying he won her by "taming" her. In my vision we can all do better by staying wild.
6552 - She has already criticised his "monstrous" false modesty but now she says that "you are sensitive about the cut of your features because they are not quite on an Apollo pattern" and says he puts himself down to draw compliments from others and that they won't come - but that he falsely abuses his looks so he asks her of her opinion of his looks. She compares him (6554) to a half buried statue of Egypt then switches course, saying that is too "lofty" and compares him to her dog, Tartar. He takes this as a compliment because he know she loves her dog - and this is more fairy magic. They've gone from comparing themselves to Juno and Apollo, and Egyptian Gods - and saying they "fall short" in some respects - to comparing themselves to a leopard and faithful dog - and on these fairy / animal terms they can see how they can be together, like compatibility on the Chinese Zodiac. From this animal equality they finally break the human social barriers and start to come together - though even in the moments they finally meet they still retain the patriarchal views - because he really isn't "good enough for her" they don't evolve together - on page 6578 he says - after forgetting her gold and only seeing her beautiful girlish form - "My pupil" and she replies "My Master." - it's pretty sickening.
6579 - After this moment of meeting, of "union" he finally declares how long he has wanted her - four years - and says "I have to declare that you have bewitched me" and it's all by being herself, her "faults and virtues - beauties, rather" - but that is the magic that drew him in and had hold of him ever since. It's all the tradition of being the man, taking the lead -she says herself she would never accept a man she had to train but only one who would train her.
6590-91 When she says "Die without me if you will, live for me if you dare" he chooses the latter and says "I am not afraid of you, my leopardess, I dare live for you and with you from this hour to my death" - so the crucial oath at the crucial moment again returns to her leopard spirit - and the spirit of Nature he claims to worship whole heartedly that DOES make us all equals, all part of Life.
But when she asks, on 6592 if they are "equal, then, sir? Are we equal at last?" - which seems a somewhat strange question after he just said he has chosen his wife -her - and if he chooses to stay in England she will stay with him and if he chooses to go to America she will go, too. But she is asking if, as his wife, she will also be his equal - and she has laid out very clearly that she wants an Equal and wants to be seen as an Equal - and also that she thinks he is the one to be equal with. But his reply is (6593) "You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant than I." She already told him that someone her age would be like a kid, compared to her due to her maturity - the idea that she would "need" an older man. By contrast my lover and I, whom I'm so thrilled to be with again, are the same age and have never had inequality between us of any kind. "What happened to chivalry?" Alice just asked Mel and he said "It eloped with Women's Lib".
He says she is frail and feeble but she is as strong as he is and when he says he is less ignorant he just has it backwards - but maybe it's all about her wiles of letting him think that, or something. Her reply is to ask "Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?" it implies that while she claims to want equality she actually craves to be subjugated by someone - as long as he is nice.
When my DS ran out of battery and I smoked a bowl I thought of another way to express why I don't accept "product of their times" as an excuse for authors like Bronte perpetuating patriarchal ideas like this, the wife being subjugated to the husband, even an "exceptional woman." For one thing the actual role of Great Art is to be ahead of it's time, to break the restrictions of it's time by connecting with the mystical, magical world -with Fairyland. Also all of these classical authors had Shakespeare to look up to - he has been considered the greatest English writer for centuries and the other great authors would have been familiar with his works. I've only read a few but I started reading 12th Night a few weeks ago when I was at the library - charging my phone to play more Pokemon Go, just as remembering it was prompted by charging my DS just now. Even in the first pages it was obvious that there was a "cross-dressing" or homoerotic plot line developing with a girl dressing as a boy to join the court. I didn't know this was in Shakespeare but all these other authors would know it - it wasn't "new ground" after all. Yet just last week they published some recently discovered stories by Marcel Proust. They were his first short stories but were never published with his first book, as he intended, because of their themes which were considered "risque at the time" including physical and homoerotic love. But Shakespeare did it - these weren't new ideas and everyone knew it, culture had just gotten prudish without enough great art to improve us. Yet Proust, and others, DID write things that challenged these ideas, these norms- only the norms won, in this case - for a time. Because ultimately the stories were rediscovered and published. It shows how bad old ideas had power, then and now, but also shows that people were always challenging this power. And the greater power, the truth of Love, the magic of Art, wins in the end over those petty worldly powers.
6634 - Lares is a guardian spirit.
6660 "Pantheress! - beautiful, forest-born - wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her chain..." He compares her most favorably to this panther, honoring her wild spirit - it really turns him on. But maybe he fears her "dreams of wild woods, and pinings after virgin freedom" he associates with this nature and wishes Sympson would scare her into his arms again.
6667 - "spirit-like -a thing made of element -a child of breeze and flame - the daughter of ray and raindrop - a thing never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed." is how he describes her - very fairy.
6672 - "I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the moonlight" she says when he arrests her, again, on the cold balcony - then he says "Do Not - do not pass!" like Gandalf to the Balrog.
6676 - He says she was "hovering aloof like a white shadow." Or like she was barely there
6724 - The "Titan-boy uproots mountains in his game" is how she introduces a number of pages around the wars in June of 1812.
6726 - The "rude Cossack" who waits in Moscow for Bonaparte has his faith in "the Wilderness, the Wind, and the Hail Storm...the elements - Air, Fire, Water." She goes on in the next pages to imply cosmic, supernatural forces at work in War, which unjustly justifies war in my opinion - but altogether this section is to set the stage for the changing fortunes that allow Robert to propose to Caroline - so magically this section of showing how War relates to their romantic lives, in 1812, reflects how I am using this spell based upon this "romance" story to end War in 2019. I feel like the whole purpose it to honor the fairies, including Goddesses and Gods, mentioned in these works, even though they have been restricted by certain bad ideas in the books, to liberate them from being held back and ask them to help us make the needed transformations we need to save the world and end War.
The remaining notes just referred to fairy references that appeared along the storyline of Robert proposing to Caroline. She is watering a Rose when he meets her, page 6758, and looking at the sky where "twinkled a silver point - the Star of Love."
6765 ' I am looking at Venus, mamma. See! She is beautiful. How white her lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires." She turns and sees it is not her mamma but Robert, then he proposes. There are some more fairy references after this I failed to note but this is a good place to close this gagablog and end this spell - With Venus, Goddess of Love.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Happy 70th Anniversary, China! The Magic of Comics, Impeach Trump: gagablog 180-
China is celebrating the 70th Anniversary of it's Communist Incarnation today, last night, and the way the BBC and NPR report on it remind me of why I have always had a love and fascination with China. It's been 11 years, now, at least, since I wrote the song "Welcome to China" - about a sixth or a 7th of their total modern history. China has been on the rise for at least half of that time, bringing millions of people out of poverty and leading the world in Development. I feel a greater trust in China to lead the Green Revolution though unfortunately they are still funding fossil fuel industries around the world - but that is part of being a Global Player - and China is in the position to change the entire game - I wish they were setting the full example pioneering green energy but I think that they are doing that, too, and will win that competition - especially as America is kowtowing to Russia and the Gas Giants. As much as I distrust Modi in India they have to get credit for developing the largest solar field in the world - though he probably deserves no credit, personally. The solar panels all over the Federal Center near where I live show that our US Federal Government also believes in Solar Power - even though half the government, or more, claim to not believe in the Sun or whatever.
I heard some reports on the radio about comic books that made me consider what has always made me so fascinated and favorable towards China - I've known all my life that it was the way our American News and Culture reports on China and depicts it, like a taboo mystery and negatively, that ALWAYS made me suspicious about what "our" agenda was. I knew that the same system I live in, The USA, was racist and sexist and apparently had a specific issue with China, so it made me think favorably of them. Weed is another perfect analogy: The Culture I lived in said Weed Was Wrong and Bad for You. And then I found out they were wrong and lying, that weed is good for you. They always said sex in most circumstances was bad for you - I always imagined they were lying and eventually found out they were lying about that, too. But even before weed and sex, before I even knew those concepts, I could tell that this same culture was saying it was wrong to be black, or a girl, or wrong to be China - and I could tell from a very young age that this was bullshit.
I didn't see the "comic" connection in any of this until just this last week when I heard two interviews on the radio with "comic creators." One was with the writer and director of Captain Marvel, Anna Boden. She said some things about getting into comics, on American Military bases and how the American style comics were "90% Superheros" and that fit with the American Military culture - I thought she was going to say that by comparison other countries did not focus on Superheroes so much - it might have been implied but she didn't say it. She did somewhat condemn the patriarchy of this military culture, and the wider culture - but it was only implied, I guess, maybe I read that into it, too. When she said her mom gave her Wonder Woman comics for doing the dishes the female host, I think, said how awesome that was to get a "feminist icon" as a reward - and the male host made a joke about the "irony" of getting Wonder Woman for doing the dishes - "something Wonder Woman would never do." But that is misrepresenting feminism - it's not about "No one does the dishes" it's about "everyone does the dishes."
In the reporting on China, lately, they mention how empowering and inspiring it was for Mao to say, and everyone to repeat, that Women Hold Up Half the Sky. Some of the reports were about sexism in the culture and how the Government was pushing a "Domestic Ideal" for women there, to encourage women to "stay home and have kids" - apparently because the "one child" policy worked a little too well and they now need to encourage population growth - or as a side effect of Capitalism.
The way we report on China all the Good Things that happened were a result of their embrace of Capitalism and all their problems were due to communism. "Communism" the the culprit for the 50 millions of people who died during the Cultural Revolution - but when you think about how many were killed in the Revolution iself, you COULD blame "communism" - or you could just blame War. The Civil War in America killed 620,000 Soldiers - and probably millions more People as a result, not just soldiers. How many would have been killed if the eventual losers had just surrendered? It's War that kills people, not the ideologies on either side - but ultimately the better ideologies DO win - sometimes they win wars but REAL winning is winning without war. The point is that the ideologies don't kill people, wars kill people. Famines kill people - and if things are run well then famines and droughts and floods won't kill people - but they do and that's why things need to be run better. And Wars don't help that - or again, if the eventual loser of the wars would have just quit at the start millions of lives would have been saved - but don't blame the deaths on Communism, blame it on the entrenched interests of the establishment that is willing to send others to die to preserve it's privilege.
When talking about Wonder Woman Anna Boden said something that, to me, showed how entrenched sexism is in our culture - because she is the example of the feminist, the one who broke the barriers and had a billion-dollar blockbuster superhero movie starring a female character. And she made many good feminist points. But when talking about Wonder Woman she said "Wonder Woman wasn't entirely the role model of feminism that we imagine her to be in the 70's and 80's" - and when she said this I'm sure it's true that even with some feminism being expressed, surely, it also must have come from and reinforced patriarchal views, as well. But the way she summed it up made me think that we, in modern times, today, are also not as feminist as we imagine we are - she said "- a lot of bondage." Again, surely there are sexist ideas and my first thought, since I didn't really read those comics, was that Wonder Woman gets tied up a lot, or uses her magic lasso in various ways, and this is the "bondage" that Boden characterizes as "not so feminist." "You're waitresses, you're not people!" Mel just said on "Alice" in their episode about equal pay for women - in the 80's. I've never accepted the "product of their times" or "consider the time they lived" arguments - because there have ALWAYS been Advanced people who did not accept the evils of any given time. I don't accept that Sex is bad or that The Feminine is bad, I reject these ideas and reject the ideas that China, or weed, or rock or rap are bad - I reject these judgments. And so when Anna Boden says "She's not really as feminist as we like to think - a lot of bondage" it reminds me that "bondage" isn't "anti-feminist" any more than doing the dishes is anti-feminist. It reminds me of the Anthony Bourdain show "Parts Unknown" where he goes to Japan and asks some sex workers what percentage of Japanese women or men are into bondage and they say "100%" - with the caveat that some might just not admit it. To me this is proof that in a culture where some sex expressions are less taboo they aren't part of any one "kind" of fantasy or gendered but part of a spectrum of experience that doesn't have "sides."
Carson just joked, from 1980, about Carter appointing a woman to the Supreme Court and saying it wasn't political just his commitment to the women's movement - but he didn't believe in it. Real, good communism is feminist, the ideal is equality so if itis good and lives up to that ideal it will be feminist and intersectional so it likewise champions all minorities and works to eliminate all disadvantage. You don't have to call it communism you can just call it Good Government - but I've always called it communism because I've always seen our capitalist bias, demonizing the "other", when we certainly don't do a good job of taking care of everyone and eliminating disadvantage via capitalism.
This is where the comic book principle, the magic of comic books comes into play. Anna Boden mentioned this magical quality of comics in her interview. She said that unlike movies and TV and even books that set the pace for the viewer, comics are more participatory: the reader sets the pace, spends the time and focus on the panels, but most importantly imagines and envisions the action, the sound effects, etc. This point was re-emphasised in another interview with the writer of the comic "Unseen," Chad Allen. This is a comic for the blind, an audio presentation of a comic book - and for everyone because even though I am not blind I was intrigued and wanted to read it. He made the point that all the action, all the story in comics takes place in your mind, too. The writing / pictures suggest the action, the sounds, the scenery - but the "movie", the story, takes place in your head. You can say that this is true of books, too - except in books all the description of words is part of the style and focus of the writer. This is true for comics, too, the writing and pictures emphasise certain things - but it is really more up to the reader to "fill in" the whole story, the things that happen between the panels, or are suggested - there is more left out of a comic than a book despite having so many pictures to guide you. Books are more directed by the author, its like entering the author's mind and sharing their mind for the story - of course with your own associations but basically following along into their world. Comics are more participatory, the writers and authors often meet each other "in the middle" but even self-drawn comics where the writer and author are the same person they creation teacm meets the reader "in the middle" moreso than in books - it's part of the writing process to rely on people's existing understanding and relationships with the characters.
The main point I want to make, here, about the magic of comics is how by selecting certain things to focus on and others to "leave out" it isn't as though those parts of the story are "omitted" from a story, in comics, but rather that they are left to the reader to supply. In books there is an idea that if the author doesn't say something it can be implied or suggested - but there is a specific vision of what the author is saying, what the story "really is." Comics aren't "up for interpretation" - it's not as though people will read the same comic and experience drastically different stories - but there are things that are Left Out, unshown, in comics that everyone is supposed to understand and supply the suggested "missing" parts of the story. Comic authors and artists are part of a long tradition of this kind of interplay with the audience, suggesting and leaving the rest to your imagination. It's like a magic tradition where to everyone else it just works, like magic, and we don't even know how it happened, but the ones who craft it do know, more, what they are doing and how their work produces the real work in the reader's imagination in a way that is beyond other art forms - comics have taken this aspect of art, this hiding and revealing and leaving for discovery, further than any other medium that comes to mind, except perhaps video games and other games.
That hits the point pretty well, that comics are more like Games than books are. But my other point is how this mentality, of filling in the gaps from what is missing, this ability of the imagination, is what always made me distrust the "Official Version" of news about China. The news still does this, they tell us the story and expect us to believe it - and most of us are trained to consume stories this way, without question or trying to participate. But if you DO expect to find the real story by reading between the lines, by looking at what they are trying to distract you from, then you piece together your own story and understanding that is deeper than what they present.
They rely on people accepting the news as it is presented and as long as enough people do they don't have to worry about us changing the world - but we must, to save it. The USA has demonized China because we are afraid of it because the difference in their system, the difference of admitting that the state is "all-powerful" and therefore ultimately responsible -THAT is what we want to avoid, taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions as a whole.
You can say that, instead of the struggle between Capitalism and Communism it is a battle of ideals between self-serving and communal. In our society privileged people protect our privilege by saying it's not OUR fault, or the System's, that people are disadvantaged - the poor need to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps" - even though that phrase actually means something impossible to do and they adopted it and revered it's meaning. If they were actually about "Responsibility", not just "personal responsibility" or blaming the victim, they would be eager to hold individual wrongdoers to account instead of excusing them, like with Kavanaugh and Trump - and they would be eager to hold institutions, corporations, and The System to account - discover their wrongs and hold them accountable. But they don't.
Communal thinking isn't about authoritarian rule - that is what "self-serving" cultural ideals lead to. Communal is accepting that the Whole IS powerful but that we are all part of that whole, the power isn't crushing us but it is created by us. The best government is like a comic artist who does their part, directing, well but includes us, invites us in.
The USA has presented a "comic" or "cartoonish" image of China - not like a Comic Artist, I'm using this to insult the presentation - like a Racist Cartoon not the Good Art of Comics. And while they have limited what they present about China, only presented China in certain lights and ways, you can sense what they leave out.
My entire life I have been suspicious of the Anti-China and other prejudiced messages I got from the culture in the USA. Maybe I give them too much benefit of the doubt - if they have imprisoned a million Uighurs, even in "re-education camps," then that and any other discriminatory practices are wrong - but the US has MORE people in prison, 2 million, than any other country including China even though they have 5 times more people than we do. So we don't have the room to criticize.
The USA and BBC report that the protesters in Hong Kong are protesting for "Democracy" - and we act like that means they are on "our side" - as if we represent Democracy. The DNC rigging of the primary, the Russian interference and everything Trump stands for shows how far we have strayed from Democracy. While we still claim to stand for these ideals Trump has clearly shown that our System is lying about it and doesn't truly reflect the will of the people who are honest about it. Yet when the news comes out about Hong Kong and their leading protesters calling for TRUMP to save them, we know that this is not an organic movement of the people but a sham and exploitation of impressionable youth orchestrated by Putin and Trump to "weaken" China. It fits with ALL of Putin's Puppets plans - Boris to weaken the UK, Trump to weaken America, Bolsonaro to weaken Brazil - and it's not "ironic", just magical and cosmic principles that all of these "Strong Men" end up weakening and destroying the countries they lead - because they are leading us in the wrong direction, every one.
So we know the Hong Kong protest is fake - meaning it is actually happening but isn't motivated by the people of Hong Kong but by Putin and Trump, etc - the fascists who fear the ascendency of China. It won't work, China can just be cool and wait them out. It WILL work to expose the evils of Trump and Putin, though - meaning it will backfire on those who started it. I predicted, from the nature of it - a "leaderless" protest of disaffected racists - that the Yellow Vest protests that captured the news for MONTHS was actually ginned or vodkad up by Russian Trolls -it just had that feel to me. And it's not like it's ONLY Russian trolls though they do have factories for them, I'm sure American trolls got in on it, too, either on their own or with government or klan sponsorship. But a few months later i heard at least one news report that Russian Trolls had spurred on that protest, that I was right. I don't know if that message got around and helped quell the protests or if they went away for other reasons - but I still can't understand why in the UK there is not a more concerted effort to undo Brexit when they should know, by now, that they were also being played by Russian trolls.
The exact same conditions surrounded the Hong Kong protests and I'm sure it will eventually come out that the Russian Trolls, Putin and Trump, are behind this, too. It really upset me to hear the "spokesperson" or not even - just a professor or journalist - say that the protesters had "the support of the world." If you are calling on Trump to save you, you do NOT have the support of the world, you are against the World - you merely have the support of a network of fascist leaders orchestrated by Putin. And they won't even protect themselves, in the end.
Trump is finally getting impeached. I and the whole country would be Celebrating this, Dancing in the Streets, if we could Trust it. Instead we are prepared for a drawn out process with Trump and Klan obstructing Justice at every turn like they were born to obstruct. It's already happening today with the State Department or White House refusals "casting doubt" on if the hearings are going to take place -they say the Congress is "intimidating" them - I hope by threatening to arrest them if they don't appear. But the way i hear this, Pompeo is throwing a fit and that is supposed to "cast doubt" when other things Government wants to do at this level just happen. When I looked up how to spell his name, just now, the news was that Democrats have warned Pompeo that his "Stonewalling" is just providing further evidence against Trump.
This is true - we can certainly trust SOME Democrats to insist on getting to the bottom of this we just have too much doubt in the system to hope that it will all result in removing him from office soon enough, or we fear that he will try to start another Civil War - which is again even more reason to get rid of him. The losers would lose far faster than they can even imagine, this time, if it came to that. But again, when you ARE on the losing side, the side of corruption that stands against all Good American ideals and threatens the health of the whole planet, you might as well just surrender and save everyone the trouble and pain. You'd lose the war anyway and there would never, ever be any glory in it, fighting for Trump, for Putin, for fascism and oil companies.
Putin put together this network of fascist leader and Zuckerberg helped him install them - they got what they wanted but it will all backfire on them. Because once we get rid of a few of these assholes, Boris and Trump, hopefully Bolsonaro, soon, too, the rest will fall as well and all the domino lines will go right back to Putin and Zuckerberg and overthrow them, too - if they even last that long. This is why I keep promotiing the #nationalizefacebook hashtag and idea, to just encourage every country to take over Facebook in their territory, seize it, from this fascist who "built it" and used it to help destroy the world.
China controls their internet and we bitch about it all the time - as a Sex-positive person I can take issue with them prohibiting pornography, for instance, but then again can't take too much issue with them, as a society, not spending billions of dollars on it every year like the rest of us do. Again, if Porn was better, if i wasn't all the potential bad things about it but was more of the Good Things, not only would China and other countries have less issues with it, it would be More Valued and Less Expensive - but good respectable work. While China is famous for their internet restrictions we have a terrible problem with using the internet for bad purposes, too - mostly white supremacist terrorism. And while we bitch about their "censorship" we don't care that Facebook censors leftist speech and allows right wing hate all the time, and we don't care that Modi shut off the internet in Kashmir when he put it under marshal law. I got an instant censorship from facebook last week for saying on "Tomi Lahren Fans" page that they were Nazi and Trump would not protect them any more - the support message from facebook saying the comment was removed came in the second I posted the comment - flagged as "spam" - but how does that Pro-Trump, pro-fascist group have an INSTANT ability to censor a comment - when if I report an obvious racist hate speech comment it takes them a week to report back to me that it "doesn't violate their standards." The other irony is that they called it "spam" when the whole reason I am even aware of that group is because on Bernie livestream videos they comment every 10 seconds with links to THEIR videos, which is actually spam, not One Critical Comment.
But even if they have the power to censor they can't stop the ideas themselves - ideas spread magically. Furley is now telling Jack's "identical twin" that they look nothing alike, that anyone could tell he is a "real Man." Now Jack is going to have to play Austin in person to Furley - he manages to keep it up because it's Three's Company, he just puts on a hat and take it off and pops up from behind the couch on either side of Furley. But in real life you can't just pretend to be President when you are actually a Russian Pawn - you can't pull that off forever. They are finally busting him for asking the Ukraine to investigate Biden... because of the Ukraine's fabled investigatory powers?
I want to go on record that it could be some sort of trap or Trick - depending on whose side the Ukranian president is on. If he is also a Putin Puppet then it is probably a trap. If it is someone else behind exposing it, if it could bring down all three presidents, Putin, Comedian, and Klansman, then maybe there is really something to it - but it is still possible that it is a "trap" because Putin doesn't care who is sacrificed or how much damage is done - that's his goal.
It's the philosophy of all Bullies, to sew and drum up chaos but by being the one causing it or stirring it feeling like you "control it" - only you don't. It eventually boils over or reaches out and drags you into the cauldron. Various leaders have "gone along with Trump" because they fear the consequences but we should all fear the consequences of enabling this bully. China has stood up to him, called his bluffs, shown what Real Power is. It could spin the world into more recession and economic catastrophe, they say, if the trade war continues - but China will recover from that much faster or in ways we won't ever be capable of. Putin is playing Old World rules in what is fast becoming a New World Game- and Green is the Path that Wins so he's fighting a losing battle. While we haven't gone green, as a planet, China is taking advantage and building networks all over the world including funding coal plants in Africa -which is Wrong in principle but also what "everybody is doing" - and if the people, everywhere, start seeing Green Energy as the future they will resent ANY foreign government trying to saddle them with the Past - but for Now, in the meantime, China is surpassing all other countries in partnership for development, as far as I can tell, and when they retain those partnerships during the Green Revolution they will be that much further ahead of the rest of us.
I don't resent this at all - the ones who do the Best deserve to win and cheaters do not. And this stuff really matters. A scandal in sport this week occurred when the World Track and Field championships took place in Doha and the stands were empty. Everyone was offended and even said it hurt their performance because they train for the crowds, for the loudness and the energy - but it seemed like what they weren't saying was that without a crowd it doesn't feel important and they want to feel important. Compared to climate change it isn't important, though - most things we spend so much time and attention on are simply not important or won't matter, especially if we all die from our own entrenched ignorance and stubbornness and the ability of a few to distract us.
We are going to show up and make the changes we need - and we are going to leave behind the things that don't deserve our attention. I know the empty stands in Doha were not some sort of protest, just mismanagement: they even offered locals free admission, free food an drink, but couldn't get people to come. We can change the world with boycotts, by Not Showing Up for certain things -we can remind people of what is Really Important by putting ourselves and our time where it really matters - and more of us will wake up to what these things really are instead of being duped into pointlessness.
We have to know we CAN do something. Climate Crisis and other injustice in the world is a great way to remind us that we MUST do something but if we don't know what to do then that pressure just becomes dabilitating and we don't do anything. One wonderful thing about magic is it always reminds us there is MORE to it, what we do is only part of something bigger - but just doing ANYTHING can set of magical chains of events. And the more magic we go for the more it will do and the more we will realize that we aren't powerless at all, "to be greater you need to think greater" a commercial just said.
It helps up think better to realize that the frames THEY put things are only PART of the story and the magic of comics shows us where the rest of the story can always be found - within us. Stories that seem to be written already, predetermined, are dead compared to the living stories we are invited into, to participate in and choose our own adventures or seek a Happy Ending. We know we are being invited into those kinds of stories because we can feel the magic - and we share the magic because once we start thinking that way instead of the NPC way where we are just programmed and posted we become active in th story, we become the writers and characters in NEW stories, too.
China wrote a New Story 70 years ago, an open-ended story with that comic, magic quality that invites Everyone in to write it, together. This is the ideal, the same ideal we claimed 250 years ago founding America, but never fully lived up to. We need new reminders, contrasting reminders, of what this story REALLY is and we will find outselves, all of us, together in the Same Story, someday, as we save the planet and take an honored, instead of a shameful, place among the Stars.
I heard some reports on the radio about comic books that made me consider what has always made me so fascinated and favorable towards China - I've known all my life that it was the way our American News and Culture reports on China and depicts it, like a taboo mystery and negatively, that ALWAYS made me suspicious about what "our" agenda was. I knew that the same system I live in, The USA, was racist and sexist and apparently had a specific issue with China, so it made me think favorably of them. Weed is another perfect analogy: The Culture I lived in said Weed Was Wrong and Bad for You. And then I found out they were wrong and lying, that weed is good for you. They always said sex in most circumstances was bad for you - I always imagined they were lying and eventually found out they were lying about that, too. But even before weed and sex, before I even knew those concepts, I could tell that this same culture was saying it was wrong to be black, or a girl, or wrong to be China - and I could tell from a very young age that this was bullshit.
I didn't see the "comic" connection in any of this until just this last week when I heard two interviews on the radio with "comic creators." One was with the writer and director of Captain Marvel, Anna Boden. She said some things about getting into comics, on American Military bases and how the American style comics were "90% Superheros" and that fit with the American Military culture - I thought she was going to say that by comparison other countries did not focus on Superheroes so much - it might have been implied but she didn't say it. She did somewhat condemn the patriarchy of this military culture, and the wider culture - but it was only implied, I guess, maybe I read that into it, too. When she said her mom gave her Wonder Woman comics for doing the dishes the female host, I think, said how awesome that was to get a "feminist icon" as a reward - and the male host made a joke about the "irony" of getting Wonder Woman for doing the dishes - "something Wonder Woman would never do." But that is misrepresenting feminism - it's not about "No one does the dishes" it's about "everyone does the dishes."
In the reporting on China, lately, they mention how empowering and inspiring it was for Mao to say, and everyone to repeat, that Women Hold Up Half the Sky. Some of the reports were about sexism in the culture and how the Government was pushing a "Domestic Ideal" for women there, to encourage women to "stay home and have kids" - apparently because the "one child" policy worked a little too well and they now need to encourage population growth - or as a side effect of Capitalism.
The way we report on China all the Good Things that happened were a result of their embrace of Capitalism and all their problems were due to communism. "Communism" the the culprit for the 50 millions of people who died during the Cultural Revolution - but when you think about how many were killed in the Revolution iself, you COULD blame "communism" - or you could just blame War. The Civil War in America killed 620,000 Soldiers - and probably millions more People as a result, not just soldiers. How many would have been killed if the eventual losers had just surrendered? It's War that kills people, not the ideologies on either side - but ultimately the better ideologies DO win - sometimes they win wars but REAL winning is winning without war. The point is that the ideologies don't kill people, wars kill people. Famines kill people - and if things are run well then famines and droughts and floods won't kill people - but they do and that's why things need to be run better. And Wars don't help that - or again, if the eventual loser of the wars would have just quit at the start millions of lives would have been saved - but don't blame the deaths on Communism, blame it on the entrenched interests of the establishment that is willing to send others to die to preserve it's privilege.
When talking about Wonder Woman Anna Boden said something that, to me, showed how entrenched sexism is in our culture - because she is the example of the feminist, the one who broke the barriers and had a billion-dollar blockbuster superhero movie starring a female character. And she made many good feminist points. But when talking about Wonder Woman she said "Wonder Woman wasn't entirely the role model of feminism that we imagine her to be in the 70's and 80's" - and when she said this I'm sure it's true that even with some feminism being expressed, surely, it also must have come from and reinforced patriarchal views, as well. But the way she summed it up made me think that we, in modern times, today, are also not as feminist as we imagine we are - she said "- a lot of bondage." Again, surely there are sexist ideas and my first thought, since I didn't really read those comics, was that Wonder Woman gets tied up a lot, or uses her magic lasso in various ways, and this is the "bondage" that Boden characterizes as "not so feminist." "You're waitresses, you're not people!" Mel just said on "Alice" in their episode about equal pay for women - in the 80's. I've never accepted the "product of their times" or "consider the time they lived" arguments - because there have ALWAYS been Advanced people who did not accept the evils of any given time. I don't accept that Sex is bad or that The Feminine is bad, I reject these ideas and reject the ideas that China, or weed, or rock or rap are bad - I reject these judgments. And so when Anna Boden says "She's not really as feminist as we like to think - a lot of bondage" it reminds me that "bondage" isn't "anti-feminist" any more than doing the dishes is anti-feminist. It reminds me of the Anthony Bourdain show "Parts Unknown" where he goes to Japan and asks some sex workers what percentage of Japanese women or men are into bondage and they say "100%" - with the caveat that some might just not admit it. To me this is proof that in a culture where some sex expressions are less taboo they aren't part of any one "kind" of fantasy or gendered but part of a spectrum of experience that doesn't have "sides."
Carson just joked, from 1980, about Carter appointing a woman to the Supreme Court and saying it wasn't political just his commitment to the women's movement - but he didn't believe in it. Real, good communism is feminist, the ideal is equality so if itis good and lives up to that ideal it will be feminist and intersectional so it likewise champions all minorities and works to eliminate all disadvantage. You don't have to call it communism you can just call it Good Government - but I've always called it communism because I've always seen our capitalist bias, demonizing the "other", when we certainly don't do a good job of taking care of everyone and eliminating disadvantage via capitalism.
This is where the comic book principle, the magic of comic books comes into play. Anna Boden mentioned this magical quality of comics in her interview. She said that unlike movies and TV and even books that set the pace for the viewer, comics are more participatory: the reader sets the pace, spends the time and focus on the panels, but most importantly imagines and envisions the action, the sound effects, etc. This point was re-emphasised in another interview with the writer of the comic "Unseen," Chad Allen. This is a comic for the blind, an audio presentation of a comic book - and for everyone because even though I am not blind I was intrigued and wanted to read it. He made the point that all the action, all the story in comics takes place in your mind, too. The writing / pictures suggest the action, the sounds, the scenery - but the "movie", the story, takes place in your head. You can say that this is true of books, too - except in books all the description of words is part of the style and focus of the writer. This is true for comics, too, the writing and pictures emphasise certain things - but it is really more up to the reader to "fill in" the whole story, the things that happen between the panels, or are suggested - there is more left out of a comic than a book despite having so many pictures to guide you. Books are more directed by the author, its like entering the author's mind and sharing their mind for the story - of course with your own associations but basically following along into their world. Comics are more participatory, the writers and authors often meet each other "in the middle" but even self-drawn comics where the writer and author are the same person they creation teacm meets the reader "in the middle" moreso than in books - it's part of the writing process to rely on people's existing understanding and relationships with the characters.
The main point I want to make, here, about the magic of comics is how by selecting certain things to focus on and others to "leave out" it isn't as though those parts of the story are "omitted" from a story, in comics, but rather that they are left to the reader to supply. In books there is an idea that if the author doesn't say something it can be implied or suggested - but there is a specific vision of what the author is saying, what the story "really is." Comics aren't "up for interpretation" - it's not as though people will read the same comic and experience drastically different stories - but there are things that are Left Out, unshown, in comics that everyone is supposed to understand and supply the suggested "missing" parts of the story. Comic authors and artists are part of a long tradition of this kind of interplay with the audience, suggesting and leaving the rest to your imagination. It's like a magic tradition where to everyone else it just works, like magic, and we don't even know how it happened, but the ones who craft it do know, more, what they are doing and how their work produces the real work in the reader's imagination in a way that is beyond other art forms - comics have taken this aspect of art, this hiding and revealing and leaving for discovery, further than any other medium that comes to mind, except perhaps video games and other games.
That hits the point pretty well, that comics are more like Games than books are. But my other point is how this mentality, of filling in the gaps from what is missing, this ability of the imagination, is what always made me distrust the "Official Version" of news about China. The news still does this, they tell us the story and expect us to believe it - and most of us are trained to consume stories this way, without question or trying to participate. But if you DO expect to find the real story by reading between the lines, by looking at what they are trying to distract you from, then you piece together your own story and understanding that is deeper than what they present.
They rely on people accepting the news as it is presented and as long as enough people do they don't have to worry about us changing the world - but we must, to save it. The USA has demonized China because we are afraid of it because the difference in their system, the difference of admitting that the state is "all-powerful" and therefore ultimately responsible -THAT is what we want to avoid, taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions as a whole.
You can say that, instead of the struggle between Capitalism and Communism it is a battle of ideals between self-serving and communal. In our society privileged people protect our privilege by saying it's not OUR fault, or the System's, that people are disadvantaged - the poor need to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps" - even though that phrase actually means something impossible to do and they adopted it and revered it's meaning. If they were actually about "Responsibility", not just "personal responsibility" or blaming the victim, they would be eager to hold individual wrongdoers to account instead of excusing them, like with Kavanaugh and Trump - and they would be eager to hold institutions, corporations, and The System to account - discover their wrongs and hold them accountable. But they don't.
Communal thinking isn't about authoritarian rule - that is what "self-serving" cultural ideals lead to. Communal is accepting that the Whole IS powerful but that we are all part of that whole, the power isn't crushing us but it is created by us. The best government is like a comic artist who does their part, directing, well but includes us, invites us in.
The USA has presented a "comic" or "cartoonish" image of China - not like a Comic Artist, I'm using this to insult the presentation - like a Racist Cartoon not the Good Art of Comics. And while they have limited what they present about China, only presented China in certain lights and ways, you can sense what they leave out.
My entire life I have been suspicious of the Anti-China and other prejudiced messages I got from the culture in the USA. Maybe I give them too much benefit of the doubt - if they have imprisoned a million Uighurs, even in "re-education camps," then that and any other discriminatory practices are wrong - but the US has MORE people in prison, 2 million, than any other country including China even though they have 5 times more people than we do. So we don't have the room to criticize.
The USA and BBC report that the protesters in Hong Kong are protesting for "Democracy" - and we act like that means they are on "our side" - as if we represent Democracy. The DNC rigging of the primary, the Russian interference and everything Trump stands for shows how far we have strayed from Democracy. While we still claim to stand for these ideals Trump has clearly shown that our System is lying about it and doesn't truly reflect the will of the people who are honest about it. Yet when the news comes out about Hong Kong and their leading protesters calling for TRUMP to save them, we know that this is not an organic movement of the people but a sham and exploitation of impressionable youth orchestrated by Putin and Trump to "weaken" China. It fits with ALL of Putin's Puppets plans - Boris to weaken the UK, Trump to weaken America, Bolsonaro to weaken Brazil - and it's not "ironic", just magical and cosmic principles that all of these "Strong Men" end up weakening and destroying the countries they lead - because they are leading us in the wrong direction, every one.
So we know the Hong Kong protest is fake - meaning it is actually happening but isn't motivated by the people of Hong Kong but by Putin and Trump, etc - the fascists who fear the ascendency of China. It won't work, China can just be cool and wait them out. It WILL work to expose the evils of Trump and Putin, though - meaning it will backfire on those who started it. I predicted, from the nature of it - a "leaderless" protest of disaffected racists - that the Yellow Vest protests that captured the news for MONTHS was actually ginned or vodkad up by Russian Trolls -it just had that feel to me. And it's not like it's ONLY Russian trolls though they do have factories for them, I'm sure American trolls got in on it, too, either on their own or with government or klan sponsorship. But a few months later i heard at least one news report that Russian Trolls had spurred on that protest, that I was right. I don't know if that message got around and helped quell the protests or if they went away for other reasons - but I still can't understand why in the UK there is not a more concerted effort to undo Brexit when they should know, by now, that they were also being played by Russian trolls.
The exact same conditions surrounded the Hong Kong protests and I'm sure it will eventually come out that the Russian Trolls, Putin and Trump, are behind this, too. It really upset me to hear the "spokesperson" or not even - just a professor or journalist - say that the protesters had "the support of the world." If you are calling on Trump to save you, you do NOT have the support of the world, you are against the World - you merely have the support of a network of fascist leaders orchestrated by Putin. And they won't even protect themselves, in the end.
Trump is finally getting impeached. I and the whole country would be Celebrating this, Dancing in the Streets, if we could Trust it. Instead we are prepared for a drawn out process with Trump and Klan obstructing Justice at every turn like they were born to obstruct. It's already happening today with the State Department or White House refusals "casting doubt" on if the hearings are going to take place -they say the Congress is "intimidating" them - I hope by threatening to arrest them if they don't appear. But the way i hear this, Pompeo is throwing a fit and that is supposed to "cast doubt" when other things Government wants to do at this level just happen. When I looked up how to spell his name, just now, the news was that Democrats have warned Pompeo that his "Stonewalling" is just providing further evidence against Trump.
This is true - we can certainly trust SOME Democrats to insist on getting to the bottom of this we just have too much doubt in the system to hope that it will all result in removing him from office soon enough, or we fear that he will try to start another Civil War - which is again even more reason to get rid of him. The losers would lose far faster than they can even imagine, this time, if it came to that. But again, when you ARE on the losing side, the side of corruption that stands against all Good American ideals and threatens the health of the whole planet, you might as well just surrender and save everyone the trouble and pain. You'd lose the war anyway and there would never, ever be any glory in it, fighting for Trump, for Putin, for fascism and oil companies.
Putin put together this network of fascist leader and Zuckerberg helped him install them - they got what they wanted but it will all backfire on them. Because once we get rid of a few of these assholes, Boris and Trump, hopefully Bolsonaro, soon, too, the rest will fall as well and all the domino lines will go right back to Putin and Zuckerberg and overthrow them, too - if they even last that long. This is why I keep promotiing the #nationalizefacebook hashtag and idea, to just encourage every country to take over Facebook in their territory, seize it, from this fascist who "built it" and used it to help destroy the world.
China controls their internet and we bitch about it all the time - as a Sex-positive person I can take issue with them prohibiting pornography, for instance, but then again can't take too much issue with them, as a society, not spending billions of dollars on it every year like the rest of us do. Again, if Porn was better, if i wasn't all the potential bad things about it but was more of the Good Things, not only would China and other countries have less issues with it, it would be More Valued and Less Expensive - but good respectable work. While China is famous for their internet restrictions we have a terrible problem with using the internet for bad purposes, too - mostly white supremacist terrorism. And while we bitch about their "censorship" we don't care that Facebook censors leftist speech and allows right wing hate all the time, and we don't care that Modi shut off the internet in Kashmir when he put it under marshal law. I got an instant censorship from facebook last week for saying on "Tomi Lahren Fans" page that they were Nazi and Trump would not protect them any more - the support message from facebook saying the comment was removed came in the second I posted the comment - flagged as "spam" - but how does that Pro-Trump, pro-fascist group have an INSTANT ability to censor a comment - when if I report an obvious racist hate speech comment it takes them a week to report back to me that it "doesn't violate their standards." The other irony is that they called it "spam" when the whole reason I am even aware of that group is because on Bernie livestream videos they comment every 10 seconds with links to THEIR videos, which is actually spam, not One Critical Comment.
But even if they have the power to censor they can't stop the ideas themselves - ideas spread magically. Furley is now telling Jack's "identical twin" that they look nothing alike, that anyone could tell he is a "real Man." Now Jack is going to have to play Austin in person to Furley - he manages to keep it up because it's Three's Company, he just puts on a hat and take it off and pops up from behind the couch on either side of Furley. But in real life you can't just pretend to be President when you are actually a Russian Pawn - you can't pull that off forever. They are finally busting him for asking the Ukraine to investigate Biden... because of the Ukraine's fabled investigatory powers?
I want to go on record that it could be some sort of trap or Trick - depending on whose side the Ukranian president is on. If he is also a Putin Puppet then it is probably a trap. If it is someone else behind exposing it, if it could bring down all three presidents, Putin, Comedian, and Klansman, then maybe there is really something to it - but it is still possible that it is a "trap" because Putin doesn't care who is sacrificed or how much damage is done - that's his goal.
It's the philosophy of all Bullies, to sew and drum up chaos but by being the one causing it or stirring it feeling like you "control it" - only you don't. It eventually boils over or reaches out and drags you into the cauldron. Various leaders have "gone along with Trump" because they fear the consequences but we should all fear the consequences of enabling this bully. China has stood up to him, called his bluffs, shown what Real Power is. It could spin the world into more recession and economic catastrophe, they say, if the trade war continues - but China will recover from that much faster or in ways we won't ever be capable of. Putin is playing Old World rules in what is fast becoming a New World Game- and Green is the Path that Wins so he's fighting a losing battle. While we haven't gone green, as a planet, China is taking advantage and building networks all over the world including funding coal plants in Africa -which is Wrong in principle but also what "everybody is doing" - and if the people, everywhere, start seeing Green Energy as the future they will resent ANY foreign government trying to saddle them with the Past - but for Now, in the meantime, China is surpassing all other countries in partnership for development, as far as I can tell, and when they retain those partnerships during the Green Revolution they will be that much further ahead of the rest of us.
I don't resent this at all - the ones who do the Best deserve to win and cheaters do not. And this stuff really matters. A scandal in sport this week occurred when the World Track and Field championships took place in Doha and the stands were empty. Everyone was offended and even said it hurt their performance because they train for the crowds, for the loudness and the energy - but it seemed like what they weren't saying was that without a crowd it doesn't feel important and they want to feel important. Compared to climate change it isn't important, though - most things we spend so much time and attention on are simply not important or won't matter, especially if we all die from our own entrenched ignorance and stubbornness and the ability of a few to distract us.
We are going to show up and make the changes we need - and we are going to leave behind the things that don't deserve our attention. I know the empty stands in Doha were not some sort of protest, just mismanagement: they even offered locals free admission, free food an drink, but couldn't get people to come. We can change the world with boycotts, by Not Showing Up for certain things -we can remind people of what is Really Important by putting ourselves and our time where it really matters - and more of us will wake up to what these things really are instead of being duped into pointlessness.
We have to know we CAN do something. Climate Crisis and other injustice in the world is a great way to remind us that we MUST do something but if we don't know what to do then that pressure just becomes dabilitating and we don't do anything. One wonderful thing about magic is it always reminds us there is MORE to it, what we do is only part of something bigger - but just doing ANYTHING can set of magical chains of events. And the more magic we go for the more it will do and the more we will realize that we aren't powerless at all, "to be greater you need to think greater" a commercial just said.
It helps up think better to realize that the frames THEY put things are only PART of the story and the magic of comics shows us where the rest of the story can always be found - within us. Stories that seem to be written already, predetermined, are dead compared to the living stories we are invited into, to participate in and choose our own adventures or seek a Happy Ending. We know we are being invited into those kinds of stories because we can feel the magic - and we share the magic because once we start thinking that way instead of the NPC way where we are just programmed and posted we become active in th story, we become the writers and characters in NEW stories, too.
China wrote a New Story 70 years ago, an open-ended story with that comic, magic quality that invites Everyone in to write it, together. This is the ideal, the same ideal we claimed 250 years ago founding America, but never fully lived up to. We need new reminders, contrasting reminders, of what this story REALLY is and we will find outselves, all of us, together in the Same Story, someday, as we save the planet and take an honored, instead of a shameful, place among the Stars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
