Eso’s Chronicles 308 / 7  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin. This series begins with 288.

A PILE OF WOOD

As I pointed out in the previous blog, the word ‘fasces’ or a bundle of hazel rods is actually a pile of wood http://prints.encore-editions.com/500/0/arthur-garfield-dove-wood-pile-approximate-original-size-10x14--2.jpg that certain political interests have turned into a burning bush http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/artists_a-k/dove/1.dove.jpg and worse http://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/sothebys/51/105351/H0046-L00668003.jpg .

From a certain perspective, such a pile of wood, can be seen as Europe http://mheckel.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/europe-map-new.jpg . It may also look as a burning bush http://thegatewayonline.ca/images/article_images/Opinion-Europe-Burning.jpg . And it may also look as if it were Death https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs16T_muufq2U-1UKMH_hUpbmbcgIcfHH8nkuYkN4Qs7HP4Goh0p8w3K6ePmsb3HVnZgKdFwzOxb-7moFce0c1yomPShRnE8k_vmvYjefa7vsW4RQCy2xEyl2qKIGJkBnDR9r0jz7HcjKA/s1600/86-wwi-cavalry-with-martini-henry.jpg  .

The reason for looking at fasces and Europe through the above images is, hopefully, to break the stereotype that thinks of fascism as necessarily leading to a Nazi concentration and extermination camp—either dead or alive. We have seen plenty of images of Nazi death camps through the deeds of Hitler’s Nazi government; but we are told that fascism multiplied into a federated Europe does not result in FLDE (Federated Living Dead Eropeans), though we have before us the federation of living dead Amricans. As if Eropeans are better made.

If the reader thinks that I am kidding, let me reassure him-her, that I am an eye witness to the Latvan government (I am a Latvian, an Amrican, and, consequently, an Eropean citizen) having turned, with the help of an unelected gvernment in Brusels a country of two million People into a pile of two million deads (about half of them exiled as a labor force for capital)—without giving the People any choice in the matter.

Those who question my veracity and believe that I exaggerate should ask anyone living today old enough to remember the country as it was before WW2—whether there is any resemblance between the Latvans of today and the Latvians of their grandparents’ day? The answer is NO! Minimal (whatever that may mean).

What is worse is that according to my genes my forebears come from the area of Slovenia http://i.infoplease.com/images/msloven.gif . The road that my forebears took to Latvia was by way of the Herrnhuters, a religious sect, which was summoned to reconstitute the torn asunder Livonian civil society after the Great Northern War http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Great_Northern_War_Part1.png  between Russia and Sweden http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Victory_at_Narva.jpg in the years 1700-1721. Mine arrived here, I figure, perhaps by way of Moravia about 1740.

What was unique about the Herrnhuters, descendants of a remnant of the followers of Jan Hus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite , executed by burning at the stake in 1415, was that they believed not only in educating the common man (the People), did not accept an intermediary priesthood, but believed in integrating themselves among the people and doing their work from within the fabric of the survivors.

The Herrnhuters reconstructed what had been the Livonian society with great success. The dead Livs were replaced by Latgalians, who moving west (fleeing from Catholic Polish occupied territories in eastern territories), settled the area of (what is now) northern and northeastern Latvia, which is where I live. Following the ‘progressive revolutions’ (in France), old communities, long repressed by proto-capitalist nobility in the West and East, gradually reconstituted themselves into nations. Former Livonia divided into Estonian (north) and Latvian (south) communities http://www.welt-atlas.de/datenbank/karten/en/karte-1-969-en.gif .

The Herrnhuters, largely oriented toward the German culture as their name indicates, led the ‘survivors’ of the war (in Estonia and Latvia) toward identifying with the land and their language. While the separations were not always clean and neat, for the most part, the Livs, who had formerly lived in Latvia, migrated north to Estonia or even went with the Swedes across the Baltic to Sweden; whereas the Latvians tended to align themselves with the descendants of their ethnic brethren, who [following the incursions of the Crusaders of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany)] had moved south and into Lithuania. It is interesting that the intra-ethnic frictions that developed were far less among the people of the newly emerging nations, but the emerging ethnic identity and between the Herrnhuters, who had been the very ones who had rebuilt the spirit of the native people. This was partly due to the fact that the Brethren’s identity continued to be influenced by their experience in Germanic lands, not least, because they aid had been solicited by German landlords of Livonia who formed the ruling class of Livonia.

As national identities began to emerge, the more assertive elements of the emergent Latvians wished to see the Germanic influence replaced by that of native Latvians. The lines of friction that developed were not among the people, but along the emergent elites, who rather than go over to the Herrhuter (Hussite) view of things and cultural matters, adopted the Lutheran point of view, because the Lutherans retained the Catholic perspective that when speaking with God, the people needed as a go-between, i.e., a Lutheran minister as a mediator. The Lutheran Church was, therefore, active in diminishing (and as much as possible in dismissing) the work done in rebuilding the new ‘Latvian ethnic society’, and for political reasons identified with the emergent nationalist movement (then centered in St. Petersburg, Russia), not least that it could join forces and push aside, both, former German Lutheran ministry and the Herrnhuters.

My grandfather, a fourth generation Herrnhuter, born in 1860, grew up nurtured by the Herrnhuter church (his mother prepared the inn owned by her husband for Sunday services), but by the time he completed his education (Cimze Seminary), the political movements within Latvian society had muddied the collective view to the future, not least in that it had lessened his personal career prospects, which were reduced to a career of drudgery, self-discipline, and endurance of life on Earth in a manner that would earn him a life in Heaven. With the wind definitely blowing against him and, no doubt, feeling their ‘capitalist’ drift, my grandfather is reported to have told his friends that he would “someday become a millionaire”.

Antons’ Benjamins’ ‘drudge’ career lasted about twenty years, from roughly the early 1880s until 1904. During that time, he had concluded a successful teacher’s career in a number of small Latvian countryside towns from Rujiena, Vecogre, Platere, the latter where most of his family grew up. He had also been choir director for all the choirs in the region of Vidzeme, married one of the choir girls, my grandmother Made (b. Yuryahns), raised with her a family of five children (my father Yahnis was born 1892), started two hardware stores, both of which went bankrupt, then in 1904 abandoned the family, moved to Riga, started working as a newspaper editor, met a younger woman, took up living with her, and by 1911 established his own newspaper “The Latest News” (Jaunākās Ziņas). Because of his earlier bankrupcies, the publisher of the newspaper became his common-in-law wife, Emiliya. Antons and Emiliya married in 1922, after Anton’s first wife Made relented, and after making sure that her former husband did not leave their children without an inheritance (Made forced the rewriting of an earlier Will that had left the children with little or no inheritance), and gave the couple her permission to marry.

I include this bird’s eye account of personal family history, to illustrate how within a hundred years following the beginning of the Industrial and Liberal age, a society of communities, having been done their will with by West and East Eropean nobility, was not able to shake off that nobility, which (transformed and hid behind the mask of liberal capitalism) continues to diminish the dignity of the hominid species to our day.

Eso’s Chronicles 307 / 6  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin. This series begins with 288.

STICKS IN THE SACK

When small pieces of ice or other particles approach one another in still water, once they come a certain distance from each other, they are attracted to one another and there develops a cluster of them. This is known as the meniscus effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meniscus , which is due to the different properties of attraction between molecules on the surface and below the surface of water.

One could say that a ‘united states’ (U.S., UK), too, was created due to such a force of mutual attraction. At some point, however, a conglomerate of such floes becomes too large to withstand the forces which are also doing their ‘duty’ on behalf of material nature. This is when a large float of small conglomerates decides to no longer attach to itself small floating pieces, but let smaller floats conglomerate into large ones, and when it has become large enough, only then join together using the same meniscus effect. The U.S. and a yet non-federated E.U. aim to such an end.

However, when seas are choppy and stirred by winds, even the smaller pieces (sometimes called ‘cheerios’) have trouble sticking together and go their own way. In as choppy a sea as is our modern environment, advantages as may have existed at the time small States joined into federations are over.

One reason for this is that the larger States that were formed by an agglomeration of smaller states have exhausted their economic advantages. The economies of efficiency once so apparent are no longer as apparent when raw materials become scarce and are fought over by many entities, too many for all to get what they need. At such a time, our planet begins to suffer from over-exploitation, and sterile voids rather than islands of prosperity. The peripheral states of the EU have become such povertystricken economic voids (thank you, Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, Norway, et al.)

This is when advantages of materialism begin to be challenged by the advantages of ‘culturalism’, which (when it was tempting for the wannabies to be ‘rich quick’) surrendered and even sacrificed its heritage and denied the nation’s forebears influence. Suddenly, we are beginning  to hear the reawakening of long unheard questions: Did not our grandparents work with horses? Though a horse, admittedly, is slower than a tractor that pulls ten plows, and though one has to be careful not to stand by the hind legs of a horse, is not a horse a lot friendlier than a machine? Cities have emptied our countryside of people and addicted them to sitting before television screens. They’re getting fat on food stamps, and we cannot get them to move. If we eliminate taxes in the countryside—will that not encourage them to move there and raise their own veggies? I would believe so.

When the cancer-like spread of today’s cities has shrunk to the size of a temple, that is to say, when the city is no more than one per nation and its only concern (on an advisory level) is the health of a nation’s culture, only then may the autocratic ‘ademocratic’ conglomerate, the federated State, be considered by us to have been checkmated by the genius of limits.

Unfortunately, at this particular time we are far from check-mating the forces unleashed by the military industrial complex. The civil public continues to be euphoric that the ‘progressive’ Revolution brought by unprogressive materialism and peace by violent deterrence has been brought to a temporary halt only, and that the deteriorating infrastructure of roads and bridges will not only be renewed, but more will be added to. Not surprisingly, in the mind of the public, it is the North Amrican continent, Western Europe [and maybe China (Nixon and Kissinger after all did visit Mao and made a deal to do what they could to deforest the USSR)—it can build a megacity in ten years] who lead the way to the future.

In the present geopolitical situation, the odd man out is Russia, a geopolitical entity which—post-USSR—has not yet come together. Its leadership has not made up its mind yet whether Planet Earth of tomorrow is that of banks and corporations (its own among them), or whether there is still such a thing as a national culture that bases itself on a once significant folk culture that lived in the wood.

In short, can a national culture that is able to delimit urbanism exist in the 21^st century, or are communities of People really eliminated and replaced with Employees of fascist communities centered on corporations?

It is the above question that provokes the suggestion in the title of this series, re: “A Suicidal Civilization”. Having eliminated the ‘People’ in the United States of America (the word ‘People’ as used as in the Constitution of America) and having replaced the People’s former independent life-style in the countryside with the life of a corporation employee (and having made ‘employment’ a question of supreme importance to the life of an urbanite, United States has steadily been working toward the ‘globalization’ (and federalization, privatization, and desertification) of the nations of the world. This political activity has in recent years acquired the name of ‘Arab spring’ (suggesting a removal of a long established government in an Arab or Muslim country, and replacing it with a ‘new’ and ‘liberal’ government). Through the aid of NGOs (non-government organizations) the U.S. advocates for human rights using immature youths such as the young women of “Pussy Riot” to insult the culture (and religion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS92big4TY ) of the People. More often than not, such People are thoroughly bourgeois, often many generations cocooned in an urban culture and long alienated from country life, except perhaps as a romantic notion for a picnic.

Not surprisingly, the ‘Arab spring’ recently struck Ukraine, a non-Arab country long considered to have been the cradle of Russia; its capital Kiev having been the first capital of Russia before the capital was moved to several sites north and inland and eventually to Moscow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Capitals_of_Russia .

It was in Moscow and St. Petersburg—both relatively young cities—that the notion of Western Culture and Religion as synonymous with the East took hold and made possible the ‘concensus’ history that has played such a significant role in displacing Nature on our planet with the pornographic art of the city. 

PS We may want to remember how Modern Art (promoted by the Central Intelligence Agency—CIA— of America) used Hitler’s fascist view of Modern Art as easily demonized to promote itself in a manner not all that dissimilar from its promotion of Pussy Riot.

Eso’s Chronicles 306 / 5  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin. This series begins with 288.

GOD AS TERRORIST

God was able to begin his career as a terrorist as soon as he was proclaimed to be “good” and as soon as ‘good’ was made stick and after which ‘sticking it (goodness) to him’ God could no longer be all one part of the Whole of Mind. One of those who made this reputation ‘stick’ to God is known to Western Christians as St. Augustine.

As Augustine writes (from North Africa) to Pope Boniface:

“I must express my satisfaction, and congratulations, and admiration, my son Boniface, in that, amid all the cares of wars and arms, you are eagerly anxious to know concerning the things that are of God. From hence it is clear that in you it is actually a part of your military valor to serve in truth the faith which is in Christ. To place, therefore, briefly before your Grace the difference between the errors of the Arians and the Donatists, the Arians say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are different in substance; whereas the Donatists do not say this, but acknowledge the unity of substance in the Trinity. And if some even of them have said that the Son was inferior to the Father, yet they have not denied that He is of the same substance; while the greater part of them declare that they hold entirely the same belief regarding the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost as is held by the Catholic Church. Nor is this the actual question in dispute with them; but they carry on their unhappy strife solely on the question of communion, and in the perversity of their error maintain rebellious hostility against the unity of Christ. But sometimes, as we have heard, some of them, wishing to conciliate the Goths, since they see that they are not without a certain amount of power, profess to entertain the same belief as they.” http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102185.htm

Those who look up the link will note that Augustine’s letter is a long one. However, what is of importance to us is contained in the paragraph. We note, for one, that Augustine holds it crucially important that “….in you [Boniface] it is actually a part of your military valor to serve in truth the faith which is in Christ”.

Note that the words Augustine emphasizes are “‘faith’… in Christ”, not in ‘Christ’ per se. It takes only a moment to realize that the ‘faith’ being presented is not presented by Christ, but by Augustine and Boniface, two ‘church’ men in service of secular princes and/or kings.

While the claim is made, there is actually no evidence that Augustine is a religious convert in any real sense. Rather, there is some circumstancial evidence  that he is a long term government agent or implant infiltrating Eastern Christianity (that is why he is presented as having been born in Africa), who soon develops a theory (on behalf of an unknown Prince) that expounds on the theory of a ‘just war’.

Just when Eastern Rome (Byzantium) is falling apart, Augustine (the name may be borrowed from ‘Aengus’, and may indicate a yet unsuspected link with the ‘old’ and pre-Roman Europe) writes a book by the name of “City of God”, in which he proposes (invents) a history of Western Christianity to replace Eastern Christianity, and participates in the resettlement of Jerusalem (then Byzantium, Constantinople) to, first, Avignon, in the midst of ‘heretic’ Cathar Christians in Languadoc, France, then (moving about eight hundred years ahead to the 14^th century) joins the Pope in Rome, and founds the Holy Roman Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire through the Frankish king Charlemagne (coinciding territorially roughly with that of Germany).

[Since my own sense of history is influenced by the ideas of Anatoly Fomenko, I do not hold to a strict Scaligerian concensus chronology, but rely on the believability of an improvised story. Unfortunately, a detailed chronological accounting depends on a major re-analysis of history—which is unlikely to happen until after our present Industrial Era destructs itself and allows for a major reinterpretation of events.]

Is it not curious that in our own day, the government of the U.S. is asking us to have ‘faith’ in its theory of a ‘just war’ (interfering with other governments, making a ready interpretation of what constitutes ‘terror’, whenever the country in opposition to it does not lend itself to easy manipulation), aka ‘globalization’ as a method of spreading the ‘Amrican’ way of life around the globe?

Another noteworthy statement is contained in the last sentence in the above quote”: “…sometimes, as we have heard, some of [the Donatists], wishing to conciliate the Goths, since they see that they are not without a certain amount of power, profess to entertain the same belief as they.” In other words, the “certain amount of power” of the Goths is not something that confessed whoremonger Augustine would recommend anyone to ‘fu**’ with.

Another crucial word in the paragraph is ‘Goths’. I hold to the theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Fomenko that it was the Goths (originating from the Vikings) who were driven out of the Eastern Christian kingdoms, which they had either occupied or were controlling by proxies, and removed themselves to the northwest of Europe, to the area coinciding with that of the Benelux countries today.

It was in this corner of Europe that the Goth nobility rewrote Eastern Christianity to their liking (including the text of the New Testament, with which story they replaced, the Old Testament, and renamed John Basil as Jesus Christ), removed the holy reliquaries from plundered Byzantium to Avignon, and used the intelligence learned gathered by ‘St.’ Augustine to present to the world with a heretofore unheard of ‘faith’, which it was necessary to present to the disbelieving public through military means, i.e., persuasive violence. The theory and military means have been exercised continuously for many hundreds of years. Its latest application is taking place at the time o this writing in the Ukraine, an area that—though it falls short of it—coincides with that of ancient Byzantium.

Interestingly, it is not ‘faith’ in Jesus Christ that is being pushed, but ‘faith’ in nuclear deterrence and the ‘spirit’ is nuclear radiation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eso’s Chronicles 305 / 4  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin. This series begins with 288.

A BUNDLE OF FASCES

The word meaning ‘fascist’ or ‘fascism’ derives from “The term fascismo [which] is derived from the Latin word fasces.^[14] The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods that were tied around an axe,^[15] was an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate.^[16] They were carried by his lictors and could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command.^[17][18] The word fascismo also relates to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates”.

As far as the definition goes, the above cannot be much improved on. However, there is much to be desired when it comes to the objective meaning of the words ‘fascist’ and ‘fascism’. What we have today is an amalgam of uses of the word by Hitler’s and Stalin’s followers, not to forget the obscenity it is regarded as by the majority of those who identify themselves as Jews.

I will attempt to throw a clearer perspective on the uses the word may be put to, which means that I may (for some) digress rather far from the pejorative meaning the word has gathered about itself and is exclusively held to today.

To begin: a bundle of fasces in old mythology does not constitute just a bundle of sticks or rods, but

“….Both the wood and the edible nuts of the hazel have played important roles in Irish and Welsh traditions. Hazel leaves and nuts are found in early British burial mounds and shaft-wells, especially at Ashill, Norfolk. The place-name story for Fordruim, an early name for Tara, describes it as a pleasant hazel wood. In the ogham alphabet of early Ireland, the letter C was represented by hazel [OIr. coll]. According to Robert Graves's… research, it also represented the ninth month on the Old Irish calendar, 6 August to 2 September. Initiate members of the Fianna had to defend themselves armed only with a hazel stick and a shield; yet in the Fenian legends the hazel without leaves was thought evil, dripping poisonous milk, and the home of vultures. Thought a fairy tree in both Ireland and Wales, wood from the hazel was sacred to poets and was thus a taboo fuel on any hearth. Heralds carried hazel wands as badges of office. Witches' wands http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/244302    are often made of hazel, as are divining rods, used to find underground water. In Cornwall the hazel was used in the millpreve, the magical adder stones. In Wales a twig of hazel would be given to a rejected lover.”

There is a lot more, but the above is enough to prove that we are neither engaged in an idle chat or that the hazel need carry blood drawn by fascists for all ages to come.

Fasces are also faggots women and children bring home from the wood and field to burn in the fireplace http://www.perfect-gallery.com/product/user/view.php?ProId=77169 . While using hazel wood as firewood transgresses against poets, hazel sticks for burning have, nevertheless, become symbols for the home, hearth, and the unit of family and community. There is no echo in the word ‘hazel’ of the sound that goes “nazi”. Perhaps if the era of materialist acquisition and consumption when let off the leash of lent had not been sent to the races as if lent resulted in the hunger of starving greyhounds, there would be no tracks running to Auschwitz.

And guess who just let the thugs loose again, while pretending to work on behalf of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’?

Why, it’s the land of the free ‘democrats’, where Amrican fascists continue to turn violence outward for export when things fall apart inward and the centre cannot be held by a man who has never heard of sacrificial ‘harisma’, said to be a name for a game of ‘golf’ for the Amrican Olympian class.

Except for one thing: Amricans no longer use either hazel rods or fascia rods, but have replaced them with tazer darts, some coming with as much as an 80,000 volt charge: http://rt.com/usa/drone-taser-gun-security-650/ .

The Amrican movie industry, long used to persuading the Amrican public about how consuming goods and ripping the heart out of planet Earth is the ‘progressive’ way that leads to a fascist peace sans communities and nations, but on the lamb with the corporate world is for all to be enjoyed through the Amrican way of controlling the Network of Dependencies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI5hrcwU7Dk&app=desktop . And, yes, the Earth is flat, because once Amrica and its Allies come to the edge of it (where we are today), we keep on marching, first, the Moon, then Mars, then Venus, and then we go far beyond where we come from and reach the Throne of God.

This is where things become sticky for Amrican fascists, because neither God nor the hominids, He is presumed to have created are amused by the games played by Amrican Olymps. Even Amrican atheists are questioning how the Death of God—it seems only yesterday—was so soon replaced by a name written ‘Obam’, and disbelief in him results in a charge of ‘terrorist’—just as not that long ago it was ‘heretic’?

Eso’s Chronicles 304 / 3  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin. This series begins with 288.
 
WHY CALL ON FASCISM?

The link begins with the observation that: “Mussolini and Hitler…” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/202210/fascism/219391/Intellectual-origins : “... did not invent fascist ideology. Indeed, fascism was neither a 20th-century creation nor a peculiarly Italian or German one. Originating in the 19th century, fascist ideas appeared in the works of…” I will follow the poster’s lead.

The number of writers and perspectives interested in elaborating on fascism are so numerous that it is difficult to grasp in a moment what was so attractive about fascist ideas. Why did the ideas find such an immediate echo among the voters in so many countries?

As the link elaborates: “Many fascist ideas derived from the reactionary backlash to the progressive revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 and to the secular liberalism and social radicalism that accompanied these upheavals. De Maistre condemned the 18th-century Enlightenment for having subverted the dominance of traditional religion and traditional elites and paid homage to the public executioner as the protector of a divinely sanctioned social hierarchy.”

At the same time, the link reveals its bias in the use of the word ‘progressive’. What is ‘progressive’ about the revolutions (particularly that of 1789) are that as Napoleon said: “No man could oppose it. Blame lies neither with those who perished, nor with those who survived. There was no individual force capable of changing its elements or of preventing events which arose from the nature of things and from circumstances”. http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/two_revolutions_in_france

Napoleon was right. However, as in the event of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Napoleon’s—as much as Lenin’s—perspectives were limited by the perspective of the ‘progressive’ (and untested) Zeitgeist. Today, we see that what was believed to be ‘progressive’ has inverted itself and become ‘regressive’, with the ‘digital technics’ of our time forecasting a replacement of the human brain by the computing machine.

From the perspective of this writer, the ‘regressive’ elements of our ‘progressive’ times (yet believed to be such by most) are what I take to be signs of a catastrophic implosion of what once was called the Industrial Age. Beginning with the 19^th century, the Industrial Age has stripped our planet not only of its animal and plant life, but turned the human habitat from wood to that of a desert city. And yet ‘digital technology’ plays on, and a herd of hominids with its ‘brain’ scraped smooth lives on without any notion that there is no escape to the moon and that the very absence of the wood and its life has changed its way of thinking and blinded it to the immanent Death facing it.

Peculiar as it may seem, it is this Death, the immanence of which the hominids appear not to be aware of, that signals the next Revolution. This is to say, while the disaster of war will be brought by humans and suffered by them, the recovery will be made by trees and, possibly, yet unknown life forms. Such a turn of events, may be the result of Marx (and most everyone at the time) being so overwhelmed, even struck dumb, by the seemingly sudden seizure of the reigns of materialist orientation, that the clown and glove became more convincing than the hand manipulating it.

Many people realized that the bursting of the bounds of industry had already precipitated the French Revolution and sent Napoleon’s Army to Moscow, which at the time still had wood about to inhibit the general’s attempts to forage food for his army—the wood was not an oak thicket to provide home for wild pigs, while the gardens of the farmers were a little thin on vegetables. Yet few are able to resist not mentioning that the uniforms of Napoleon’s La Grande Army were factory made and signaled rapid advancements in military hardware from the time onward—as the American Civil War illustrated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weapons_in_the_American_Civil_War . The Industrial Age also introduced major geopolitical changes, which had begun with the ‘Age of Discovery’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism and colonial expansion in the 15^th century.

In spite of all of the ‘progressive’ and revolutionary changes, the change least emphasized in today’s schools or media is the catastrophic expansion of the urban environment, which has resulted not only in the expansion of cities and the pollution of most countries shores, but the denuding of the countryside of its woods, wild life, and, not least, people. When we speak today of the unemployed in so called ‘developed’ countries, we need to realize that such unemployment is not for lack of growth, but for replacement of human beings with machines, at the same time as machines have encouraged an expansion of socialist order and dependency on government in liberal capitalist countries. Of all things expanding and growing is the armaments industry. This year alone China increased its military expenditures by 12%, which is more than 5% above GDP.

In short, there is no significant difference between capitalist and socialist countries in terms of production, and no difference from the perspective of the damage done to the planet. All post-Industrial Age countries are destroying life (animal and vegetable) on Earth as intensely as any scraped smooth brain would. If we think about it, a brain can be smoothed only when the shell of the cranium surrounding it is torn off, just as the agony of life in flesh is best revealed by ripping off the skin off the back of a still living dog or goat.

While the transition from the wood to the horror scene (blog 303) took nearly a thousand years to reach us, the Romanian artist Constantine Brancusi covered in one life-time. Trained as a carpenter and stone mason, Brancusi, beginning with sculptures as rough in texture as bone of wood http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/666 , ended up polishing the hominid brain http://www.yatzer.com/assets/Article/3348/images/b-Brancusi-in-New-York-1913-2013-Paul-Kasmin-Gallery-ASSOULINE-Francois-Halard-yatzer.jpg to receive praises from art dilletantes.

It is also what has happened to the community. Beginning with life in the wood and the intimacy of one’s own back yard, the majority of hominids were marched by the head apes of their clans to where today all are devoured for a never to happen regurgitation by an Amrican government sponsored agency NSA (National Security Agency), which sits somewhere in the State of Utah and awaits the explosion of an electro-magnetic device to wipe its brain clean of all records.

Eso’s Chronicles 303 / 2  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin. This series begins with 288.

CAN FASCISM BE CHANGED?

When the boyars and princes first levied the tax, they not only turned theft into a rational and periodic act, but created a civilization off the raw backs of animals skinned naked to dress naked hominids in ermine and sable http://www.bookdrum.com/books/the-bloody-chamber/105150/bookmark/133717.html . The best and softest of furs went, of course, to the Kings first, then the nobles.

The earliest ‘art’ of curing animal skins on a grand scale for wear was probably developed in the north. No doubt, the skins of cheetahs, lions, and tigers for the pharaohs, were from equatorial animals. However, in the hot climate zones, animals were not butchered for the sake of taxes, which is where the sacrifice of life becomes butchery of life, which as a film of cataracts glazes hence over the eyes of hominids for thousands of years to come.

It is a tragedy for government that the Viking rabble did naked robbery only the first time around, but by the second time they came down the rivers, they had terrorized the local kings sufficiently to have them hand the yatsak (early name for tax, a word meaning literally ‘jacket’ of animals) ready http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhqQhIir5m0 upon demand. Since that ‘first’ time thousands of years have gone by and millions of lives have looked back on life like the skinned and dying dog does in the first link above.

It is but a small step from tearing the skin off a still live animal to doing pretty much the same thing to a hominid. In fact, in some places, like Aztec Mexico, the flaying of human beings was preferred to the flaying of animals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xipe_Totec . The reason for the switch from animal skins to human skins is that the latter deed is longer remembered—it leaves a more lasting image in the mind. It also provides the King-Priest of the country with greater respect and power.

If the King-Priest (occasionally also a Queen) has greater power, he-she also has a greater kingdom, and there is less resistance to him-her imposing their wills on the subject populace, the tax payers, who before the institutionalization of the tax brought ‘gifts’ in place of taxes.

Nevertheless, in spite of the wide-spread use of animal and human sacrifices (we cannot be sure which started first), the hominids evolved in such a way that overt violence—other than a short burst of anger—was noticed and was slowly built resistance against.

As we come to our own time, most of us know that repression of lower strata of society by the elite strata eventually results in an uprising and an overthrow of the preexisting government. Unfortunately, such an overthrow of government does not guarantee replacement of cruelty. Often the repression of the common people has lasted for so long (many centuries, perhaps even a thousand years) that the powers who replace the former government know of no better way to behave than violently. Indeed, it may even behave more cruelly and exact more deaths.

The experience of our so-called Christian Era consists of an unending stream of repressions and cruelties, and one wonders why this is so—even as Christianity is supposed to be teaching non-violent resistance, which is supposed to become ever more effective through the organization of society into ever greater numbers of people who share the same vision and conviction.

It takes little time to reflect (if that dull cataract gaze of the butcher does not cover our eyes and mind) that such a ‘Christian Era’ never came, never was, and whatever talk there was about it—it never was real either in the past or now.

But since the limiting and elimination of violence seems such a good idea, why does it never get ahead and become adopted for real? Does not the New Testament, said to be a ‘holy book’, actually say something about human beings learning to love one another?

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. ³⁵ By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” —John 13:33-35 (KJV) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Commandment

The ignoring of this commandment by Jesus is a curious fact. If its overlooking does not at the same time negate the commandment, it cannot but make one wonder why this should be so. This is when we come in contact with the character of our age and William Blake’s Urizen.

The commandment in Romans 13:6 about paying taxes is as well known as it is famous for demanding of Christians submission to authorities: “Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.” http://biblehub.com/romans/13-6.htm

It goes without saying that the commandment of Jesus ought to be the one listened to and obeyed, but as ‘the material girl’ might sing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNSUOFgj97M , we not only live in a material world, we also live in a world of law and lawyers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY6w4-2jIvA . And it is these folks who make money in disobeying the commandments of Jesus, because his word has been contradicted (possibly by Apostle Paul), and all a lawyer cares about is precedent—it does not make any difference who says it whether God or Satan. A lawyer will even point out that the commandments appear in the Book of John and Matthew, thus guaranteeing cross referencing, and neither of them pays their salaries.

Today the collecting of taxes has become such a natural part of everyone’s life that not only people do not know of the origin of taxes, but have no idea that the first money ever made was not by trading in salt, but by relieving of their skin reindeer, horses, wild pigs, water buffalo, and whatever other animals possessed a herding instinct and lent themselves to herding, which implies a trusting nature.

But, you may respond, what is wrong if violence contributes toward increasing the bonds among members of a nation and makes them swear ever greater fealty to its leader? Is that not what Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and quite a few other modern leaders desired and got?

Eso’s Chronicles 302 / 1  
A Suicidal Civilization
© Eso A.B.
All comments appearing within brackets [ ] are editorial in origin.

IS FASCISM RECOVERABLE?

A lady who I have known for many years recently surprised me by being endorsed on a network by one who works for a ‘suicide prevention’ group. Since the lady is a practicing Buddhist, one may say that from a conventional point of view this is a match made in heaven. Both work for ‘healing from within.’

My objection to the mutual endorsements is because whenever I hear talk of suicide prevention without hearing an explanation that extreme dedication to suicide prevention denies a would-be ‘suicide’ the right to argue on behalf of self-sacrifice of life, I hear an argument on behalf of an  of evasion of life. Indeed, I hear in the advocate of suicide prevention a voice denying self-sacrifice of life and arguing that self-sacrifice (and Revolution) is not necessary whatever the circumstances may be that makes one think of them. Indeed, a radical, i.e., violent defense of a right to be sovereign when it comes to a decision about one’s life is summarily dismissed on behalf of an ‘inner’ and presumably ‘spiritual’ decision of a religious nature and conviction.

My readers know that I have long endorsed and argued on behalf of self-sacrifice as essential to the existence and maintenance of the human community. If it were not so, we would not be walking upright and would be still be squatting high in a tree chattering rather than talking. When all is said, self-sacrifice is an act that, though it may begin as a small favor, may end up with the ultimate sacrifice of giving one’s life. Yet ever since before the Age of ‘Enlightenment’ and the arrival of Catholic Christianity (God is only of the Plus side) there have been people who have argued that suicide is an act of violence and a major transgression against one’s self and, therefore, needs to be preached against and condemned.

Or is it that the argument in support of fear (and avoidance) of Death comes from those who raised themselves to material wealth by repressing and killing those who stood in the way of such self-improvement? The medieval poet Dante expressed this fear (revealed in official forgiveness of sins) in his poetry http://www.stpeterslist.com/8214/forest-of-suicides-6-comments-on-dantes-punishment-for-the-self-violent/  and, like it or not, condemned the creator of Death to the lower ring of Hell, which he imagined to be like Antarctica. Who is this Creator of Death—

Satan or God?  

I argue that Death is the creation of God; while, for all I know, you may say it is a creation of Satan.  Yet if Satan is a separate creation from God, he is not necessarily either more or less than God.

A way around this is to argue that both God and Satan are only middling Creator gods, and that there is yet a Higher God who created them both. This is easily illustrated by successive digital divisions, re < into < <, and so on. The Engish poet Robert Blake called this God Urizen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urizen , God of Reason and Logic

To simplify my argument, I will stay with the idea that whether there is a God (call him the Big Other or Urizen) or not, matter brought to life was created by God to die for his own good reasons. If this is only a half a truth or in no way true, my presumption, nevertheless, justifies the argument that death is/was either created (or evolved) for a purpose. What purpose?

Here we need to look back to the old tradition of repentance and fasting—despite the fact that there are many writers who believe that “…we no longer have the luxury of tradition” (either repentance or fasting). What was the reasoning that brought fasting about?

Does it mean that fasting or lent needs a ‘tradition’ for us to give it a try? I do not quite understand, why I need ‘a tradition’ to put up with a tradition of never hearing Bill Gates, whoever he is, reprimanding himself for hanging tooth and claw to an acquisitive character, from which our culture mines the deserts of its cities.

Needless to say, I have no idea of who this Bill Gates is, except that the press keeps touting such a name as the world’s wealthiest man or oligarch, and he has been seen on a number of ‘platforms’ advocating fascism as he sees it http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/535577/20140123/bill-gates-melinda-foundation-jimmy-fallon-show.htm . When it all gets boiled to syrup, the brew differs only slightly from Mussolini’s famed definition, which I will quote following Gates three definitions:

1. Everything in the oligarchy;
2. Nothing outside the oligarchy;
3. Nothing against the oligarchy.

http://the-classic-liberal.com/everything-for-the-state-nothing-outside-the-state-nothing-against-the-state/

These definitions (of course, Gates may not even know the word ‘fascist’) do indeed deny the ‘traditional’ definition of ‘fascism’ by Mussolini, who proposed it on behalf of the ‘State’ rather than ‘oligarchy’ as in the following http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fascism :

“1.’Everything in the state’. The Government is supreme and the country is all-encompasing, and all within it must conform to the ruling body, often a dictator.

2.’Nothing outside the state’. The country must grow and the implied goal of any fascist nation is to rule the world, and have every human submit to the government.

3.’Nothing against the state’. Any type of questioning the government is not to be tolerated. If you do not see things our way, you are wrong. If you do not agree with the government, you cannot be allowed to live and taint the minds of the rest of the good citizens.

The use of militarism was implied only as a means to accomplish one of the three above principles, mainly to keep the people and rest of the world in line. Fascist countries are known for their harmony and lack of internal strife. There are no conflicting parties or elections in fascist countries.”].

Still, if we think of it, ‘fascism’ speaks not only on behalf of oligarchy’, but also of monarchy. And as in the last words of 3., it also speaks of ‘good citizens’. So, what gives?

We may begin to start unraveling the riddle by, first, identifying appropriate synonyms for 1., 2, and 3.

A: is dictator as well as pope, president, or King.

B: is government not as in A. but as in Bureaucracy.
C: good citizens constitute the community, the city, the society.
D: militarism is outwardly turned armament. The needles of a porcupine are an excellent example.
E: fascism is a State with an outwardly violent face.
F: sometimes a nation is called a fascist State.

G: Is it possible that a fascist nation does not always project violence outwardly, but replaces it with atonement, lent, and self-sacrifice?