Serene Falcon

“Oh, Good” Quoth The Dodo, “New Friends.”

August 13th, 2008 at 2:00 pm (Animals, Correctitude, Melancholy, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The King of Terrors)

In the year 1598 AD, Portuguese sailors landing on the shores of the island of Mauritius discovered a previously unknown species of bird, the Dodo. Having been isolated by its island location from contact with humanity, the dodo greeted the new visitors with a child-like innocence. The sailors mistook the gentle spirit of the dodo, and its lack of fear of the new predators, as stupidity.

 
About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture of a strange fowle hung out upon a clothe and myselfe with one or two more then in company went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was a great fowle somewhat bigger than the largest Turky Cock, and so legged and footed, but stouter and thicker and of a more erect shape, coloured before like the breast of a young cock fesan, and on the back of dunn or dearc colour. The keeper called it a Dodo, and in the ende of a chymney in the chamber there lay a heape of large pebble stones, whereof hee gave it many in our sight, some as big as nutmegs and the keeper told us that she eats them ( conducing to digestion ), and though I remember not how far the keeper was questioned therein, yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast them all again.

Sir Hamon L’Estrange

[ A normal royalist who wrote a life of the Great King, and father of Roger, an extreme royalist journalist who battled against usurping filth in youth and age; and even gave the Dr. Goebbels of the Commonwealth, the depraved Johnny Milton a metaphorical drubbing. Goebbels without the charm, of course; for he was as inferior to the good doctor as his unspeakable master was to his tedious disciple Adolf. ]

 
It is near dusk in The Hague and the light is that of Frans Hals, of Rembrandt. The Dutch royal family and their guests eat and talk quietly in the great dining hall. Guards with halberds and pikes stand in the corners of the room. The family is arranged around the table; the King, Queen, some princesses, a prince, a couple of other children, and invited noble or two. Servants come out with plates and cups but they do not intrude.
On a raised platform at one end of the room an orchestra plays dinner music—a harpsichord, viola, cello, three violins, and woodwinds. One of the royal dwarfs sits on the edge of the platform, his foot slowly rubbing the back of one of the dogs sleeping near him.
As the music of Pachelbel’s Canon in D swells and rolls through the hall, one of the dodos walks in clumsily, stops, tilts its head, its eyes bright as a pool of tar. It sways a little, lifts its foot tentatively, one then another, rocks back and forth in time to the cello.
The violins swirl. The dodo begins to dance, its great ungainly body now graceful. It is joined by the other two dodos who come into the hall, all three in sort of a circle.
The harpsichord begins its counterpoint. The fourth dodo, the white one from Réunion, comes from its place under the table and joins the circle with the others.
It is most graceful of all, making complete turns where the others only sway and dip on the edge of the circle they have formed.
The music rises in volume; the first violinist sees the dodos and nods to the King. But he and the others at the table have already seen. They are silent, transfixed—even the servants stand still, bowls, pots and, kettles in their hands forgotten.
Around the dodos dance with bobs and weaves of their ugly heads. The white dodo dips, takes half a step, pirouettes on one foot, circles again.
Without a word the King of Holland takes the hand of the Queen, and they come around the table, children before the spectacle. They join in the dance, waltzing ( anachronism ) among the dodos while the family, the guests, the soldiers watch and nod in time with the music.

Howard Waldrop’s most famous story: The Ugly Chickens; which can be found here. In a most irritating layout.

 
“Let us mention the Dodo whose body is big and round. His corpulence gives it a slow and lazy walk. There are some nearing 50 pounds in weight. Its sight is of more interest than its taste and he looks melancholic as if he was sorry that Nature had given him such small wings for so big a body. Some have their head capped with a dark down, some had the top of their head bald and whitish as if it had been washed.They have a long and curved bill with the nostrils openings half way to the tip. It is greenish yellow. Their eyes are round and shiny and they have a fluffy plumage. Their tail looks like the sparsely beard of a Chi­nese made up of three or four short feathers. Their feet are thick and black and their toes powerful. They have a fiery stomach allowing them to digest stones like ostriches do”

Teylandt’s Mauritius — mentioned on a page: Le musée du Dodo

 
A Dodo Blog; the Dodohaus; some 1850 notes here; a newspaper article here, and a creationist view there. Which last ends rather correctly:

Now that the bird has been extensively studied, we realize that the facts do not support the evolutionary myth, but do support the moral bankruptcy of humankind.

Yes.

 
The sentimental view of animals, that they are created for our purpose, and the mechanistic view that we are all animals and thus anything we do to them is merely one species outsmarting another come together in self-loving smug congratulation to justify any atrocity. As is only commonplace. It’s fairly difficult for most people to realise that, as with humans, animals are by no means equal, yet are each an individual: and as individual souls they get from God an individual respect which we need to emulate to act correctly. As difficult as it is for the birds of the air and beasts of the land to remember the most important thing when they see a human: Run like Hell.

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The Skewed Perspective

July 20th, 2008 at 10:00 pm (Correctitude, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

Of course, the Greek works that survive are those that the Christian Byzantines choose to preserve for us. Hence they give a very skewed view of what Greek thought was actually like. For instance, we have seen that the medical works of Galen make up a full fifth of the entire surviving classical Greek corpus. Add Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and the mathematical works and we find that Christians were by far the most keen on copying scientific and medical writings. The papyri from Egypt and epigraphical evidence show that this was not the concern of most Greeks. In other words, we think Greeks were a rational lot because Christians were interested in their rational thought. Hence, the preponderance of Greek science in the surviving corpus tells us that the Christians who preserved it were very interested in science — not that the classical Greeks were. Oddly, Stoicism, the Greek philosophy that comes closed to Christianity is severely under represented as is Epicurianism and Cynicism. And yet these three schools rejected much of reason and science, concentrating instead on ethical issues. We are left with the strong impression that it was Christians who appreciated Greek science a whole lot more than the Greeks did.

James Hannam Loss and Preservation of Ancient Literature‘,’The Skewed Perspective’

Nice. Though a caveat might be that the Greeks gave us so much more than scientific rationalism that the debt civilisation owes them is beyond measure: cool helmets; the theatre of the angst; and, of course, Democracy buttressed by slaves… * The Greek loving Oscar Wilde confesses in his socialist musings that slavery is inescapable in an ideal democracy — someone has to actually do the unpleasant bits — although the obvious conclusion that democracy is fraudulent as a concept from this and a dozen other reasons was naturally eluded. Democracy is the ultimate feel-good ideal; and it’s devotees know that however many millions are slaughtered, tortured, enslaved, robbed, lied to, and disappointed, that mankind may enter the miragic City upon a Hill, they are absolved by the moral purity of the mission.

It would be salutory if they would simply look at a single group selected at random in order to examine whether they truly want these exact people to have any say in their own lives. Not necessarily the demonized, such as communists, nazis or scientologists, but a community of ordinary people come together to celebrate anything one likes. At random, I proffer the unspeakable Gor. Google = 94 million results.

Professors of philosophy rarely are going to be productive of anything helpful; yet American ones seem rather less so, and their results positively harmful on occasion — well, certainly on this occasion… Gorean studies are prominent on the Web, the enthusiasts being mostly women [ It is ironic, therefore, that the largest single group among the creators of webpages, and in the Gor chatrooms are female. ]; the rest being wimps. It can best be summed up by a famous parody, Houseplants of Gor ( The cactus plant next to the spider plant shuddered. It attempted to cover its small form with its small arms and small needles. “I am plant,” it said wonderingly. ), and what one really, really, needs to establish is whom exactly, apart from themselves maybe, would select these people as having a valid input into any choice that effects others. And, this is merely one subset of humanity: there is no logical reason why any other selected group would fare any better. To take one party mentioned above: much of the internet gets over-excited about scientologists; accusing them of numberless offences: personally, I think their religion and practices sub-optimal, but nothing to concern my life, yet regarding their entirely legitimate beliefs, which they have every right to hold, I find it offensive that believers in L. Ron’s idiocy should have a vote to determine government. However, no more offensive than that anyone should have a vote; including myself.

 
Here’s a blog with a lot of jolly nice dragons. I never cared for the duplicitous Jason, nor St. George either.

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Is Thy Servant A Dog That He Should Do This Thing ?

July 8th, 2008 at 12:45 am (Animals, Correctitude, Manners not Morals, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

The Rightosphere, painstaking as ever to find more stuff to feel delicious frissons of outrage about, and more reasons to be unnecessarily mean to muslims, has got excited over The Case of The Muslim Who Barked In The Night. Basically, a poor feeble-minded member of that faith, member of Dundee City Council and member of the Tayside Police Board, complained that this advert, featuring Rebel, was offensive to some of his sad community.

Now, the Tayside Police had a number of options here, all of which could be combined with just telling him that his advice had been noted and would treated with the importance it deserved:

1/ Contact any christian european/american member of Tehran’s City Council, and ask him/her to protest about the depraved muslim drive to destroy pet dogs in Iran, especially in that city.

2/ Set up an urgent Education Policy to explain to the muslim community the especial place dogs have in British and european culture, especially black dogs ( whom Mohammed considered devils — he doesn’t seem to have been entirely sane all the time; still, he liked cats ) who haunt various parts of England, the continent, and even some parts of America, bringing rather more happiness and delight than any elected member of local government ever has, even if they bring instant doom and destruction. Being torn by the hounds of Arawn, The Lord of Winter, is slightly less painful than being torn apart by the self-righteous maenads of political correctness if only because the hounds are less stupid and would not accompany the savagery with boring one with the moral reasoning for the action at the same time.

3/ Engage in a wild hunt of local muslims with vicious packs of rabidly foaming dogs of all shapes and sizes.

4/ Preferably: tell him to go chase his tail around and around until he collapses in a heap.

Naturally, police being wimps, they apologised. Still, who cares ? Such minor things can be ignored until the future culture-clash goes into armed mode…

Slightly more annoying, one can notice that the 0845 prefix to the number means that it is charged at a higher rate which goes back to the called organisation. It now costs money to call the cops ? Not only are they useless, but they charge you for it…

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What Lives In Vegas, Dies Out of Vegas

June 26th, 2008 at 1:00 am (Music, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The King of Terrors, Videos)

One thing the world admires in Americans is that, despite the mistrust and fearfulness innate on a personal level, they retain a basic confidence in the group and retain an idealism in all matters of faith. As a realist I could scarcely maintain that most ideals are barely removed from derangement, but they make people happy — and it is definitely preferable to be surrounded by optimists rather than equally delusional pessimists.

One aspect, faith in science and faith in government — during the twentieth century these were so interwined as to become indistinguishable — was exemplified by those so avid for entertainment and [ very ] momentary pleasure that they flocked from around the continent to ever-welcoming Las Vegas to stare at the mushroom clouds that blossomed in the 1950s. While this might seem to more critical minds the nadir of stupidity, I honestly have to confess that considering the loathliness of most activities that the city so famously offers it does seem an alternative — if only for a blink of an eye.

The late Mr. Carlin, who performed last there just 12 days back, happened to describe it as “… the most dispiriting, soul-deadening city on earth.” and a few years back expounded to the patrons watching his act there, “People who go to Las Vegas, you’ve got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That’s what I’m always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects.” which seems fair enough — and almost sedulous in avoiding empty flattery. Yet, although personally oblivious to the pleasure of gambling for money, the faded rat-pack type entertainment seems yet more repellent. Essentially this demonstrates one problem with absolute freedom and happiness: with all you will ever need, how does one use that freedom to maintain happiness ? We may futurely discover that in any of the heavens promised by various faith: on earth it appears to involve sitting in exquisitely awful hotels, listening to Cool singers, and regularly giving even larger sums than most religions demand in blind faith that it will be returned a thousandfold.

This is quite an interesting site, Essays On Deep Las Vegas Culture; and although my liking for Elvis is nearly as tepid as my liking for the city, I find the song ok for it’s remarkable vigour and structure — written naturally by someone who had not been there, and lived in poverty; unlike the criminals who built the place — and the fountain is tremendously pretty.

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People Power

June 23rd, 2008 at 12:00 am (Other, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

Organised sport has always disgusted me: making all allowances for it’s devotees’ belief that it serves as a mimicry of warfare, spiritual and actual, without the latter’s ontological import; and the fact that for the players — who are undoubtedly, if only very minorly, skilled — it improves health [ up to a certain point after which it diminishes it instead ] the idea of caring whether one bunch of eejits beat another bunch of eejits merely exemplifies the sadness of existence, no matter how preferable it is to not existing longer.

It is noticible that the rulers most scorned are the pacifically minded > few have been so thoroughly excoriated as James the First & Saxt, no matter how sensible his policy — continued by his great son — of avoiding direct participation in the Thirty Years War. Similarly, the Emperor Honorius is disliked for concentrating upon feeding his pigeons, maybe a rather expreme expression of Voltaire’s advice to cultivate your garden… yet ending gladiatorial combat is definitely preferable to continuing to give people what they want… Animal games continued for a century or two though. Sport as religion is as tolerant of unbelievers, as full of fake moral ( social ) reasoning, and as empty as most real religions; yet if the participants enjoy it, let them, so long as they don’t proselytize — it’s those who merely watch, live vicariously by giving it meaning it cannot possess, and pay for such imbecility who are still lesser beings. Is there any aspect of life in which democracy is not a wholly vile concept ?

 
The musician was dead and the animals were fighting for the parts of his body strewn over the hillside. The crowd was weak from laughter and the girls on the barge were laughing too. The Master of the Games gave another signal.

This time nothing seemed to happen. Then one of the girls on the barge suddenly gave a shriek of terror. She was seated on the gunwale and the water in the arena was washing against her bare feet. The barge was sinking. The other girls took fright. Jumping up, they began screaming for help. A slave inside the barge had been watching through a knothole for the Master of the Games’ signal. When it came, he gave orders to pull out the plugs and sink the vessel. The paddlers inside the barge had escaped through a hatch and were now feverishly swimming for the podium wall, praying that they could reach it before the crocodiles and hippos got them.

Hippos are by no means the big good-natured pig-like creatures that they seem. These animals were all bulls and in a very bad temper. A slave happened to touch one of the creatures. Instantly the hippo swung around, making the water swirl around him, and plunged his great tusks into the man’s body. As the red dye spread, the crocs began to thrash around, sometimes seizing a hippo by the leg and sometimes each other. The crowd rose to its feet as one man at this new spectacle. The barge full of screaming girls was now awash and some of the more determined girls had plunged into the water and were trying to swim to the mountain island or reach the podium.

Few of them made it for the Master of the Games had carefully selected girls who were non-swimmers. Those who reached the mountain were promptly attacked by the wild animals, now crazed by the scent of blood and the taste of the dead Greek. A few reached the podium wall and clung to it, screaming for mercy. The water around the barge was churned white as the crocs attacked the girls that still clung to the wreck. Two of the mighty reptiles seized one girl and began twisting in opposite directions. One wrung off a leg, the other an arm. One gigantic animal that must have weighed well over a ton reared out of the water and grabbed a girl standing on the gunwale. He submerged with her, carrying the shrieking girl as easily as an elephant carrying a carrot. Others of the enormous saurians were trying to knock the girls into the water with their tails. The barge, being made of wood, did not sink completely but there was no protection on it for the women.

Several of the hippos were approaching the barge, excited by the noise and the smell of blood. Although not carnivorous, the big brutes were as aggressive as bulls. Only their eyes and noses showed above the water as they floated studying the hysterical excitement on the remains of the barge. The crowd was furious. People yelled, “Go on there, you big slobs ! Do something ! Get the fire !” for bulls that would not perform were occasionally goaded into action by throwing burning javelins into them.

Then one of the hippos charged the barge. Lifting his head and shoulders out of the water and opening his huge mouth to its fullest capacity, he plunged his two tusks over the gunwale and began to worry the vessel like a terrier shaking a rat. The submerged wreck heaved and shook as two tons of enraged hippo struggled with it. The last of the screaming girls was flung into the water and the white bellies of the crocs flashed as they twisted in the water, trying to wring off pieces of their prey.

The mob was now uncontrollable. Women stood up in the stands drumming with their fists on the backs of people in the seats before them and screaming hysterically: “Kill ! Kill ! Kill !” Even before the games started, smart young men could spot women who would give way to this madness and make a point of sitting next to them. While in the grip of hysteria, the women were unconscious of everything else and the boys could play with them while they screamed and writhed at the bloody spectacle below them. Old men, long impotent, sat drooling gleefully. Even ordinarily normal men watched with mouths hanging half open, eyes staring eagerly to take in every detail, and then fought their way out through the crowd to take advantage of the prostitutes assembled in the arches under the building. Children shouted and danced on their seats, as much to relieve their nervous tension as with joy at the sight below them. Only in the lower ring of seats were there connoisseurs who watched with dispassionate interest, commenting to each other on the strength and ferocity of the animals and criticizing the girls’ figures as they were dragged to their death.

Daniel P. Mannix : Those About To Die

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Darkness Hold Me Like A Friend

June 7th, 2008 at 3:30 am (Manners not Morals, Melancholy, Music, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

It is an axiom that every American born has a chance of becoming president, yet few avail themselves of that option. Such a fairytale there to sooth the slumbering never to be acknowledged fact that 99.9% of them are subjugated by a — semi — elected ruling class and have no chance whatsoever of effecting change within the system — which is no doubt all for the best — takes no account of the fact that the odds are of course far lesser than any state lottery, which are usually stupendously unlikely. There are over 300 million Americans at present, barring any major event taking place overnight; there will be around 400 – 440 million in 2050 — although this is probably an underestimate if the present rate of legal immigration of 1 million a year was raised to to 3 or 5 million, as this 2006 legislation indicated, and illegal immigration rose dramatically for some reason [ such as some countries becoming less endurable through nature or war ]. There is the natural probability that these masses will reduce the numbers through attrition: over-crowding will increase the national propensity of Americans to kill each other at random. Anyhow, whilst strictly disinclined to search for the answer, even if it is known, I’ll assume that the total number of citizens who lived during the 20th century was, say, 400 million [ 76 million in 1900 to 281 million in 2000 --- during which time millions died and were replaced ]. During that century, 1901 to 2001, there were 18 presidents.

Even odder than that fact, from a european view, is the fact that out of all those millions, most admittedly disbarred by reasons of eligibility, disinclination, sex, mental impairment etc., even the early preliminary hat-throwing stages of a presidential race only appear to encompass around twenty to fifty persons seriously considered; and after the winnowing out by press and parties, the fix is in place and the permissible candidates are ready to run. Which means only around four Americans are ever papabile out of 300 million people. It might be slightly preferable if the final ballot was to be of a choice of twenty persons with some kind of transferable vote system to knock them down till there’s just one man standing. This wouldn’t make the system legitimate of course, but then no system which includes people voting can confer legitimacy on any result.

 
 
As a graceful tribute to that dead-eyed political process here are some songs for each participant. Unattributed generic Corries-type band for the first, but I couldn’t find the inimitable original from Francie & Josie; Alice Blue Gown no doubt since the song was inspired by the daughter of another great family of presidential nepotists — although scarcely so semi-insanely so as poor old Hil with her almost unique sense of unaccountable entitlement; Red Yo-Yo as pace McCain, Iran will resemble how we kept the Gorbals over here [ a ben trovato tale goes of after perhaps the Somme or Ypres an over-excitable senior staff officer burst into tears when taken to view the mud, deeper mud than anyone can really imagine, and exclaimed "My God, did we send men to die in that ?!" --- Yes we did sir, and nor all your tears shall wash out a word of it... Still, another point is that even in piping days of peace we really didn't provide very well for our poor... 'Did we keep people in places like these ?' Matt McGinn was a commie, and looking at Glasgow then, one can understand why. Naturally, having faith in the working-class is as vulgar and debased as faith in an aristocracy, or faith in wealthy businessmen, yet people had to believe in something I guess. ]

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Iron In The Soul Goes A Trifle Rusty

April 30th, 2008 at 2:30 am (Melancholy, Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy, The King of Terrors)

“There followed a series of uncovered plots, some true, others fantastic, some Cheka provocations. Dzerzhinsky was constantly sharpening the weapon of Soviet dictatorship. To Dzerzhinsky was brought the mass of undigested rumours from all parts of Petrograd. With the aid of picked squads of Chekists, Dzerzhinsky undertook to purge the city. Little time was wasted sifting evidence and classifying people rounded up in these night raids. Woe to him who did not disarm all suspicion at once. The prisoners were generally hustled to the old police station not far from the Winter Palace. Here, with or without perfunctory interrogation, they were stood up against the courtyard wall and shot. The staccato sounds of death were muffled by the roar of truck motors kept going for the purpose.”

“Dzerzhinsky furnished the instrument for tearing a new society out of the womb of the old — the instrument of organised, systematic, mass terror. For Dzerzhinsky the class struggle meant exterminating ‘the enemies of the working class.’ The ‘enemies of the working class‘ were all who opposed the Bolshevik dictatorship.”

“At meetings of the Sovnarcom, Lenin often exchanged notes with his colleagues. On one occasion, he sent a note to Dzerzhinsky. ‘How many vicious counter-revolutionaries are there in our prisons ?‘ Dzerzhinsky’s reply was: ‘About fifteen hundred.’ Lenin read it, snorted something to himself, made a cross beside the figure, and returned the note to Dzerzhinsky.”

“Dzerzhinsky rose and left the room without a word. No-one paid any attention either to Lenin’s note or to Dzerzhinsky’s departure. The meeting continued. But the next day there was excited whispering. Dzerzhinsky had ordered the execution of all the fifteen hundred ‘vicious counter-revolutionaries‘ the previous night. He had taken Lenin’s cross as a collective death sentence.”

“There would have been little comment had Lenin’s gesture been meant as an order for wholesale liquidation. But, as Fotieva, Lenin’s secretary, explained: ‘There was a misunderstanding. Vladimir Ilyich never wanted the executions. Dzerzhinsky did not understand him. Vladimir Ilyich usually puts a cross on memoranda to indicate that he has read them and noted their contents.’”

From computer jottings. Original link 404ed.

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Not To Tell A Lie : Western Tourists In Burma See Local Customs

March 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 pm (Animals, Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The King of Terrors, War)

The account given by Pinto of the final surrender of Martaban to the Burmese, and of the events which followed, is graphic and interesting, and in many particulars bears the impress of accuracy and truth, though to the Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who had a very vague and inadequate idea of the greatness and splendour of the cities and countries of Eastern Asia, it appeared absurdly exaggerated. Here, as elsewhere, it must be remembered that Pinto had no means of accurately estimating numbers, and that he frequently was obliged to take his details from the reports of men who no doubt employed Eastern hyperbole with great freedom.

It appears that the unfortunate King of Martaban had reckoned greatly upon the assistance of the Portuguese, and had held out in the full hope that they would give him efficient succour. When he found them, to his intense chagrin, ranged on the side of his enemies, he gave up his cause for lost, and entered into negotiations with his assailant, offering to surrender his capital on condition that he should be allowed to retire in safety with his family. The faithless Burmese tyrant, after pledging his word that this condition should be granted, shamefully broke the promise he had given, and the un­happy prince was led forth in triumph with his wives and children, and exposed to great humiliation and ignominy. Pinto gives a very circum­stantial account of the procession of guards and captives who marched forth from Martaban, giving the names of many of the princes, the chief priest, &c. He then says — “Immediately after these there came in a litter Nhay Canatoo, daughter of the King of Pegu, whose kingdom the Burmese monarch had taken away, and wife of the Chambainhaa. She had with her four little children, two boys and two girls, the greatest of whom was not more than seven years old, and around her were thirty or forty young women of noble family, and grandly beau­tiful. They all had their faces bowed down towards the ground, and tears in their eyes, and leaned upon other women. After these marched in order certain Falagrepos, who are among themselves like the Capu­chins among us, and who all, barefooted and bareheaded, marched onward praying, and carrying in their hands a kind of chaplets. Moreover, they encouraged these ladies as well as they could, throwing water in their faces to revive them when their hearts failed them, which happened often enough — a lamentable spectacle, which it was impossible to look upon without shedding tears. This unhappy company was followed by a number of foot-guards, and after these came some five hundred Burmese on horseback. Near them was the Chambainhaa, mounted on a small elephant, in token of poverty and of the disregard of the world, conformably to the religion to which he had devoted him­self anew. There was no greater pomp about him than this, and he was dressed simply in a long garment of black velvet, in token of mourning, having his beard, his hair, and his eyebrows shaved off; and, moreover, he had caused an old cord to be placed about his neck before he gave himself up to the king. This spectacle, too, was so mournful that none could look upon it and refrain, from weeping. With regard to his age, he was about sixty-two years old, of very lofty stature, with a grave and severe countenance, and the look of a very generous prince. When he had come to a place where a confused company of women, children, and old men awaited him, when they saw him in such a lamentable condition, before he had emerged from the city, they all raised, six or seven times, such a loud and terrible cry, that one would have said the earth was crumbling under his feet; and these lamentations and cries were incontinently followed by a multitude of blows that they inflicted on their own faces, striking themselves heavily with stones, with so little pity for themselves that the majority of them were in a short time covered with blood. Moreover, these things so horrible, to see and so terrible to hear, in such measure afflicted all the bystanders, that even the Burmese guards, though they were men of war, and con­sequently little inclined to compassion, and enemies of the Chambainhaa, could not refrain from weeping like children. It was at this place, also, that the heart of Nhay Canatoo, the wife of the Chambainhaa, twice failed her, and: all the other ladies gave way also, insomuch ilhat it was necessary to let him dismount from the elephant on which he was riding, that he might be able to encourage his wife and to console her. Then, seekig her lying on the ground like one dead, and embracing her four littte children, he knelt down on the ground and looked up with tears in his eyes.”

The severest part of the unfortunate prince’s trial was the mortifica­tion of meeting the Portuguese, who had behaved very treacherously towards him, and who were now standing to see him pass “all clothed in holiday dresses, with cuirasses of buffalo leather, their hats on their heads ornamented with a great number of plumes, and their arquebuses on their shoulders.” Juan Cayeyro, one of the number, especially attracted the notice of the Chambainhaa by flaunting in crimson satin. On seeing him, the fallen monarch bent forward on his elephant’s neck, and declared that he would go no farther unless these wicked and trea­cherous men were removed. The Birmans themselves were irritated at the double-dealing of the Spaniards, and the captain of the guard sar­castically bade them go shave their beards, and no longer deceive people into the belief that they were soldiers; and the Burmese would hire a number of women in their stead, who would serve for money. The Burmese guards, following their commander’s lead, thereupon pushed away the Spaniards with great contempt, and Pinto adds pathetically, “Not to tell a lie, nothing ever so sensibly affected me as this, for the honour of my compatriots.”

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Jerome II : ‘We Shall Have To Teach You’

March 7th, 2008 at 4:01 pm (Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy, The King of Terrors)

As a child I studied one of the part-works — a form once popular from the 1920s to 1980s, but which has rather naturally fallen out of vogue: magazines issued weekly — on WWI; obviously such publications included photographs which should be seen once, in order to understand consequence, but not dwelt upon unless one is in training to become a serial killer. Actually, mere death cannot appall: there is nothing in the least romantic in death — as opposed to dying well — and it’s displays are solely squalid; however ongoing injury or the truthful immediacy of creatures suffering causes as much instantaneous flinching within as if in their presence. The issue dealing with the murder of Tsar Nicky and his family had on the back page another murder, that of a black man burning with grinning morons surveying this act.

To maintain that these lynchings — within living memory — were all of the innocent seems both unlikely and inapposite; since that matters not: such behaviour is utterly unacceptable were you dealing with devils from Hell. Still, it can be pointed out that this is one form of action that can be justified under any variant of democracy, from pure populism to libertarian individualism. And again, those who condemn such atrocities of the past, just under current fashion rather than for the pure lack of decency in such degrading manifestations, are often glad and usually silent when the victims are those of whom they disapprove — such as say, nazis or Saddam’s people..

 
Once only — at Chattanooga — did I meet with dis­agreement : and then I was asking for it. Two negroes had been lynched a few days before my arrival on the usual charge of having assaulted a white woman: proved afterwards ( as is generally the case ) to have been a trumped-up lie. All through the South, this lynching horror had been following me; and after my reading I asked for permission to speak on a matter about which my conscience was troubling me. I didn’t wait to get it, but went straight on. At home, on political platforms, I have often experienced the sensation of stirring up opposi­tion. But this was something different. I do not suggest it was anything more than fancy, but it seemed to me that I could actually visualize the anger of my audience. It looked like a dull, copper-coloured cloud, hovering just above their heads, and growing in size. I sat down amid silence. It was quite a time before anybody moved. And then they all got up at the same moment, and turned towards the door. On my way out, in the lobby, a few people came up to me and thanked me, in a hurried furtive manner.
My wife was deadly pale. I had not told her of my intention. But nothing happened, and I cannot help thinking that, if the tens of thousands of decent American men and women to whom this thing must be their country’s shame would take their courage in both hands and speak their mind, America might be cleansed from this foul sin.

***

My curiosity has always prompted me to find out all I could about my fellow human beings wherever I have happened to be. I maintain that the American man, taking him class for class and individual for individual, is no worse than any of the rest of us. I will ask his permission to leave it at that.
The last time I visited America was during the first year of the war. America then was all for keeping out of it. I had friends in big business, and was introduced to others. Their opinion was that America could best serve Humanity in the bulk by reserving herself to act as peace-maker. In the end, she would be the only nation capable of considering the future without passion and without fear. The general feeling was, if anything, pro-German, tem­pered in the East by traditional sentiment for France. I failed to unearth any enthusiasm for England, in spite of my having been commissioned to discover it. I have sometimes wondered if England and America really do love one another as much as our journalists and politicians say they do. I had an interesting talk with President Wilson, chiefly about literature and the drama. But I did get him, before I left, to say a little about the war; and then he dropped the schoolmaster and became animated.
“We have in America,” he said, “twenty million people of German descent. Almost as many Irish. In New York State alone there are more Italians than in Rome. We have more Scandinavians than there are in Sweden. Here, side by side, dwell Czechs, Roumanians, Slavs, Poles and Dutchmen. We also have some Jews. We have solved the problem of living together without wanting to cut one another’s throats. You will have to learn to do the same in Europe. We shall have to teach you.”
Undoubtedly at that time Wilson was intending to remain neutral. Whether his later change of mind brought about good or evil is an arguable point. But for America the war would have ended in stalemate. All Europe would have been convinced of the futility of war. “Peace without Victory ” — the only peace containing any possibility of permanence — would have resulted.

To the democrat, America is the Great Disappoint­ment. Material progress I rule out. Beyond a certain point, it tends to enslave mankind. For spiritual progress, America seems to have no use. Mr. Ford has pointed out that every purchaser of a Ford car can have it delivered to him, painted any colour he likes, so long as it’s black. Mr. Ford expresses in a nutshell the mental attitude of modern America. Every man in America is free to do as he darn well pleases so long as, for twenty-four hours a day, he does what everybody else is doing. Every man in America is free to speak his mind so long as he shouts with the crowd. He has not even Mr. Pickwick’s choice of choosing his crowd. In America there is but one crowd. Every man in America has the right to think for himself so long as he thinks what he is told. If not — like the heretics of the Middle Ages — let him see to it that his chamber door is locked, that his tongue does not betray him. The Klu Klux Klan, with its travelling torture chamber, is but the outward and visible sign of the spirit of modern America. Thought in America is standardized. America is not taking new wine, lest the old bottles be broken.

I ask my American friends — and I have many, I know — to forgive me. My plea is that I am growing old. And it comes to me that before long I may be called upon to stand before the Judge of all the earth, and to make answer concerning the things that I have done and — perhaps of even more import­ance — the things that I have left undone. The thought I am about to set down keeps ringing in my brain. It will not go away. I am afraid any longer to keep silence. There are many of power and authority who could have spoken it better. I would it had not been left to me. If it make men angry, I am sorry.
The treatment of the negro in America calls to Heaven for redress. I have sat with men who, amid vile jokes and laughter, told of “Buck Niggers” being slowly roasted alive; told how they screamed and writhed and prayed; how their eyes rolled inward as the flames crept up till nothing could be seen but two white balls. They burn mere boys alive and sometimes women. These things are organized by the town’s “leading citizens” Well-dressed women crowd to the show, children are lifted up upon their fathers’ shoulders. The Law, represented by grin­ning policemen, stands idly by. Preachers from their pulpits glorify these things, and tell their congrega­tions that God approves. The Southern Press roars its encouragement. Hangings, shootings would be terrible enough. These burnings; these slow grillings of living men, chained down to iron bedsteads; these tearings of live, quivering flesh with red-hot pinchers can be done only to glut some hideous lust of cruelty. The excuse generally given is an insult to human intelligence. Even if true, it would be no excuse. In the majority of cases, it is not even pre­tended. The history of the Spanish Inquisition unrolls no greater shame upon the human race. The auto da fe, at least, was not planned for the purpose of amusing a mob. In the face of this gigantic horror, the lesser sufferings of the negro race in America may look insignificant. But there must be tens of thousands of educated, cultured men and women cursed with the touch of the tar-brush to whom life must be one long tragedy. Shunned, hated, despised, they have not the rights of a dog. From no white man dare they even defend the honour of their women. I have seen them waiting at the ticket offices, the gibe and butt of the crowd, not venturing to approach till the last white man was served. I have known a woman in the pains of childbirth made to travel in the cattle wagon. For no injury at the hands of any white man is there any redress. American justice is not colour blind. Will the wrong never end ?

Jerome K. Jerome : My Life and Times

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Où Est Le Chaise Électrique ?

March 6th, 2008 at 10:30 am (Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The King of Terrors)

We stopped in Belgium long enough to savor the richness of Flemish art, in which Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges abound; then returned to Paris for a last taste of its delights. It was a good time to be leaving France. The franc had been slipping and slipping; it looked as though it might follow the course the German mark had taken five years earlier. There were disturbing political rumblings; people were tense and edgy. The Parisians, never particularly cordial to foreigners, were now openly hostile. They had to stand by and watch the aliens, especially the Americans, stock up with merchan­dise they themselves could no longer afford. At the banks, knots of well-to-do Americans kept their eyes glued on bulletins that an­nounced fluctuations in the rate of exchange, waiting for another drop so that they could get a few more francs for their dollars. This did not go down well with the French. Nor did the fad, adopted by some exuberant tourists, of pasting hundred-franc notes on the outside of their valises. I resisted the temptation to snap up art bargains, confining my purchases to a few inexpensive prints by Matisse, Marie Laurencin and Foujita.

Our return to Paris coincided with the arrival of hundreds of members of the American Legion, who had come over to attend the organization’s tenth-anniversary celebration. Careful prepara­tions for the event had been made, especially with respect to public relations. An American friend of mine who had close connections with the French press was asked to handle the publicity. He agreed on condition that he was to have a million francs to use at his dis­cretion. During the convention, the only newspapers that criticized the Legion were the Socialist L’Oeuvre and the Communist L’Humanite.

The behavior of the Legionnaires was characterized by the boorishness, bad taste and rowdyism that are typical of the annual gathering of this aggregation of professional patriots. In American cities one endures it with resignation, knowing that the boys will soon be going home to their service stations, funeral parlors and haberdasheries. But on foreign soil, and in Paris of all places, the American who esteems his country and values its good name squirms at the antics of these ill-bred middle-aged adolescents.

An uproar in the Rue de Lille informed me that the Legion­naires were in town. Drawn to the window of my hotel room, I saw one of the visiting merrymakers on the balcony outside his room at the Hotel Palais d’Orsay, across the street. Stripped down to his underwear, he was brandishing a bottle to which he had frequent recourse. To the passing women in the street below he addressed pointed invitations; to the men he shouted, ‘What you make in francs I make in dollars.” For almost the only time in my life, I wished that I were anything but an American. This opening note was repeated over and over, with variations. Everywhere one saw blowzy men in fatigue caps, drunk, boisterous, quarrelsome, trying to bargain with shopkeepers, drinking champagne at little bistros at eleven in the morning, lining up in the stifling heat and the stench of frying fat to buy doughnuts in the barracks which the Salvation Army had erected in the citadel of French cookery.

On the final day of the convention, the day of the big parade, there was an incident that was both hilarious and grim. We posted ourselves in the Place de la Concorde to get a good view of the proceedings. The Parisians who packed the huge square stared in amazement as the paraders, state by state, marched by, the trim drum majorettes cavorting, the men arrayed like members of the chorus in an operetta with a Ruritanian setting. In due course the Massachusetts delegation appeared, resplendent in scarlet or green or purple. Suddenly someone shouted, “Où est la chaise électrique ?‘ The memory of the Sacco-Vanzetti execution was fresh; the crowd took up the cry with savage delight. Soon it filled the whole square. The men from Massachusetts, interpreting it as some special tribute, beamed and waved in grateful acknowledgment.

Elmer Rice : Minority Report

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Fat Shubin

March 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm (Other, Royalism, The Building Blocks of Democracy, War)

Comte Louis de Robien was a cynical French diplomat attached to St. Petersburg during the First World War: in his diary of the final years he detailed the Revolutions and that curious time when at any given time Tsarists, democrats, bolsheviks, socialists, the German army, Ukrainians and many other groups of varying sizes could be either fighting each other, or in very temporary alliance contesting the other groups singly or in concert…

 
Monday 9th April 1917
Shubin is still very worried. The apparent orderliness of the demon­stration in honour of the victims of the revolution does not re­assure him.
He analysed the psychology of Russian crowds to us with great shrewdness — he understands them better than we do, their men­tality is so far removed from ours.
“I saw,” he told us, “a troop of a thousand demonstrators in a small side-street, waiting their turn to take up their position in one of the processions. There they stood, each one in his place, from ten o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night, marking time in the melting snow without the slightest sign of impatience, with nothing to eat and nothing to drink, without asking for anything from the neighbouring houses. The bearers laid five or six red coffins down on the bare earth, and none of this great crowd gave any sign of impatience. And yet, on the banners which they carried, the most extreme and violent demands were inscribed. From time to time a leader raised his baton, giving the note, and they began to sing: ‘We will pillage ! — we will kill ! — we will cut throats ! — to the gallows with the Tsar ! — the bourgeois are vampires !‘ etc. . . . The tenors cried out for the heads of the aristocrats, the sopranos for that of the Tsar, the basses wanted no one spared. Then, when the verse was over they rested for ten minutes and then, at a new signal, they started again. It wasn’t until that night that the procession could start marching, the bearers lifted the coffins on to their shoulders, and the crowd left in an orderly fashion, singing: ‘We will pillage ! — We will murder !‘ etc. . . .”
Fat Shubin mimed the scene all the while he described it, rolling his pale blue eyes, beating time, singing first in a tenor voice, then in a bass… and then marching across the drawing-room with superb calm.
He was most amusing. But his observation is very exact. In no other country could people confine themselves to words like this, without breaking into action. But how dangerous it all is ! Because, once let loose, these brutes are terrifying. In 1905 there were atrocious scenes and the moujiks, so mild in appearance, pillaged everywhere with sadistic cruelty. Someone told me about one ‘estate’, where the peasants cut three legs off all the sheep. In other places they tore out the cattles’ tongues and put out their eyes. Let us hope that we do not see horrors like these !

Wednesday 8th August 1917
Everyone is interested in the battalions of women soldiers who exercise in the courtyard of the Paul Palace on the Fontanka . . . people talk of the ‘heroism of the Russian women‘ and they get all excited about it… as for myself, I feel that it is rather unpleasant histrionics. As far as fighting goes these women can only be thinking of the rough-and-tumble !

Tuesday 14th August 1917
What strikes one about the present events is the lack of men … the Kadets, who stirred up so much trouble in the opposition under the old regime, have shown themselves to be lamentably incompetent when in power. It makes one wonder whether the Emperor wasn’t quite right in not calling on their help. If he had given them power, far from saving him they would have precipitated his downfall, because they have shown themselves to be doctrinaires, muddlers and blunderers. . . .
During the first days of the revolution one of these brilliant theoreticians came to see Shubin, completely panic-stricken. Shubin expressed astonishment at his being in such a state at the moment when the event which he had spent his whole life preparing for was actually taking place…. “Yes,” his visitor replied, “the revolution is all very well, but it is not happening the way I wrote about it in my book….” The whole history of the Kadet party is contained in that answer.

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Old Skool PC

February 16th, 2008 at 4:30 am (Generalia, Other, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy)

A sort of doubt has always hung around the character of Tolstoy, as round the character of Gandhi. He was not a vulgar hypocrite, as some people declared him to be, and he would probably have imposed even greater sacrifices on himself than he did, if he had not been interfered with at every step by the people surrounding him, especially his wife. But on the other hand it is dangerous to take such men as Tolstoy at their disciples’ valuation. There is always the possibility — the probability, indeed — that they have done no more than exchange one form of egoism for another. Tolstoy renounced wealth, fame and privilege; he abjured violence in all its forms and was ready to suffer for doing so; but it is not easy to believe that he abjured the principle of coercion, or at least the desire to coerce others. There are families in which the father will say to his child, ‘You’ll get a thick ear if you do that again’, while the mother, her eyes brimming over with tears, will take the child in her arms and murmur lovingly, ‘Now, darling, is it kind to Mummy to do that ?’ And who would maintain that the second method is less tyrannous than the first ? The distinction that really matters is not between violence and non-violence, but between having and not having the appetite for power. There are people who are convinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant and inquisitorial in outlook than the normal person who believes that it is necessary to use violence in certain circumstances. They will not say to somebody else, ‘Do this, that and the other or you will go to prison’, but they will, if they can, get inside his brain and dictate his thoughts for him in the minutest particulars. Creeds like pacifism and anarchism, which seem on the surface to imply a complete renunciation of power, rather encourage this habit of mind. For if you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics — a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage — surely that proves that you are in the right ? And the more you are in the right, the more natural that everyone else should be bullied into thinking likewise.

George Orwell : Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool

 
I cannot esteem the tragic Walter Ralegh particularly highly, if the jury may still be out on whether he was a traitor or not he had an unfailing ability to give bad advice, and his pompous Polonian — wholly unasked for by King James — precepts suggesting that the Dynasty reconcile itself to parliamentary governance would have resulted in Kings becoming mere feeble puppets of whatever faction is temporarily in power, as it has with the present useless grinning eunuchs of Windsor, down, down into the the noisome abyss of true democracy. Still, like many men of action including the brutal dictators of the past century he had a pithy turn of phrase on occasion expressing obvious sense; in one debate on the Puritan Menace he rightly pointed out:

“That law is hard that taketh life, or sendeth into banishment where men’s intentions shall be judged by a jury and they shall be judges of what another man meant.”

To which, more pointedly still, one biographer adds: ‘Instead of proceeding against intentions, Ralegh said, the law should proceed against deed and fact; where they could be established, let the law be as harsh as necessary and justice would still be done.‘ Better words were never said, and the fact that Ralegh himself was convicted on deed rather than opinion is just another pleasant irony.

It can never be too strongly felt that all opinion should be free, and that law should only concern itself with deeds. [ Plus the need for heavy penalty against vile deed, of course --- *meditatively* --- Terrible Swift Sword should never be a mere phrase... ]

Fast-forward to our own day with ludicrous ‘Hate’ legislation to protect the injured feelings of fools. If a definite crime has been committed then it should receive due punishment: it is not aggravated because the actor did it from hate; justice should ignore good or bad intentions and concentrate solely on the action, and it’s due. For expressing opinion, no matter how vile, or just inciting others, there should be no penalty whatsoever. I am not harmed if some wretched iman urges his dumb flock to massacre non-muslims. I am if they act on it, and only if they act on it. If they do so, then they are the guilty, and he was merely the agitator. They should have had more sense than to carry out his suggestions, and therefore need to carry the penalties also. No-one should be blamed for thought or speech, however distasteful, that does not cause palpable injury, since to select what thoughts people should have leads to robotic tyranny and the paradise of 1984.

Some years back, where I was working one man was forbidden to talk to the clients as an interviewer since he belonged to a proscribed political group, not that he would be offensive, merely that he belonged to this group. A number of fellow-workers were of the opinion that he should not be given employment at all. A penalty that has obviously been applied to members of a number of groups ranged from socialists, nazis, communists, jews, Irish etc. etc., and continues as people are sacked for holding views, racialist, communist, insufficiently islamist or pro-islamist ( depending on location ) all around the world. The point being, that if you debar people from all employment for, say, being racially bigoted; the next step is to suggest they should not have government or state resources — their views being so abhorrant — and maybe that they should be run out of town… The Left has a strong tradition of suggesting morally objectionable persons should be killed, or at the least dealt with by fascist-type violence. In effect by denying the rights of citizens to hold views that do not conform to current morality — usually purely subjective and emotionally held — one is denying their rights to exist at all; and logically they are then expendable after a while.

Sir Walter was legally dead from his sentence, and reprieve, until his later execution; but his life in the Tower was not too bad for a prisoner in any age. The legally dead of the future state won’t be so lucky.

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Deny’d In Heaven The Soul He Held On Earth

January 5th, 2008 at 10:00 am (Animals, High Germany, Other, Royalism, Self, Stuarts, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

C. Van Carter has two good blogs, Across Difficult Country, and Craptocracy.

From the first is an old post Arrival: Vaduz, where he rightly says:

What truly sets Liechtenstein apart as a country is that it has not succumbed to the foolish democracy fad which has ruined all other modern nations. Liechtenstein is still ruled by a monarch, as it has been since the the Middle Ages (not coincidentally the last decent period in human history). The current head of state is Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, a rather dashing fellow, and over dinner at Vaduz Castle he describes to me the wealth and happiness that flows to Liechtenstein’s people as a result of its monarchical system

I may add that Princess Sophie of Bavaria, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein — daughter-in-law to Hans-Adam II and wife of Prince Alois, the Regent of Liechtenstein — is, after her father Prince Max, heir to the Stuart regalities when the Stuart-Wittelsbach conjunction ceases.

*****

And from the second, a more recent post discusses some absurd fellow who seeks the equally absurd position of president to the USA: never heard of him, but a Mr. Hucklebee. This unsavoury little chap wishes to ban smoking throughout the American dominions — admittedly one may say ‘fat chance‘ sceptically, but Yanks do adore ploughing their economy into pointless wars, and an extension of the War on Terror into a Second Front against domestic smoking will certainly appeal to the moral retard majority… — and there’s a nasty story regarding his son — who recently was fined for having a loaded gun whilst travelling through an airport [ don't try this whilst devoutly reading the Qur'an and mumbling ] — hanging a dog at Scout Camp. Something he later claimed was done since the animal was sick and suffering: must account for the rows of gallows adjacent to every retirement home… His benighted father is alleged to have attempted to interfere with the administration of justice. His Chief of Staff admitted asking the Director of State Police who was afterwards fired by Governor Hucklebee: “Is it normal for the state police to … investigate something that happened at a Boy Scout camp ?”

Kinda… police in most jurisdictions, even perhaps Pakistan, are going to get active over any allegations of torture unconnected to their own activities. It’s what makes us civilised.

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Ah, Take One Consideration With Another

January 1st, 2008 at 7:00 am (Melancholy, Royalism, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, War)

Parts 1 – 4 of Erik Jorgensen’s award-winning video of anti-war protests in Northern California in 2003′.

Quite apart from the fact that protests rarely succeed in altering anything, any more than voting does, or contacting one’s — and I may add that I take it as a deep and perpetual insult to suppose that anyone can ‘represent’ me — representatives does; ultimately protesters and fascistic guardians are locked in a dance, and in the longer run keep exchanging roles. As Göring once affably pointed out to some ( agreeing ) communist prisoners: it could have easily been him in jail and them as the jailers. In this case I prefer the protesters philosophically, and despise the rigid guardians > yet in another I would as easily crush the iron heel down on protesters I personally despised… And in this case, neither side are efficient — beyond the habitual national characteristic of inefficiency — mainly because each claims to be speaking on behalf of ‘The People’: an entity, who like the Almighty, to which any assorted randomly chosen beliefs and feelings may be attributed. Oddly enough, the protesters prefer not to point out that thus they are speaking on behalf of redneck gun-toting anti-commies who gibber for Bush; whilst the state spokespeople equally refrain from acknowledging part of their constituency are shiftless liberal slackers who would elect for all war-mongers to be hung from apple-trees. Which is one of the prime jokes of conceptual democracy.

But anyway, this is funny and exquisitely chosen: for a state with such a worldwide reputation for wackiness ranging from hippydom to the extreme marcusian egalitarianism enshrined in PC to various cults, Californian policing appears to be modelled on the vague inchoate fascisimo of a Latin American country run by a demented authoritarian general who has been delaying death from extreme old age for thirty years during the mid twentieth century.

 
As a bon-bouché for a reprise…

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The Categorical Imperative Has A Good Time In Siberia

December 3rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm (Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy)

The cold of those white Siberian nights with a pale, sickly gleam by which you could read, pierced us through and through. The prisoners, inadequately nourished by hot water, went below decks to sleep off the hunger which was becoming ever more acute.

A draft of women convicts was separated from us only by a thin wooden wall made of planks. Behind it were a few score of thieves, prostitutes and other assorted criminals: Russian, Ukrainian, Cossack, Tartar and Azerbaijan. Locked up in such close proximity to the men prisoners, they were yet more restless than the latter. Their long sojourn in captivity had affected them quite differently: more than food and sleep, they desired men.

One of the planks dividing us was soon prised free and a woman crawled through the opening, to find herself amid rows of men, lying one beside the other, like brown loaves on a baker’s shelf. We heard no affectionate exchanges, but a few heavy sighs, quickened breathing and a hasty struggle followed by a moment of silence while one lover changed places with the next. This scene caused no undue commotion. The barge was wrapped in darkness, many of the men were sound asleep, totally unaware of the amorous delights available, and the woman, moreover, was dressed no differently from the men. This daring escapade might well have passed unnoticed by the authorities had it not been for the malice of man. Someone whose moral susceptibilities were above average or who, perhaps, was himself incapable of such amorous pursuits, ran off to report. We heard the rapid tread of army boots and in rushed the soldiers who, obviously well directed, made straight for the scene of the crime. They caught hold of a man by the neck and flung him on the floor thus revealing the girl. She betrayed no fear. She was a street-walker. That was what had brought her to prison, to trial and now to Siberia. Nothing worse could befall her.

A soldier grabbed hold of her legs and started to pull her, but she was perfectly willing to go of her own accord, which she did with an impudent smile of triumph. What could they do to her ? But the authorities were well able to deal with the case.

With the soldier as escort the girl set off in the direction of the ladder, parading between the rows of men who surveyed her with regretful longing — sorry to see her leave so soon. She was taken up on deck and there ordered by the soldier to remove her padded jacket, her blouse, a sweater in shreds and her vest. Thus stripped, she was placed in the bow and made to face up-river. She was going to freeze, so that she might cool down a little.

In the grey, misty silence of the Arctic, the half-naked woman with her shameless smile and hair streaming in the wind, the full, white flagons of her breasts thrust proudly forward, seemed to challenge the forest deities lurking in the tundra, slowly gliding towards her.

Behind the girl stood a soldier, silent, sullen and indifferent. He was not a man, not even a male with whom she could go. With bayonet levelled at the girl’s bare back he stood there motionless, as though carved out of wood. The punishment lasted one hour, and the frozen girl had hardly gathered up her clothing to go below when another woman was sent up to take her place on that unusual pillory.

Tadeusz Wittlin : A Reluctant Traveller In Russia

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Not Quite So Handsome

November 4th, 2007 at 1:35 am (High Germany, Other, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy, The King of Terrors, War)

For sentimental reasons, the Lancastrian usurper PKing Henry V is somehow excused for ordering prisoners killed at Agincourt — even in the following civil wars affecting parts of England during the rest of the century, caused by his verminous House’s illegal seizure, this would only happen to prisoners of high enough status to merit expungement — however, although England has actually had more monarchs who were usurping thieves than legitimate rulers, this little fellow may well be in the top three for unpleasantness: a snivelling pious puritan who majored in self-righteousness and slaughtered as freely as any serial killer for pointless aggrandizement.

Usually however it’s considered a bêtise to slay the surrendered — the Aussie furore on behalf of Breaker Morant and his mates being shot for so doing may be charitably ascribed to pitiful anti-Pom nationalism rather than condoning his shooting of captives.

After the invasion of Russia in 1941 the Germans, partially through luck and partially through skill were rewarded with hundreds of thousands of prisoners: partially through immediate inability and partially through ideological imperative a large proportion of the 5-6 million soviet POWs were starved to death in a crime worse than the labour-camps. This had a precedent ( apart from the fact that 85% of German POWs died in the camps that Stalin kept for his own people, and anyone else he could collect… ):

 
In the evening of the long day, as the imperial column was approaching Gzhatsk, we were surprised to find a number of dead Russians, still warm, on the road in front of us. We noticed that their heads had all been shattered in the same manner, and that their brains were scattered about. We knew that two thousand Russian prisoners had gone before us under the escort of Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish troops. Some of our generals greeted this with indifference, others with indignation, still others with approval.

…

…but the next day those murders had stopped. After that we simply let our un­fortunate prisoners die of hunger in the enclosures where we penned them up for the night, like cattle. This was doubtless an atrocity; but what were we to do ? Exchange them ? The enemy refused to consider it. Set them free ? They would have spread the news of our destitute condition far and wide, and soon would have joined up with others and returned to dog our steps. In this war to the death we should have sacrificed our­selves in letting them live. We were cruel by necessity. The evil lay in the fact that we had got ourselves in a position where we were faced with such a terrible alternative.

Count Philippe-Paul de Ségur : Napoleon’s Russian Campaign

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Dignified, But Catchy

October 26th, 2007 at 2:15 am (Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

The mask is off. The League will no longer pretend concern for states’ rights and home rule, will fight no more for temper­ance legislation through local option or for any moderate prohibitory measures that reserve freedom of choice to communi­ties. In the perfervid language of John Granville Woolley, a Prohibition Party demagogue, “the crime of crimes . . . must go. . . . We will crowd it to the ropes. We will not break away in the clinches. And when it lies dying among its bags of bloody gold and looks up into our faces with its last gasp and whispers, ‘Another million of revenue for just one breath of life,’ we will put the heel of open-eyed national honor on its throat and say ‘NO ! Down to Hell and say we sent thee thither !‘ ”

On the morning of December 10 a small boy, carrying the American flag, marched down Washington’s Pennsylvania Ave­nue. Behind him stepped fifty little girls wearing white Sunday-go-to-church frocks, and behind them 2,000 Leaguers and 2,000 White Ribboners in separate phalanxes with banners inscribed national constitutional prohibition. Amid the gibes of foe and hurrahs of friends, they converged upon the Capitol, singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and the WCTU favorite, “A Saloonless Nation in 1920,” composed by Professor J. G. Dailey of Philadelphia and pronounced by Mrs. Ella Alexander Boole, a New York White Ribboner, as “dignified but catchy music.” Waiting for them on the east steps of the Capitol were Congressman Richmond Pearson Hobson (Democrat, Alabama) and Senator Morris Sheppard (Democrat, Texas).

John Kobler : Ardent Spirits — The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Where The Redeemer Waiteth

October 24th, 2007 at 2:00 am (Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

1843:
Already a dark side was beginning to emerge from this outpouring of emotion. Continual stimulation and disap­pointment was proving too much for many. At meeting after meeting, penitents were passing from the wildly hysterical to raving lunacy. At Worcester, Mass., the asy­lum became so crowded as the year progressed that a large hall had to be converted to house the deranged. In this State, in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and parts of Pennsylvania and Maine, the lunacy rate is said to have more than trebled during the year 1843-44.
By early September, the threat of the last day had spread everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of acres of crops went unharvested. Beef cattle were slaughtered and “love feasts” given to the very poor. Usually rational people went everywhere in flowing white robes and greeted their friends with the biblical kiss. Others took pleasure in washing the feet of those who came to visit them. Others, even less balanced, sold all their possessions and selected some high place in which to await the Lord. Some roosted in trees and one man in Worcester equipped himself with a pair of turkey wings, prayed fervently to the Lord to “take him up” and jumped out of a high elm tree. He was lucky to escape with no more than a broken arm.
Many people were now in dire want and perhaps one of the most terrible aspects of the Millerite prophecy was the fate of many of the children. While their parents prayed day and night without thought of food, they starved in the last throes of terror. In one family of ten in New York State, the four young­est children died of starvation before a few outraged “cynics” beat the parents into some semblance of sanity and removed the remaining young children. Suicides were common now. One of them was a New York City bootmaker who had thrown shoes, lasts and tools into the street and gone to join the Millerite congregation.
At the tabernacle in Boston, a crowd of several thousand kept up a continual “watch” day and night. Hundreds of others crowded round the doors. In the spare lots nearby, religious fervour had turned to an orgy of despair — or per­haps a reversion to something even more primitive. Men and women rolled in the coarse grass drinking, while others made love shamelessly in broad daylight. Others stripped off their clothes and danced naked.

1925:
The substance of her later visions was eagerly snapped up by pockets of believers in most of the States of America. The Messiah was to appear as a cloud in the east no bigger than a man’s hand; and would approach the earth for seven days, during which period sinners would have the opportunity of repenting. This elect would be gathered from all parts of the world. They would come riding on clouds to an unnamed mountain top in California, where the Redeemer would be waiting them. These saints, numbering the familiar 144,000, would then be wafted to heaven to the strains of angelic music, while the remainder of the sinful world was being burned to a cinder.

People had sold all their possessions and paid their debts; and, on Reidt’s instructions, had taken to a diet of carrots and water in preparation for the Day of Wrath.
On the afternoon of February 6, when the cloud was first expected to appear, Reidt destroyed his union card, sold all his furniture and his car, and then concluded the final sale of his house, which was to became effective on the morning after the Day of Doom.
Similar scenes had been taking place throughout America. In West Oakland, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Martin had sold their home for 3,000 dollars and spent every penny having “Seven Days to Doom” tracts printed and distributed. In San Diego, thirty disciples had disposed of everything they had, put on flowing white gowns and established themselves on a hill top outside the town in preparation for the Second Coming.
As the panic increased, tragedy was added to foolishness. Karl Danzeisen of Temperance, Michigan, who had slaved all his life to build up a 35,000-dollar business, was heartbroken at the thought of losing all. He came home with a gun, shot and wounded his wife, and then killed himself. Mrs. Andrew Korts, of Skickshinny, Pennsylvania, raved for an hour at her terror-stricken family, warning them that the world was coming to an end, then ran out into the wood-shed and hanged herself. In Cleveland, Ohio, an even more horrible tragedy occurred. Six respectable girls took part in an orgy with a number of boys after a doomsday meeting. When they had come to themselves, they were so frightened that they all committed suicide by drowning.
Meanwhile, the prophetess who had started it all had locked herself in her home to prepare for the last day, refusing to open the door to anyone. Many of her followers had taken to the hills in white “ascension” gowns.

Antony Hunter : The Last Days
[ A history of Doomsday beliefs ]

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Upward And Onward

October 5th, 2007 at 1:00 am (Other, Places, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy)

These important changes in the social role of women ought to be considered alongside the 1978 amendments to the Code of Personal Status introduced by the Ba˘th. The preamble states that the new code is based on “the principles of the Islamic shari˘a [ Islamic law ], but only those that are suited to the spirit of today.” The break with tradition as it affected women occurred in two important areas: first, authority was given to a state-appointed judge to overrule the wishes of the father in the case of early marriages; second, the new legislation nullified forced marriages and severely curtailed the traditional panoply of rights held over women by the men of the larger kinship group ( uncles, cousins, and so on ). The intent of the legislation as a whole was to diminish the power of the patriarchal family, and separate out the nuclear family from the larger kinship group whose hold over the lives of women was considerably weakened.
…
In general, wherever women were clearly being involved in new areas of decision making, these were explicitly formulated as pertaining somehow to their sex ( not their individual personhood ) and simultaneously “politicized” to a remarkably unnecessary extent. The only way in which the “popular committees” could function is as pressuring agencies, forcing couples to conform to whatever outcome the party line deemed suitable. The facts of the case, the letter of the law, and the “rights” of everyone concerned are shunted aside in such arrangements. In addition whenever traditional male rights over women were weakened or abolished, the state adopted this role, acting “on behalf of” the female sex, not upgrading the status of women as individuals who were being discriminated against because of their sex.
…
The Ba˘thi measures must not be exaggerated. No social group, least of all Iraqi women, was exerting pressure on them. But by choosing a particular “style” of legislating on this issue, they reveal how they think when not being boxed into a corner by the “contradictory demands of modernization and development and those of ‘cultural authenticity.’”
…
Ba˘thist ideals, tied up as they are with the Ba˘thist view of the Islamic experience, provide the ultimate source of authority and the final test for what is justified. Even the power of the Leader is derivative from these ideals, and all sources of authority outside them threaten the Ba˘th. It rankles to have fathers, brothers, uncles, and cousins, all lined up to exert varying degrees of real power and control over half of the Iraqi population. Thus, if a new loyalty to the Leader, the party, and the state is to form, women must be “freed” from the loyalties that traditionally bound them to their husbands and male kin. This was the essential purpose of the 1978 legislation on Personal Status, which diminished the power of the patriarchal family. Therefore, women, ( like children, as we have seen ) gain somewhat in status in relation to these particular groups of men, only what they must lose in freedom to the Ba˘th. Politically, the appropriate imagery is once again that provided by Saddam Husain of the child informer.

Samir Al-Khalil : Republic of Fear — Saddam’s Iraq

 
Actually, the Invasion, and imperialist imposition of a new regime over there has rather nullified most of the Ba’athist sexual equality measures, leading to the restoration of the traditional opportunities for muslim women. The joy of the above passages relate to the fact that feminism, like other ploys, was merely a means for the revolutionary state to shatter opposition and tighten control. As has happened here also.

Whether either Saddam’s pro-feminism or the new lot’s older ways were better should be regarded as a deep question, involving the various alleged rights of plenty of differing and utterly disparate groups; the rights of imperialist conquest; the rights of indigenous peoples; questions of religion and questions of culture, that can best be answered by ‘Meh, who cares ?‘

Nonetheless, the sort of people who go around looking wise, and pontificating: ‘Only Time will provide an answer.‘ are in rare luck.

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Just Remember Who Put These People In Power

September 29th, 2007 at 2:01 am (Correctitude, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy)

I have no knowledge as to whether people are getting fatter and/or dumber — nor much interest, since the depravity and inutility of democracy as a concept would remain if the entire population were composed of thin saints who were intellectual powerhouses — but although Senator Gravel’s interview was accorded attention on that false, and interpolated, note, he was generally right.

Particularly on one sacred cow…

“…properly design a health-care system that meets everything that you defined. Stop and think what failure we have in this country. Bismarck put this in place in 1888. Truman advocated this in 1946. And we still can’t get it right. Maybe there’s something failing in our society. And there is. It’s called representative government.”

“No, we are failing, and it’s our leadership that’s failing, and the American people, if they had the power to make laws in partnership with representative government, they could correct this. But you can’t, since the country is run by corporate America, particularly the military-industrial complex, the medical-industrial complex, and we do nothing about it, because you’re–look at this election and it’s all money.”

Yet…

“Representative government and our government is broken. It’s in pieces,…”

Yes.

“…and the people are the only ones that can do something about it.”

Doesn’t follow.

 
Ah well, as under one of the alternate forms of democratic degeneration, there’s always Vodka.

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Unfortunate Incident

September 21st, 2007 at 8:40 pm (Generalia, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy, The King of Terrors)

Firstly, whilst caution is a virtue in reporting, the very title of this ‘incident’ seems misplaced. I am fully seized of the fact that most jurisdictions no longer rely just on confessions, beside corroboration etc. ( actually it was the sole evidence required in some places, like Soviet Russia, even when simply induced… ), but when a couple are in jail on million-dollar bonds and have offered apologies for the ‘unfortunate incident‘, alleged seems out of place…

Anyway, the story is, that chap A is charged with downloading underage porn, released on bail; a couple of virtuously outraged yokels then set fire to his house, killing his wife in the blaze. So far, so disgusting; yet things like this have happened in every age — though not so much in the last 200 years — and every clime — mainly in countries where rugged individualism is revered as much as in the USA, and with a like criminality, such as contemporary South Africa and neighbour nations; where killing witches is almost the norm right now.

[ From that last link: 'I have also omitted the victims of occult belief who fearlessly throw themselves in harm's way believing they are immune to gunfire.' *chokes* Sometimes, the darwinian imperative is so killingly funny... ]

Neighbors Allegedly Torch Man’s Home

It’s too much to hope for that the two will get a quick trial and then be quietly shot. Still, as ever, there is a morbid pleasure in glancing at the comments — perfunctorily, there being four-fucking-thousand, eight hundred and eighty-two of them — and regarding the fact that since they generally range from the inane to the psychotic, they form a perfect sample of American opinion-makers; as in We, The People.

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Exit For Hell On The First Right

August 27th, 2007 at 10:47 pm (Correctitude, Generalia, Other, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The King of Terrors)

Reading obituaries was the favoured pastime of elderly men seated in their clubs in the good old days —

Which, uh, reminds me of one of my favourite jokes, noted in Russia in the time of Comrade Stalin, and later revived in Britain for Lady Thatcher:

 
‘A man goes to a newsagent every day, buys a paper, glances at the front page, tears it in half and throws it to the ground; exiting the shop.

After some time the news-seller expostulates, and asks why he ruins each paper so ?

“I’m looking for an obituary.”

“Obituaries are at the back, not on the front page.” smugly points out the vendor.

“This one won’t be.”‘

 
— Anyway… obits are not the sort of thing I would generally read much of, particularly about some uninteresting ambassador I had barely heard of during his period here, and who passed over five years back, yet this one has it’s own charm…

Citizen Annenberg — So Long, You Rotten Bastard.

I’d prefer the headline, “Billionaire Son of Mobster, Enemy of Journalism, and Nixon Toady Exits for Hell—Forced To Leave Picassos and van Goghs at Metropolitan Museum.”

It’s a life that proves that you can earn polite notices in death no matter how you lived if you give away a billion dollars to the right places before you croak.

Walter Annenberg was born of a congenital criminal, a rascal who never saw a business proposition that he couldn’t improve with a bit of violence. Moses “Moe” Annenberg developed these talents in 1900 in Chicago when he worked as a circulation manager for the monstrous William Randolph Hearst, back when circulation wars were fought with clubs and torches. At Hearst’s behest, Moe and his gang cracked the heads of rival newsboys, burned uncooperative newsstands, and toppled competitors’ delivery vans. When Marshall Field’s department store canceled an ad in Hearst’s Evening American, Moe’s brother Max led 60 drivers and newsboys to the store, where they terrorized shoppers and employees by surrounding it and chanting, “Marshall Field’s closed! Marshall Field’s closed!” The store reordered its ad.

Annenberg also waged a smear campaign against Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp, using his two dailies, two radio stations, and three Pennsylvania TV stations. In one example, reported in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer obit, an Inquirer reporter got Shapp to deny that he’d ever been in a mental hospital and then printed the denial on Page One.

— He should have just said to the reporter: “Yep, the same one you were in.” instead of denying a nullity… —

P’raps worst of all, this ghastly fellow was friends with what the reporter rightly calls, ‘The detestable Frank Sinatra’. Maybe his chosen milieu — lying journalism, Hollywood ’starlets’, jewish Mobsters, New York socialites, ‘philanthropic’ art foundations ( in itself a form of capitalist monopolization ), Cool music… — was merely practice for Hell.

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Idealist Finishing Schools

July 18th, 2007 at 4:33 am (Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy)

The word dokhodyaga… applied in the camps to the men who have been reduced to such a low level mentally and physically that even as workers they are of very limited value. The name dokhodyaga is derived from the verb dokhodit which means to arrive or to reach. At first I could not understand the connection, but it was explained to me: the dokhodyagas were ‘arrivistes‘, those who had arrived at socialism, were the finished type of citizen in the socialist society.

Vladimir Petrov

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Hate The Sin, Love The Sinner

July 13th, 2007 at 10:03 pm (Generalia, Other, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy)

“The hate criminal probably needs rigorous deprogramming like the extreme measures taken by parents to counter the brainwashing of children by lunatic cults. It is bizarre that criminal justice officials try to do more to change the belief and behaviour of johns charged with prostitution than they do with the Ernst Zündels and Jim Keegstras of the world. We send the consumers of prostitution to “john school.” We send the bigot to jail to sit and stew, and the suffering is just used by the bigot to reinforce the righteousness of delusional views.”

“Just as some cancers require invasive surgery, the hate crime needs intrusive measures. The usual out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to modern punishment just won’t work in this case. For crimes of supreme stupidity we need Clockwork Orange justice — strapping the hate criminal into a chair for an interminable period, and keeping his eyes wide-open with metal clamps so he cannot escape from an onslaught of cinematic imagery carefully designed to break his neurotic attachment to self-induced intellectual impairment.”

“In the context of hate crime, I do have some regrets that we have a constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t think coercive persuasion or deprogramming is necessarily cruel, but as a state sanction it is unusual. However, if the crime is unique the sanction should be also. Simply dishing out more prison time or a larger fine is a dead-end. We need a punishment that can kick-start a brain.”

“Regrettably when it comes to punishment, our system rarely exhibits ingenuity, audacity and courage.”

Dr. Alan Young
Toronto Star 28 March 2004

“I thought you brought the stake…”
“No, you were supposed to.”
“My knife broke, and I was too drunk after the party, and the woodcutter was out.”
*shrugs*:
“Aww, well: nobody will notice.”
“Da: it’ll all be the same in a hundred years…”
“I’m thirsty.”

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Children Of The Bat

July 6th, 2007 at 11:49 pm (Generalia, Self, The Building Blocks of Democracy, The Enemy)

In 1938, the weaker-minded quarter of the six million American listeners got over-excited listening to this:

At one point in the broadcast, an actor in a studio, playing a newscaster in the field, described the emergence of one of the aliens from its spacecraft. “Good heavens, something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake,” he said, in an appropriately dramatic tone of voice. “Now it’s another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing’s body. It’s large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face. It…it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate….The thing is raising up. The crowd falls back. They’ve seen enough. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can’t find words. I’m pulling this microphone with me as I talk. I’ll have to stop the description until I’ve taken a new position. Hold on, will you please, I’ll be back in a minute.”
War of the Worlds

Oddly enough, H. P. Lovecraft had died the previous year… He could have made a killing on radio.

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