Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

French Superheroes...


"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows"

 Leonard Cohen.

Spider-man went to tea at the Elysée.

Spider-man of Paris to get French citizenship after child-rescue.

One moment, he's a clandestine illegal immigrant from Mali...(that's in Africa)

Then he goes and saves a life on Youtube.


Spider-Man, a superhero.

Now, he's being fêted as a symbol of  "volonté" (will) which Macron (president of France) claims is foundational to "French identity".

Now, he's being employed by the fire-fighters of Paris, to save lives.


Spider-Man, a photo opportunity gift from God, to President Macron.

Members of the Front national, self-proclaimed "protectors" of "French identity" are raging against the announcement that Mamadou Gassama, will be rewarded with French citizenship.

Nicolas Bay (FN) s'oppose à la régularisation du héros Mamadou Gassama, sauf si...

Saving lives means nothing to them.

What will happen to his brother and other partners in precarity?

Nobody knows.

Buses came to gather up "clandestines" "lodged" in tented cities in Paris just this morning.



What will happen to them?

Nobody knows.

Mirage-Man went to tea at the Elysée...often...but now he's dead.

Le mort de Serge Dassault, un grand industriel français.

One moment, he's being sued in court for tax fraud and being threatened with a jail term.

Next moment, he's being fêted by the Elysée.

Death is great for tax-evasion!

Communiqué – HOMMAGE DU PRESIDENT DE LA REPUBLIQUE, EMMANUEL MACRON A MONSIEUR SERGE DASSAULT


Death is great for business!

Rafales, over Mali (that's in Africa).

Rafale M: €79M (flyaway cost, FY2011) The Dassault Rafale (French pronunciation: ​[ʁafal], literally meaning "gust of wind", and "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation.

Burst of fire on the ground in Mali.

Mirage-Man:

  • tax evader
  • billionaire arms dealer
  • corrupt politician
  • owner of Le Figaro.

Mirage-Man, a superhero.

Dassault, a symbol of "volonté" (will), of  French "air-superiority" of overseas projection.





The French are in Mali "to help destroy jihadists" aren't they?

Mali... but that's in Africa, isn't it?

Aren't the French in Mali for other business?

Surely not.

Mali : un pays riche en pétrole, en gaz et en mines d’or

Aren't the French in Mali for other business?

Surely not.

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows"

Leonard Cohen.

Footnotes:

Mali: When France ruled West Africa.

France in Mali: The longue durée of imperial blowback

The current crisis in Mali is a product of French colonialism, and their intervention will sadly create more blowback.

Postscript:

 I went back and read a post from December 2016 entitled "The end of the world".

 I had forgotten that Abba had already educated me on French interests in Mali.

 Here is a section from the post:

 One of them, Abba, from Bamako, Mali, was busy educating his friends on global politics and colonialism.

"Where do you think the French Nuclear Industry gets its uranium from?" He asked

"There aren't many uranium mines in the Massif Central."

"'What do you think the French army is doing in Mali?"

"Have you heard of Areva?"

"Did you hear that they have found oil in Senegal?"

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Monday, April 10, 2017

Comedy of the commons?


"I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler 
from Manchester way.
I may be a wage slave on Monday 
But I am a free man on Sunday."
Ewan MacColl.

Free men 

 We ramble, we ramble...

We roam, we search, we browse, we surf, we hack.

We are nomads of the steppes.

We are urban flâneurs.

We rove the range.

We free-ride, we couch-skate, we long-board, 4G wifi, 360°




Wingsuit revolutions will now be televised.

Red Bull crashes Go Pro - viral death spiral.





Olé.

Internet Service Provider Free has its Freebox Révolution.

La Révolution Française.

(designed by Starck.)

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!


Declarations of independence.

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather." 


John Perry Barlow, Davos 1996

(The Economist)


Dreams of freedom.

Stories of freedom are pervasive. 

Imagined communities.

 Mass movements have powerful hold. 

 Massaged egos, echoes of the twenties.

TALE SPIN.

 Viral market crashes into a Wall, echoes of the thirties on the streets.

Some have more money, more time to dream...in neoliberal eagle's nest, Davos.

Une Révolution (virtuelle)

Don't worry about the mob.

Let them eat Youtube and Fifa 2017

Let them eat Semtec.

Sad losers will get to ruffle the feathers of the great and good, only occasioning the odd Breivik.



Who gives a fuck for collateral damage?  

Bigger bangs for their bucks.

Dream wilder, think bigger, grasp further, dig deeper, sow hate, love and manipulate.


We'd have to be an ostrich with our heads in the sand not to hail this virtual reality as "freedom."






 Building the Commons.

Any doubters among you?  

We can save the world. 

We can build the commons "freely."

(With a modest fee for charitable Free or your local friendly ISP)

Not happy with that?  

We shall build fucking Jerusalem...bigger.




Or Middle Earth, complete with brave hobbits and trolls.

Pure fantasy?

We shall hark back to untrammelled images of Empire and hymns of colonial philanthropy. 

We shall nurture our green commons "freely."

 We shall scatter seeds...or bomblets.





We shall provide "public service" "freely."


We shall save some millions, "freely."


Tragedy of the commons.

No worries of spoiling the commons is there?




We can't overload the virtual information commons, surely?

OK, you can overload the wifi, I give you that, above all, in soon to be "developed" corners of the globe.

What use is the world with no wifi?

The more you share your lol cats the more lol cats and joy there is for the others!

The internet commons does not deteriorate like land!

No sirree!

OK, so there are piles of tech waste in soon to be "developped" corners of the globe, out of view.


Comedy of the commons.

Wikipedia is a great example of the comedy of the commons! 

Contributors distribute widely, give freely their expertise to inform the world!



What a beautiful sight, an army of erudite slave ants!

Joy to the world.

We shall train them.

Hail Wikimedia!



Recant deviant!

Attack wikiants!


Comedy of commons.

 'Tis a comedy of commons, the internet.

Oh ha, ha.

NOT!


IT AIN'T!

Funny.


...you shall not pass!

"I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler 
from Manchester way.
I may be a wage slave on Monday 
But I am a free man on Sunday."
Ewan MacColl.


Come on ramblers!

Get your laptop backpacks, your sarnies, let us occupy the virtual commons!

ER?

Sorry?

I'm a game-keeper.

Come again?

I'm going for a pint.

Well whatever did happen to public space?

Er, well, after the pub, he rambles.








Blimey! 

 Who are these bleeding game-keepers? 

Well there's us and...then  there's....them.






Don't forget the Kinder Scout.

We're going to need that mass trespass, feet on the ground, in the street.

Act local.

Think Global.

Mass trespass.

Do a public service.

Fire the game-keepers.

Reclaim the commons.

Tragedy of the commons.

"I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler 
from Manchester way.
I may be a universal basic wage slave on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 
But I am a free man on Twitter."

 With apologies to 

Ewan MacColl.


 Footnotes.

 The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons
Mayo Fuster Morell proposed a definition of digital commons as "as an information and knowledge resources that are collectively created and owned or shared between or among a community and that tend to be non-exclusivedible, that is, be (generally freely) available to third parties. Thus, they are oriented to favor use and reuse, rather than to exchange as a commodity. Additionally, the community of people building them can intervene in the governing of their interaction processes and of their shared resources".[15][16]
Examples of digital commons are Wikipedia, a type of Free Software and Open-source hardware projects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons#Digital_commons


Afterthought.

 Are we their commons?

Oh what the hell.


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Thursday, April 6, 2017

Non-adjoining rooms.

Where were they all?

I was beginning to feel distinctly alone.

I looked at the link in the mail.

I looked at the link in the hangout.

They were not the same.

The others were in another room altogether.




I sent a tweet to Martin Weller over in London with the new link.

I sent a mail to the others.

Martin arrived,

 "The others are waiting in a different room;" he said.

"We don't have much time." he said.

I quickly went to find Mark in the other room and called him over from Oakland.

Dinah arrived from her library from somewhere in Ghana.

Graham Steele arrived from somewhere in Glasgow.

By the time everyone was together, we didn't have much time.

I fluffed through the introductions.

Darn.

Open in transit.

I got a tweet from Nadine.

Could she join too?

Nadine arrived in transit at a London airport.

Lucy Crompton-Reid, Lisa Taner, Maren Deepwell, Martin Weller gave us their generally positive impression from OER17.

All of them remarked on a growing internationalisation of the voices and the participants at the conference.

That was all very positive.

Then, Martin briefly mentioned a session from the first day:

Perspectives on Open Education in a World of Brexit & Trump [1559]
Type: Discussion
Authors: Maha Bali, Lorna Campbell, James Luke, and Martin Weller

I asked them their impressions about Brexit from their perspective.

As representative for Wikimedia, Lucy couldn't really get involved in the politics of it but she noted with Maren and Martin a generalised feeling of dismay.

Martin said something to the effect that it was too complex a question for the time they had.

Indeed, they didn't have much time, they had to leave to the afternoon sessions.




We continued an "after-conversation" with Nadine, Mark, and Dinah who was typing in the chat.

Nadine, travelling from Egypt was already having to travel/work around the laptop ban.

The battle of open.

I shared a story of how I fell upon a Twitter trolling of the Scottish first minister.

I looked at the tweet.

He was calling Nicole Sturgeon a traitor.

And what do we do to traitors he asked?

They hang.

I saw an avatar with an English flag.

I looked at the name.

With horror, I thought to myself: this is someone I know.

I checked.

It was a childhood friend.

I thought of how our lives had taken such different paths.

I, to safe middle-class higher education and ex-expatriation in France.

He, to work in a factory from the age of 16, and premature unemployment.

I, increasingly internationally connected, with a growing intercultural "awareness" of how little I am aware.

He, increasingly internationally connected, locally disconnected, with a growing frustration at intercultural exploitation and a clear awareness of what he has lost.

I fear for the future.

He has no future.

Shrinking privileges

I thought of how a few years earlier I had travelled to London for a conference.

This would now be impossible for me due to current economic constraints.

Privileges are shrinking.

Pressure on people is rising.

Mark spoke of similar experiences with old school friends who were now unemployed Trump supporters.

Platforms which carried such promise a few years earlier are being used to squeeze the life out of people around the world.

Californian dreams.

I remembered a Microsoft ad with images of Woodstock.

I remembered the free iPad I got at a London conference a few years back.

Those were the days...of being a roaming autodidact.

Now I roam mostly virtually.

 Imagined communities.

I remembered the feeling of being European.

I had a British passport but I was European.

I think now of learning to sing the Marseillaise with my daughter.

I have to be French to be European now...for how much longer?

Shall we go back to singing old battle songs.

Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!
Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé
L'étendard sanglant est levé
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!
Aux armes, citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

There are those who are winners in an increasingly polarised system.

There are those who are now losing and will look for others to blame.

There are those who were always losing and who say to us now:  "This is how it feels guys."

 There are those who will continue to be winners.

They will share their smiling photos from conferences in far away places.

Shall we applaud their openness?

 Making a moocery of us all?

I heard about exciting new ventures at OER17

I am sorry if I am not always able to find cheer.

There are those who are refugees and who are offered a MOOC.

MOONLITE



I know that I should be crediting the photographer.

Who will credit the refugees on the beach?

A MOOC financed with European funding while kids are drowning in the Mediterranean.

What will it be?

Swimming lessons?

I don't go and learn more about the project, I fear upsetting people, knowing one of the authors.

I simply write how my ignorance makes me feel.

I am sorry.

I heard about a Wikimedia scheme to help kids identify fake news.

Are we going to get European funding to help students see what is fake?

I think of my childhood friend and the promises made to him by successive governments.

I wonder what lies I am living?

Do we need bloody hours to work out a simple equation?

People are being screwed.

I heard John Casey talk about educational technology.


What was Alek Tarkowski talking about in an earlier virtually connecting session?

That he wanted to theme OER17 an open learning party or some such?

The party is over.

For many there never was a party...ever.

They paid for our party.

Non-adjoining rooms?

For a few moments sitting in that empty hangout room, I felt panic.

I felt fear that I wouldn't be re-invited to be a virtual buddy.

It was my anxiety to do well which was at the origin of my technical downfall.

I get anxious.

I remembe what it feels to be given your cards.

I remember the boss calling me over for a chat.

I remember how it feels to be excluded.

There are some of us who share hope and happiness.

There are some of us who have only anger and despair to share.

There are some of us who have only anger and despair but no means to share.

I find myself caught between feelings of  hope and despair, between belonging and longing.

Those feelings are in adjoining rooms, perhaps in the same room.

Virtually connecting
























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Thursday, February 2, 2017

Rex T.

T Rex.

Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Meaning: Tyrant Lizard King.

(Species extinct)

My father refused to believe in dinosaurs.

They were not mentioned in Genesis.

They didn't feature in Eden.


 "The skeletons in museums must be fake," 
he concluded.

I found it terribly hard to understand how anybody remotely curious could conclude that dinosaurs were part of a giant conspiracy theory.

This was a leap of faith too far for me.

Rex T.

 I am coming to the conclusion that dinosaurs are far from extinct.

Recent political events suggest that they have been simply dormant or hiding.

Big beasts are ready to wreak havoc across the savanah.

Peace is over.

 “Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.”

D. Tyrannosaurus

 Well, we are in for a hell of a battle.

I hear people who pride themselves on being "killers" (D. Tyronnosaurus)

 Their go to emotion is rage.

They pray for prey to ravage.

“According to Barbara Res, who in the early 1980s served as vice president in charge of construction of Tyrannosaur Tower in Manhattan, the emotional core around which D. Tyrannosaur’s personality constellates is anger: “As far as the anger is concerned, that’s real for sure. He’s not faking it,” she told The Daily Beast in February.  “The fact that he gets mad, that’s his personality.” Indeed, anger may be the operative emotion behind Tyrannosaur’s high extroversion as well as his low agreeableness. Anger can fuel malice, but it can also motivate social dominance, stoking a desire to win the adoration of others.”

 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/

We appear to be in a period of regression.

There are those who would be king...

"Celebrities and rich people “all come over” to Mar-a-Lago, Tyrannosaur’s exclusive Palm Beach estate. “They all eat, they all love me, they all kiss my ass. And then they all leave and say, ‘Isn’t he horrible.’ But I’m the king.”

There are those who dream of triumph.

We have fantasies of all conquering national power.

Can't we get over that affliction?

Apparently not.

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

 Albert Einstein

 We have flag wavers all over the place.

 Can't folks be satisfied with being just another human?

Apparently not.

What is the point of one guy winning if we all lose?

Dunno.

Conspiracy theories

Emotion trumps rational thought.

The elite are reptiles.

How the hell do we explain how people are so fucking stupid to believe this crap?

How on earth did my father manage to believe that dinosaurs didn't exist?

How can some people be prolife and simultaneously prodeath?

Dunno.

I fell upon a conference of George Lakoff in attempt to understand.



That helped a bit.

There are people with different codes of morality.

That helped me figure this out a bit.

“Morality of Reward and Punishment plays an enormous role in the conservative worldview. The reward side rules out any government distribution of wealth or benefits that is not based on free market competition, and it makes the right to the disposition of private property absolute; the punishment side focuses the criminal justice system on retribution.”

― George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Third Edition


Rex T.

How do we stop these fucking dinosaurs from wrecking the planet?

How do we get beyond metaphors of "competition" for education?

 “Competition therefore is moral; it is a condition for the development and sustenance of the right kind of person. Correspondingly, constraints on competition are immoral; they inhibit the development and sustenance of the right kind of person. Even” 

― George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think,

How do we stop people getting themselves killed for imagined 'countries'?

How is it that people haven't figured that these crack-pot dinosaurs depend on us for their existence?

Are we still at this level of evolution:
“Men are Moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.”


How is it that people haven't figured out yet that there is a limit to the planet's resources and that we need to learn how to live peacefully together?

“Everything begins with a strong military. Everything.” D. Tyrannosaurus.

What is this fucking vision of "Great"?



What is the ultimate prize? Infamy?

"When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough." D. Tyrannosaurus

 Beat Russia?
Beat China?
Beat Europe?
Kill the natives?
Achieve the final solution?

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/steve-bannon-donald-trump-war-south-china-sea-no-doubt





"We're going to war with China, there's no doubt about that." S. Bannon.

 For some people America was great in the fifites...
"Dr. Strangelove: I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy...heh, heh...at the bottom of ah...some of our deeper mineshafts. Radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep, and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in drilling space could easily be provided.
Muffley: How long would you have to stay down there?
Dr. Strangelove: ...I would think that uh, possibly uh...one hundred years...It would not be difficult Mein Fuehrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh...I'm sorry, Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country, but I would guess that dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided.
Muffley: Well, I, I would hate to have to decide...who stays up and...who goes down.
Dr. Strangelove: Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha. But ah, with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present Gross National Product within say, twenty years.
Muffley: Wouldn't this nucleus of survivors be so grief-stricken and anguished that they'd, well, envy the dead and not want to go on living?
Dr. Strangelove: When they go down into the mine, everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead! [involuntarily gives the Nazi salute and forces it down with his other hand]Ahhh!
Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Russian Ambassador: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor."

Does distinction come from extinction?

Nope.

Sorry D. Tyrannosaurus Rex.

You think you are a big tough guy.

You're an irritating speck in a blink of history.

“Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.” 

― P.D. James, The Children of Men


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Friday, November 11, 2016

Out of the shadows.

Out of the shadows they come, the bogeymen, the orcs, the foul hoards.

Nothing will stop their thirst for blood.








Their vile fantasies drive them on.

Their shrieks haunt your nightmares.

They crave darkness, they await the moment to be unleashed on the helpless.

"A depressingly long list of hateful attacks shared online since Trump's election."

Mordor is not some distant land, it lies in our hearts and minds.

There is a black wind blowing.

“Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land.” 

 J.R.R. Tolkien.

The devil has a debonair charm, he lulls us with his eloquence, his messages of hope, we drop our guards, we look up with shiny eyes.

It was ever thus.

The privileged have an easy way with words.

Give them enough rope.

 The menu is tempting, the table dressed, we sigh in expectation.  

 Not for us the shit, the blood, the last shudder of the beast in the abattoir. 

 Nothing so fucking vulgar.

 We are so fucking educated.

 "In bourgeois society itself, all exchange of personal services for revenue — including labour for personal consumption, cooking, sewing etc., garden work etc., up to and including all of the unproductive classes, civil servants, physicians, lawyers, scholars etc. — belongs under this rubric, within this category. All menial servants etc. By means of their services — often coerced — all these workers, from the least to the highest, obtain for themselves a share of the surplus product, of the capitalist’s revenue.
But it does not occur to anyone to think that by means of the exchange of his revenue for such services, i.e. through private consumption, the capitalist posits himself as capitalist. Rather, he thereby spends the fruits of his capital. It does not change the nature of the relation that the proportions in which revenue is exchanged for this kind of living labour are themselves determined by the general laws of production."

Marx, The Grundrisse (1857)

 We don't get our hands dirty.

 We don't have a rope in the house to hang ourselves.

 We'd have to settle for the fucking computer cable.
“I’m going to kill myself,” he told his wife more than once over the next few weeks.
One rainy winter day, he found a rope, tied a noose and threw it over a high beam in the barn."
Do we stop one instant and wonder how the meat got on our plate?
Do we stop one instant and have a thought for the source of our comfort?
Do we stop one instant and question the origins of the tools of our digital literacy?

We are so fucking educated.

We still believe in make believe.

If we have the easy life there are others who will pay the bill.

 "The secret anguish of the French farmer."

We will live off the land, we have no sure footing,we are free like air.

"All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned ..."

Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto (1848)

Others will pay the bill.

We don't need to build a wall.

We already have walls in our minds.

They are so high, they are so historically thick, we have no time to tear them down.

Let the scum build the wall to protect our privilege.

We great nations, great democracies, land of the free.


"What is free trade, what is free trade under the present condition of society? It is freedom of capital. When you have overthrown the few national barriers which still restrict the progress of capital, you will merely have given it complete freedom of action. ...

But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade."

Marx & Engels, On Free Trade (1848)


We great nations, great democracies, land of the drones, the hell-fire missiles, the stealth fighters.

Let the uncouth go and fight our battles so that we may decorate them and offer crocodile tears.

We will smash all, we will terrorise all.

 We are so fucking educated.

We will stand in triumph and light the fire for the forgotten, for the unknown soldier.

We will not weep the alien child.

Unfortunate casualties die in a war for our freedom.

These are not strikes, hits, or casualties, they are your fucking children.




I tuck into a hearty meal, I cut into the meat delicately, I engage in intellectual pursuits.

On the TV the French president is lighting the fire for the unknown soldier under L'Arc de Triomphe.

What is this fucking Triomphe?

Meanwhile men, women and children die in their fucking wars.

Kill the pig.


They will stop at nothing to amass the mobs, to smash the freaks, to preen their crass carcasses.

They are smug in their towers, protected by their gorillas, fawned upon by their lackeys.

They are easy in their life-long struggle for the dispossessed while speculating to accumulate.

You don't need to understand Latin.

DIVIDE ET IMPERA
DIVIDE AND RULE
TRUMP THAT BITCH

We are all so fucking educated.

We need to start questioning how it is that we are so comfortable while others are throwing ropes over trees.

We need to start questioning how it is that we accept to take our eyes of the real problem.

US

We are not free if we subject others to slavery.


You want it darker?



If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game

If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame
Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name

Vilified, crucified, in the human frame

A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni

I'm ready, my lord
There's a lover in the story

But the story's still the same

There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame
They're lining up the prisoners

And the guards are taking aim

I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni


I'm ready, my lord


Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame

A million candles burning for the love that never came

You want it darker
We kill the flame
If you are the dealer, let me out of the game

If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame

If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame
You want it darker
Hineni, hineni

Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord
Hineni

Hineni, hineni
Hineni


You want it darker?

“Those who are against fascism without being against capitalism, who lament over the barbarism that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf. They are willing to eat the calf, but they dislike the sight of blood. They are easily satisfied if the butcher washes his hands before weighing the meat. They are not against the property relations which engender barbarism; they are only against barbarism itself. They raise their voices against barbarism, and they do so in countries where precisely the same property relations prevail, but where the butchers wash their hands before weighing the meat.”

 Bertolt Brecht

FASCISM INC







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