I don't expect you to read all my tags on that last post, but just know that it's a very very bad thing that will do a lot of damage, not just to Ukrainians but to the environment

I think most of you can understand the kind of damage destroying a major dam would do, and that's what's been done. There's no other word for what russia's done than terrorism... they've been doing that by bombing civilians for months, but... the sheer scale of this...

I tend to not share too much about Ukraine despite following it every day because I don't want to overwhelm people. I'd rather have supportive people who don't know every detail than burnt out people but... this is very bad

You have no idea how much I'd love to hear this is somehow a fake video but... I just don't see how... how that's pulled off. I'd love to be taken in here and be spreading a lie if it meant this wasn't true

I just need people who aren't following the war in Ukraine to understand that russia has caused a massive disaster... I just kind of need that understood

I don't want to cause anyone to be hopeless or anything, I just... I want to make sure people understand why this war is so important and the kinds of things that are at stake here. This isn't some territorial dispute, this is an army that routinely commits terrorism, not just here but in places like Syria, and the scale they're of terrorism they're willing to commit is... it's inhuman

Leveling cities, causing disasters like this, and they're in control of a nuclear power plant

All I'm saying is two things

The first is if you support Ukraine, great, that's all I want. If you don't... I really hope you'll look at that video and consider what destroying a damn like that means, and if we can have a country like that doing whatever it wants

The second is to understand that supporting Ukraine means supporting military aid to them. As a pacifist, even I understand that the only way to end this war is to give them the weapons they need to defend themselves and end it

Sorry... I meant this to be like a paragraph, but this is just very upsetting to me. I worried about it during the Kherson offensive, but I'd forgotten to worry about it for a long time... and then.. then here it is

I hope you all have a good night. I hope... I hope everyone in this world is as safe as they can be right now... that not just the people but all the animals who'll be effected by this end up being as safe as possible

Take care

“The specifically human feature of human groupings can be exploited to turn them into the semblance of nonhuman systems.

We do not now suppose that chemical elements combine together because they love each other. Atoms do not explode out of hatred. It is men who act out of love and hatred, who combine for defense, attack, or pleasure in each other's company.

All those people who seek to control the behavior of large numbers of other people work on the experiences of those other people. Once people can be induced to experience a situation in a similar way, they can be expected to behave in similar ways. Induce people all to want the same thing, hate the same thing, feel the same threat, then their behavior is already captive - you have acquired your consumers or your cannon-fodder. Induce a common perception of Negroes as subhuman, or of whites as vicious and effete, and behavior can be concerted accordingly.

However much experience and action can be transformed into quantitatively interchangeable units, the schema for the intelligibility of group structures and permanence is of quite a different order from the schema we employ when we are explaining relative constancies in physical systems. In the latter case, we do not, in the same way, retrace the constancy of a pattern back to the reciprocal interiorization of the pattern by whatever one regards as the units comprising it. The inertia of human groups, however, which appears as the very negation of praxis, is in fact the product of praxis and nothing else. This group inertia can only be an instrument of mystification if it is taken to be part of the "natural order of things." The ideological abuse of such an idea is obvious. It so clearly serves the interests of those whose interest it is to have people believe that the status quo is of the "natural order," ordained divinely or by "natural" laws. What is less immediately obvious, but no less confusing, is the application of an epistemological schema, derived from natural systems, to human groups. The theoretical stance here only serves to intensify the dissociation of praxis from structure.

The group becomes a machine - and that it is a man-made machine in which the machine is the very men who make it is forgotten. It is quite unlike a machine made by men, which can have an existence of its own. The group is men themselves arranging themselves in patterns, strata, assuming and assigning different powers, functions, roles, rights, obligations and so on.

The group cannot become an entity separate from men, but men can form circles to encircle other men. The patterns in space and time, their relative permanence and rigidity, do not turn at any time into a natural system or a hyperorganism, although the fantasy can develop, and men can start to live by the fantasy that the relative permanence in space-time of patterns and patterns of patterns is what they must live and die for.

It is as though we all preferred to die to preserve our shadows.

For the group can be nothing else than the multiplicity of the points of view and actions of its members, and this remains true even where, through the interiorization of this multiplicity as synthesized by each, this synthesized multiplicity becomes ubiquitous in space and enduring in time.

It is just as well that man is a social animal, since the sheer complexity and contradiction of the social field in which he has to live is so formidable. This is so even with the fantastic simplifications that are imposed on this complexity, some of which we have examined above.

Our society is a plural one in many senses. Any one person is likely to be a participant in a number of groups, which may have not only different memberships, but quite different forms of unification.

Each group requires more or less radical internal transformation of the persons who comprise it. Consider the metamorphoses that one man may go through in one day as he moves from one mode of sociality to another family man, speck of crowd dust, functionary in the organization, friend. These are not simply different roles: each is a whole past and present and future, offering differing options and constraints, different degrees of change or inertia, different kinds of closeness and distance, different sets of rights and obligations, different pledges and promises.

I know of no theory of the individual that fully recognizes this. There is every temptation to start with a notion of some supposed basic personality, but halo effects are not reducible to one internal system. The tired family man at the office and the tired businessman at home attest to the fact that people carry over, not just one set of internal objects, but various internalized social modes of being, often grossly contradictory, from one context to another.

Nor are there such constant emotions or sentiments as love, hate, anger, trust or mistrust. Whatever generalized definitions can be made of each of these at the highest levels of abstraction, specifically and concretely, each emotion is always found in one or another inflection according to the group mode it occurs in. There are no "basic" emotions, instincts or personality, outside of the relationships a person has within one or another social context.

There is a race against time. It is just possible that a further transformation is possible if men can come to experience themselves as "One of Us." If, even on the basis of the crassest self-interest, we can realize that We and They must be transcended in the totality of the human race, if we in destroying them are not to destroy us all.

As war continues, both sides come more and more to resemble each other. The uroborus eats its own tail. The wheel turns full circle. Shall we realize that We and They are shadows of each other? We are They to Them as They are They to Us. When will the veil be lifted? When will the charade turn to carnival? Saints may still be kissing lepers. It is high time that the leper kissed the saint.” (p. 64 - 67)

God’s Blood for All Saints

A homily on Revelation 7:9-17, preached at Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh, on the Feast of All Saints 2020

I would speak to you in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. It’s impossible to open a news site or paper or magazine without seeing words like “division,” “polarization,” and “disagreement.” (Indeed, it’s nearly become a cliché to mention these things.) A columnist for Time magazine named David French recently wrote this: We [Americans] increasingly loathe our political opponents. The United States is in the grip of a phenomenon called “negative polarization.” In plain English this means that a person belongs to their political party not so much because they like their own party but because they hate and fear the other side. Republicans don’t embrace Republican policies so much as they despise Democrats and Democratic policies. Democrats don’t embrace Democratic policies as much as they vote to defend themselves from Republicans. At this point, huge majorities actively dislike their political opponents and significant minorities see them as possessing subhuman characteristics. I think David French is right about our political divisions, but there are so many more instances of division and hostility we could mention. Our country is rife, it seems, with enmity and hatred. Families are fracturing. Churches are splitting. Black lives are being snuffed out with impunity. It’s no wonder that we are hearing worried chatter about the possibility of “civil war.” The Bible is not naïve about these realities we are currently enduring. It is clear-eyed about hostility and violence between individuals and within societal groups. Barely four chapters in, the Bible tells the story of a brother who murders his brother. And only a few chapters after that, it tells the story of humanity’s arrogant attempt to build a stairway to heaven and God’s resulting judgment: “And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth.” Division is God’s judgment. Enmity between people groups is a tragedy and a curse, as the Bible sees it. The main division, though, that we see in the Bible is the division between God’s chosen people Israel and the rest of the nations. In the New Testament, St. Paul describes this division like this: there is “the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” Jews often despised Gentiles as “sinners,” as “dogs,” as the antithesis of everything they were called to be and to do as God’s special people. And Gentiles returned the favor, disdaining Jews and persecuting them, driving them from their homeland, subjecting them to idolatrous demands. There is no human way of breaching such a division between peoples, no way of overcoming the hostility. That is the reason why our reading this morning from the book of Revelation is so breathtaking. Listen to a portion of it again. John, the seer, who writes down his visions, says this about God’s heavenly throne room: “I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” If you know the Bible’s history, its stories of division and hostility and enmity, this is an astonishing passage. Here tribes and people groups that were at war with each other are now joining their voices together to praise God the Father and the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ our Lord. Here are Jews and Gentiles together in the same choir. Here are Persians and Babylonians, Judeans and Samaritans, Romans and barbarians — and, we might add, Hutus and Tutsis, North Koreans and South Koreans, Israelis and Palestinians. They are all equally robed in fine linen, with no one in a better or worse off position than anyone else. And they are giving thanks to God for rescuing them — that’s what “salvation” means. They are united, they are equally sharers in the same salvation, and they are singing the same song. This is a vision of all the saints of God, the holy ones whom God has redeemed, whom we commemorate on this feast of All Saints. It is a picture of our ultimate destiny. We trust that in the end, by God’s mercy and faithfulness, we will be there among the saints before God and his Christ, and we will spend all eternity adoring God and basking in the light of His life and love. But we need to ask a difficult question here. How is all this talk of togetherness not cheap? How is it not just singing Kumbaya and pronouncing “peace, peace” when there is no peace? How is it not whistling a tune while the world burns? In his latest encyclical, Pope Francis poses the question: “Nowadays, what do certain words like democracy, freedom, justice or unity really mean? They have been bent and shaped to serve as tools for domination, as meaningless tags that can be used to justify any action.” How, then, can we “unbend” a word like unity? How can we make sure it isn’t simply a covert tool to preserve the status quo? One of the striking things about our reading this morning is that it refers to Jesus Christ without using His name. It refers to Him four times as “the Lamb.” And one of those four times is in the longer phrase “the blood of the Lamb.” The saints from every tribe and language who gathered around the throne of God are described as the ones “who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Let’s linger over this image for a moment. It’s a picture drawn from the Old Testament and the story of Israel. On the eve of God’s liberation of his people from their slavery in Egypt, God commands the Israelites to kill a lamb and smear its blood on their doorposts and lintels so that they might be spared the judgment of God in the form of the angel of death. The lamb’s shedding its blood, its yielding up of its life, is what protects Israel and delivers them from destruction. What the seer John’s vision says to us is that our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate and final Passover lamb. Jesus, the Lamb of God, bore the full weight of all the guilt and injustice and sorrow and hatred and immorality that we perpetuate. Jesus is the Lamb of God who shed His blood to bring it all to an end, so that we might be forgiven and set free from sin and death and changed into agents of justice and mercy and healing and virtue. God does not wink at our grievances against one another. God does not tell us all simply to “get along,” sweeping our divisions under the cosmic rug. God does not offer us a cheap “reconciliation” that is built on ignoring the real issues at hand. What God does instead, we might say, is ratchet up the stakes. God tells us through His holy law that the main division, the primary hostility in the world, is not between Jew and Gentile or Black and white or rich and poor or Republican and Democrat. No, the chief division, the tallest and thickest wall of hostility, is between a sinful, angry, rebellious humanity and a righteous, holy, and loving God. St. Paul goes so far as to call us — all of us, every single human being — “God-haters.” We have all turned aside from God’s ways; we have all strayed like lost sheep. And the wonder of God’s good news is this: rather than disown us as hopeless sinners, God agrees to pay Himself the price of our enmity. God endures our hatred and murderous divisions at the cost of His own blood. God overcomes the great division in the universe — the division between God and humanity — at the price of His own death. The great Karl Barth describes this “wondrous exchange” in such powerful terms I feel I must quote him: If we would know what it was that God chose for Himself when He chose fellowship with humanity, then we can answer only that God chose our rejection. He made it His own. He bore it and suffered it with all its most bitter consequences… God chose our suffering (what we as sinners must suffer towards Him and before Him and from Him). God chose it as His own suffering… [God chose] to empty and abase Himself for the sake of [His] chosen ones. Judas who betrays Him He chooses as an apostle. The sentence of Pilate God chooses as a revelation of His judgment on the world. God chooses the cross of Golgotha as His kingly throne. God chooses the tomb in the garden as the scene of His being the living God. That is how God loved the world. That is how from all eternity God’s love was so selfless and genuine… [F]rom all eternity God has determined upon [our] acquittal at His own cost… God has ordained that in [our] place… God Himself should be perishing and abandoned and rejected — the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (translation slightly altered) God Himself has paid the price in His Son Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself. If this greatest and deepest hostility between God and humanity has been overcome, then the lesser divisions between ourselves have also been overcome. We now, whether Jew or Gentile, Black or white, rich or poor, old or young, are called and empowered to live out the unity we have been given in Jesus Christ. The Christian writer Francis Spufford is right when he says, “This is not very comfortable. Here Christianity overspills the separate categories by which we conventionally understand the world now, insisting to an awkward degree on common ground.” Precisely. This is awkward and challenging and costly in all sorts of ways, and it must involve the telling of hard truths about ongoing injustice and the need for repentance, but just this is what we are called to in Christ. We have common ground with each other: we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are all broken and in need. And, at the same time, we have been forgiven and declared righteous in God’s sight through the death and resurrection of Christ. In a few moments, all of us here, who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, will come forward to eat and drink the Lamb’s body and blood. “Love is that liquor sweet and most divine, / Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine” (Herbert). The blood of the Lamb that was shed on the cross has become our salvation and sustenance. Hymn #174 in our hymnal is a hymn whose origin dates back to the sixth century. It says much better than I could ever say everything that we are celebrating on this great feast day. As I read its words to you, may they be a preparation and invitation for the feast we are about to share together: At the Lamb’s high feast we sing praise to our victorious King, who has washed us in the tide flowing from his pierced side; praise we him whose love divine gives his sacred blood for wine, gives his body for the feast, Christ the victim, Christ the priest. Where the paschal blood is poured, death’s dark angel sheathes his sword; Israel’s hosts triumphant go through the wave that drowns the foe. Praise we Christ, whose blood was shed, paschal victim, paschal bread; with sincerity and love eat we manna from above. Mighty victim from the sky, Pow’rs of hell beneath thee lie; death is conquered in the fight, thou hast brought us life and light: hymns of glory and of praise, risen Lord, to thee we raise; holy Father, praise to thee, with the Spirit, ever be. Amen.

100 Years Later - The Tulsa Massacre

One hundred years ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a coordinated White mob used extreme violence to resolve what they believed to be a violation of a vain belief system they held so dear. In the full view of the All-Seeing, this mob avenged their shape-shifting idols by pointing and shooting, raining turpentine bombs from the air, and doing whatever else they could to inflict pain and death on a community of Black folks who dared to strive, build up their own enterprises, and live with dignity and self-respect.

Not even sixty years after emancipation, an enterprising group of Black Americans built a vibrant community that was economically self-sustaining. The heart of this community was a strip of Greenwood Avenue that was intersected by Archer and Pine Streets. According to multiple accounts, the businesses ranged from restaurants and supermarkets to movie theatres, banks, and law offices. The business community in Tulsa became known as Black Wall Street and was even praised by W.E.B. Du Bois for being a Black community that was “so highly organized” with “established stores and business organizations.”

Considering the scale of the violence, it is clear that the success of this community inspired a deep rage among many in White Tulsa. Regardless of the events that were said to have provoked such a violent response, it is quite obvious that large-scale violence was inevitable. A motivated collective in Tulsa was simply not going to allow Black Wall Street to stand. With this in mind, it is critical for the fair-minded to think deeper about the moral implications of what unfolded in Tulsa from May 31st to June 1st in 1921.

Social scientists have documented and analyzed for some time now the connections between social ideology, social beliefs, and social action. Typically, there is relative order and peace when these three elements are aligned and social turmoil when there is misalignment. So, when ideas and beliefs about Black inferiority become rooted in your mind and heart and a thriving Black business community is evident before your eyes, the White and insecure are faced with the choice to either abandon their alabaster calf or to make war on its behalf. Clearly, the White citizens of Tulsa chose war.

The Tulsa Massacre, and the many other instances of thriving Black communities being attacked for daring to strive economically and live with dignity, is vitally important to amplify given how it slices through the ultimate hollowness of conventional white ideology. On so many occasions, we hear the sentiments of Black people needing to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and to “succeed based on their own merits.” This sentiment works as long as Black people remain on the bottom, but when ‘the bluff’ is called through Black economic success and self-determination, much anger ensues due to the fealty paid to the alabaster calf residing in the heart.

Unfortunately, the alabaster calf continues to live on. It is avenged when a Black man reaches the highest level of office. It is avenged when Black people shout ‘Black Lives Matter.’ It is avenged when Black people turn out to the polls to vote. Whether 400 years ago, 100 years ago, or a year ago, Black people continue to face the brunt of an idolatrous belief system that sees them as subhuman, and cannot rest until this evil characterization of human reality is made concrete. And our White brothers and sisters who do not bow before the alabaster calf are much too comfortable with the flock who do and the actions they undertake. If it is our sincere desire to move beyond this racial muck, we need more Moses-like figures to arise in White America and less opportunist Aarons rearing their heads in Black America.

I’ll conclude with a quote from survivor Viola Ford Fletcher:

“…I will never forget the violence of the White mob when we left our home. I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams, I still live with the massacre every day… I’m asking that my country acknowledge what has happened to me. The tremors, the pain, and the lost and I ask the survivors and descendants to be given the chance to seek justice.”

David Walker’s “Appeal” and Its Contributions to Abolitionist Writing

Clare Gray

ENGW104

Sean Pears

September 29th, 2020

David Walker’s Appeal and Its Contributions to Abolitionist Writing

David Walker was born to a free black mother and a father who was enslaved. Because of the laws at the time of his birth in the late 1700s, Walker was a free man, but only in the sense that he was not enslaved. He moved around throughout the country, witnessing countless terrors that were inflicted upon people of African descent. In one instance, he witnessed "one disturbing episode of a son who was forced to whip his mother until she died" (“David Walker”). Walker finally settled down in Boston, Massachusetts, and opened a used clothing store. David Walker involved himself in multiple anti-slavery movements and newspapers and became the one of the most prominent black abolitionists in Boston. Walker’s pamphlet, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, was written to inspire the enslaved population of the United States as well as invoke fear in white Americans’ minds. The debate between whether or not his writing was effective in promoting rebellion continues to this day. Leonard Harris argues that Walker’s ignorance of the danger of escape diminishes his argument, while Keven Pelletier argues that Walker’s rhetoric was essential in creating change in the minds of both white and black Americans. But by analyzing Harris’s and Pelletier’s writing and comparing Walker’s purpose of writing with the very story of Moses that he quotes so often, Walker’s aim for publishing the Appeal is revealed.  

Walker's Appeal is a ground-breaking piece of abolitionist work. His raw anger and passion for the freeing of enslaved people were aimed directly at the hearts of comfortable white Americans and both free and enslaved black people. His variation in typography emphasizes the urgency which is required to free the enslaved people and demand both equality and equity for all black Americans. His passion is evident through his use of exclamation points, "...Jefferson calls unfortunate ! ! ! ! ! !" (Walker 14), and his use of italics and capitalization, "Are we MEN!! ... How we could be so submissive to a gang of men..." (Walker 19-20). His use of typography helps the reader empathize with the emotions that Walker is feeling in that instance. Upon the release of this piece in 1829, some thirty years before the start of the American Civil War, white Americans, in denial of the truth that Walker had spoken, banned the Appeal from most states and blocked black sailors from sailing to the South to spread Walker's message of revolution. White Americans were in such a state of fear because Walker had exposed their hypocrisy in calling themselves Christians when Moses himself fought against slavery in Egypt.

The Appeal caused Walker to have a bounty on his head due to the danger that his words put on the entire system of the United States and what it was built on. Even though Walker's Appeal was barred from multiple states, he used his used clothing store, which was conveniently located near the water, to sew his work into the clothes that he would sell to the sailors going to the South. Not only did Walker call for the destruction of the slave trade and for slaves to revolt, but he also called for free black Americans in the North to not settle for the inequality that they also faced in real estate and in financial issues. Walker's work quickly became the foundation for more abolitionist work that called for the immediate dismantlement of the slave trade in the United States. He was able to combine the struggles of black Americans, both free and enslaved, and unite them under the common cause of revolution and the demand for equality between the races.

In 2013, Leonard Harris writes an article entitled, "Walker: Naturalism and Liberation". Harris, in a single paragraph, points out Walker's largest flaw in his Appeal: "Escape was extremely dangerous" (Harris 96). This was true during the antebellum period, those who escaped rarely succeeded to make it to the North and "associates left behind---parents, siblings, children, or neighbors---would certainly be punished and receive increased workloads" (Harris 96). In the Appeal, Walker encourages all slaves to free themselves and not wait around for white people to conclude that their centuries of enslavement were unnecessary all along. While Harris is correct in revealing Walker's flaw, there is a key point that I feel Harris ignored. Walker's idea of ending enslavement was not the only way in which enslaved people should free themselves. His writing in the simplest sense was the beginning of decades of abolitionist work. Walker's work got white Americans scared and had slaves inspired. The Appeal was the foundation for future works. Harris is right in his analysis of Walker ignoring the danger of emancipating oneself. But Walker did not know, nor did I think he believed, that one piece of literature would immediately get all slaves to escape at once. Harris has the ability to look back on history and say that for Walker to ignore the danger of escaping may make the Appeal and its calls to action not entirely attainable. For Walker and other black Americans at the time, they were nearing almost 250 years of enslavement, and even though the Transatlantic Slave Trade had been halted, the selling and purchasing of people in the continental United States was still going strong. After multiple isolated unsuccessful slave revolts, enslaved people were desperate for substantial change and unity under the common cause of revolution.

Also in 2013, Kevin Pelletier wrote an article entitled, "David Walker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the Logic of Sentimental Terror" in the African American Review. In his article, Pelletier combines analyses of Walker's Appeal as well as the works of Harriet Beecher Stowe. While the majority of his article consists of other authors' comments on Walker’s work, Pelletier's analysis of Walker speaks most true to Walker's work and mission. He describes Walker's rhetoric as "rhetoric of terror" and that style "made it such a dangerous document in the antebellum period" (Pelletier 258). In one sentence, Pelletier's analysis of Walker's work easily summarizes what can be considered the key technique which made the Appeal so successful in pushing along so-called radical abolition writing. Walker uses direct quotations from the Bible and biblical reasoning to critique the white Christian Americans that supported and upheld the system of slavery and inequality. He reminds them of the wrath that God had inflicted upon the Pharaoh for refusing to free the enslaved people. This technique should scare any believer and make them question the actions that have been taken against the enslaved people of the United States. 

Further along, Pelletier reminds the reader, "Walker faces a problem, one that antislavery reformers and sentimental writers throughout the 1840s and '50s would continue to face: namely, that white Americans are simply not feeling for or sympathizing with slaves, regardless of how pitiable or deplorable the slaves' circumstances might be" (Pelletier 259). This issue of desensitization that Walker and many other abolitionists faced is one of the main issues that cause injustice to communities of color not only in the antebellum period but in the current day. "Walker cannot simply appeal to the hearts of white readers when these hearts no longer perform their primary function as repositories of emotion and agents of sympathetic identification" (Pelletier 259), Pelletier writes. Therefore Walker's "rhetoric of terror" is essential to creating the foundation for a revolution. Because white Americans created this system of oppression and enslavement, they grew comfortable in it and reaped its benefits and do not want to disrupt their lives for a group of people they do not care for and consider subhuman. But by bringing in the idea that God will inflict his wrath upon them as he did the Egyptians, Walker became a sort of Moses for the enslaved. Pelletier accurately analyzes David Walker's Appeal and his contrasting ideas of sentimentality and terror. 

There needed to be someone who would light the fire, no matter the cost. Walker risked his life and his freedom to get his message spread throughout the country knowing that one man's life in sacrifice for the safety and freedom of millions was a price he was willing to pay. Even though Walker knew that his single pamphlet would not be the sole reason for mass uprisings in the United States, the purpose of his work can be clearly paralleled in the very Book of Exodus Walker quotes in his Appeal. When Moses first asked Rameses II to free the Jewish people, Rameses refused because why would he do the work another man’s God asked him to do if he himself is a god? In America’s sense, why would the white Americans free the enslaved people if they do not even consider then to be human? Moses and his people asked time and time again for Rameses to free them and let them go to their homeland. After refusing multiple times, God set upon Rameses a series of plagues, which then resulted in Rameses freeing the Jewish people. Walker is Moses in that first instance when he asks the Pharaoh to let his people go. Walker was the first to ask the white Americans to let his people go in a way that no person had done before.

Even though his life was in danger, David Walker refused to leave Boston and flee to Canada. David never saw the beginning of the Civil War or the freedom of the enslaved. He published his third and final edition of the Appeal in 1830 and was found dead 2 months later. Whether he was poisoned or died of tuberculosis, that has yet to be determined.  David Walker’s spirit is found in every abolitionist and every person who asked for their people to be let free from oppression. The continual pressure Walker and other abolitionists put on white Americans finally caused a rupture in the system; God’s wrath was set upon them. On June 19th, 1865 in Galveston, Texas, the Emancipation Proclamation was read for a final time, freeing the last of the enslaved people of the United States. David Walker’s work and the work of so many individuals were completed, their people were finally free. But for the next coming centuries, the struggle for equality and equity between the races continues.

 Works Cited

Harris, Leonard. “Walker: Naturalism and Liberation.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, vol. 49, no. 1, Winter 2013, pp. 93-111 EBSCOhost, doi: 10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.49.1.93.

 Pelletier, Kevin. “David Walker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the Logic of Sentimental Terror.” African American Review, vol. 46, no. 2/3, Summer/Fall2013 2013, pp. 255-269. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/afa.2013.0079.

  “David Walker.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 1998, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2930.html. Accessed 20 Sep. 2020

 Walker, David. “Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829: Electronic Edition.” David Walker, 1785-1830. Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829., 2002, docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html.

“We Are All Going To Die” by Black Oak Clique (USA)

An open letter and anti-manifesto to Climate Offensive, Extinction Rebellion, Earth Strike, and other nonviolent movements

When the world ends, people come out of their apartments and meet their neighbors for the first time; they share food, stories, companionship. No one has to go to work or the laundromat; nobody remembers to check the mirror or scale or email account before leaving the house. Graffiti artists surge into the streets; strangers embrace, sobbing and laughing. Every moment possesses an immediacy formerly spread out across months. Burdens fall away, people confess secrets and grant forgiveness, the stars come out over New York City...and nine months later, a new generation is born.

(CrimethInc.)

We’re going to die?

"The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses." But us – me, you, even those who are killing the earth? We’re going to die.

In the worst case scenario, you drown, you starve, or you succumb to heat stroke. Not figuratively. You will drown, you will starve, you will succumb to heat stroke. Perhaps there’s the small chance that you will survive the mass migration to the last reaches of habitable land in and around the poles.

Perhaps.

But let’s be realistic here: In all likelihood, you’re going to die. A slow, horrible, excruciating death at that. We would like to say this is the future we’re hurtling towards at an ever-increasing rate. But it isn’t: it’s the present, the material, graspable present. Islands are sinking into the ocean. The poverty-stricken are freezing to death on the streets. People are burning to death in gigantic wildfires. The collapse is not to be a single event. It’s a process, and it’s currently underway. In the best case scenario, death is liberation. Perhaps the real “you” – your body, your consciousness, your soul, what have you – won’t die, per se: instead, the abstract “you” – your way of life, your social relationships under capitalism, your system of meaning that’s been drilled into your head since day one – will die.

Can’t we reform the system?

No. We can’t. The system is the problem, and the system runs deep. The problem isn’t just capitalism. It’s also the state, but it also isn’t just the state. It’s the ideology of consumption itself: that beings – plants, animals (including humans deemed to be subhuman), fungi, even inanimate natural “resources” – are objects to be bought, sold, and eventually, consumed. This ideology is perhaps the deepest ideology we have. It permeates every form of knowledge: from science, to art, to politics. It seeps through our language (one must think how often we refer to feeling, living beings – ones with the capacity to suffer – as “it.”) It permeates our relationships. It is the very basis of our societies, if it cannot be deemed our “society” itself – the group of capital-h Humans deemed to be worthy enough to be circumscribed by the abstract Community, that constructs itself in opposition to literally everything else.

Your favorite pet politician isn’t immune to this. Not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, not Bernie Sanders, not Jill Stein. Not the Democratic Socialists, not the Green Party, not the CPUSA, and not anyone else, either. Perhaps their hearts are in the right place – but sadly, that isn’t enough. To quote the amazing piece Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos:

Some people oppose capitalism on environmental grounds, but think some sort of state is necessary to prevent ecocide. But the state is itself a tool for the exploitation of nature. Socialist states such as the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China have been among the most ecocidal regimes imaginable. That these two societies never escaped the dynamics of capitalism is itself a feature of the state structure — it necessitates hierarchical, exploitative economic relationships of control and command, and once you start playing that game nothing beats capitalism.

What about nonviolence?

Concerning nonviolence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.

(Malcolm X)

The struggle against ecocide was never nonviolent, and it never will be, because it cannot be. That’s because ecocide is violence: violence against me and you, against animals (wild and domestic,) against the trees and the grass and the water and the mountains. Climate insurrection is self-defense. Strict adherence to nonviolence – that is, the rejection of violence – is complicity in the face of ecological destruction. It is not “offensive,” it is not “rebellion,” and it’s not a “strike” at climate change. Many of us do not have the privilege of being nonviolent – namely, those of us who already marginalized. We will be the first to go. We’re the rural farm workers and their families being sprayed with pesticides. We’re the houseless freezing to death in polar vortices. We’re the indigenous peoples whose homes are being swallowed by the sea. We’re the poor who will not have the capital necessary to complete the long trek north to the last remaining habitable lands. If we aren’t violent – if we don’t rebel against the system that oppresses us – we will be crushed. Don’t be complicit in our death, in your death.

What’s climate insurrection?

Perhaps the only hope me or you have. It’s destroying that which destroys us - by any means possible.

Wouldn’t that hurt the movement?

No. A better question would be: what has “nonviolent” protest won us in the long run? The answer: absolutely nothing. Many supposedly “nonviolent” movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement, were incredibly violent. There were hundreds of riots throughout the United States, and of course, the existence of armed paramilitary groups such as the Black Panthers, or the Brown Berets. One could make the argument that this narrative of nonviolence is pushed by the very people whose power would be threatened by violence, because violence means (perhaps immediate) change. Hence: why those in the US celebrate Martin Luther King Day, a federally recognized holiday; but not Malcolm X Day. Even the most-oft example of nonviolent resistance, the Indian independence movement, was not so. Bhagat Singh, who after his execution became a folk hero of the cause, was inspired by French anarchist Auguste Vaillant to bomb the British Raj’s Central Legislative Assembly. Less than a year before, he had assassinated a British police officer in retaliation for the death of the nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai.

Wouldn’t it be counterproductive?

Counterproductive to what? Getting meaningless reforms passed? Getting empty pyrrhic victories in the legal circuit? Performing impotent marches through major cities that don’t achieve anything other than receiving lukewarm press from second-rate newspapers? Ask the battery hen liberated from cramped cages by animal activists, or the old-growth forest protected indefinitely by logging saboteurs (and all the animals who call those forest home): is direct action productive?

Anarchist action— patient, hidden, tenacious, involving individuals, eating away at institutions like a worm eats away at fruit, as termites undermine majestic trees — such action does not lend itself to the theatrical effects of those who wish to draw attention to themselves.

To quote the great illusionist Georges Méliès, "I must say, to my great regret, the cheapest tricks have the greatest impact."

If insurrection is so great, how come people aren’t doing it now?

They are. You just haven’t heard of it because the media is smart enough to hide it. Hearing about the heroic stories of those who fight back would be too dangerous for most to hear – it runs the risk of radicalizing them. Movements like the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts, have been waging war against ecocide since the 1970s.

I don’t want to go to prison.

We dream of a world without prisons.

I’m scared.

We’re scared too, friend. We should be, but we should be

strong, too

What can we do?

We’ll let the great animal activist Keith Mann speak for us.

Labs raided, locks glued, products spiked, depots ransacked, windows smashed, construction halted, mink set free, fences torn down, cabs burnt out, officesin flames, car tires slashed, cages emptied, phone lines severed, slogans daubed, muck spread, damage done, electrics cut, site flooded, hunt dogs stolen, fur coats slashed, buildings destroyed, foxes freed, kennels attacked, businesses burgled, uproar, anger, outrage, balaclava clad thugs.

What if I don’t have the ability to fight?

You do, even if you can’t physically. Despite the tone of this letter, we aren’t totally opposed to above-ground action. In fact, in some cases, we think it’s necessary. Groups like the Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Group and the Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group are active in representing and advocating for operatives. As Sinn Féin, the Irish political party once associated with the militant IRA has been described:

Both Sinn Féin and the IRA play different but converging roles in the war of national liberation. The Irish Republican Army wages an armed campaign... Sinn Féin maintains the propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement.

What happens next?

We don’t know. But with any luck, we’ve laid out our options.

(via Heresy Distro)

Hey did you hear about ...

That person you respect, that group you like, that celebrity you follow - they’re actually horrible gross garbage and here’s why! Stop.  Sit down and shut up.  You are not doing anything helpful, all you’re doing is trying to farm ass-pats by spreading gossip and hate.  There’s an irony that it’s ‘PC’ hate because you’re targeting people, ideas and actions that are no longer in line with changing cultural values, but it’s still the same crap that trolls were puking up before, just in a different barf bag. Human Beings ARE NOT MEMES. A meme is a static representation of an idea or a group of ideas, that has been simpled down and appealingly packaged for mass consumption.   A meme does not think, it does not feel, it does not hold any other opinions or have the capacity to change its mind. People are multifaceted beings with entire systems of reasoning, experiences, knowledge, and traits that make up their personalities and worldviews.  Reducing them to an opinion they hold or a thing they did and declaring them deplorable subhumans is just as gross imho as whatever that person did in the first place. We are in an age of massive paradigm shift.  People are in the process of changing the way they think, and some people have a harder, slower time of it than others.  They have to un-learn vast amounts of socially conditioned bigotry and fear.  They have to deconstruct physical pathways in the brain, to completely tear down what they think is real, true, and good. But the vast majority of human beings think they are decent people.  They believe with conviction that their actions are morally correct.  Doing something considered wrong or bad does NOT make someone a bad person.  Everyone does some bad things without realizing that they’re bad.  And I doubt that you’re any different. Again:  Saying, believing, or doing something WRONG does NOT make someone a BAD PERSON.  We need to help people through this change, not condemn them for failing to adapt fast enough for you.  Social Justice is fine and dandy, but SJWs aren’t in it for anyone but themselves, and they need to sit down and let people take care of themselves.  As someone who’s been the target of various bigotries, I don’t need or want you to talk for me, and I doubt anyone else does either.

An open letter

I recently had an...interaction with @lindsayetumbls which was fun. I sent them an ask hoping they would stop using the word lame because it targets disabled people like me.

My ask was (And I have sources for this in case anyone asks)

“I’ve been a fan of your work for years but going through your older work, you’ve used both the R slur and autistic as an insult. In recent videos you’ve the word lame. Could you please find other insults that don’t have a history of dehumanising or actively othering and attacking people like me for having physical and neurological disabilities?”

This was their response. Or at least part of it and more on that in a minute.

“*deep sigh, centers self*

Okay, I actually made a blog post about this YEARS ago. Since its an old blog post, I can understand that you might not have thought to hunt that down. I do think it’s pretty weaksauce to be like “could you please stop??” on eight and nine year old videos when its pretty obvious I have stopped. I shouldn’t have said those things, I was young, it was a different time, mea culpa.

But I do think there is a line to be drawn, and “Lame” is it. Same with words like “imbecile,” “idiot,” “moron” and so on. Yes, there is an underlying history of ableism for some of them. I understand and empathize with why you shouldn’t use as an insult “retarded” and “austistic.” But lame seems to me a bridge too far.

YOU. DO. NOT. GET. TO. DECIDE. WHAT. IS. ABLEIST.

But furthermore this was brought this up in a livestream and laughed about. Literally handwaved away.

http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=G0Qz-ZCwbaQ#Inter__Persona_and_You

(For anyone wondering why its on listenonrepeat.com its because the video has been age gated and this is a workaround. The context starts at 54:00 because it relates to others being called out on trans slurs when they themselves might be NB or trans in some regard. The group brushes it off and says this person might be kinda right but you’re annoying so we will disregard you)

I am far too steamed to write a complete verbatim script for this so feel free if anyone wants to add. The entire defense of the use of slurs in this regard is that the person using them might be part of the group they target. You are not. You are able bodied. I get that my wording could have been vague on the issue of their work from years ago. But. I asked if they would stop using slurs against the physically disabled now. Because of their words in their recent works. And the fact of the matter is there still all the vile R slurs and cracks at autistic people on their channel right now from all those years ago. Monetised of course. Would that be the same if it was a racial slur? Would a buried apology be enough to continue profiting from such actions for other slurs as is or would the offenses  be censored?

As I stated in another ask I sent them, slurs against the disabled have body counts. People like me were actively killed and in some ways still are. There is no vague history especially when its still happening. We were shuttled into asylums and deliberately infected with TB because of words like lame and imbecile. Eugenics only fell out of favour because of the Nazi associations when the Nazis themselves based their programs on what the rest of Europe and the US were doing at the time. The UK is purging the disabled by cutting benefits to unliveable levels. 6000 people have died so far. Part of Brexit was to avoid EU court rulings about this being a massive human rights violation. The US is constantly targetting the disabled by cutting govt aid and access to healthcare, painting people as huge burdens to tax dollars. The abled don’t get to decide the meaning is gone when I hear earn or die on the daily. When people like me as seen as subhuman.

As for the words themselves, they still target people. Words like idiot and imbecile are thrown at the autistic community a lot. Because obviously you can’t attack them for being autistic. It just has to be reframed as weird and bad and wrong. Words targeting the mentally ill like insane are applied to the shitty actions of perfectly happy people, pushing the blame off them and onto the ill as a scapegoat which is why we have such wonderful things as diagnose Trump. His shitty actions clearly aren’t because he has vile opinions. He must be mentally ill. Lame is used to this day to denote horses who need to be shot because of injuries. That could never carry over to people, right? Nobody wants to kill us because of our disabilities, right?

Would she say gay as a synonym for bad was okay? Thats a trick question because I know she wouldn’t. This is no difference no matter how much anyone wants to say the slurs are divorced from their meaning. “No I mean gay as just a word for bad. Its not homophobic”. This is entire hypocritical. But on to the video. She and and cohorts argued that taking these words away would be too hard to do because it would limit the words they can use which is terribad. That sounds familiar. Almost like what the ‘free speechers’ say about racist/homophobic/sexist/transphobic/every other slur now. Can’t take your precious words away now can we? What about the alt right bringing back a bunch of archaic racial slurs? Is it okay because they are old? Whats the timeline? Is it okay because these ableist slurs are starting to fall out of living memory (Fun joke: they aren’t at all)

Also funny she should say you might look back on this in 20 years and cringe for being on the wrong side of history. Especially when told these words hurt people now and all the slur laden videos from 9 years ago are still making money to this day. This could have been a proactive thing. This could have been thought about, discussed and changed now.

But since I can’t seem to convince these people who laughed at me from a treating me as a human because its the right thing to do standpoint, I’ll try to convince them as a writer. The people laughing about me in the video are all writers. They get paid to write. Their livelihood depends on their ability to find words to express ideas and concepts in creative and interesting ways. What does it say when none of them are willing to give up the low hanging fruit of slurs against the disabled? One could call it laziness. Amateur even. To insult them without mentioning slurs or their looks would be trivial. I could call them personified wet doorknobs. Or an overturned damp rock of a human. Or that their soul runneth over with dumpsterjuice that spills into their prose.

So please, feel free to ask @lindsayetumbls @actuallykylekallgren @hbomberguy and @elisaintime why they get to decide what slurs are okay when a disabled person tells them they are harmful.

what do you think about the fact that Ouma actually let himself be killed in chapter 5? as in, he could've easily actually drank the antidote and survived through it, getting Momota and Maki killed. Was his desire to end the game greater than his will to survive?

This is a really goodquestion, because it’s something that I think a lot of people will overlook.Ouma, as someone with plans of his own and a definite objective in mind to stopthe mastermind no matter what it took, has one of the strongest wills to liveon for almost the entirety of the game. And at the same time, Ouma is alsoreally, extremely suicidal and caughtup in self-loathing.

If it weren’t for his utter hatred of the killing game andhis wanting to drive a serious wedge in the mastermind’s plans, he really wouldn’thave had anything left pushing him to go on. Knowing that the killing game isbeing broadcast, knowing that there’s an audience out there watching all of itfor sheer entertainment, knowing about the state of the outside world—any of thesethings would have caused any of the group to break down and want to die in aninstant.

In fact, just knowing about the state of the outside worldalone was enough to make most of the group want to quite literally give up anddie. Gonta took a life because of it, and the group spent much of Chapter 4 andChapter 5 doubting that it could possibly be so bad, kind of being…well unintentionally patronizing to Gonta’smemory to think that he wouldn’t know what he was talking about when he saidthe secret was that devastating. And yet after they’re shown the secret forthemselves, once they’ve all seen it with their own two eyes, they allimmediately want to give up and die and can’t find any reason to go on.

This means Ouma really was being fueled off of pure hatredat some point. If he stopped and thought about the implications of any onething that he knew for too long, it would break him. So despite knowing aboutthe broadcast, about the fact that his memories and talent were fake, about thefact that that the outside world is completely screwed and whatever society isleft elsewhere is just killing them all off for entertainment because they’rebasically being seen as subhuman, he puts it off for later. Worrying aboutthose things can come after he’s done his plans.

The problem is, by becoming so immersed in his plans and hisroles, and by never opening up to anyone or trusting anyone around him, he madesure that the entire burden of knowing, and of trying to figure out an escapefrom the mess they were in was only on his shoulders. And it was an impossibleburden. Ouma was smart, really damn near genius, but no one, not even he couldpossibly tackle all of it alone.

He turned the rest of the group against him too thoroughlyby thinking that it was best to come down on them hard in Chapter 5 and try toforce the killing game to its end by intimidating them all with the truth they’dwanted to know so badly in previous chapters. But in seizing the game rightfrom Tsumugi’s hands and setting himself up to be the villain so perfectly, hedidn’t account for there being any reason to kill him after he intentionallytried to set up a situation where the killing game “was over.”

Maki’s actions really must have blindsided him. Tsumugi’stoo, really. But even while Tsumugi put her plan into action, planted theremember light to make the entire group think that they were Hope’s PeakAcademy students and that the “hope” of the entire world, and intentionallytried to set Ouma up to be “the next Junko” and the villain they should all betrying to talk down “with their hope,” it really was Maki who jumpstartedthings.

Unlike Ouma, who is a character almost entirely about moralgrey areas, Maki deals entirely in black and white. She lies about being acaretaker, because it’s such an undeniably “innocent” talent that she knows therest of the group won’t question or take as a threat. Her real talent is beingan assassin, and it’s true that she’s ruthless and merciless and has killedpeople for money, and that she will kill on instinct because it’s essentiallywhat she’s been trained to do all her life.

Ouma wanted the rest of the group not to isolate and hateMaki for being the SHSL Assassin, but to be wary of her. To doubt her,because even if they wanted to be friends with her, you have to doubt peoplefirst in order to learn more about them. And her talent is most certainly aningrained part of her, and it’s true that trusting someone implicitly not tokill anyone just because you think they “won’t do it” because they’re yourfriend, even though they’ve been trained to be a literal murder weapon, isfoolish.

In the end, the entire group didn’t even think to doubt Makiwhen she promised them that she wouldn’t go off and try to do things on herown, despite the fact that if they’d thought about it logically, it would’vemade sense, because that’s what an assassin does:they remove enemy targets from the playing field.

After trying to manipulate an entire game of chess and finda way to win it, I think Ouma couldn’t help but realize he’d backed himselfinto a corner by the time he was poisoned and injured in Chapter 5. He couldhave thrown Maki and Momota both under the bus at the expense of saving himself,yes—but it was clear that the mastermind was already very not happy with him tryingto take control of the game out from under them, and there really wasn’t anypoint to continuing the ruse if he was going to be targeted by the mastermindand killed next anyway.

Not only that, but after having to compromise on his mostimportant moral code, the fact that he hates killing and doesn’t want to takeany lives or hurt anyone if he can help it…well, he didn’t want to do it again.He could have thrown Maki and Momota under the bus knowing they’d both bekilled, but he had already played that sort of move with Miu and Gonta oncebefore, and it took a heavy emotionaltoll on him.

Even though he didn’t actually take their lives with his owntwo hands, he still blamed himself. When most people think Ouma horrible orevil because of his actions in later chapters, what they don’t realize is thathe’s never trying to avoid blame or responsibility for it. He carries theweight of Miu’s and Gonta’s deaths with him, and it’s something that he abhorsso much that by the time he realizes he’s out of options when Maki shoots him,he chooses to give up his own life this time around, so that he doesn’t have torepeat the sort of underhanded tactics he used in Chapter 4.

He was tired. He was exhausted.He had carried the weight of so many secrets with him and felt like he had completely gone against everything he stood for. When his back is against thewall, I feel like he realized that he could do the exact same thing, and trulydidn’t want to. It was better, in his opinion, to give up his own life in onelast, very risky gamble (and unlike characters like Komaeda who actually dohave luck on their side, Ouma is definitely not a gambling man unless he’srelatively sure he can win) than to stain his hands any farther, because healready felt like he really was no better than the mastermind by then.

Having gone as far as he could push himself, and very wellaware of the fact that he had completely ruined any chances of ever makingamends with the group or having any of them ever understand him, he at leastwanted to go out on his own terms. His plan couldn’t save Momota’s life,because even without the press or the poison, Momota was already dying from hisown sickness. But it could at least ensure one more survivor in the group,despite the fact that he had no reason to care for Maki at all after herattempt to kill him.

What he did was not out of personal interest for her, but out of anattempt to save at least one more human life—because in the end, human livesmatter quite a lot to Ouma, and it’s horrible that he had to push himself toact like someone who really, truly enjoyed human suffering instead.

In the end, I think yes, his will to end the game and riskit all on a chance that he could stump the mastermind and audience both finallywon out against his will to survive, and it was an internal battle that hadbeen long ongoing for most of the game beforehand. Ouma’s a fantastic actor, reallytoo good an actor. His façade meant no one in the group really stopped to thinkor realize that if seeing things about the outside world or realizing thingsabout their own existences as fictional characters would make literally any ofthem go completely suicidal and depressed, of course it was bound to have asimilar effect on Ouma, too. It’s just that his will to end things and fightback because he hated the situation they were in so much was even stronger.

Thank you for asking about this! Ouma’s tenacity and will tostay alive out of spite even when he wants to die so badly is one of the thingsthat makes Chapter 5 hurt so much, and I hope I was able to explain things alittle bit more.

Portal Saga: Chapter Three

 Drums of War

SIX MONTHS AGO

Rinok paced back and forth outside of his tent. Vilhelm sat huddled inside, avoiding contact with every soldier housed in the camp. Vampires weren't exactly a welcome sight on Valla, if they were a sight at all. Rinok didn't think he'd ever run into any, but what his sword cut down was less of a concern to him than the fact it was doing some cutting.

The sun set behind them, casting a bloody light onto the cloudy pillar of the distant Immersturm, the magical cyclone that induced the people of Valla to eternal war. Rinok remembered the first time he'd ever beheld the storm. The force of its winds had sent his helmet spinning into the distance. A bolt of lightning struck out at him, hitting him full in the chest and dancing over his skin. He still bore the mark of the Immersturm's blessing, a perfect imprint of the lightning coiling around his torso in vivid red against his skin. The hammering of his heart after being stopped by the blast had sounded like drums, urging him forward.

He'd treated his heart like a drum of war ever since, but now that drum faltered. Returning to Kamigawa to exact his revenge on the spirits and their hubris as well as urging the mortal inhabitants into battle once more was proving difficult. A force kept him from returning to the plane. That force was the Sisters of Flesh and Spirit, Michiko and Kyodai.

The twin guardians of Kamigawa were rightfully angry at Rinok. He did attempt to disturb centuries of peace between Kami and mortals, something in which the sisters were certainly invested. But they didn't even bother to listen to Rinok's plan to save their plane from certain demise.

"All you seek, War's Herald, is the slaughter of a being you've never pierced with your blade before," the sisters said in unison before forcing him back to Valla.

There had to be another way in, but what? He paced back and forth once more, coming to a stop by his horse. It was a powerful animal, a pristine, white charger that looked fantastic splattered with the blood of their enemies. Rinok's hand found its way into one of his saddlebags where the artifact from Xerex was kept. The small spherical object felt cold and heavy in his hands, heavy with purpose.

He entered the tent, portal sphere in hand. "Vilhelm, this is it. This is my way back in."

The vampire gave Rinok a patronizing glance. "Well how else did you expect to get your army to another plane?" He returned to poring over the information he'd gleaned from a few key members of Rinok's small army. Their leader had weaknesses. Vilhelm needed to know exactly what those were.

"No, I knew that," Rinok said dismissively. "What I was more concerned with was getting myself back onto the plane. I'm considered unwelcome by the guardians."

"You told me they were two, a matched pair?" Vilhelm asked.

"That's right."

"So separate them."

"That's so simple," Rinok said. He was skeptical at first, then it dawned on him. Separating the twin Kami was simple, yes, but devilishly so. Alone, they were likely half as strong, and more manageable. "I love it."

"Your compliments are hardly necessary. I knew from the outset I would be the brains behind this whole operation."

"I suppose that makes me the brawn?"

"Of course not," Vilhelm scoffed. "That's Rhyne."

Rinok frowned. "Then what exactly am I?"

"You," Vilhelm said, "are the face of this whole operation. You have a certain charisma among mortals that Rhyne and I lack. Brawn is disposable. Anyone can be hired muscle. It takes a certain irreplaceable quality to rally men like you can."

"My men will follow me anywhere, even across worlds if I wanted them to. It won't be as fun this way, but you need sparks to start a fire." Rinok sighed. His men were a mishmash of warring factions who had come together to follow him into battle, and him alone. Valor spoke for itself, and the blessing of the Immersturm was a confirmation of that valor.

"What do you mean, not fun? Shouldn't we work as efficiently as possible?" Vilhelm asked. "We need a standing army to start a war."

"That won't get people roped into the cycle," Rinok said. "To do that, you need to build your army from the ground up. You need to play on people's insecurities, their fears, their needs. If people are motivated by religion, you start a holy war. If they are motivated by territory, a turf war."

"So, are we to spend the next however long studying people on Kamigawa to figure out these needs, and then start our war with what you find there?"

"Precisely." A hungry light shone in Rinok's eyes. "It's more fun that way."

0000000

TWO MONTHS LATER

Rinok's war drum beat in his chest as the men before him thrust their fists into the sky. Vilhelm stood by him, covered head to toe in intricate samurai armor that obscured his face with a snarling mask. Rhyne scurried among the crowd, distributing weapons and supplies.

"See what I mean, friend?" Rinok asked the vampire softly. "We can start small. These men despise the rats living in the swamps and the annoying little akki. Factions are already forming. Soon we'll have a crusade on our hands, a movement made by the people themselves to throw off the shackles of peace and rebuild this world in their image. No spirits, no subhuman races."

"I highly doubt they're actually subhuman," Vilhelm said.

"They don't know that." Rinok gestured to the gathering of maybe a hundred before them.

0000000

ONE MONTH LATER

Rhyne crept through the bushes along the border of the Jukai forest. The sharp smell of cedar filled his nostrils, making it harder to track the Orochi scout he and his small group of men were following. Their mission was simple, if boring. They were to attack a scout, plant a ratfolk dagger on its body, and steal its arrows. Rinok was adamant about no dismemberment or mutilation. It had to be a single, stealthy strike, otherwise it wouldn't be convincing.

A twig snapped in the distance. The scout was young and inexperienced. Good, Rhyne thought, easier to overpower. Through a series of complicated hand motions, he directed his troops, no more than five in all, to fan out and move forward in an arc. One man held the dagger at the ready, prepared to throw it with deadly accuracy when their target was in sight.

The scout's head poked above the brush, mass of bright hair giving away its position in the early morning light. Rhyne smiled. Several of his men shuddered at that smile. With a flick of his wrist, he alerted their knife-thrower that his time was now.

A small blade flew through the air and embedded itself in the scout's neck with a snikt. Any cry died in the scout's throat and was replaced with the gurgling sounds of death. The men moved quickly, seizing only a handful of arrows, then disappearing, leaving behind the corpse to be found by a patrol or wild beast.

This attack wouldn't go ignored. Rhyne knew Rinok was counting on a large response from the Orochi. Once their forces were diverted elsewhere, it would be Rhyne's time to shine. There was a place deep inside the forest that he would target, but only when the time was right.

They returned to camp around sundown with little incident. Rhyne personally handed the arrows to Rinok and Vilhelm.

"Did anyone see you?" Rinok asked fervently.

"No. It was a piece of cake. Speaking of which, those little squishy rice cake things, do we have any more?"

"You're concerned with mochi at a time like this?" Vilhelm growled through his helmet.

"I'm hungry, and unless you want me to start eating the troops, mochi. Now."

"You'll have to go into town. Here, take some money." Rinok dumped a handful of coins into Rhyne's hand and pointed him in the direction of the small town where most of their army was quartered. The inhabitants of the backwater village had been more than happy to join the cause. Required tribute to the spirits stretched their already thin resources, and the monks, kitsune, and orochi of the Jukai forest limited their expansion. A half day's journey away was a valuable resource and they couldn't make any use of it.

"Was it fair?" Rinok had asked. They answered with a resounding "no".

"These," Rinok said, holding up the arrows and turning to Vilhelm, "are going to help us do a lot of damage."

"Your idea is to take arrows that are noticeably Orochi in origin and plant them at different points along the border in false attacks?" Vilhelm asked, skepticism in his voice.

"Precisely. How else am I going to get these people to stir to action? Getting people to attack first is hard, especially if you want a large number of people attacking. A handful of zealots can start the fighting, but maintaining it is easier if people think they're defending something."

"So," Vilhelm walked through Rinok's plan slowly. "Each race or group will think they're defending themselves and launch counterattacks, which will prompt further attacks?"

"Genius, isn't it? You're not the only brain here."

"We have yet to see if it will work."

"It will. I guarantee it."

0000000

She bounced from plane to plane, each subsequent walk leaving her more and more exhausted, but she had to find where they went. It didn't help that she'd never been to the plane before. She didn't know where it was, only what it looked like from memories that weren't hers. Every day she woke up and started planeswalking, and kept going until she passed out on the ground of some foreign world. Each time the voices grew louder.

If she kept going she might get lost, trapped in the blind eternities with no strength left to break through the barrier of another plane.

She could go back, back to the apartment on Ravnica were there was always a warm bed and a project for her to work on.

But she couldn't show her face to him without the artifact. The artifact that she'd lost, that she'd given away.

She'd put the multiverse in danger because she was petty and stupid.

It didn't matter that she regretted it the instant after she let them get away. She was petty and stupid and had to fix it. Maybe then she could make amends and turn an enemy into an ally. She was sick of enemies. Sick of fighting. Sick of always messing things up.

Ashleigh crashed face first into the dirt, trading a cacophony for a soft harmony of one million million voices. She pulled herself onto her knees, her eyes attempting to refocus after so much planeswalking and head trauma. Ribbonlike beings floated through the air one instant and were gone the next. A cloud in the sky twinkled like a distant city. She didn't feel alone, the crippling, oppressive feeling she got on even the most populous of planes. Instead she felt surrounded by something, some class of being she didn't have a word for. She recognized this feeling, though. It was present in the memories she'd been using to find this place, but they hadn't really done it justice. Maybe because the memories were so old, or maybe because the person whose memories they were had just been so accustomed to this feeling.

This had to be Kamigawa, which meant that Rinok had to be here somewhere with his army and the artifact. Ashleigh sighed. She was sick of fighting, but there was no way he'd part with something that important without a fight. Although maybe she didn't have to fight him. He believed her to be completely angry at Brock for what had happened to Abby. She felt a heat rise in her stomach and retched onto the ground, bile coating the back of her throat in a bitter slime.

It was true. She was still mad at him, but not "destroy your home and everyone you loved" mad. That had been almost immediately replaced by the crushing regret. Destroying homes wasn't how people made friends, although to be fair she'd met Odom because they had a mutual interest in watching things get destroyed.

Focus, Ash, focus, she told herself. She staggered onto her feet and started walking. Someone somewhere would know about a lunatic with an army. All she had to do was follow the sound of the drums of war.

Pain, Ritual, and Symbolism as Fascist Tools: Should the United States be Worried about Fascism? By Tori Bloom

Sometimes kind people do unkind things. When this happens, we may assume that the truth is that the person is not really kind, as their actions do not suit the trait we assigned to them.  However, this is an error in which we place too much emphasis on the role of character traits in action and not enough emphasis on the situation (Goldie, 2000). When we consider, for example, the Nazis in Germany as well as the countless citizens who supported Adolf Hitler, we could argue that the people of Germany were cruel and evil. However, this does not take into consideration the situation which influenced the population. It is this relationship, the one between a situation and a person’s actions, that I wish to examine in regards to how a nation could come to embrace fascism. In particular, I will look at how a fascist regime could potentially manipulate a populace through ritual practice. Furthermore, I plan to look at how the identity of this new self is often based on contrasting oneself against another group. In the case of the Nazis, the self was mainly formed on the foundation of not being Jewish. Ernst Junger’s (2008) On Pain is especially significant in exploring the role of the self in crafting one’s values and how the self can be affected by pain. Simon Taylor’s (1981) Symbol and Ritual under National Socialism examines the National Socialist Party’s use of ritual in gaining and maintaining support. Following an analysis of these works, I will make that case that fascist movements start to take root as old values are dissolved by pain and new ones need to be found, and that fascist regimes, such as the National Socialist Party, seek to shape a populace and keep them under control through ritual practice. Furthermore, it is the synthesis of these conditions which creates an environment in which a population, and even individuals, are capable of participating in events like the Holocaust. Once I establish this, I will explore whether or not it is actually possible to psychologize fascism in this way by looking at the similarities between fascism in Germany and in Italy. Through my analysis I will argue that it is possible and I will look at the implications this has on fascism in modern society and the susceptibility of nations like the United States to fascism.

Ernst Junger (2008) discusses pain’s influence on one’s values and sense of self and how this relationship is leading us to a world where people are merely extensions of technology. Junger says that destruction is indifferent to who or what it destroys, and that this random and unfeeling chaos is what makes people question their values. No matter how intelligent one is, or kind, or strong, when it comes to something like war no one is safe from pain on the basis of what virtues they have. Great cities have come and gone, just as all human beings will eventually die. One’s values seem meaningless in the face of inevitable pain and death, and with the loss of values one’s sense of self becomes difficult to place. Junger says that people can be drawn to religious sects or cults because of the apocalyptic vision that the loss of values brings. Cults act as an outlet for fear. In the same manner, I would argue that people can be drawn to political ideologies, such as fascism. The avoidance of pain is what Junger believes is at the core of liberal society. He calls this the world of sensitivity. He does point out, however, that pain is not completely absent in this world of sensitivity. Instead, pain becomes marginalized. He says that this is the case in, for instance, abortions. This is certainly true of Nazi Germany, where pain was regulated and distributed toward Jewish people. In the world of sensitivity, Junger believes the body to be valued above all else and pain as something to be avoided. Junger says that it is this valuing of the body that will lead to a society where human beings are nothing more than extensions of technology. In this society, for example, suicide missions will be seen as honorable and heroic as they represent giving up one’s body for the greater good. Martyrdom, then, is increasingly valuable. To Junger, however, this is a good thing. He does not think that we can go back to the heroic world, where pain was faced head on as an act of courage. Rather, he thinks that objectification is inevitable and allows us to face pain by making it seem inconsequential. If the body becomes an extension of technology then it would be no more painful to sacrifice one’s self than to sacrifice a missile, for instance. While my point is that Junger is right in saying that pain and the breakdown of values can lure people toward cults, sects, and perhaps even fascism, I do not agree that objectification of the body is a good thing. For the sake of this argument, I will focus on the former assertion.

Ernst Junger’s (2008) ideas on pain explain how pain dissolves the values and the self, but he does not consider enough the influence of ritual in reshaping a populace. Societies fleeing from pain do not merely idolize and objectify the body, but they seek out community and constant reinforcement of their values. In the case of Nazi Germany, Simon Taylor (1981) argues that symbols and ritual were integral for the National Socialist Party in suggesting internal consensus and therefore maintaining control. Taylor says that these rituals and symbols were not merely the expressions of a population of radical people devoted to Hitler, but that they were also a means of mythologizing their beliefs. Simon Taylor addresses not only celebrations that were National Socialist creations, but he also points out that holidays which already had ties to German culture were reinvented. For example,Taylor talks about how Remembrance Day, a day meant for mourning fallen veterans, was remade into a day to celebrate how heroic those veterans were and to admire Germany’s new found pride. This example is a clear metaphor of Junger’s claim that old values are dissolved and replaced with new ones. An old holiday was reshaped to display the values of the new Germany. Then Taylor discusses how Hitler used ritual to reinforce the idea of martyrdom and destroy any evidence of the failure of the Nazi Party. He discusses, in particular, Hitler’s yearly celebration of November 9th, 1923, a day when the Nazi Party failed to seize power in a coup and lost several party members. By choosing to celebrate this failure and the martyrdom of those who died, Hitler reframed the failure as a necessary bump on the path to success. Taylor says that the Blood Flag was the most powerful symbol used during this ritual, as it was meant to be reminiscent of the Christian cross. The relationship that the flag created between Christ’s sacrifice and the sacrifice of the fallen Nazi Party members crafted a religious narrative of the German people, with Hitler as the savior and Germany as the homeland. These celebrations were vital to the National Socialists because they did not just act as a means for the mob of followers to feel represented. They also created a sense of community for the masses, making them more open to suggestibility (pp. 512). The atmosphere of these celebrations was one tied to religion, a feeling of mysticism and perhaps, a sense of divine destiny. Hitler himself became a symbol of the messiah. The rituals, the symbols, and the values emphasized by the National Socialist Party were tools to reframe history and maintain control and consensus, but these values were not necessarily completely new. Rather, they drew on borrowed concepts tied to religion, blood, soil, and race. Taylor describes this as plagiarism of Christian myth (pp. 514). These symbols themselves were just as important in reshaping the German people’s values as was the pain and loss from World War I.

Ernst Junger (2008) sets up a framework for understanding how pain dissolves the self, and Simon Taylor (1981) explains how National Socialism made use of ritual and symbolism to influence the population. My goal is to explain how these conditions, the loss of self and the influence and manipulation of the populace through ritual, created a situation where something like the Holocaust was possible. With the economic depression following World War I, as well as the increasing doubt in the effectiveness of the German government, pain was introduced to the German populace in copious amounts. Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party created propaganda and an image for a new, prideful, and idealistic Germany. As Taylor notes, Hitler created a sense of community through rituals and symbols, bound by a religious narrative and values of loyalty, German pride, self-sacrifice, and obedience. If Ernst Junger is right, this likely came just as the German populace was reeling from a loss of self and values. It was an outlet for a population attempting to avoid pain at all costs. At this very fragile period of time, Hitler created an enemy for the Germans. According to Hitler, these new values, the new German sense of identity, were under attack by Jewish people. Simon Taylor says that the Nazi depictions of Jewish people as subhuman were yet another part of the symbolic world that they created.  Now, a culture with already firm values and traditions might not easily turn to violence, even in the face of already deeply-ingrained anti-semitic views and reinforcing propaganda. When the core of a nation’s values are uprooted by pain and then replaced by something new, or at least reshaped and modified, it is possible that a nation can be primed for more radical action to occur. In the face of pain, the Germans were given an outlet and a new sense of self, only to have that new self to be shaken up and threatened. Hitler planted the seeds of doubt into the minds of the German people, and in their attempt to avoid falling back into the pain of post World War I Germany they followed his lead. The German people sought out a leader who reinvigorated their sense of national pride, and Hitler used this desperate nationalism and crafted religious narrative to direct hatred toward Jewish people and give the German citizens and object for their frustrations.

So far I have argued that people become susceptible to fascism when their values are destroyed in the face of pain and that fascist leaders manipulate people by creating new values that are grounded in religious symbolism and a mythologized past and future. The next question is what kind of leader is capable of this manipulation and what makes a population latch onto anti-semitism, racism, or xenophobia, even though these ideas seem to contradict rational thought. Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman (1949) address the first part of the question in Prophets of Deceit. They describe the methods of an agitator, the leader of such rhetoric, to be a common thread amongst speakers like them. They say that the agitator appeals not to completely foreign and new ideas, but rather appears to come from within the crowd and voice what they were already thinking. The agitator appears to advocate for the good of the group and for social change, but is unlike a social reformer because they do not present solutions based on the actual problems. Instead, the agitator gives the mob an object to place their frustrations on. The reason that anti-semitism may become appealing is that it is easier for the frustrated crowd to identify an object and attack it, thus feeling instant gratification, then to accept that there is something wrong with the system itself and to change that. In the case of Nazi Germany, the object was Jewish people. Another important aspect of the mob is that the object their frustrations are directed toward, such as Jewish people, must have certain qualities. The object has to be tangible, and yet distant enough that the illusion of it being the enemy is not destroyed. It must be tied to history and tradition and it must have features which work with the prejudiced person’s destructiveness (Adorno et al., 1993, pp. 300). These features allow the mob to attribute and maintain stereotypes toward a group which is distant enough to be an “other” and yet close enough to be a threat. Furthermore, it explains why specific groups may have been targeted by fascist leaders. However, it is not simply the prospect of instant gratification, nor prejudices, that draws a mob to the agitator. Theodor Adorno (1978) suggests that a leader like the agitator is only able to influence people to go against rational thought by forming a bond with them. He draws upon Freud’s notion of libido as the tie between the leader and his followers, claiming that in the case of fascism the mob lives vicariously through the leader, identifying with him and reaping narcissistic benefits, stemming from the libido, from this identification. The agitator becomes an extension of the follower’s ego (pp. 124-125). This would explain why it is difficult for a follower of someone like Hitler to criticize his methods, no matter how violent they are; an insult against the agitator becomes an insult to the self. The agitator, however, is not merely an extension of the self, Adorno notes. In fact, he is an idealized version of the self. Whereas a follower leader may believe himself to be flawed, the follower can project his ego onto the ideal leader and get rid of whatever frustration he has with himself. The leader is the embodiment of the follower’s wish to be subject to authority and also the authority themselves. This is relevant to Ernst Junger’s (2008) ideas about the breakdown of values and the self because once the agitator becomes idealized, the reflection of the follower’s ego, a source of narcissistic gain, and the embodiment of instant gratification, the follower can be more easily manipulated. After all, if the leader is an ideal self, then he can’t do wrong. If the follower were to admit the leader was wrong, particularly when it comes to his values, this extended ego would shatter, and the follower would have to face the same loss of values he did in the face of pain. With the agitator as his leader and some outside group as his enemy, a follower of a fascist regime has his sense of self placed almost entirely in these things and not himself. This opens the follower up to suggestion, and it is how the agitator can manipulate the mob into going along with even violent acts like the Holocaust.

Fascism is complex, and therefore we might wonder if it is possible to adequately describe how it takes root in a culture by only examining the psychology behind it. Economic factors, cultural factors, and pre-existing biases and prejudices all shape fascism. Fascism in Italy, for example, might not look exactly the same as it did in Germany. This is one of the reasons why fascism does not have a strict definition. However, I would argue that the psychology behind fascism is key in whether or not a culture might be susceptible to it. It is the synthesis of pain, the existence of an agitator, the culture, and the manipulation and suggestibility of the population that brings fascism into being and allows it to take form in various ways. Charles Burdett’s (2003) analysis of fascism in Italy provides evidence that the ideology takes root in much the same way that it did in Germany, despite not having the same appearance. He says that fascism in Italy was able to extend the boundaries of the state through both coercion and by suggesting a vision of Italy that many citizens were able to embrace and therefore bringing about mass consensus. He also discusses Emilio Gentile's interpretation of fascism and the ability of fascists to form their own set of beliefs, practices, and myths, much like I have suggested German fascists did. Burdett examines fascism in Italy by comparing it to the vision of a utopia. A utopia is secularized religion, or an idealized society that can and is worshipped. The vision that fascism creates is like this utopia, adapting and using religious symbolism and infiltrating the world of Christianity. Mussolini, like Hitler, promised a vision of Italy as an empire, rich with prosperity and and power, and used this promise to gain support and military power (pp. 95). For Italy, the vision fascism created was one that called upon the greatness of the Roman Empire, using images of ancient Roman figures whilst simultaneously ignoring the negative aspects of Rome and the periods of decline. Mussolini campaigned for destroying evidence of moral decline in Italy following the Roman empire, even going so far as to destroy housing around the Colosseum. In the place of the buildings they destroyed would be a road that would link ancient Rome to modern Italy. This is reminiscent of Hitler’s treatment of Remembrance Day, as both acted as a symbol of uniting the past with the present and, in fascist Italy, it was done quite literally by building a road between the Colosseum to the Altar to the Nation. Italy held many exhibitions celebrating the glory of the past and their achievements, and these exhibitions were one way to open the people up to suggestibility. Burdett says that visitors to these exhibitions were meant to leave with a sense of community, pride, and belonging. Ancient Rome, in a sense, acted as mirror to Italian Fascism, and in it the followers could see the idealized version of fascism, a utopia (pp. 99). What this shows is that, despite the fact that fascist Italy looked quite different from fascist Germany, it still drew upon the same mythologized and utopian vision that Germany did. Mussolini, like Hitler, was able to open his citizens up to fascism by providing a strong sense of community and maintaining it through symbolic and ritualistic practices.

Given the role of the agitator in creating a sense of community through ritual and symbolism, it would appear that any nation under the right circumstances could be subject to fascism or, at the very least, mass suggestion. Not even the United States, despite the decades that have passed since the rise of fascism, is immune to the tactics used by an agitator.  Stephen Reicher and S. Alexander Haslam (2016) provide an analysis of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and show just how he was able to create a mass identity among his followers, gaining support and ultimately winning the 2016 presidential election. It would be easy, they note, to write off Donald Trump’s supporters as racists, sexists, or idiots, but this does not explain how he managed to gain so much support, and it does not accurately depict all of them. They do note that all of his supporters had to be at least willing to overlook his racist comments toward Mexicans and Muslims, but this does not mean this was the main reason that people supported him. Reicher and Haslam mention Theodore Abel, who ran a contest asking for Nazi Party members’ autobiographies. While reading these autobiographies it became clear to him that, although a great deal of the members were racist and anti-semitic, many of them joined the party for other reasons, including a feeling of hope amidst the decline of Germany, a desire to restore Germany’s past greatness, and a fear of social disorder and the yearning for a leader to unite them again. Their point in mentioning this, and mine as well, is not that Trump’s movement or his followers are no different than Nazis. However, his tactics for gaining support and his crafting of an ingroup and outgroup dynamic resembled the tactics used by the Nazi Party, perhaps suggesting that people can become vulnerable to manipulation and that agitators like Donald Trump may take advantage of this. Symbolism and rituals play a key role in this manipulation.

Reicher and Haslam (2016) refer to Trump as a collective sensemaker, capable of shaping a community by manipulating the self-perspective of his audience and channeling that into a particular vision of America. His rallies were one way in which he was capable of doing this, the atmosphere itself representative of a vision of America as a united community full of hope and with a mission for the world, much like the utopian vision that Mussolini used in Italy (Burdett, 2003). The first thing about Trump Rallies that Reicher and Haslam point out is the long, and intentional, wait that supporters must go through before Trump goes on stage. They say that this delay itself is meant to alter the supporter’s image of himself and those around him, believing that because they are willing to wait so long then Donald Trump and the event must be very important to them. This creates a sense of shared identity and community among the supporters. The security practices at Trump rallies extended to the supporters who would often look around the crowd for anyone not showing enough excitement. This ritual aspect of the rallies further cemented the idea among Trump supporters that they were under attack, both within the group and outside of it. Furthermore, if any protester was spotted, supporters were encouraged to shout Trump’s name over and over to alert the security and other supporters around them that there was an enemy in the group. Then there were Trump’s actual speeches, which painted a picture of America as a country with noble goals but goals that they could not reach because of enemies within, including politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton or lobbyists and special interests groups. He suggested these enemies within were working with enemies outside of the group, including China and Mexico. Trump’s speeches voiced and intensified his supporters’ distrust in the government and gave his followers objects to voice their frustration toward. Furthermore, by creating an association between the enemies within and those on the outside he made them seem more formidable and united (Lowenthal & Guterman, 1949). This was particularly evident in his treatment of Mexicans, who he claimed were stealing American jobs and coming over illegally and spreading crime and drugs. Like the supposed Jewish problem in Nazi Germany, where Jews are painted as simultaneously weak and strong and in control of everything behind the scenes, Donald Trump suggested that the reason why America was failing was because American politicians were being controlled by external enemies. Finally, after creating this sense of community and shared values as well as objects to direct frustrations toward, Donald Trump gave his supporters a solution, him. As Lowenthal and Guterman noted, the agitator does not appear to voice new and foreign values, but seems to come from within the group itself. Reicher and Haslam point out that Donald Trump, while certainly not the typical American considering his wealth, made himself appear to be the epitome of the ingroup of Americans that supported him.  He deliberately went against political rules and the status quo, cementing himself as a representation of his anti-political followers. Yet he, like the stereotypical agitator, is the idealized version of the group. He is wealthy, successful, blunt, and he lives a luxurious and glamorous lifestyle, one which his followers can look up to. He satisfies the desire of the community to feel united with him, to place their ego in him, and also to feel dominated and to admire his achievements as something they might achieve with his help.  Reicher and Haslam ultimately argue that Trump was able to use ritual to create a sense of “us”, a community with a vision for an America that is not hindered by external and internal enemies.

The speeches and rallies are not the only tactics that Donald Trump used to gain support. His campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” calls upon a myth of a past America, one that should be returned to in order to restore the country to a greatness it once had. In Italy, Mussolini used Ancient Rome as a model, whereas Trump’s slogan does not specify what previous model of America should be followed (Burdett, 2003). However, it doesn’t matter that he did not specify what the model should be because suggesting that America was great in the past neglects all of the variation in the country’s history and mythologizes the image of the past that his supporters recall. As Burdett pointed out in Mussolini’s depiction of Ancient Rome, to call America’s past great would be to ignore the periods of decline and set an unattainable goal, because the problem is never addressed by trying to go back to a point in time that never actually existed. The slogan is also versatile, in that it can be used by white supremacists to support an image of America before globalization and immigration, but it also plays upon the fears of those who wish the return to America before 9/11, before the 2008 recession, and before the threat of nuclear war. For either one of these groups, the white supremacists or those who have faced the pain of the war on terror and the recession, the utopian image of America’s past is not real. Furthermore, aiming to make America great in the way that it supposedly used to be doesn’t address the real problems within the system, but it gives these groups something to hope for and something to take their frustrations out on. White supremacists aside, those Donald Trump supporters who have had their values dismantled by the pain of terrorism, poverty, and unemployment have realistic concerns that might not be addressed well by the current system. These people have the potential to change the system and become social reformers, but an agitator can  manipulate that potential and use it to gain support (Lowenthal & Guterman, 1949).

Donald Trump himself may or may not be fascist, but he did use many of the same techniques that fascist leaders did to gain control. When faced with pain and frustration with the system, people followed Donald Trump because he gave them hope and a utopian vision for the future. There are dangers in electing a leader who uses these techniques to build a following. Firstly, there is the fact that his followers have placed their ego in him. If Ernst Junger (2008) is right that we live in a world of sensitivity and that we will do anything to avoid pain, and the loss of our values, then this ego displacement will make it difficult for Donald Trump’s followers to criticize him. He is the idealized version of themselves, and any threat to that image would be a threat to themselves. Another danger lies in the dynamic between his followers and the outsider groups that Donald Trump has created. A person’s identity as a Trump supporter means that they are willing to consider Mexican people and other immigrants to be enemies who are in control of the circumstances of unemployment in America. This is evident by the support shown for Donald Trump when he said that a wall should be built between the United States and Mexico. Although a wall along the border is not the same as the camps that Jewish people were forced into in Nazi Germany, the distance between voters and immigrants is the same. Given the outcome in Nazi Germany, the similar insider-outsider dynamic in America now, the overall distrust of the American government, and the willingness to follow an agitator I argue that Americans are susceptible to supporting something like the Holocaust, even today.

Assuming for the sake of argument that anyone is susceptible to fascism, there remains the question of whether or not this is part of human nature or if it can be avoided. If we believe Junger (2008) then it is in human nature to want to avoid pain. When faced with the destruction of one’s values, it seems the only option is to rebuild them, and sometimes that means following an agitator. However, the agitator does not address the real problem and eventually those new values will also be destroyed. It seems that the best way to avoid fascism, then, is to educate the masses to choose social reform. Unfortunately, fascism is much more complex than that because the ego is manipulated and a community is built and shaped by the agitator through rituals and symbolism. I do not have a solution, but I don’t believe that fascism is unavoidable. When a nation faces pain, the outcome is not always dire. In Nazi Germany the loss of self brought on by by the pain following World War I became an opportunity for the National Socialists to seize power. In order to maintain power and consensus, the National Socialists used ritual and myth to promote values of nationalism, obedience, and loyalty (Taylor, 1981).  These new values were set on a weak and fictitious religious foundation and were thus easily shaken up when the Nazis crafted an enemy for the German people. With the agitator acting as an extension of the mob’s ego and Jewish people being treated as a threat to the ego, the German people become open to violence in order to protect their community. Ultimately, the Holocaust is one example of how fascist leaders can use and manipulate a situation so that a large group of people can become capable of violent acts. This is a trend that is not unique to Germany, but lies at the core of fascism itself, as evidenced by the similar methods of manipulation that Mussolini used to maintain consensus in Italy. Although fascism looks different based on the culture in which it takes root, and perhaps cannot be fully explained by the psychology of ritualistic and symbolic practices on the mind, this psychology may help us understand how anyone is open to suggestion. If this is true, then even the United States is susceptible to fascist ideology.

References

Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D. J., Sanford, R. N., Aron, B., Levinson, M.

H., & Morrow, W. (1993). The Authoritarian Personality (M. Horkheimer & S. H.

Flowerman, Eds.). W.W. Norton Company.

Adorno, T. W., & Gebhardt, E. (1978). Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda.

In A. Arato (Ed.), The Essential Frankfurt School Reader (pp. 118-137). New York: The

Continuum Publishing Company.

Burdett, C. (2003). Italian Fascism and Utopia. History of the Human Sciences, 16(1), 93-108.

doi:10.1177/0952695103016001008

Goldie, P. (2000). The emotions: a philosophical exploration.

Jünger, E. (2008). On Pain (D. C. Durst, Trans.). New York: Telos Press Pub.

Löwenthal, L., & Guterman, N. (1949). Prophets of deceit: a study of the techniques of the

American agitator. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. A. (2016). The Politics of Hope: Donald Trump as an

Entrepreneur of Identity. Retrieved from

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-politics-of-hope-donald-trump-as-an-entrepreneur-of-identity/

Taylor, S. (1981). Symbol and Ritual under National Socialism. The British Journal of

Sociology,32(4), 504-520. doi:10.2307/590130

23-08-2018 (Important News Clippings)

23-08-2018 (Important News Clippings)

To Download Click Here.

Date:23-08-18

Time to rescue God from priestdoms

Both Sabarimala ban and Kerala sexual blackmail cases exemplify the rot that has set in

Swami Agnivesh and Valson Thampu , [Swami Agnivesh is a social activist. Valson Thampu is former principal of St. Stephen’s college]

It is strikingly symbolic that two cases pertaining to two religions from the state of Kerala are currently under the scanner. The first relates to women within an age group being banned from the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala temple. In the second, priests have been booked for blackmailing a woman, abusing her confessions. Differences of religion apart, the victims in both instances are women. And that is a serious issue; for what imperils women endangers humanity itself. It is our considered opinion that the real issue is being overlooked in both instances. Courts are equipped to deal only with legal aspects, but religion is more than law. This should not be misinterpreted to mean that faith is above facts. It is not. Only blind faith is. And blind faith is a curse on humanity.

The two cases point to symptoms of religious disarray. Currently, only random symptoms are being addressed. Our eyes are shut firmly against the disease. Given the religiosity that thrives today, it is inevitable that it proves virulently hostile to our humanity. Religion results from the human longing for love. Eyebrows may be raised at this statement; but that could well be because we misunderstand love. Love is not the net in which others can be trapped for one’s comfort or convenience. It is, on the other hand, the only force we know that delivers us from ourselves, which is our supreme need. Love, if it is indeed love, involves self-transcendence. The spiritual paradox is: he who lives for himself loses himself; but he who lives for God (read, ‘for one’s fellow human beings’) finds himself. All religions have lost this spiritual light. When love is cast out, religion becomes a mechanical thing.

The lure of the mechanical model of religion is that man can install himself at the centre of it. The sphere of religion is, therefore, one in which man plays God. But this is a perverse thing. Its inherent dishonesty can be masked only with pretensions and hypocrisy. Two such pretensions are at the heart of the issues that the courts are currently considering. These pretensions can be listed simply. By what spiritual provision does a priest have the authority to forgive the sins of others? Second, by what logic can men assume that the biological state of one half of the human race ‘pollutes’ and imperils the divine?

The core spiritual truth, relevant to the first issue, is that all sins are committed primarily against God. Secondly, all human beings are sinful. So, the pretension of sinful men to be sin-forgiving agents of God is puerile. Equally ridiculous is the notion that man can decide unilaterally what will pollute and jeopardise the health of deities, as in the Sabarimala case. If the temple argument in this instance is valid, God stands condemned for creating something that can pollute and destroy him. He committed the further mistake of making priests and poojaris wiser than himself. The fact of the matter is that there is something seriously wrong with our religiosity. It doesn’t matter which religion. Religious differences are canards crafted by the priestly class to hypnotise credulous people labelled as ‘believers’. What is lacking in religiosity of this kind is a sense of mystery, from which alone stems the human willingness to look beyond the mercenary and the mechanical.

Religion must be valued for the quality of humanity it nurtures. Spiritually robust religiosity will produce men and women who inspire others and enrich the human species, wrestling with themselves and with the forces of darkness in the world. Passion for truth and justice is their hallmark. They refuse to be confined to narrow, subhuman interests and advocacies, knowing them to be incompatible with the spiritual intuition of the primeval oneness of our species, as in vasudhaiva kutumbakom or the Kingdom of God. It is demeaning for women to beg to be accommodated in a priest-controlled, man-centred, religious establishment. Christian women, likewise, must exercise their right to un-mediated access to God. God has nothing to do with these man-manufactured canards meant to swell the hypermarkets of religion. To wish to be accommodated somewhere on its margins is an insult to oneself.

Date:23-08-18

Fixing fake news: Not by Technology Alone

ET Editorials

For WhatsApp, India is a big market, with more than 22 crore users, who spent 85 billion hours using the app over the last three months. WhatsApp is preparing to monetise this huge user base through a payments app and through message delivery for businesses. It has a core interest in complying with the government’s instruction to create a local office, appoint a grievance officer, store data locally for payments and check fake news, including by tracing fake news back to the originator.

But that does not mean that the government should pass the fake news buck to the platform on which it appears. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, is under pressure across the world to stop its platform being used to spread fake news and peddle influence that is deemed illegal in certain contexts such as elections. The claim that tracing a message back to its originator would violate privacy principles is not valid.

Privacy concerns do not prevent law enforcement authorities from carrying out searches of private premises, when these are required, and legal warrants empower them to carry out such actions. Similar principles and standards of privacy should apply to the online world as well. Administrators of fake-news-spreading Whats-App groups should be to held to account, at least to the extent of identifying the source, for messages that appear on their group.

WhatsApp should be able to pinpoint the administrator of a group at any point of time. That said, fixing fake news is not primarily a technological challenge. Fake news that incite violence should be treated as abetment of or conspiracy to commit that crime and its originators, criminals. In the run-up to crucial elections, social media platforms must also declare the identity of those paying for the ads they carry.

Date:23-08-18

केरल की बाढ़ के गंभीर सबक

भारत को बाढ़ और सुखाड़ के आतंक से मुक्ति पाने हेतु नदियों के साथ-साथ प्रकृति को मानव अधिकार की तरह ही अधिकार देने होंगे।

राजेंद्र सिंह , (लेखक सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता हैं और जलपुरुष के रूप में ख्यात हैं)

भारत में लिखित संविधान से पहले नदियों को मां का अधिकार देने वाला अलिखित संस्कार-व्यवहार दिया गया था। दुर्भाग्य से लिखित संविधान में वैसी व्यवस्था नदियों के लिए नहीं की गई। जबकि नदियां बाढ़-सुखाड़ से किसी भी राष्ट्र को नष्ट कर सकती हैं। यह प्रकृति और नदियों का क्रोध कहलाता है। इस क्रोध से बचने के लिए भारत के लोगों ने नदियों को अपनी मां कहा और उनके साथ जीवित इंसान की तरह ही व्यवहार किया। नदियों को जोड़ना-मोड़ना और उन्हें खोदना समाज में जघन्य अपराध कहा जाता था। अब हालत यह है कि सभी नदियों को खोदना-जोड़ना अथवा रोकना विकास के लिए जरूरी माना जाता है। चूंकि भारतीय संस्कृति और नदियों की दृष्टि अब बची नहीं है, इसलिए आजादी के बाद नदियों के क्रोध की गति तेज होती जा रही है। आजादी के बाद ओडिशा, बिहार, बंगाल, उत्तर प्रदेश और मध्य प्रदेश जैसे कुछ राज्यों में छोटी-छोटी बाढ़ आती थी। लोग बाढ़ के साथ कुछ कष्ट उठाने के बाद भी आनंदित रहते थे, लेकिन धीरे-धीरे बाढ़ का आतंक बढ़ने लगा। अब बाढ़ प्रलयंकारी बनती जा रही है। केरल की बाढ़ तो प्रलय ही है।

पिछले पांच सालों से देखना शुरू करें तो 2013 में उत्तराखंड और 2014 में जम्मू-कश्मीर में भीषण बाढ़ आई। इसके साथ ही दूसरे राज्यों में भी बाढ़ और सुखाड़, दोनों की मार भी देखी गई। 2015 में महाराष्ट्र का मराठवाड़ा एवं बीदर और मध्य प्रदेश-उत्तर प्रदेश का बुंदेलखंड सुखाड़ झेल रहा था, लेकिन मध्य प्रदेश के सतना जिले में आई बाढ़ ने बस, कार और लोगों को एक साथ डुबा दिया था। अभी केरल में हुई अनियमित वर्षा ने तो इस सदी की भीषणतम बाढ़ दिखा दी। भारत सरकार और केरल सरकार, दोनों ही परेशान हैं। वहां बाढ़ प्रभावित लोगों की संख्या बढ़ती ही जा रही है। वास्तविक नुकसान का आकलन अभी शेष है।

भारत को बाढ़ और सुखाड़ के आतंक से मुक्ति पाने हेतु नदियों के साथ-साथ प्रकृति को मानव अधिकार की तरह ही अधिकार देने होंगे। नदियों का बहता हुआ जल सौ साल में जहां-जहां तक पहुंचता है, वह जमीन नदी की ही होती है। इस जमीन का उपयोग नदी के लिए ही करना चाहिए। इस जमीन की तीन श्रेणियां होती हैं। पहली, नदी प्रवाह क्षेत्र यानी जहां नदी बहती है। दूसरी, नदी का सक्रिय बाढ़ क्षेत्र और तीसरी, नदी का उच्चतम बाढ़ क्षेत्र। उच्चतम बाढ़ क्षेत्र निष्क्रिय बाढ़ क्षेत्र कहलाता है। इस क्षेत्र में सौ साल में एक-दो बार ही बाढ़ आती है। सक्रिय बाढ़ क्षेत्र में आमतौर पर 25 साल में पांच बार बाढ़ आती है। इन तीनों तरह की जमीन को नदी के लिए संरक्षित और सुरक्षित रखना राज, समाज और वैज्ञानिकों का साझा दायित्व है।

समस्या यह है कि आजकल नदियों को केवल अन्न् और विद्युत उत्पादन का साधन मान लिया गया है। विकास की भाषा में बांधों को बाढ़ रोकने वाला साधन बताया जाता है। निश्चित तौर पर बांध कभी-कभी बाढ़ रोकने में मदद कर सकते हैं, लेकिन अतिवृष्टि या बादलों के फटने पर बांध बड़ी बाढ़ का संकट भी पैदा करते हैं। केरल की बाढ़ तो बांधों के कारण ही आई। भारी बारिश के बाद सभी बांधों के गेट एक साथ खोलने पड़े।

नदियों को अपनी आजादी से बहने का अधिकार है, लेकिन इस अधिकार में लगातार कटौती की जा रही है। नतीजा यह है कि उनका प्राकृतिक प्रवाह बाधित हो रहा है। सरकारें नदियों की प्रकृति प्रदत्त आजादी छीनने का हक नहीं रखतीं, फिर भी नदियों से यह हक छीना जा रहा है। कहीं-कहीं तो पूरी तरह छीन लिया गया है। यदि हम नदियों की आजादी को मानवीय आजादी के साथ जोड़कर उन्हें आजाद नहीं करेंगे, तो बाढ़ के प्रकोप से बचना मुश्किल हो जाएगा।

केरल की बाढ़ हमारे तथाकथित विकास ने पैदा की। मानवीय सेहत की तरह ही नदी की सेहत भी ठीक रहनी चाहिए। आम लोगों और सरकारों ने नदियों की सेहत को नष्ट करने का काम किया है। नगर निगमों, नगर पालिकाओं, पंचायतों आदि ने नदियों को प्रदूषणकारी नालों से जोड़कर अपना गंदा जल उनमें बेरोकटोक डालने का काम किया है। इससे मानवीय शिराओं और धमनियों की तरह धरती की शिरा और धमनी रूपी नदियां प्रदूषित हो गई हैं। नदियों का प्रदूषण अब मानवीय सेहत को भी बिगाड़ रहा है। 44 नदियों वाले प्रदेश केरल में एक भी नदी का पानी पीने योग्य नहीं बचा है। उनमें औद्योगिक एवं रासायनिक प्रदूषण बहुत ही अधिक बढ़ गया है। जिस तरह दूध से भरी मटकी में एक बूंद छाछ पूरी मटकी के दूध को दही में बदल देता है, उसी प्रकार औद्योगिक और रासायनिक प्रदूषण भी बड़े से बड़े जल भंडार को प्रदूषित कर देता है। इस पर आश्चर्य नहीं कि केरल की बाढ़ के बाद पीने के पानी का संकट गहरा गया है।

बेलगाम खनन के कारण भी केरल की नदियों पर संकट आया। खनन से बने खड्डे नदियों की सेहत खराब करते हैं। नदियों में आने वाली प्लास्टिक ऊपर से आई गाद के साथ उनके तल में जमी जाती है और उनका प्रवाह स्तर ऊपर उठता जाता है। सबसे अधिक शिक्षित प्रदेश केरल आज यदि बाढ़ की भयानक चपेट में है तो इसका अर्थ है कि हमारे वर्तमान और साझे भविष्य को समझने की शिक्षा हमें नहीं दी जा रही है। हम सुख-सुविधाओं के लालच में प्रकृति की जितनी अनदेखी कर रहे हैं, हमें उतने ही ज्यादा बाढ़-सुखाड़ झेलने पड़ रहे हैं। सुख-सुविधाओं से सुसज्जित कांच, सीमेंट और कांक्रीट के हमारे भवनों ने जलवायु परिवर्तन का संकट बढ़ाया है। इसी संकट के कारण जहां बेमौसम बारिश बढ़ी है, वहीं जल प्रबंधन के नाम पर केवल कोरी बातें ही अधिक हो रही हैं।

यह एक तथ्य है कि केरल में 8 से 18 अगस्त के बीच हुई अनियमित वर्षा ने कहर ढाया। हमें मुंबई, चेन्न्ई, हैदराबाद, सतना, पटना आदि की बाढ़ से सीख लेनी चाहिए थी, लेकिन हमारी सरकारें ऐसा करने से इनकार कर रही हैं। भारत की भू-संरचना पर जो निर्माण किया जा रहा है, उससे खतरा लगातार बढ़ता ही जा रहा है। धरती कुरूप बनती जा रही है। नदियों में आने वाली बाढ़ जिन क्षेत्रों से मिट्टी लेकर आती है, उन क्षेत्रों के बेमिट्टी होने से वहां सुखाड़ आने का खतरा बढ़ता है। हमने जलवायु परिवर्तन के क्रम को समझकर अपने विकास का क्रम सुनिश्चित नहीं किया है। यदि हमारा विकास का क्रम जलवायु परिवर्तन के साथ बदले और वर्षा के क्रम के साथ जुड़ जाए तो हम बाढ़-सुखाड़ से बच सकते हैं।

केरल के राज और समाज को अपना भविष्य सुनिश्चित करने के लिए बाढ़ मुक्ति हेत��� ठोस पहल करनी चाहिए। केरल की जनता की ओर से नदियों के अधिकार की नई मांग उठनी चाहिए। केवल मांग से ही काम नहीं चलेगा। नदियों से छीने गए अधिकार भी उन्हें वापस करने होंगे। भविष्य की चिंता करने वाला समाज अपने तात्कालिक संकट से भावी समाधान के रास्ते खोज लेता है। केरल का संकट हम सबके लिए एक सबक बनना चाहिए।

Date:22-08-18

लिंचिंग पर जवाब-तलब

संपादकीय

सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने राजस्थान सरकार से अलवर घटना पर स्पष्टीकरण मांग कर अन्य राज्यों एवं केंद्र को संदेश दिया है कि भीड़ द्वारा हिंसा के मामले में वह किसी तरह की नरमी नहीं बरतने वाला। पिछली 17 जुलाई को शीर्ष अदालत ने भीड़ की हिंसा पर विस्तृत फैसला दिया था। सभी राज्यों से इसे रोकने के लिए कदम उठाने तथा उसकी रिपोर्ट अदालत में पेश करने को कहा था। इसी तरह केंद्र सरकार से एडवायजरी तथा दिशा-निर्देश के अलावा ऐसा कानून बनाने को कहा था, जिसमें इसे अलग अपराध के रूप में व्याख्यायित किया जाए। अभी तक शीर्ष अदालत में केवल एक राज्य ने रिपोर्ट प्रस्तुत की है। साफ है कि शेष राज्यों ने न्यायालय के निर्देश का अनुपालन नहीं किया है। केंद्र ने भी एडवायजरी तो जारी की है, लेकिन स्पष्ट दिशा-निर्देश तथा नये कानून के मामले में वह मौन है। हालांकि राजस्थान सरकार से 24 जुलाई को अलवर में गो तस्करी के नाम पर एक व्यक्ति पर हमले और बाद में उसकी मौत के बारे पूछा गया है, किंतु उसी में यह भी सन्निहित है कि शीर्ष अदालत के आदेश पर आपने अमल किया है, या नहीं और किया है तो कितना ?

शीर्ष अदालत के आदेश के सात दिन बाद अलवर की दुखद घटना घटी थी। वैसे, इस मामले का एक महत्त्वपूर्ण तय यह है कि लोगों ने मृतक रकबर की पिटाई अवश्य की थी, लेकिन पुलिस को सौंपे जाने तक वह न केवल जिंदा था, बल्कि आराम से बयान देने की स्थिति में भी था। राजस्थान सरकार ने भी स्वीकार किया था कि समय पर पुलिस ने उसको अस्पताल पहुंचाया होता तो उसे बचाया जा सकता है। पुलिस ने पहले गाय को गोशाला पहुंचाने का इंतजाम किया। उसके बाद रकबर को अस्पताल ले गए। इसमें पुलिस की आपराधिक लापरवाही नजर आती है। यह अक्षम्य है। वैसे तो यह आम विवेक का मामला है कि हम पहले एक घायल मनुष्य को जीवित रखने की कोशिश करें या जीवित और क्षतिहीन गाय की व्यवस्था, किंतु यदि पुलिस के पास स्पष्ट दिशा-निर्देश होता कि भीड़ की हिंसा में सबसे पहले चोट खाए व्यक्ति के इलाज का प्रबंध करना है,और शेष बातें बाद में तो ऐसी नौबत नहीं आती। इस तरह राजस्थान मामले में शीर्ष अदालत के रवैये से सरकारें इन दिशाओं में काम करने को मजबूर होंगी। निश्चय मानिए कि राजस्थान सरकार का जवाब आने के साथ शीर्ष अदालत दिशा-निर्देश पर कानून के बारे में फिर से आदेश जारी करेगा। यही यथेष्ट भी है।

Date:22-08-18

नई उड़ान को तैयार अल्पसंख्यक

शाहनवाज हुसैन, प्रवक्ता, भाजपा

किसी भी राष्ट्र की तरक्की सीधे-सीधे उसके लोगों, उसकी आबादी की तरक्की से जुड़ी होती है। इसीलिए मोदी सरकार ‘सबका साथ-सबका विकास’ के मूलमंत्र को लेकर आगे बढ़ रही है। अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय के लोगों का सर्वांगीण विकास भी देश की इसी यात्रा का एक अहम हिस्सा है। प्रधानमंत्री जो ध्येय लेकर चल रहे हैं, उसका मकसद है- अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय का हर बच्चा शिक्षित हो, हर नौजवान प्रशिक्षित हो, हुनर रोजगार से जुडे़ और हर महिला सशक्त बने, स्वाभिमान से जिए। इन सभी आकांक्षाओं को धरातल पर उतारने का काम पूरे देश में तमाम प्रभावी और परिणाम देने वाली योजनाओं के जरिए किया जा रहा है।

सरकार का दृढ़ विश्वास है कि शिक्षा न सिर्फ अज्ञानता का अंधकार मिटाती है, बल्कि निर्माण की कई नई राहें भी इसकी बुनियाद पर बनती हैं। मुस्लिम बच्चे, किशोर-किशोरियां पढ़ें और तरक्की की राह पर आगे बढ़ें, इस मकसद को मंजिल तक पहुुंचाने के लिए तमाम योजनाएं बनाई गई हैं, जो उनकी हमकदम बनकर साथ चल रही हैं। ऐसी ही एक योजना है, ‘नई मंजिल’। ये उन किशोर और युवा लड़के-लड़कियों को ध्यान में रखकर बनाई गई है, जो किसी वजह से अपनी तालीम बीच में ही छोड़ देते हैं। ‘नई मंजिल’ उन्हें एक मौका देती है, दूरस्थ शिक्षा के माध्यम से अपनी 10वीं और 12वीं की पढ़ाई पूरी करने का और साथ ही कौशल प्रशिक्षण हासिल करके रोजगार पाने का। इस योजना के तहत साल 2016-17 के दौरान 22 राज्यों में करीब 69,840 प्रशिक्षुओं ने शिक्षा और कौशल प्रशिक्षण की राह चुनी।

इसी के साथ-साथ ‘सीखो और कमाओ’ योजना भी है। इस योजना के माध्यम से 1,65,127 युवाओं ने कौशल प्रशिक्षण हासिल किया, जिनमें से 61,190 युवा अपने हुनर पर आधारित रोजगार हासिल करके अपना जीवन संवारने की राह पर बढ़ चुके हैं। इसके साथ-साथ ‘नया सवेरा’ और ‘नई उड़ान’ जैसी योजनाओं ने अल्पसंख्यक युवाओं को सशक्त बनाने और देश की प्रतिष्ठित प्रतियोगी परीक्षाओं में उनकी भागीदारी और सफलता सुनिश्चित करने का काम किया है और लगातार कर रही हैं। इस बात से सब सहमत होंगे कि तालीम हमें बेहतर इंसान बनाती है और हुनर से हमारी जिंदगी आसान बनती है। प्रधानमंत्री मोदी अक्सर कहते हैं कि मुस्लिम युवाओं को हाथ का हुनर विरासत में मिलता है, जरूरत होती है, तो बस उसे तराशने और संवारने की और सरकार यह काम बखूबी कर रही है। इसका प्रमाण है मई 2015 में वाराणसी से शुरू की गई ‘उस्ताद’(अपग्रेडिंग द स्किल्सेऐंड ट्रेनिंग इन ट्रेडिशनल आट्र्स/ क्राफ्ट्स फॉर डेवलपमेंट योजना, जिसका मकसद है अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय की पारंपरिक कला और शिल्प की समृद्ध विरासत का संरक्षण और कुशल-अकुशल दस्तकारों, शिल्पकारों को बड़ी कंपनियों और बाजारों से प्रतियोगिता के लिए तैयार करना। देश भर में लगने वाले हुनर हाट भी इस दिशा में महत्वपूर्ण योगदान दे रहे हैं।

इसके साथ ही राष्ट्रीय अल्पसंख्यक विकास एवं वित्त निगम यानी एनएमडीएफसी अल्पसंख्यकों को अपना रोजगार शुरू करने के लिए बहुत कम ब्याज दर पर लोन उपलब्ध कराता है। इस वित्त वर्ष में एनएमडीएफसी की तरफ से 1,08,494 लाभार्थियों को 515.90 करोड़ रुपये का कर्ज उपलब्ध कराया गया। वहीं मुद्रा योजना से बिना गारंटी लोन का लाभ अब तक जिन 13.5 करोड़ लोगों तक पहुंचा है, उनमें 39 प्रतिशत अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय से आते हैं। ये वे नौजवान हैं, जिनके पास हुनर तो था, मगर कुछ कर गुजरने की हिम्मत मुद्रा लोन के जरिए मिली। आज ये युवा अपनी कामयाबी की कहानी खुद लिख रहे हैं। सरकार के प्रयासों का एक और परिणाम यह है कि आज हमारी महिलाएं देश को आगे बढ़ाने में बराबर की भागीदार हैं। ‘महिलाओं के नेतृत्व में हो देश का विकास’ प्रधानमंत्री के इस विचार को अमलीजामा पहनाने के लिए कई काम किए जा रहे हैं। जहां तक अल्पसंख्यक स्त्रियों के सशक्तीकरण की बात है, तो इस दिशा में भी बहुत से काम हो रहे हैं। ‘नई रोशनी’ योजना भी एक ऐसी ही सार्थक पहल है, जिसके जरिए हुनरमंद महिलाओं को प्रशिक्षण देने और उन्हें आत्मनिर्भर बनाने का काम किया जा रहा है। आत्मनिर्भर और आत्मविश्वास से लबरेज ये महिलाएं न सिर्फ अपने परिवार, बल्कि पूरे समुदाय और समाज का भविष्य बदलने को तैयार हो रही हैं।

इसके अलावा, हज सब्सिडी खत्म करके उससे बची 700 करोड़ रुपये की राशि को मुस्लिम बच्चियों की पढ़ाई में लगाने की बात हो या फिर तीन तलाक के मुद्दे पर प्रधानमंत्री मोदी का मुस्लिम महिलाओं के साथ खड़े होने और उन्हें न्याय दिला��े का प्रण, ये सब अल्पसंख्यक महिलाओं के सशक्तीकरण को लेकर सरकार की प्रतिबद्धता जाहिर करते हैं। अल्पसंख्यकों के वर्तमान को समृद्ध बनाने और उनसे जुड़ी विरासत और परंपराओं को संरक्षित करने का जज्बा जितना इस समय देखने को मिला है, उतना शायद ही पहले कभी रहा हो। ‘हमारी धरोहर योजना’ के तहत अल्पसंख्यक समुदायों की आस्था और परंपराओं से जुड़ी इमारतों को सहेजने का काम उस सोच को साझा करता है, जो अकेले आगे बढ़ने में नहीं, बल्कि सबको साथ लेकर और सबके साथ बढ़ने में विश्वास रखती है।

Email *

The post 23-08-2018 (Important News Clippings) appeared first on AFEIAS.

from AFEIAS https://ift.tt/2Ll5twR from Blogger https://ift.tt/2wgPhra

Feminism: A Male Anarchist’s Perspective

“I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat”

— Rebecca West, The Clarion 1913

Most people in the current anarchist milieu — female or male — would disagree, at least in principle, with most of the following statements: there are two immutable and natural categories under which all humans are classified: male and female. A male human being is a man, and a female human being is a woman. Women are inherently inferior to men. Men are smarter and stronger than women; women are more emotional and delicate. Women exist for the benefit of men. If a man demands sex from his wife, it is her duty to oblige him, whether she wants to or not. A man may force a woman to have sex with him, as long as he has a very good reason for making this demand. Humans are to be conceived of, in the universal sense, as male (“man”), and only referred to as female when one is speaking of particular individuals. Women are a form of property. To demand rights for women is tantamount to demanding rights for animals and just as absurd.

As ridiculous as most of these statements may seem, every one of them has been considered obvious and natural by most of the West at one point or another, and many are still more the rule than the exception to this day. If most of them seem a little strange, jarring, or just plain wrong, that is not because they contradict some vague notion of justice or common sense that we have all been born with. To the contrary, the change in attitude that allows most of us to claim a more enlightened, seemingly natural viewpoint, is actually the concrete result of an ongoing struggle which has claimed many reputations, relationships, and lives over the last 200 years and which, like all struggles for liberation, has been discredited, slandered, and marginalized since its inception. Although this struggle has been, and still is, strategically diverse and conceptually multifarious and hence hard to define, it is not hard to name: I am, of course, referring to feminism.

Feminism has changed our culture to the point where it is at least a common idea that women are fully human. If most people today claim to agree with this idea, this is not because society is becoming more benevolent, or evolving naturally into a more egalitarian state of affairs. Those who hold power do not simply decide to grant equal status to those who do not; rather, they only yield power when they are forced to. Women, like every other oppressed group, have had to take everything they have gotten, through an arduous process of struggle. To deny this struggle is to perpetuate a myth similar to that of the happy slave. Yet this is precisely what we do when we speak of feminism as somehow perpetuating a gender divide, or hindering our progress away from identity politics. Feminism did not create the conflict between genders: patriarchal society did. It is important not to forget that the aforementioned idea that women are fully human is not common sense but absolutely, emphatically, a feminist notion. To pay lip-service to women’s liberation while denying the historical struggle of women to achieve this for themselves is paternalistic and insulting.

Not only has Western society overtly relegated women to a subhuman role throughout its history, but, until recently, most liberatory movements have as well. This has often been partially unconscious, as a reflection of the mores of the dominant culture. Just as often, however, this has been fully conscious and intentional (cf. Stokely Charmichael’s famous quote that the “only position” for women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee [SNCC] was “prone”). Either way, people who purported to be working for the emancipation of all humans were really just working for the emancipation of “man,” which until quite recently, is exactly how it was usually phrased. Women who complained about this state of affairs were (and are) condescendingly told to wait until the more important struggle was won before they demanded their own liberation. This has been true of abolition, civil rights, the anti-war movement, the New Left, the anti-nuke movement, radical environmentalism and, obviously, anarchism. Women have been criticized for pursuing feminist aims as if these were wrong-headed, counterrevolutionary, or unimportant. Anarchists did not simply wake up one morning with more enlightened views of women, nor did patriarchy suddenly reveal itself as “just another form of domination.” Feminist theory and practice brought to light the oppression of women that often manifested itself in otherwise revolutionary milieus.

This is not to say that all feminists were/are not anarchists, or all anarchists were/are not feminists. But feminism is often criticized within the anarchist milieu, from several different angles. I will try to discuss the most common criticisms I have heard voiced, both publicly and privately, in anarchist circles. It has been suggested that feminism is essentialist. It has also been suggested that feminism, in keeping with its essentialist views, is a philosophy that asserts the superiority, in one way or another, of women to men. Finally, the charge has been made that feminism perpetuates gender categories, whereas the revolutionary task is to move beyond gender altogether. In other words, feminism is accused of being a kind of identity politics that perpetuates harmful and divisive societal roles that ultimately oppress everyone.

The one thing that all of these allegations have in common is that they posit a single, more or less univocal entity named “feminism.” However, anyone who studies feminism soon learns that there has always been a fair amount of diversity within feminist theory, and this has never been more true than it is now. No single set of ideas about sex and gender represents feminism; rather, feminism is a loose category that encompasses just about all forms of thought and action which are explicitly concerned with the liberation of women.

Although feminism has often been accused of essentialism, the critique of essentialism is particularly strong within feminism, and has been for quite some time. Essentialism is the idea that there is an unchanging substance or essence that constitutes the true identity of people and things. In this view, a woman is somehow truly, deep in her core, identifiable as a woman; being a woman is not simply the result of different attributes and behaviors. This is seen as a politically backward stance by many, because it implies that people are limited to certain capabilities and behaviors that are somehow dictated by their nature.

When we examine the range of ideas that has emerged from second wave (post-1963 or so) feminism, however, a different picture comes into focus. Probably the most famous quote from The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal 1940s work, is the following: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” The book goes on to argue that gender is a social category, which individuals can reject. The influence of The Second Sex was enormous, and Beauvoir wasn’t the only feminist to question the naturalness of the category of gender. Many feminist writers began to draw a distinction between sex and gender, asserting that the former describes the physical body, while the latter is a cultural category. For instance, having a penis pertains to sex, whereas how one dresses, and the social role one fills, pertains to gender.

This is a distinction that some feminists still make, but others have questioned the use of supposedly pre-cultural categories like sex altogether. Colette Guillamin has suggested that sex (as well as race) is an arbitrary system of “marks” that has no natural status at all, but simply serves the interests of those who hold power. Although various physical differences exist between people, it is politically determined which ones are chosen as important or definitive. Although people are divided into supposedly natural categories on the basis of these marks, there is nothing natural about any category; categories are purely conceptual.

Building on the work of Beauvoir and Guillamin, among others, Monique Wittig has argued that the feminist goal is to eliminate sex and/or gender as a category entirely. Like the proletariat in Marx’s philosophy, women are to constitute themselves as a class for the sake of overthrowing the system that allows classes to exist. One is not born a woman, except in the same sense that one is born a proletarian: being a woman denotes a social position, and certain social practices, rather than an essence or true identity. The ultimate political goal of a woman, for Wittig, is to not be one. More recently, Judith Butler has predicated an entire theory of gender based on the radical rejection of essence.

Of course, there have been a number of feminists who, disturbed by what they saw as an assimilationist tendency in feminism, asserted a more positive notion of femininity that was, at times, undoubtedly essentialist. Susan Brownmiller, in her important book Against Our Wills, suggested that men may be genetically predisposed to rape, a notion that has been echoed by Andrea Dworkin. Marxist feminists like Shulamite Firestone sought the material basis of gender oppression in the female reproductive role, and several feminist theorists — Nancy Chodorow, Sherry Ortner, and Juliet Mitchell among others — have examined the role of motherhood in creating oppressive gender roles. “Woman-identified” feminists like Mary Daly embraced certain traditional notions of femininity and sought to give them a positive spin. Although woman-identified feminists have, at times, taken essentialist positions, this brand of feminism has redressed some of the imbalances of that strain of feminist thought that rejects femininity altogether as a slave-identity. This has always been the dichotomy that has troubled feminist thinkers: either to assert a strong feminine identity and risk legitimizing traditional roles and providing fodder to those who employ the idea of a natural difference in order to oppress women, or to reject the role and the identity women have been given, and risk eliminating the very ground of a feminist critique. The task of contemporary feminism is to find a balance between viewpoints that risk, on the one hand, essentialism, and on the other the elimination of women as the subject of political struggle altogether.

The goal of feminism, then, is the liberation of women, but what that exactly means is open to dispute. For some feminists, this means that women and men will coexist equally; for others, that we will no longer see people as women and men. Feminism provides a rich panorama of views on gender problems. One thing all feminists can agree on, though, is that gender problems exist. Whether as a result of natural differences or cultural construction, people are oppressed on the basis of gender. To go beyond gender, this situation needs to be redressed; gender cannot simply be declared defunct. Feminism can perhaps be best defined as the attempt to get beyond the state of affairs where people are oppressed because of gender. Thus, it is not possible to go beyond gender without feminism; the charge that feminism itself perpetuates gender categories is patently absurd.

Since anarchy is opposed to all forms of domination, anarchy without feminism is not anarchy at all. Since anarchy declares itself opposed to all archy, all rulership, true anarchy is by definition opposed to patriarchy, i.e. it is, by definition, feminist. But it is not enough to declare oneself opposed to all domination; one needs to try to understand domination in order to oppose it. Feminist authors should be read by all anarchists who consider themselves opposed to patriarchy. Feminist critiques are certainly just as relevant as books about government oppression. Ward Churchill’s excellent Agents of Repression is considered essential reading by many anarchists, even though Churchill is not an anarchist. Many feminist works, on the other hand, are neglected, even by those who pay lip service to feminism. Yet, while FBI repression is a real threat to anarchists, the way we inhabit our gender-roles must be dealt with every day of our lives. Thus, feminist literature is more relevant to the daily fight against oppression than much of the literature that anarchists read regularly.

Source

Autism Myths: Intentional Misrepresentation & Sociopaths

I don't know why neurotypicals are so intent to attack, undermine, smear, and even go so far as to character assassinate not just autistic people, but the type of mind in general, unless I'm incredibly right about NT tribalism and they just can't help themselves. It's fascinating just how many parallels I can draw between the NT 'scientist' and baloney systems of faith and religion. As an autistic person, I have an incredibly clear view of this, my mind just strips away the nonsense and sees things for what they truly are. I already spoke of the Cult of Dark Matter, and how that's turned into something that's the contemporary equivalent of 'finding God,' instead of just admitting that a.) our estimations of mass within our galaxy may be wrong, and b.) Erik Verlinde might actually be correct. The attitude toward autism is very similar to the Cult of Dark Matter, Creationism, and other things you probably should be weary of. The reasons why will become rather obvious as you read this and things fall into place. I'll open by saying that I don't think there's such a thing as an NT 'scientist.' The NT 'scientist' is like HR from CW's Flash. They're all about pomp and marketing, but they lack the level of necessary objectivity to engage in actual science. Their 'science' is all about sensationalism and the rise of neurotypical extraverts in science has lead to the shoddy state it's in right now (read here and here and here). Science used to be much more a field dominated by the a gamut of different kinds of minds, but as it shifts towards neurotypical extraversion it's losing cohesion and worth. A part of why NTs make for bad scientists is that they can't leave their tribalism behind. If you need to understand this, read my prior post on autism myths, and some others on my blogs. NTs have a very binary, absolute outlook on the world, very 1 and 0. The NT is 1, everyone else is 0, that's how they define their incredibly simplistic hierarchy. If you're not 1, if you're not of the NTs in-group, you're 0 and thus subhuman. This is how prejudices occur. This is how a gay person who's experienced bigoted hate can turn around and act like a hateful bigot toward trans people, because they can't stop being tribal. This doesn't happen with other spectrums who'll advocate trans right every bit as much as their own. In fact, autism is quite prevalent amongst trans people.

NTs will even try to tell you they’re more attractive for being the for being the 1 to your 0. They might even use some entertainingly bollocks-laden 'science' to try to prove it. Which will then be deconstructed by someone actually intelligent. Still, the fact that they made the effort is somewhat telling, isn't it? You see, NTs are perfect and so they must also be the most attractive, too. That's simply science! Oh dear.

NTs will also tell you that children who dislike making eye contact are racist, let’s just ignore the studies that show that eye contact is painful for autistic people. But nah, it can’t be that! Autistic people are racist, obviously.

The reason why it goes this way? The tribalism of the neurotypical spectrum's mind makes them incredibly selfish, they're all about themself or their group. The interesting part is is that that selfishness can be subverted if they believe it's in the interest of their in-group. This is why for affiliative extraverts they can put the interests of their in-group above their own even when it's harmful for them to do so. Sociopaths are masters at manipulating them to do this, which ultimately benefits the sociopath at the expense of the affiliative extravert. This is simply how they function, however, there's little that can be done about it. It's unfortunate, but they don't have the Theory of Mind enough to be self aware of this manipulation. What this means is that it's incredibly easy to spot someone on the NT spectrum versus all others. If, say, a person has autism, Williams syndrome, or any other number of mental ‘disorders’ they're likely to have avoided the curse of the NT tribal world view. These other spectrums won't view the world in this black & white, arbitrarily binary way, they won't see things in absolutes of 'my tribe' and 'their tribe' in the way that the NT mind always does. Whatever fluke of evolution has occurred, it's given them self awareness enough to want to expunge this from their outlook. It's fascinating to me because you can even see it in how the neurotypical spectrum views the world. Consider: "I am neurotypical. I am the basis, the default. I am 1. I am normal. I am the standard. I am health. I am perfection. I am the embodiment of correctness against which every other is to be judged. If you differ from me, then you are 0. You are flawed, you embody problematic elements which are contrary to my default status and thus you are inferior." The very concept of 'neurotypical' is oh so, so, so very telling. You'd have to be blind not to see it, and this is only a problem that the NT brain suffers from. And yet, the NT mind is sadly lacking in Theory of Mind to the point where there's no self awareness of this flaw, it escapes their own perception. And if they don't see it, then it doesn't exist. Do you see? And this is something that only the neurotypical spectrum cannot be aware of as their mind is designed specifically to lack self awareness of this factor, to ensure that they play it up as much as possible. Other spectrums are, in various degrees, less prone to tribalism and/or more profoundly aware of it. The NT cannot be aware of their own tribalism. What this leads to, of course, is that the NT will always try to smear anyone that the NT believes to be 0 to their 1. I see this in bad science, in religious people, in politics, in just about any field that's dominated by the neurotypical spectrum. Consider politics: "Our party is 1, all of our ideas are the right ones and we will never back down. Your party is 0, every idea you have is toxic, evil, and wrong so we'll fight it at every turn." This is true with marketing as well. And marketing fascinates me. Did you read that prior post where I spoke of how autistic people are less prone to the marketing brainwash? That was based on an actual study. This study points out that autistic people are better able to make consistent decisions without being controlled by marketers. So I ask you, why do you think that is? Why do you think that autistic people aren't so vulnerable to bias and marketing trickery? Tribalism. Affiliative extraverts are easily brainwashed into adopting a tribe, sociopaths (and to a lesser extent, agentic extraverts) are incredible at pulling their strings, something about how their brain functions has given them a startling expertise at manipulating affiliative extraverts. And there are more affiliative extraverts on earth than any other kind of human being. Which makes this tricky, and sometimes, even dicy for others. Affiliative extraverts are the group thought of when one says 'the masses,' thier actions are dictated to them by social structures, marketing, the media, and outside sources. They don't seem to make very many of their own decisions, they just go with the flow and obey whatever the Zeitgeist is, locking in with it as much as possible. I spoke of this earlier as well where even affiliative extraverts who're poor will buy expensive branded goods just to fit in. Tribalism is powerful. I'm more sure of this than anything else I've ever been, it's the one thing I want to contribute to humanity so that everyone can realise that there are aspects of every spectrum which could be considered problematic. There isn't one perfect, pure, default spectrum. The fact that they believe that is evidence of the disordered tribal thinking I speak of, the kind that they lack Theory of Mind enough to actually perceive. It always vexes me just how lacking in Theory of Mind the average neurotypical is when it comes to this topic, because you can present them with all the evidence you can find, directly, and they'll still deny it. They'll even then turn around later and say that they don't like some ethnicity because reasons, you'll point this out to them, as one does, and they'll come up with the most specious, nonsensical arguments to support it. This has been my ongoing experience with affiliative extraverts. In the UK, Nigel Farage is an expert sociopath who was fantastic at manipulating affiliative extraverts to be racist. He puts up this fucking awful ad (which I've used as the picture accompanying this post) that's an utter fallacy about immigration, which autistic people call him on. So what do the affiliative extraverts do? They go out and harass Polish people and shove dog shit through their letter boxes, they deface a Polish community centre with obscenities (in London, which is supposed to be the most progressive place in Britain, or so they say), and worse. Why do you hate Poliish people, affiliative extraverts? There'll be more specious, nonsensical arguments than you can shake a stick at, but once you bat all those down it ultimately results in "I don't know." I know why. Because Nigel Farage told you to. And you obeyed. It's that simple. Affiliative extraverts are that simple. So, here's the thing. When Nigel Farage put up that racist advert filled with so much BS it made my head spin? Every autistic person I know of called him on it. And not even one of the neurotypicals we knew of did. Why? This benefited the agentic extraverts and sociopaths, of course, by giving them even more power by removing invasive cultures which might challenge their power. They're afraid of sociopaths and agentic extraverts of other cultures coming in and taking over their herds. And the affiliative extraverts? "WE OBEY." Just like bloody daleks. I've never met an affiliative extravert that's able to think for themself. Please, prove me wrong. I'd love to see any evidence to the contrary because every day I see more evidence that supports my view of the neurotypical spectrum. I'm always trying to look for evidence which is contrary to that, something that might tell me I'm wrong, I'm almost desperate in doing this. I have to be careful though because I don't want to end up doing the Cult of Dark Matter thing but from the opposite end of wanting to prove myself wrong. At some point I just have to accept that this is how things are. I think I write these articles to spread this awareness and to give people a chance to challenge me, still. So, anyway, that's how the neurotypical spectrum works. Yes, affiliative extraverts really are sheeple. I'm sorry. We can beat around the bullshit bush all day, if you'd like. We can argue semantics, I can call you on manipulative nonsense, and we can play silly games. The truth is is that agentic extraverts and sociopaths would rather that affiliative extraverts weren't aware of how herd-like they are, how easily controlled, how simple it is to edit their behavioural patterns just by shifting their perspective of how their tribe behaves. If I'm wrong about affiliative extraverts? Explain the study about how people view the Apple logo with the same religious zeal as Christians view imagery of Christ. I want you to think about this. Don't just accept my views, look into it for yourself. If you agree, that's fine, but always agree because you couldn't defeat this perspective yourself. Those tested in that particular study were affiliative extraverts, as there are more of those than any other kind of person. They were looking for Apple loyalists, after all. If they'd done that test on any other kind of brain, they would've found that effect to be greatly reduced or non-existent. It's similar to Creationists, isn't it? Proper science discovers that dinosaurs have feathers. What happens next? Sociopaths undermine this by saying that science ruined dinosaurs. But wait, the kind of sociopath saying this is a Creationist! There's something going on, here. You see, Creationists don't believe dinosaurs actually existed. So what's happening? These religious sociopaths are using manipulation tactics to undermine their flock's faith in science, they'll do this any way they can with whatever cheap, base trickery is available to them. This is what happens. Affiliative extraverts are sheep who'll believe anything that agentic extraverts and sociopaths tell them, because that's how their spectrum works. You see, all minds on the neurotypical spectrum possess manipulative traits, it's just the further you move toward sociopathy and away from affiliative, the stronger those traits become. And all minds on the spectrum have a certain weakness to it. Yes, even the sociopaths are weaker against this kind of manipulation than other spectrums (such as autism). This is why we always see these tribes trying to manipulate one another, to undermine the others. And sociopaths, due to a lack of self awareness, will try to pull this on groups involved in other spectrums. The thing is? It won't work. We're obviously going to call them on it due to our immunity to these shenanigans. There's a reason why the autistic mind doesn't fall prey to marketing, quod erat demonstrandum. And this brings me to my point. I was reading this article about Williams syndrome and it amazed me just how much the author (who I quickly identified as an agentic extravert) tried to use Williams syndrome to demean autistic people. They also undermined Williams syndrome as well. Can we consider what they're saying?

Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder versus the default state of neurotypicality.

Empathy is problematic if you have more than the default NT level of it.

Autism is the opposite of Williams syndrome as it doesn't experience much empathy.

Autistic people won't say "I love you." in excess.

Autistic people hate hugs and other kinds of physical contact.

Pushing the myth that oxytocin is Universally a 'love hormone.'

Pushing the harmful idea that autism needs to be 'cured.'

Empathy is seen as a disability in Japan.

The article praises the book for not being exploitative.

Let's tackle each of these individually.    Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder versus the default state of neurotypicality. I contest this. I say that it requires a greater degree of understanding so that those on this particular spectrum can better integrate into society but I contest the idea that a mind is disordered simply for functioning differently than the perceived neurotypical norm. I absolutely despise this idea, it leaves me feeling livid. Yes, they might require more help because they may be more vulnerable, especially with all of those manipulative NT sharks they'd have to deal with, but they aren't disordered. It's simply that their brain functions differently. This perspective that everything that isn't NT is disordered is nonsense. And it's toxic, harmful, and frankly evil nonsense. It's the kind of nonsense that allowed atrocities to be committed against the Jews by the Nazis, because the Germanic people were convinced (affiliative sheep that they were) to believe that Jews were inferior and responsible for many of their woes. This is no different. This is exactly the same sort of toxic thinking that allows atrocities to happen. So, no. Williams isn't disordered, it's just vulnerable because neurotypicals are so exploitative and those on the Williams spectrum simply don't have the tools to deal with those encounters. When someone becomes old, are they 'disordered' for being vulnerable?    Empathy is problematic if you have more than the default NT level of it. Really? Why? Yes, it can lead to more suffering because neurotypical spectrum sociopaths exploit this for their own gain, but why is it perceived as a negative to have more empathy? I don't like this. I think that empathy is necessary for us to learn to stop being horrible to one another. Empathy is the natural counter to exploitation.    Autism is the opposite of Williams syndrome as it doesn't experience much empathy. This is fascinating. A moment ago the author was saying that it's problematic to have too much empathy, now there's this negative tone to their article while talking about autism for not having enough of it. So, which is it? Is it bad to have too much, or too little? I think the idea here, of course, is that you need exactly the correct amount, the NT amount. Which frankly isn't very much at all as we know for a fact that both minds with both Williams and autism alike possess much, much more empathy than neurotypical minds. That isn't what the article writer is saying, though, I know. They're pulling an old autism myth out of the bag that autism has less empathy than the neurotypical mind does. This has been disproven time and time again, I'm sick of hearing this particular myth. I know from my interactions with neurotypicals that I have far more empathy than they could ever hope to. The anecdotal account, for example, of the NT a horrific act on television and putting their hand to their mouth and gasping, but then having forgotten about it fifteen minutes later versus how other minds (autistic, introverted, Williams, et cetera) will internalise it and be bothered by it for weeks to come. NTs would love for us to believe they're empathetic but even affiliative extraverts on the NT spectrum have a marked lack of empathy. The neurotypical spectrum just doesn't have a whole lot of empathy. Yes, affiliatives have a little bit more than agentics and sociopaths, but it's dwarfed by the sheer levels of empathy in autistic, introverted, and Williams minds. The neurotypical mind makes a pretence of empathy (hand over mouth), but doesn't really feel the experience like other minds do.    Autistic people won't say "I love you." in excess. This one is news to me. My partner tells me that I say this too much, that sometimes I say it so often that it makes them uncomfortable. It's just that due to autism being functionally introverted, I don't interact with a lot of people. The ones I do interact with, though, I will regularly tell that I love. Of course, the NT mind only recognises extraversion, everything else is an inferior state, so if the autistic person isn't telling everyone they love them, then according to the absolute binary perceptions of the NT mind, they never do it at all. Autistic people are prone to saying "I love you." in excess, but just not to a group of people. You see, Williams is like an autistic form of extraversion, versus the low empathy, lacking in self awareness, manipulative, and exploitative NT form of extraversion. Williams minds have more in common with the autistic mind due to how both types of mind experience an excess of empathy, whereas neurotypical minds don't experience much empathy at all. And it's funny because the more extraverted empathy of the Williams mind also clearly makes the article writer very uncomfortable.    Autistic people hate hugs and other kinds of physical contact. Um. Yes we do. I love hugs. I seek out hugs at every opportunity. The thing here, though, is that because we can get overloaded, there's a protocol to it. So we prefer it when people ask first before just lunging at us. And there's something about an NT hug that feels... wrong. I don't know how to explain it, it just doesn't feel real. I don't like it. It feels fake, like they're doing it out of a social need rather than an empathetic one, it's all fake with them. I'm left feeling deeply uncomfortable after an NT hug. It's just disturbing. One thing about autism (and I bet this is true of Williams, too) is that we have an empathy radar, of sorts. We know when NTs are faking something. We know when someone is hurt, or happy, and nothing can be hidden from us. This has made numerous people I've known very unhappy and uncomfortable as they can't hide anything from me. My senses will just hone in on anything that seems wrong and fixate on it. From reading boards like Wrong Planet (an autistic forum), I know I'm not alone in these experiences. So I don't like hugs from NTs. They feel excrutiatingly fake. I don't like how they leap at me without asking, first, only to just do this cold feeling, fake hug that I don't enjoy. With autistic people we ask first, then we hug, and it feels real. There's warmth there that an NT hug just can't compare to. This means, of course, that autistic people don't like hugs just because we're not into hugs from NTs. That's obviously what it means. Yes.    Pushing the myth that oxytocin is Universally a 'love hormone.' This one is dangerous. Now, Williams minds might have found a way to avoid the bad aspects of oxytocin, which is awesome. I'd like to take that and copy-paste it across all brains as that's a handy quality. I'm not being sarcastic, here, because looking at Williams syndrome I do believe that that might be the case. Their minds might have cracked how to use oxytocin in a good way, without the incredibly dangerous side effects. What dangerous side effects? Well, in NTs, it makes them even more tribal. Check out this study about how oxytocin can fuck you up. An NT on oxytocin would choose to save the life of one person of their own ethnicity, gender, and age over a group of people of different ethnicities, genders, and ages. In the NT brain, oxytocin dials the tribalism dial up to 11. This isn't the kind of thinking you want to see someone exhibit if they have to make a decision about the balance of life. Choosing one life over 20 lives, 10, or even five other lives is never the correct choice. So, in NT brains, oxytocin is very, very dangerous. It means that the NT would happily allow diversity to die if it meant that a smaller number of 'their own kind' were to survive. This isn't something that we want to see more of. This is something we want to see LESS of.    Pushing the harmful idea that autism needs to be 'cured.' Yes. Yes. Yes. Autism is a disease. It needs to be cured. Blah, blah, blah. Let's not actually ask autistic people what they want, or care what they think. Let's just accept our cures handed down to us by the Great, Glorious White Hope of the NT. I don't even know how to deal with this. What next, NT? Black skin is a disease and we should use CRISPR to cure that so that they can be as White as you are? Fucking hell. I don't even want to dwell on this one. Suffice it to say? It's bullshit. There are different kinds of brains, there is no Universally disordered or ordered brain. That's just ridiculous and they should know better, but they can't get away from their tribal-oriented thinking, and how it locks them into binary absolutes. NTs are just so lacking in Theory of Mind that they can't even realise just how tribal they are. Hey everyone, did you hear? If you're not NT, you're fucked up! You need to be cured! Also white. And straight. And anything else the NT values.    Empathy is seen as a disability in Japan. Are... Are you okay, Clare? Are you doing alright, there? Clare being the article author. I mean, that's a really, really fucked up thing to say. As someone who's taken in plenty of Japanese media, and is familiar with philosophies like Shinto and Bushido, I have to call this out. Bushido even goes so far as to say that it's important to be empathetic to the needs of your lord even if it comes at the expense of your own wellbeing. There are a number of cornerstones of Japanese culture which are built on empathy. Did Clare just take a look at a bunch of Japanese people, see some introverts who aren't constantly faking empathy, and then decide that they must have none? Oh, good job! That's some solid journalism, that is. It's hard to write at the moment as I'm stopping to facepalm every few seconds due to just how fucked up that is. It's typical, though, isn't it? Clare is obviously a Westerner, likely American. It's culturally apt in America for NTs to be very fake about their lack of empathy, to put it on even when they aren't feeling it. Obviously, that fakeness is the correct way to go, Japan's introversion means they have no empathy! No, dear. It just means that Japan doesn't fake empathy.    The article praises the book for not being exploitative. Funny that. Shame we can't say the same about the article, which is clearly using the book to push its own agenda. New Scientist should be ashamed. Another day, another round of NTs billiously spewing dialectic diarrheoa about autism. And anyone wonders why we suffer with depression. Really.

23-08-2018 (Important News Clippings) To Download Click Here. Date:23-08-18 Time to rescue God from priestdoms Both Sabarimala ban and Kerala sexual blackmail cases exemplify the rot that has set in Swami Agnivesh and Valson Thampu , [Swami Agnivesh is a social activist. Valson Thampu is former principal of St. Stephen’s college] It is strikingly symbolic that two cases pertaining to two religions from the state of Kerala are currently under the scanner. The first relates to women within an age group being banned from the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala temple. In the second, priests have been booked for blackmailing a woman, abusing her confessions. Differences of religion apart, the victims in both instances are women. And that is a serious issue; for what imperils women endangers humanity itself. It is our considered opinion that the real issue is being overlooked in both instances. Courts are equipped to deal only with legal aspects, but religion is more than law. This should not be misinterpreted to mean that faith is above facts. It is not. Only blind faith is. And blind faith is a curse on humanity. The two cases point to symptoms of religious disarray. Currently, only random symptoms are being addressed. Our eyes are shut firmly against the disease. Given the religiosity that thrives today, it is inevitable that it proves virulently hostile to our humanity. Religion results from the human longing for love. Eyebrows may be raised at this statement; but that could well be because we misunderstand love. Love is not the net in which others can be trapped for one’s comfort or convenience. It is, on the other hand, the only force we know that delivers us from ourselves, which is our supreme need. Love, if it is indeed love, involves self-transcendence. The spiritual paradox is: he who lives for himself loses himself; but he who lives for God (read, ‘for one’s fellow human beings’) finds himself. All religions have lost this spiritual light. When love is cast out, religion becomes a mechanical thing. The lure of the mechanical model of religion is that man can install himself at the centre of it. The sphere of religion is, therefore, one in which man plays God. But this is a perverse thing. Its inherent dishonesty can be masked only with pretensions and hypocrisy. Two such pretensions are at the heart of the issues that the courts are currently considering. These pretensions can be listed simply. By what spiritual provision does a priest have the authority to forgive the sins of others? Second, by what logic can men assume that the biological state of one half of the human race ‘pollutes’ and imperils the divine? The core spiritual truth, relevant to the first issue, is that all sins are committed primarily against God. Secondly, all human beings are sinful. So, the pretension of sinful men to be sin-forgiving agents of God is puerile. Equally ridiculous is the notion that man can decide unilaterally what will pollute and jeopardise the health of deities, as in the Sabarimala case. If the temple argument in this instance is valid, God stands condemned for creating something that can pollute and destroy him. He committed the further mistake of making priests and poojaris wiser than himself. The fact of the matter is that there is something seriously wrong with our religiosity. It doesn’t matter which religion. Religious differences are canards crafted by the priestly class to hypnotise credulous people labelled as ‘believers’. What is lacking in religiosity of this kind is a sense of mystery, from which alone stems the human willingness to look beyond the mercenary and the mechanical. Religion must be valued for the quality of humanity it nurtures. Spiritually robust religiosity will produce men and women who inspire others and enrich the human species, wrestling with themselves and with the forces of darkness in the world. Passion for truth and justice is their hallmark. They refuse to be confined to narrow, subhuman interests and advocacies, knowing them to be incompatible with the spiritual intuition of the primeval oneness of our species, as in vasudhaiva kutumbakom or the Kingdom of God. It is demeaning for women to beg to be accommodated in a priest-controlled, man-centred, religious establishment. Christian women, likewise, must exercise their right to un-mediated access to God. God has nothing to do with these man-manufactured canards meant to swell the hypermarkets of religion. To wish to be accommodated somewhere on its margins is an insult to oneself. Date:23-08-18 Fixing fake news: Not by Technology Alone ET Editorials For WhatsApp, India is a big market, with more than 22 crore users, who spent 85 billion hours using the app over the last three months. WhatsApp is preparing to monetise this huge user base through a payments app and through message delivery for businesses. It has a core interest in complying with the government’s instruction to create a local office, appoint a grievance officer, store data locally for payments and check fake news, including by tracing fake news back to the originator. But that does not mean that the government should pass the fake news buck to the platform on which it appears. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, is under pressure across the world to stop its platform being used to spread fake news and peddle influence that is deemed illegal in certain contexts such as elections. The claim that tracing a message back to its originator would violate privacy principles is not valid. Privacy concerns do not prevent law enforcement authorities from carrying out searches of private premises, when these are required, and legal warrants empower them to carry out such actions. Similar principles and standards of privacy should apply to the online world as well. Administrators of fake-news-spreading Whats-App groups should be to held to account, at least to the extent of identifying the source, for messages that appear on their group. WhatsApp should be able to pinpoint the administrator of a group at any point of time. That said, fixing fake news is not primarily a technological challenge. Fake news that incite violence should be treated as abetment of or conspiracy to commit that crime and its originators, criminals. In the run-up to crucial elections, social media platforms must also declare the identity of those paying for the ads they carry. Date:23-08-18 केरल की बाढ़ के गंभीर सबक भारत को बाढ़ और सुखाड़ के आतंक से मुक्ति पाने हेतु नदियों के साथ-साथ प्रकृति को मानव अधिकार की तरह ही अधिकार देने होंगे। राजेंद्र सिंह , (लेखक सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता हैं और जलपुरुष के रूप में ख्यात हैं) भारत में लिखित संविधान से पहले नदियों को मां का अधिकार देने वाला अलिखित संस्कार-व्यवहार दिया गया था। दुर्भाग्य से लिखित संविधान में वैसी व्यवस्था नदियों के लिए नहीं की गई। जबकि नदियां बाढ़-सुखाड़ से किसी भी राष्ट्र को नष्ट कर सकती हैं। यह प्रकृति और नदियों का क्रोध कहलाता है। इस क्रोध से बचने के लिए भारत के लोगों ने नदियों को अपनी मां कहा और उनके साथ जीवित इंसान की तरह ही व्यवहार किया। नदियों को जोड़ना-मोड़ना और उन्हें खोदना समाज में जघन्य अपराध कहा जाता था। अब हालत यह है कि सभी नदियों को खोदना-जोड़ना अथवा रोकना विकास के लिए जरूरी माना जाता है। चूंकि भारतीय संस्कृति और नदियों की दृष्टि अब बची नहीं है, इसलिए आजादी के बाद नदियों के क्रोध की गति तेज होती जा रही है। आजादी के बाद ओडिशा, बिहार, बंगाल, उत्तर प्रदेश और मध्य प्रदेश जैसे कुछ राज्यों में छोटी-छोटी बाढ़ आती थी। लोग बाढ़ के साथ कुछ कष्ट उठाने के बाद भी आनंदित रहते थे, लेकिन धीरे-धीरे बाढ़ का आतंक बढ़ने लगा। अब बाढ़ प्रलयंकारी बनती जा रही है। केरल की बाढ़ तो प्रलय ही है। पिछले पांच सालों से देखना शुरू करें तो 2013 में उत्तराखंड और 2014 में जम्मू-कश्मीर में भीषण बाढ़ आई। इसके साथ ही दूसरे राज्यों में भी बाढ़ और सुखाड़, दोनों की मार भी देखी गई। 2015 में महाराष्ट्र का मराठवाड़ा एवं बीदर और मध्य प्रदेश-उत्तर प्रदेश का बुंदेलखंड सुखाड़ झेल रहा था, लेकिन मध्य प्रदेश के सतना जिले में आई बाढ़ ने बस, कार और लोगों को एक साथ डुबा दिया था। अभी केरल में हुई अनियमित वर्षा ने तो इस सदी की भीषणतम बाढ़ दिखा दी। भारत सरकार और केरल सरकार, दोनों ही परेशान हैं। वहां बाढ़ प्रभावित लोगों की संख्या बढ़ती ही जा रही है। वास्तविक नुकसान का आकलन अभी शेष है। भारत को बाढ़ और सुखाड़ के आतंक से मुक्ति पाने हेतु नदियों के साथ-साथ प्रकृति को मानव अधिकार की तरह ही अधिकार देने होंगे। नदियों का बहता हुआ जल सौ साल में जहां-जहां तक पहुंचता है, वह जमीन नदी की ही होती है। इस जमीन का उपयोग नदी के लिए ही करना चाहिए। इस जमीन की तीन श्रेणियां होती हैं। पहली, नदी प्रवाह क्षेत्र यानी जहां नदी बहती है। दूसरी, नदी का सक्रिय बाढ़ क्षेत्र और तीसरी, नदी का उच्चतम बाढ़ क्षेत्र। उच्चतम बाढ़ क्षेत्र निष्क्रिय बाढ़ क्षेत्र कहलाता है। इस क्षेत्र में सौ साल में एक-दो बार ही बाढ़ आती है। सक्र��य बाढ़ क्षेत्र में आमतौर पर 25 साल में पांच बार बाढ़ आती है। इन तीनों तरह की जमीन को नदी के लिए संरक्षित और सुरक्षित रखना राज, समाज और वैज्ञानिकों का साझा दायित्व है। समस्या यह है कि आजकल नदियों को केवल अन्न् और विद्युत उत्पादन का साधन मान लिया गया है। विकास की भाषा में बांधों को बाढ़ रोकने वाला साधन बताया जाता है। निश्चित तौर पर बांध कभी-कभी बाढ़ रोकने में मदद कर सकते हैं, लेकिन अतिवृष्टि या बादलों के फटने पर बांध बड़ी बाढ़ का संकट भी पैदा करते हैं। केरल की बाढ़ तो बांधों के कारण ही आई। भारी बारिश के बाद सभी बांधों के गेट एक साथ खोलने पड़े। नदियों को अपनी आजादी से बहने का अधिकार है, लेकिन इस अधिकार में लगातार कटौती की जा रही है। नतीजा यह है कि उनका प्राकृतिक प्रवाह बाधित हो रहा है। सरकारें नदियों की प्रकृति प्रदत्त आजादी छीनने का हक नहीं रखतीं, फिर भी नदियों से यह हक छीना जा रहा है। कहीं-कहीं तो पूरी तरह छीन लिया गया है। यदि हम नदियों की आजादी को मानवीय आजादी के साथ जोड़कर उन्हें आजाद नहीं करेंगे, तो बाढ़ के प्रकोप से बचना मुश्किल हो जाएगा। केरल की बाढ़ हमारे तथाकथित विकास ने पैदा की। मानवीय सेहत की तरह ही नदी की सेहत भी ठीक रहनी चाहिए। आम लोगों और सरकारों ने नदियों की सेहत को नष्ट करने का काम किया है। नगर निगमों, नगर पालिकाओं, पंचायतों आदि ने नदियों को प्रदूषणकारी नालों से जोड़कर अपना गंदा जल उनमें बेरोकटोक डालने का काम किया है। इससे मानवीय शिराओं और धमनियों की तरह धरती की शिरा और धमनी रूपी नदियां प्रदूषित हो गई हैं। नदियों का प्रदूषण अब मानवीय सेहत को भी बिगाड़ रहा है। 44 नदियों वाले प्रदेश केरल में एक भी नदी का पानी पीने योग्य नहीं बचा है। उनमें औद्योगिक एवं रासायनिक प्रदूषण बहुत ही अधिक बढ़ गया है। जिस तरह दूध से भरी मटकी में एक बूंद छाछ पूरी मटकी के दूध को दही में बदल देता है, उसी प्रकार औद्योगिक और रासायनिक प्रदूषण भी बड़े से बड़े जल भंडार को प्रदूषित कर देता है। इस पर आश्चर्य नहीं कि केरल की बाढ़ के बाद पीने के पानी का संकट गहरा गया है। बेलगाम खनन के कारण भी केरल की नदियों पर संकट आया। खनन से बने खड्डे नदियों की सेहत खराब करते हैं। नदियों में आने वाली प्लास्टिक ऊपर से आई गाद के साथ उनके तल में जमी जाती है और उनका प्रवाह स्तर ऊपर उठता जाता है। सबसे अधिक शिक्षित प्रदेश केरल आज यदि बाढ़ की भयानक चपेट में है तो इसका अर्थ है कि हमारे वर्तमान और साझे भविष्य को समझने की शिक्षा हमें नहीं दी जा रही है। हम सुख-सुविधाओं के लालच में प्रकृति की जितनी अनदेखी कर रहे हैं, हमें उतने ही ज्यादा बाढ़-सुखाड़ झेलने पड़ रहे हैं। सुख-सुविधाओं से सुसज्जित कांच, सीमेंट और कांक्रीट के हमारे भवनों ने जलवायु परिवर्तन का संकट बढ़ाया है। इसी संकट के कारण जहां बेमौसम बारिश बढ़ी है, वहीं जल प्रबंधन के नाम पर केवल कोरी बातें ही अधिक हो रही हैं। यह एक तथ्य है कि केरल में 8 से 18 अगस्त के बीच हुई अनियमित वर्षा ने कहर ढाया। हमें मुंबई, चेन्न्ई, हैदराबाद, सतना, पटना आदि की बाढ़ से सीख लेनी चाहिए थी, लेकिन हमारी सरकारें ऐसा करने से इनकार कर रही हैं। भारत की भू-संरचना पर जो निर्माण किया जा रहा है, उससे खतरा लगातार बढ़ता ही जा रहा है। धरती कुरूप बनती जा रही है। नदियों में आने वाली बाढ़ जिन क्षेत्रों से मिट्टी लेकर आती है, उन क्षेत्रों के बेमिट्टी होने से वहां सुखाड़ आने का खतरा बढ़ता है। हमने जलवायु परिवर्तन के क्रम को समझकर अपने विकास का क्रम सुनिश्चित नहीं किया है। यदि हमारा विकास का क्रम जलवायु परिवर्तन के साथ बदले और वर्षा के क्रम के साथ जुड़ जाए तो हम बाढ़-सुखाड़ से बच सकते हैं। केरल के राज और समाज को अपना भविष्य सुनिश्चित करने के लिए बाढ़ मुक्ति हेतु ठोस पहल करनी चाहिए। केरल की जनता की ओर से नदियों के अधिकार की नई मांग उठनी चाहिए। केवल मांग से ही काम नहीं चलेगा। नदियों से छीने गए अधिकार भी उन्हें वापस करने होंगे। भविष्य की चिंता करने वाला समाज अपने तात्कालिक संकट से भावी समाधान के रास्ते खोज लेता है। केरल का संकट हम सबके लिए एक सबक बनना चाहिए। Date:22-08-18 लिंचिंग पर जवाब-तलब संपादकीय सर्वोच्च न्यायालय ने राजस्थान सरकार से अलवर घटना पर स्पष्टीकरण मांग कर अन्य राज्यों एवं केंद्र को संदेश दिया है कि भीड़ द्वारा हिंसा के मामले में वह किसी तरह की नरमी नहीं बरतने वाला। पिछली 17 जुलाई को शीर्ष अदालत ने भीड़ की हिंसा पर विस्तृत फैसला दिया था। सभी राज्यों से इसे रोकने के लिए कदम उठाने तथा उसकी रिपोर्ट अदालत में पेश करने को कहा था। इसी तरह केंद्र सरकार से एडवायजरी तथा दिशा-निर्देश के अलावा ऐसा कानून बनाने को कहा था, जिसमें इसे अलग अपराध के रूप में व्याख्यायित किया जाए। अभी तक शीर्ष अदालत में केवल एक राज्य ने रिपोर्ट प्रस्तुत की है। साफ है कि शेष राज्यों ने न्यायालय के निर्देश का अनुपालन नहीं किया है। केंद्र ने भी एडवायजरी तो जारी की है, लेकिन स्पष्ट दिशा-निर्देश तथा नये कानून के मामले में वह मौन है। हालांकि राजस्थान सरकार से 24 जुलाई को अलवर में गो तस्करी के नाम पर एक व्यक्ति पर हमले और बाद में उसकी मौत के बारे पूछा गया है, किंतु उसी में यह भी सन्निहित है कि शीर्ष अदालत के आदेश पर आपने अमल किया है, या नहीं और किया है तो कितना ? शीर्ष अदालत के आदेश के सात दिन बाद अलवर की दुखद घटना घटी थी। वैसे, इस मामले का एक महत्त्वपूर्ण तय यह है कि लोगों ने मृतक रकबर की पिटाई अवश्य की थी, लेकिन पुलिस को सौंपे जाने तक वह न केवल जिंदा था, बल्कि आराम से बयान देने की स्थिति में भी था। राजस्थान सरकार ने भी स्वीकार किया था कि समय पर पुलिस ने उसको अस्पताल पहुंचाया होता तो उसे बचाया जा सकता है। पुलिस ने पहले गाय को गोशाला पहुंचाने का इंतजाम किया। उसके बाद रकबर को अस्पताल ले गए। इसमें पुलिस की आपराधिक लापरवाही नजर आती है। यह अक्षम्य है। वैसे तो यह आम विवेक का मामला है कि हम पहले एक घायल मनुष्य को जीवित रखने की कोशिश करें या जीवित और क्षतिहीन गाय की व्यवस्था, किंतु यदि पुलिस के पास स्पष्ट दिशा-निर्देश होता कि भीड़ की हिंसा में सबसे पहले चोट खाए व्यक्ति के इलाज का प्रबंध करना है,और शेष बातें बाद में तो ऐसी नौबत नहीं आती। इस तरह राजस्थान मामले में शीर्ष अदालत के रवैये से सरकारें इन दिशाओं में काम करने को मजबूर होंगी। निश्चय मानिए कि राजस्थान सरकार का जवाब आने के साथ शीर्ष अदालत दिशा-निर्देश पर कानून के बारे में फिर से आदेश जारी करेगा। यही यथेष्ट भी है। Date:22-08-18 नई उड़ान को तैयार अल्पसंख्यक शाहनवाज हुसैन, प्रवक्ता, भाजपा किसी भी राष्ट्र की तरक्की सीधे-सीधे उसके लोगों, उसकी आबादी की तरक्की से जुड़ी होती है। इसीलिए मोदी सरकार ‘सबका साथ-सबका विकास’ के मूलमंत्र को लेकर आगे बढ़ रही है। अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय के लोगों का सर्वांगीण विकास भी देश की इसी यात्रा का एक अहम हिस्सा है। प्रधानमंत्री जो ध्येय लेकर चल रहे हैं, उसका मकसद है- अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय का हर बच्चा शिक्षित हो, हर नौजवान प्रशिक्षित हो, हुनर रोजगार से जुडे़ और हर महिला सशक्त बने, स्वाभिमान से जिए। इन सभी आकांक्षाओं को धरातल पर उतारने का काम पूरे देश में तमाम प्रभावी और परिणाम देने वाली योजनाओं के जरिए किया जा रहा है। सरकार का दृढ़ विश्वास है कि शिक्षा न सिर्फ अज्ञानता का अंधकार मिटाती है, बल्कि निर्माण की कई नई राहें भी इसकी बुनियाद पर बनती हैं। मुस्लिम बच्चे, किशोर-किशोरियां पढ़ें और तरक्की की राह पर आगे बढ़ें, इस मकसद को मंजिल तक पहुुंचाने के लिए तमाम योजनाएं बनाई गई हैं, जो उनकी हमकदम बनकर साथ चल रही हैं। ���सी ही एक योजना है, ‘नई मंजिल’। ये उन किशोर और युवा लड़के-लड़कियों को ध्यान में रखकर बनाई गई है, जो किसी वजह से अपनी तालीम बीच में ही छोड़ देते हैं। ‘नई मंजिल’ उन्हें एक मौका देती है, दूरस्थ शिक्षा के माध्यम से अपनी 10वीं और 12वीं की पढ़ाई पूरी करने का और साथ ही कौशल प्रशिक्षण हासिल करके रोजगार पाने का। इस योजना के तहत साल 2016-17 के दौरान 22 राज्यों में करीब 69,840 प्रशिक्षुओं ने शिक्षा और कौशल प्रशिक्षण की राह चुनी। इसी के साथ-साथ ‘सीखो और कमाओ’ योजना भी है। इस योजना के माध्यम से 1,65,127 युवाओं ने कौशल प्रशिक्षण हासिल किया, जिनमें से 61,190 युवा अपने हुनर पर आधारित रोजगार हासिल करके अपना जीवन संवारने की राह पर बढ़ चुके हैं। इसके साथ-साथ ‘नया सवेरा’ और ‘नई उड़ान’ जैसी योजनाओं ने अल्पसंख्यक युवाओं को सशक्त बनाने और देश की प्रतिष्ठित प्रतियोगी परीक्षाओं में उनकी भागीदारी और सफलता सुनिश्चित करने का काम किया है और लगातार कर रही हैं। इस बात से सब सहमत होंगे कि तालीम हमें बेहतर इंसान बनाती है और हुनर से हमारी जिंदगी आसान बनती है। प्रधानमंत्री मोदी अक्सर कहते हैं कि मुस्लिम युवाओं को हाथ का हुनर विरासत में मिलता है, जरूरत होती है, तो बस उसे तराशने और संवारने की और सरकार यह काम बखूबी कर रही है। इसका प्रमाण है मई 2015 में वाराणसी से शुरू की गई ‘उस्ताद’(अपग्रेडिंग द स्किल्सेऐंड ट्रेनिंग इन ट्रेडिशनल आट्र्स/ क्राफ्ट्स फॉर डेवलपमेंट योजना, जिसका मकसद है अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय की पारंपरिक कला और शिल्प की समृद्ध विरासत का संरक्षण और कुशल-अकुशल दस्तकारों, शिल्पकारों को बड़ी कंपनियों और बाजारों से प्रतियोगिता के लिए तैयार करना। देश भर में लगने वाले हुनर हाट भी इस दिशा में महत्वपूर्ण योगदान दे रहे हैं। इसके साथ ही राष्ट्रीय अल्पसंख्यक विकास एवं वित्त निगम यानी एनएमडीएफसी अल्पसंख्यकों को अपना रोजगार शुरू करने के लिए बहुत कम ब्याज दर पर लोन उपलब्ध कराता है। इस वित्त वर्ष में एनएमडीएफसी की तरफ से 1,08,494 लाभार्थियों को 515.90 करोड़ रुपये का कर्ज उपलब्ध कराया गया। वहीं मुद्रा योजना से बिना गारंटी लोन का लाभ अब तक जिन 13.5 करोड़ लोगों तक पहुंचा है, उनमें 39 प्रतिशत अल्पसंख्यक समुदाय से आते हैं। ये वे नौजवान हैं, जिनके पास हुनर तो था, मगर कुछ कर गुजरने की हिम्मत मुद्रा लोन के जरिए मिली। आज ये युवा अपनी कामयाबी की कहानी खुद लिख रहे हैं। सरकार के प्रयासों का एक और परिणाम यह है कि आज हमारी महिलाएं देश को आगे बढ़ाने में बराबर की भागीदार हैं। ‘महिलाओं के नेतृत्व में हो देश का विकास’ प्रधानमंत्री के इस विचार को अमलीजामा पहनाने के लिए कई काम किए जा रहे हैं। जहां तक अल्पसंख्यक स्त्रियों के सशक्तीकरण की बात है, तो इस दिशा में भी बहुत से काम हो रहे हैं। ‘नई रोशनी’ योजना भी एक ऐसी ही सार्थक पहल है, जिसके जरिए हुनरमंद महिलाओं को प्रशिक्षण देने और उन्हें आत्मनिर्भर बनाने का काम किया जा रहा है। आत्मनिर्भर और आत्मविश्वास से लबरेज ये महिलाएं न सिर्फ अपने परिवार, बल्कि पूरे समुदाय और समाज का भविष्य बदलने को तैयार हो रही हैं। इसके अलावा, हज सब्सिडी खत्म करके उससे बची 700 करोड़ रुपये की राशि को मुस्लिम बच्चियों की पढ़ाई में लगाने की बात हो या फिर तीन तलाक के मुद्दे पर प्रधानमंत्री मोदी का मुस्लिम महिलाओं के साथ खड़े होने और उन्हें न्याय दिलाने का प्रण, ये सब अल्पसंख्यक महिलाओं के सशक्तीकरण को लेकर सरकार की प्रतिबद्धता जाहिर करते हैं। अल्पसंख्यकों के वर्तमान को समृद्ध बनाने और उनसे जुड़ी विरासत और परंपराओं को संरक्षित करने का जज्बा जितना इस समय देखने को मिला है, उतना शायद ही पहले कभी रहा हो। ‘हमारी धरोहर योजना’ के तहत अल्पसंख्यक समुदायों की आस्था और परंपराओं से जुड़ी इमारतों को सहेजने का काम उस सोच को साझा करता है, जो अकेले आगे बढ़ने में नहीं, बल्कि सबको साथ लेकर और सबके साथ बढ़ने में विश्वास रखती है। Email * The post 23-08-2018 (Important News Clippings) appeared first on AFEIAS. from AFEIAS https://ift.tt/2Ll5twR

http://indiathebeginning.blogspot.com/2018/08/23-08-2018-important-news-clippings.html