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Play us a tune, banjo man

“It’s a stereotype that we’ve been sold, even in the history books. The anguished genius. We’ve been conditioned to believe that there’s some kind of relationship between the creative life and dysfunctional mental health, that somehow there’s kind a correlation between the two. I don’t subscribe to that anymore because it’s just too exhausting. I’ve become really good about delegating and organizing my time. When you’re just an artist floating out there in the ether you’re made to believe that you have to create great art through pain and suffering. It isn’t true.”

— Sufjan Stevens (via goofjanstevens)

“Close But No Potato” is one of the best Twitter accounts

This is the Goose of Outrageous Self Assuredness.  Take from her example, her ludicrous and excellent poise in the face of bullying, and be confident in your place, your course, your equal validity.

“Generals knew what worked. “Practically every U.S. fighter plane that has flown into Korean air carried at least two napalm bombs,” chemical officer Townsend wrote in January 1951. About 21,000 gallons of napalm hit Korea every day in 1950. As combat intensified after China’s intervention, that number more than tripled. On an “average good day,” according to Eight Army chemical officer Donald Bode, UN pilots dropped 70,000 gallons of napalm: 45,000 from the U.S. Air Force, 10,000-12,000 by its navy, and 4,000-5000 by marines. Factories in Japan, rise like phoenixes, manufactured $40 plastic bombshells, which held ninety to one hundred gallons of gel, and much of the chemical fillings. Later in the water a pair of converted Korean artificial smoke plants made more. Troops mixed the rest. “It is a simple matter to mix some Napalm powder in with a barrel of gasoline, let it ‘brew’ for 24 hours, then pour it into a 150-gallon jettisonable fuel tank and head for any target that might present itself,” Townsend wrote. A total of 32,357 tons of napalm fell on Korea, about double that dropped on Japan in 1945. Not only did the allies drop more bombs on Korea than in the Pacific theater during World War II - 635,000 tons, versus 503,000 tons – more of what fell was napalm, in both absolute and relative terms. Biblical devastation resulted. In May 1951, after President Truman relieved him from command, MacArthur testified to Congress that “The war in Korea has already most destroyed that nation of 20,000,000 people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at the wreckage and those thousands of women and children and everything, I vomited.” The former supreme commander continued, “If you go on indefinitely, you are perpetuating a slaughter such as I have never heard of in the history of mankind.””

—

Robert M. Neer, “Napalm: An American Biography“, Harvard University Press (2013), pp. 99-100.

The amerikans and their allies knew they were committing genocide, and that is what they still strive for today.

Mitski photographed by Dario Catellani for Dazed & Confused, Summer 2016

It’s so incredible the amount of influence that “you know I had to do it to em” guy had. Like everyone online thinks of it when they see someone standing with their hands clasped, there’s been literally countless parodies, and he’s just some kid who posted a silly comment on his pic with sock tan lines. Imagine you went back to medieval times and told them that a young man could just clasp his hands together and have literally millions across the globe recognizing him as a symbol within a month. They would think you were talking about God

The status quo: *props up a system where fewer than ten individuals control more wealth than half of the world's people; where artificial scarcity starves thousands of people daily despite humanity being able to feed everyone and then some; where people are expected to needlessly toil for the enrichment of a select few, even though automation could weed out a large portion of menial labor; where empires are built on the backs of the poorest; where corporations and the state make up a ruling caste that structures policy in favor of capital accumulation and against the grand majority of the population*

The status quo: *reproduces all of this oppression and injustice through a highly sophisticated media apparatus that disregards or suppresses worldviews that challenge it; through an education system that rewards compliance within those parameters; through an ideological culture that celebrates markets, inequality, and "individualism" uncritically. creates misleading ideologies to justify itself materially*

Right-wingers: *regurgitate all of this ideology they've been fed since childhood, acting as a bulwark against any substantive movements for liberation beyond the status quo, thus keeping power dynamics completely unchanged*

Right-wingers: We're freedom fighters =) We stand up for the underdog against government corruption =) Just get a job sweaty =) If you don't like that eight people control more wealth than half the world maybe you should start a business of your own =) Don't tread on me =) Submit to cops arbitrarily and you won't get shot =) I'm simultaneously a traditionalist and a rebel =) Communism means work or starve =) Now do as the bosses demand and work this unfulfilling/dangerous/unnecessary job =) Or lose your job and thus starve =) I'm a subversive intellectual sweaty =)

touch starved lesbians praying for a girl to raw them:

Mughal-E-Azam (1960)