listen, i could have applied for a job with the government, and bought a nice house in the suburbs...
....only to have a family of four with with two teenagers, all smokers, including a pothead mother, move in next door, and have smoke parties outside all of the time, and smoke through open windows.
it would be easier to get up and move if i had more cash, granted. but, that's what the case was for - i can afford to move, that's not the problem. and, i'm in fact in more or less exactly the same situation i'd be in, even if i did have a stable income.
that's why i did the right thing in fighting back.
the issue is not my income, it's the city. i continue to be astounded by the smoking rates, here, and the deficit of healthy housing, in an era where the simple reality is that the vast majority of people think that smoking anything is retarded.
and, i might point out the following: if i had a job i couldn't just get up and leave town.
Saturday, September 22, 2018
a lot of the activism that exists right now is rooted in very poor understandings of history, that are mangled to fit into a pre-existing narrative, and consequently come to a set of ridiculous conclusions that are going to prolong capitalism rather than abolish it.
we have to have these historical debates.
we have to reverse the false understandings and set the record straight before we can carry forward. & it's not academic. it's not historical materialism. it's just the recognition that you can't undo processes that never were, and you have to understand how processes actually are before you can actually unravel them.
if you try and eat an orange like it's an apple, you're going to get sick. and, you have to unpeel the fruit the right way - you can't unpeel a banana like it's an orange. or, at least not without destroying the delicious fruit, inside.
we have to have these historical debates.
we have to reverse the false understandings and set the record straight before we can carry forward. & it's not academic. it's not historical materialism. it's just the recognition that you can't undo processes that never were, and you have to understand how processes actually are before you can actually unravel them.
if you try and eat an orange like it's an apple, you're going to get sick. and, you have to unpeel the fruit the right way - you can't unpeel a banana like it's an orange. or, at least not without destroying the delicious fruit, inside.
at
01:36
northern europe fought a thousand year war to defeat roman/christian colonialism, and ultimately lost, but then undid it's effects from the inside out.
the christian armies were victorious, but pagan science carried the day in the end - in england, in germany, in sweden.
there's a reason the vikings burned the churches, and ignored the granaries: colonialism is a function of catholicism. and, it was northern europe that was it's first victim, not it's primary exponent.
by the time of the colonial era, most of northern europe had undergone a reformation, which reasserted it's sovereignty from rome. and, you see the differences in history. the spanish & portugese were catholics and slaughtered and enslaved, while the protestant english attempted to do things like buy the land and the half-calvinist/half-catholic french had a mixed identity - the church was as bad in the french colonies as it was elsewhere, including in much of canada, but the french explorers were often more interested in trading than colonizing, and this underlies much of the reasoning behind the stronger alliances with french groups.
it's not all white conquistadors conquering and planting flags. there's alliances. there's self-interest, all around. and, you have to understand where they came from to understand what they did.
but, almost everywhere, the root cause of the problems that happened, when they did, is ultimately catholicism. even the slave trade that the english took over was ultimately...it was muslim in construction, but catholic in emulation. the reason africans were enslaved was not because they were black but because they weren't christian, on orders from the pope, and in emulation of the existing muslim practice - for the muslims would enslave christians at any chance they got, including frequent raids into cities like london and paris. yes, that happened. it's why france conquered algeria, to stop the pirates from raiding the coasts.
what i want is to build solidarity between indigenous groups and white europeans on this basis of a shared opponent in messianic religion. and, i think the indigenous groups might be pleasantly surprised about what science really teaches, when separated from industrial capitalism - there's more commonality than apparent. but, we need to talk about ecology, not religion; we need to talk about interdependence, not sovereignty.
i am confident that the descendants of indigenous people will look back at this period and recognize it as a civilizing era, even as they cringe at the dual evils of capitalism and catholicism, much as white people look at the european dark ages and pull out competing and equally correct narratives about the retarding influence of the church, and it's ultimately civilizing impact.
had a native warrior met a german barbarian in the year 300, they would have made a fast alliance in their attack on the romans. that's what i want to emulate, now.
the christian armies were victorious, but pagan science carried the day in the end - in england, in germany, in sweden.
there's a reason the vikings burned the churches, and ignored the granaries: colonialism is a function of catholicism. and, it was northern europe that was it's first victim, not it's primary exponent.
by the time of the colonial era, most of northern europe had undergone a reformation, which reasserted it's sovereignty from rome. and, you see the differences in history. the spanish & portugese were catholics and slaughtered and enslaved, while the protestant english attempted to do things like buy the land and the half-calvinist/half-catholic french had a mixed identity - the church was as bad in the french colonies as it was elsewhere, including in much of canada, but the french explorers were often more interested in trading than colonizing, and this underlies much of the reasoning behind the stronger alliances with french groups.
it's not all white conquistadors conquering and planting flags. there's alliances. there's self-interest, all around. and, you have to understand where they came from to understand what they did.
but, almost everywhere, the root cause of the problems that happened, when they did, is ultimately catholicism. even the slave trade that the english took over was ultimately...it was muslim in construction, but catholic in emulation. the reason africans were enslaved was not because they were black but because they weren't christian, on orders from the pope, and in emulation of the existing muslim practice - for the muslims would enslave christians at any chance they got, including frequent raids into cities like london and paris. yes, that happened. it's why france conquered algeria, to stop the pirates from raiding the coasts.
what i want is to build solidarity between indigenous groups and white europeans on this basis of a shared opponent in messianic religion. and, i think the indigenous groups might be pleasantly surprised about what science really teaches, when separated from industrial capitalism - there's more commonality than apparent. but, we need to talk about ecology, not religion; we need to talk about interdependence, not sovereignty.
i am confident that the descendants of indigenous people will look back at this period and recognize it as a civilizing era, even as they cringe at the dual evils of capitalism and catholicism, much as white people look at the european dark ages and pull out competing and equally correct narratives about the retarding influence of the church, and it's ultimately civilizing impact.
had a native warrior met a german barbarian in the year 300, they would have made a fast alliance in their attack on the romans. that's what i want to emulate, now.
at
00:31
stop.
you have to understand that the roman church did exactly the same thing to germans, slavs and celts in northern europe from c. 500-c.1500 as it did to indigenous peoples in the americas from c. 1500-c.1900. if anything, the colonization of native americans was less brutal and less complete than the colonization of northern europe. but, there was a continuity - the colonization of the americas was the next step in the process, the logical continuation of colonizing europe.
there's a common enemy here in christianity. but, the natives need to drop their own xenophobia in order to get their heads around it.
the church carried out massacres against the natives, no doubt. but, there was nothing as horrific as the genocide that charlemagne carried out against the saxons, there was never anything like the crusade against the albigensians, there was nothing as systematic as the inquisition, etc.
and, this is my piss off against this modern foucaudian concept of history: it is ridiculously ignorant, in it's total lack of knowledge of europe. it knows nothing of the history of this continent, and yet somehow claims to right a set of wrongs carried out by this continent, from this position of abject ignorance about it.
is there an african or indigenous tribe that has been so violently separated from it's past that it can't even reconstruct it? for, that is the truth of indigenous european religion: it is so utterly erased that we only have scattered fragments remaining of what it even was.
and, then they blame these crimes on white europeans, who are the most colonized people on the planet.
your enemy is messianic religion, and it is a common enemy that we both share. let's understand that.
you have to understand that the roman church did exactly the same thing to germans, slavs and celts in northern europe from c. 500-c.1500 as it did to indigenous peoples in the americas from c. 1500-c.1900. if anything, the colonization of native americans was less brutal and less complete than the colonization of northern europe. but, there was a continuity - the colonization of the americas was the next step in the process, the logical continuation of colonizing europe.
there's a common enemy here in christianity. but, the natives need to drop their own xenophobia in order to get their heads around it.
the church carried out massacres against the natives, no doubt. but, there was nothing as horrific as the genocide that charlemagne carried out against the saxons, there was never anything like the crusade against the albigensians, there was nothing as systematic as the inquisition, etc.
and, this is my piss off against this modern foucaudian concept of history: it is ridiculously ignorant, in it's total lack of knowledge of europe. it knows nothing of the history of this continent, and yet somehow claims to right a set of wrongs carried out by this continent, from this position of abject ignorance about it.
is there an african or indigenous tribe that has been so violently separated from it's past that it can't even reconstruct it? for, that is the truth of indigenous european religion: it is so utterly erased that we only have scattered fragments remaining of what it even was.
and, then they blame these crimes on white europeans, who are the most colonized people on the planet.
your enemy is messianic religion, and it is a common enemy that we both share. let's understand that.
at
00:01
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