View allAll Photos Tagged Destabilized
Throughout the war. the Maquisards, in their role as the hunted, gradually made the terrain of the hunt unpredictable for the hunters, and eventually dangerous. The Maquis’s goal was to destabilize Vichy authority, and they did this by simultaneously making themselves, as well as Vichy authorities, the ‘hunters’ and the ‘hunted’.
During the Allied invasion of Normandy, the Maquis and other groups played some role in delaying the German mobilization. The French Resistance ( FFI Forces Françaises de l'Interieur ) blew up railroad tracks and repeatedly attacked German Army equipment and garrison trains on their way to the Atlantic coast. As Allied troops advanced, the French Resistance rose against the Nazi occupation forces and their garrisons en masse. The Maquis groups took no prisoners so some German soldiers preferred to surrender to Allied soldiers rather than maquisards.
( For this digital reconstruction thanks to Jeff Wharton for “Maquis” photo, background from Shorpy )
When mining tunnels destabilized the old colonial church (1759) in El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico, its stones were used to erect the current Parroquia de Nuestra Señora del Rosario.
Have a recurrent theme to my dreams involving technical problems with my camera. It's a variation of one I had for many years of being lost in high school, searching for my classroom and unable to find it. In that sequence I recall the increasing panic as other students made their way into classrooms. It felt like a horrific game of musical chairs and suddenly all the classroom doors would slam shut leaving me alone in the hallway. There were many variations on this theme and it surprised me how far into my adult life these subconscious fears pursued me. They eventually yielded, although I still have the occasional dream of people from my school days. Lately the theme has adapted to my new life. And now, rather than feeling inadequate in school, my self-concisouness often centers on photography. Last night I dreamed that I was working in a large group of people shooting low light portraits in a variety of bizarre situations. In the dream world, the situation is ever changing but always fascinating. However it almost always gets derailed by something going wrong with the camera equipment. Last night it was the flash; weak batteries providing inadequate lighting. Great dream twist here because I could see in my review screen some really half-great images, nothing I could use but tantalizingly wonderful if only the flash would work. The frustration and disappointment was so much richer than if the flash had failed completely. Other times I can't get the camera to focus. Or the battery goes completely dead at just the wrong moment. Or I can't get the right exposure. I'm sure all of this speaks more to my insecurities as a person rather than my photographic ability. It's simply the current manifestation. Just like the high school dreams, there's no real basis in fact. It's just a sort of pretext the mind conjures up to scare or destabilize you. In reality I've encountered numerous technical issues while out shooting. But unlike the dream, I adapt and carry on. The dream scenario thrives on not letting you adapt and delights in your fumbling about with no hope of resolution. I guess this is the offset for the wonderful dreams where I can levitate off the ground and fly about in mid-air.
I realize it's getting to be a real stretch to connect these rambling narratives to the photo. But in this case, my flash batteries really did go dead while working in very low light. Photos like this often go flat as pancakes without flash as all of the highlights tend to be lost. Here I had the pretense of mind to bump up the ISO in order to get the shot. The scene was a moment in time. I knew if I came back another time it wouldn't be the same.
Barkley Island has been facing both internal and external threats in recent years. In addition to the threat of invasion from its neighboring Saint George’s Island, the island’s impoverished area is also under the constant grips of criminal gang. The Samedi Gang is the most active on the island in smuggling drugs and weapons. The gang is also believed to be trained by the military of Saint George’s Island in an effort to destabilize the Government of Barkley Island. At the request of Barkley Island’s government to combat these threats, Victoria has sent foreign services officers, aid workers, police constables and military advisors to the island.
Two Foreign Service Officers Jordan Grant and Charlotte Oliver accompanied by a Barkley Island Government official Cooper Corey, were travelling to a remote village to asses the local needs. Their vehicle made a wrong turn, which led them to an area controlled by the Samedi Gang. Their vehicle was surrounded by Samedi gunmen and were kidnapped. Due to the lack of experience in hostage crisis, the government of Barkley Island requested further assistance from the Victorian Government.
To be continued...
Location: Verona (Veneto region - Italy).
Subject: This is Piazza delle Erbe [Herbs Square] with its market, one of the superb landmarks of Verona. As all of you know, Verona is a beautiful and renowned city, which attracts visitors from all over the world, and probably there are competitors feeling threatened by the fame of this Italian city. Thus, one of them has secretly developed a new cutthroat, subliminal and unfair strategy to destabilize the local tourism, and to redirect people towards other destinations. But I have unveiled the wicked trick.
❐ ❐ ❐
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Bush is responsible for the horrific U.S.-U.K. bombing of Baghdad, dubbed “Shock and Awe.” In rapid succession, “coalition forces” dropped 3,000 bombs, including many that weighed 2,000 pounds, on Baghdad in what The New York Times called “almost biblical power.”
In what came to be called “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” 173,000 troops from the United States and the United Kingdom invaded Iraq. During the eight-year war, about 300,000 Iraqis and 4,600 Americans were killed. The United States spent $815 billion on the war, not counting indirect costs. It plunged the country into a civil war and millions of Iraqi refugees remain displaced. Two decades later, not one of the officials responsible has been brought to justice.
The consequences of the BUSH-CHENEY administration:
1.Exacerbated terrorism: While the US avoided a direct attack after 9/11, the terrorism landscape worsened, with more countries targeted and a new generation of militants, including those who trained in Iraq, emerging.
2.Failed democracy promotion: Attempts to install democracy through military force, notably in Iraq, proved costly and unsuccessful.
3. Bolstered Iran's position: Diverting resources to Iraq for a non-existent weapons program inadvertently strengthened Iran's geopolitical standing in the region.
4. Over-reliance on military force: A major critique points to an excessive dependence on military solutions over diplomatic engagement, disregarding empirical evidence, and failing to address long-standing policy inconsistencies.
5.Damage to US credibility: The Iraq War in particular significantly damaged US credibility as a champion of democracy and liberalism in the Middle East, making regional democracy movements wary of US support.
6. Rise of ISIS: The 2011 withdrawal of US troops from Iraq created a power vacuum that ISIS exploited, seizing significant territory in Iraq and Syria, according to Reuters.
In essence to this date endless problems and numerous deaths have ensued because of the total destabilization of the area thanks to this president.
Anti Bush protest
(circa 2003 )
ManHatTan
Photography’s new conscience
Sleeping With Sirens cover by Chelsea Rodriguez
Destabilize US Tour
@ Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Do not use without permission.
"no to Iranian occupation in East Kurdistan"
Today, the middle east summit has begun in Warsaw. The Summit focuses on " Stability, peace, freedom and security in the middle east ". an important part of ensuring that Iran is " not a destabilizing influence ".
On the occasion of this summit, Kurds, Baloch, azéris and Arabs (minorities of Iran) have gathered together at a rally in Warsaw to protest against Iran's anti-Iranian policy and to express their demand for self-determination and freedom.
Kurds urge unity in the course against the Iranian regime
The East Kurdish parties, not invited to the middle east summit in Warsaw, say that the world must cooperate with the opposition forces in Iran if it wants to contain the destabilising activities of the Islamic Republic.
"the different international views and approaches to the Islamic Republic have helped the regime", says it in a statement by the political parties of the east kurdistan political parties on Monday.
The parties make it clear that the Iranian regime has survived years of wars, protests and sanctions, because it is 'at NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LEVEL'.
The Centre was founded by five Kurdish parties in Iran to better coordinate their activities. Members include the democratic party of Kurdistan (Kdp-I), the democratic party of Kurdistan Iran (Pdki) and komala.
They condemned the fact that they were not invited to the Warsaw conference on 13. And 14. February, but said they would welcome a single international voice against Tehran.
Last week Shok said:
"IF EVERY SINGLE GRAFFITI WRITER IN THE WORLD STARTED WRITING THE WORD 'REVOLUTION' INSTEAD OF THEIR NAME, I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN"
I'd been thinking similar.
In fact, I think that if your a graffiti writer and you've Not been thinking something like this over the past couple of months, there may be a bigger problem than we thought!
I painted this 80ft'er on Saturday Inspired mainly by being broke & over taxed, but this also has a lot to do with often seeing statements like Shoks & this one from Nikx.....
"You control our world. poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars and die for your causes. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our lives and used our taxes to bailout your unending greed. We have become slaves to your corporations. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, have shipped away our jobs and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education and almost extinguished our flame. ............
...Almost.....
Stop asking when, where and how, make up your mind the time is now!
The locomotive for the anniversary of the Swiss National Circus in Heerbrugg on a Red Bull train towards St. Margrethen. The anniversary was in 2019, when Circus Knie was still on tour with SBB. This is no longer the case today, but the locomotive is still on the move. Due to the construction site between Altstätten and Buchs, these trains have to make a detour via St. Margrethen. The fact that the locomotives usually have the rear pantograph raised is because of the air turbulence from the bow wave that occurs at the front. These can destabilize the pantograph so that the contact is interrupted. Switzerland, July 6, 2023.
This photo shows two workhorses of former British Rail class 86, now in service for "Floyd" at the Hungarian border station of Hegyeshalom freight yard. And although things seem to be solidly connected, it should be metaphoric for the "Brexit" drama and a more and more disunited Europe ...
Because not only that Great Britain, the royal motherland of the world's Railways, sadly left the European Union, ... also Hungary is one of the leading countries, who are claiming the benefits of the EU, but are lacking in solidarity with the European principles ! Just like Poland it is one of those "Visegrad" nations, who are working actively against the EU and try to destabilize European agreements. Instead the government of this lovely Puszta country is more and more implementing an alarming new form of "illiberal democracy" and censorship of media reporting ! ...
Indeed the people of all countries are more and more and severely devided into left and right. So it is not only that different countries and nations, but also the people, who once respected their disagreements and were able to find mutual compromises and solutions, become more and more unfriendly and polarized ! ...
So we should be alert and awake to protect and defend democracy and freedom and not to be taken in by those, who want to destroy this. The precious achievement of 75 years of peace between the various, leading European nations and it's people, which was the very first and most important reason and success of establishing the European community ...
See also this striking "Brexit" photo: flic.kr/p/2imwKVH
Floyd class 450 004, 008, Hegyeshalom, Hungary, 03 / 16
On Thursday 12 July 2018, US president Donald Trump, the most dangerous man in the world, was welcomed to the United Kingdom by the British prime minister Theresa May. The following day the streets of London witnessed the biggest protest for over a decade as thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to express their anger at the British government extending a red carpet welcome for Trump.
Protesters pointed out the extreme threat to democracy, to those dependent on welfare, to womens' rights, to civil rights generally and even to the survival of humankind which Trump presents. Such assertions might seem extreme, but they are unfortunately fully justifiable.
As the president of what is by far the richest and most powerful country on earth, Trump has dedicated his term to accelerating the US addiction to fossil fuels and agribusiness, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accords, thereby accelerating global warming and climate change and presenting a huge threat to the continued existence of humankind.
Trump's presidency also marks another dangerous step in the erosion of democracy in the United States. Far from "draining the swamp" as he promised, Trump has surrounded himself with powerful figures from big business, especially major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, as well as his friends and allies in the fossil fuel and defence industires.
Government policy, more and more, reflects the direct interests of concentrated private power with the public having less and less influence. At the same time the Trump presidency has allied itself with some of the most ruthless regimes in the world and is profiting from Saudi Arabia's illegal war of aggression in Yemen which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. A serious war crime in which Donald Trump and Theresa May are both complicit.
Trump has also been keen to patronise the extreme nationalist constituency in the United States and through preaching a propaganda of fear his presidency has managed to oversee some of the most racist immigration policies ever to be implemented in the United States, targeted almost exclusively at Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Ironically, all of them have been massively destabilized and impoverished by US foreign policy.
He was also responsible for the ruthless decision to separate children from their parents as they cross into the United States from Mexico, in his determination to block immigration from central America, where decades of US illegal intervention, including the CIA funded Contra terror operations in Nicaragua and enforced free trade (under NAFTA or IMF rules) have devastated the region and merely enhanced the power of corrupt corporate elites and drug cartels.
As if this was not enough to worry about, Trump has also authorized a huge increase in both US defence spending and in the US nuclear arsenal, and changed the strategic posture of the US so that nuclear weapons can be used even for offensive operations and even when their use is not required to preempt a nuclear strike by an enemy power.
As any historian of conflict since the Second World War knows, it is only by a miracle that humankind has survived since 1945 without a nuclear war. Now the situation is more dangerous than ever before. Not only are we are now dependent on Trump's extremely unpredictable temperament but also increasingly on automated systems which can easily malfunction.
Trump and Republicans maintain they need to spend heavily on military equipment in order to counter the supposed Russian threat. However they seldom remind the public that the United States already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defence and that Russia's expenditure is far behind both that of the United States and only on about the same level of Saudi Arabia, and spends only 10% of what NATO spends.
It has also to be remembered that it is NATO and US forces which are operating right on the Russian border, not Russian forces on the American border. Russia's defence spending is clearly recognised by academics to be primarily defensive and responsive to US spending. What is desperately needed is a serious international dialogue at the highest level to decrease the danger of conflict, especially the risk of a terminal nuclear war and begin a process of multilateral disarmament.
During the mid 1970s, a number of well-known Yugoslav industrialists began importing the Volvo C303 to suit their utility vehicle requirements, which tended to involve traversing rough Balkan terrain in order to survey mining land and carrying basic maintenance equipment to and fro. The hefty suspension and lightweight body of the C303 made it ideal for climbing over the various natural obstacles that adorn the Balkan countryside and also for bearing the weight of pneumatic tools and the like when navigating urban environments. The importation of the C303 continued for several years before the Slovenian truck manufacturer TAM bought several specimens from private collections to study in 1979. Within a matter of months, TAM began producing the 125T(1). Indeed the TAM model was essentially an exact copy of the Swedish truck albeit with a slightly greater payload at one metric tonne flat rather than the 900kg of the C303.
Although early production models suffered from transmission issues, the kinks of the newborn truck were quickly dealt with and mass production began in 1981 after agrarian and industrial consortia across Yugoslavia put in large orders for the various 4x4 and 6x6 variants of the vehicle. Strangely, this is one of the rare instances in which the civilian market obtained a common truck chassis well before the JNA. Indeed the Yugoslav armed forces didn't requisition the design until 1986 due to various issues of embezzlement retarding the JNA's ability to obtain the kit it needed. This translated to the rather late adoption of the 125T by the military as it took several years to cleanse the upper echelons of Yugoslavia's quartermasters before orders could actually be fulfilled.
Nevertheless, the small vehicle quickly became a ubiquitous sight not only in pedestrian life, but also in the assembly grounds of Yugoslav military bases and outposts. This commonality led to the 125T being used by all sides during the Wars of Dissolution in the early and mid 1990s. Many of TAM's products were taken from simple farmsteads by national separatists during this period and converted into technicals with large-caliber guns mounted to their beds. Once the series of wars was finally put to rest, the 125T continued to serve with the JNA in various roles. Naturally, the primary role of the model is as a light mobility/patrol vehicle. However, other, more niche, functions are also fulfilled by the base vehicle. In the contemporary age, the 4x4 has been seen equipped with electronic intelligence-gathering and -jamming equipment (as seen on the left vehicle in the image above), likely to harass NATO's Stabilization Force in the region and to conduct small raids across borders to further destabilize areas along Yugoslavia's frontiers. At any rate, the likelihood of the 125T's principal role in Yugoslav automotive society being usurped by another design is incredibly low as the vehicle's versatility and stockpile of replacement parts makes it incredibly lucrative to operate.
To be a member of the Royal Brixton Firebrigade was an honor of the highest order. Only the most highly trained and courageous men served on these flying emergency vessels, being personally sworn in by Queen Bricktoria herself. Containing blazing flames and rescuing people from certain death on earth was difficult enough. Aerial firefighting multiplied this occupation's uncountable hazards, for one also had to factor in gusty winds and squalls which accelerated fires and destabilized the working ships.
(Sorry for the long description *Blushes*)
Background theme : youtu.be/3I-5lb9M8v0
Viktoriaah was born on the planet Naboo in the coastal and tourist city of Kaadara on the edges of one of the numerous internal seas which counts the planet. Of noble family which since the colonization of Naboo is firmly settled there and from generation to generation offering their lives in the service for the Queens and Kings, the House of Zenoria have an huge and luxurious villa in Kaadara.
Viktoriaah had an already drawn future, she adores arts and culture. Since her childhood she excels at drawings and learning history of her planet and the Galaxy, this is a certitude she got a job into the government in Theed as to an adviser for the Royal Arts when she will have reached her majority. She liked to run into the green valleys thats surrounded the town of Kaadara and to make friends into the native Gungans population which guarded the city from the dangers of wild animals in the city surroundings.
At the dawn of her 14 years, she was sent to Theed the capital of Naboo with the Minister of the Arts and the Culture Kyu Tane to study the arts and the history of her planet. After one year spent to Theed, a battalion of the Great Army of the Republic has just settled in the capital in precautionary measure further to some separatist threats. The young Viktoriaah was interested by these strong men in uniform and armors, after some weeks she became friends with some pilots from the Naboo Royal Escadron who told her about the blockade of the CIS to the planet ten years ago. The same pilots liked making her discover the manipulation of the ship fighters and venture into the plains of the planet to train at shooting, Viktoriaah besides her huge knowledge culture of Naboo was on the right track to become a very good pilot.
Viktoriaah tried to join a first time the Great Army of the Republic without success because of her too young age, she resigned herself to do it for a short duration until a day when Separatist terrorist attack striked the city of Theed to destabilize the finances of the planet and killed dozen of citizens. Further to this event, she decided to lie on her age and to join the army.
She was trained to short-range blasters and with her pilot training and accuracy in the past she received a post aboard the small frigate Condor as deck assistant assigned to the 442nd Battalion of the Third Systems Army lead by the general Obi Wan Kenobi.
Aboard the Condor she met Z-6PO the astromech droid, both were being considered as the youngest aboard and they got naturally closer from each other. They became very close friends and almost inseparable.
After a long campaign and several years of war she was recognized by the Republic several time for heroic acts. Aboard the frigate Condor that transported one of the 442nd squadrons, Viktoriaah reached the different Republic Navy ranks and became the captain of the ship.
During the last years of the Clone War, Captain Viktoriaah became very respected by her crew and acquainted with the general of the Third Systems Army, Obi Wan Kenobi. Both used to discuss a lot about the sieges and assaults tactics and fights together during a lot of battles. The crew of the Condor at the end of the war was enormously reduced and the survivors of the 442nd continued to fall at measure that the war was ending.
During the battle of Cato Neimoidia in 19 before the Battle of Yavin, Viktoriaah was aboard of the Condor on the planet, the objective being to take a strategic fortress for the CIS where Nute Gunray the investigator of the blockade of Naboo, was settled in.. For Viktoriaah, besides an important battle, it was about a personal revenge to her people and her native planet, unfortunately for her, Nute Gunray successfully escape from the siege. Some time after Nute Gunray fled from the planet, Viktoriaah was following full speed in a intense pursuit several droids fighters together with a battalion of clones and the general jedi Plo Koon who piloted his Jedi interceptor, received a message by holo communicator to execute a certain Order 66. It is at this moment when she understood the order which lead to the execution of every Jedi through the galaxy. She didn't believe a single word and yet, she saw the fighters squadrons breaking formation to destroy without mercy the interceptor of the general Plo Koon. Her own brothers, the clones, the ones who fought alongside the jedis, had betrayed them.
"What I remember about the rise of the Empire is... is how quiet it was. During the waning hours of the Clone Wars, the 501st Legion and some transports like my ship were discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do. Did we have any doubts? Any private, traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word."
Before the massacre of the Temple in Coruscant, Viktoriaah was like dead inside after the recent events that she lived during this horrible day. Thus, nothing more was worth fighting for freedom... When she received the transmission directly from the Senate and heard the Supreme Chancellor announcing the fall of the Republic for a reorganization into an Galactic Empire, she burst into tears and took off from the main landing area without any orders from the control tower, she fled far away from everything.
After few weeks she tried to come back in her native planet Naboo. When she landed on the planet, she was acquainted of the massacre of the native population of Kaadara which have tried to revolt themselves against the Empire recently set up. Her own parents was parts of the hundred victims, all her family, her wealth plundered and scattered into the abyss. She was now without any family, neither house, nor wealth.. The Condor became her home and her small companion Z-6PO her unique family. From this day she dedicated the Empire a merciless hate..
After several years on board of her ship, she became a good smuggler and maintain in good condition the Condor by bringing modifications all over the time to it. She acquired a small shuttle and to store it she ordered a custom build hangar bay in the Condor into the former capsule-lounge. Adding various armaments, turrets and decorations to erase a little bit the military side of the ship.
Meanwhile she received an order from a customer which looked for artifacts of a former civilization called 'Zakel'. After several days of search in archives and peddling she got some informations on the small unknown moon, Yavin IV. There was an old shipwreck of Zakel, thus she could find some artifacts for her customer. After few days of travel she made her way to the small moon, she taken her shuttle to go in the atmosphere of Yavin, leaving the Condor in orbit in the hands of Z-6. Viktoriaah started the searches of this big wreck which had been never plundered since thousands of years of existence for a reason that totally escapes her.. She entered into a dark room, and saw a dark shape kneeling down in the middle of the room sanctuary which seemed to pray. She drew her gun by automatism and approached, the dark shape seemed to be a woman who draw her own gun as well. Viktoriaah tells her that she just looked for some objects and did not want to warm her, the mysterious woman offered her help to find artifacts into the shipwreck and during the whole day the both women finished together friends and her name was Slennaa Akemi..
Viktoriaah tells her that she own a spaceship and her companion Z-6 waits for her in orbit and that she could leave with her to have a good dinner since the poor girl didn't eat meat for few days. While she got ready to leave, several small ships landed in front of Slennaa surrounding her. Viktoriaah contacted Z-6 aboard the condor to make come the ship in the atmosphere, after few minutes by listening to the conversation which became very tense, the Condor arrived in a loud and impressive noise and scared off the troop of bandits. She tells Slennaa to follow her aboard the Condor because these people seemed not alright and that the sector was not any more safe... Both found themselves aboard the Condor during several months and strong friendship and family links was made between them both. Slennaa decided to stay aboard the ship and to become a member of the crew and of the family of the Condor....
Several months later in a concern to make money, the crew went in the Outside Border to find wrecks to be plundered around some former moons of spices. In an uncertain sector the Condor going out of the hyperspace and went to one of these moons of spice, by entering the atmosphere of the planet with their small shuttle Slennaa and Viktoriaah saw a Mandalorian ship in free-fall and caught fire when it hits the low atmosphere, the ship crashed farther in a crater. Both were curious to see if there were survivors and especially if they could plundered some precious materials on a so beautiful ship. They went in the direction of the crash to explore the still smoking wreck. They cleared some fragments and among pieces of corpses, they discovered a Mandolarian woman in armor, unconscious and on the verge of death. The both took her aboard their shuttles to return aboard the Condor. They have taken care of the Mandalorian in the infirmary, the first days the medical droids tried to maintain her alive with much difficulty. The damages were very important but widely superficial except her right arm that she loses after an intervention of the medical droids. The small droid Z-6PO taken care to make her a mechanical arm prosthesis made from equipment stolen from hospitals and rare materials of the Mandalorian ship. After several weeks she woke up and made friends with Z-6 who made her mechanical arm, she told her story to the crew members which opened her the door of their family for more adventures ....
Some beautiful palm trees while along Robertson Blvd. This was around the outskirts of Chowchilla, CA. Why was I out? I was chasing thunderstorms in the valley this day! What’s crazy was that I almost didn’t venture out since there was really nothing noteworthy on radar. But a thunderstorm so-happen to drift over my area in San Jose around noon with hail and thunder so that finally motivated me to head out lol. As a reward, heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning were all witnessed on this outing! The same storm system that had drenched us with widespread rain just the day prior was now ushering in a cold, unstable airmass (behind its main cold front), helping to destabilize the atmosphere to help fuel thunderstorm development, especially for the Central Valley. As for my storm chase, an area of t-storms had formed in the rural areas north of Los Banos around the 1 p.m. hour and then drifted down towards Chowchilla (where I witnessed the 1st encounter of the storm’s deluge of hail) and then continued (while intensifying still) southeast towards Madera/Fresno. Lots of hail and lightning was observed while traveling down the 99 towards Madera, while trying to get ahead of the storm. But due to traffic (likely due to the storm), I lost the chase to the storm and couldn’t get ahead of it anymore so I just exited on one of the exits to take in the lightning the storm was still putting out. Then I continued south a bit more and stopped around the northern areas of Madera to refuel at the Valero and had a quick snack (while also enjoying the winter wonderland of hail that the strong t-storm had left in its wake). As quickly as the storms came, skies turned bright and sunny again as I ate my snack and updated my socials lol. As it neared 4pm and after resting up, I went on the long journey back north towards home. I’ve never seen the air so clear… It has certainly been a while since I’ve chased in the valley. Just like old times! Until next time, happy storm chasing! (Storm chase taken place Thursday afternoon, March 13, 2025)
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On Thursday 12 July 2018, US president Donald Trump, the most dangerous man in the world, was welcomed to the United Kingdom by the British prime minister Theresa May. The following day the streets of London witnessed the biggest protest for over a decade as thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to express their anger at the British government extending a red carpet welcome for Trump.
Protesters pointed out the extreme threat to democracy, to those dependent on welfare, to womens' rights, to civil rights generally and even to the survival of humankind which Trump presents. Such assertions might seem extreme, but they are unfortunately fully justifiable.
As the president of what is by far the richest and most powerful country on earth, Trump has dedicated his term to accelerating the US addiction to fossil fuels and agribusiness, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accords, thereby accelerating global warming and climate change and presenting a huge threat to the continued existence of humankind.
Trump's presidency also marks another dangerous step in the erosion of democracy in the United States. Far from "draining the swamp" as he promised, Trump has surrounded himself with powerful figures from big business, especially major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, as well as his friends and allies in the fossil fuel and defence industires.
Government policy, more and more, reflects the direct interests of concentrated private power with the public having less and less influence. At the same time the Trump presidency has allied itself with some of the most ruthless regimes in the world and is profiting from Saudi Arabia's illegal war of aggression in Yemen which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. A serious war crime in which Donald Trump and Theresa May are both complicit.
Trump has also been keen to patronise the extreme nationalist constituency in the United States and through preaching a propaganda of fear his presidency has managed to oversee some of the most racist immigration policies ever to be implemented in the United States, targeted almost exclusively at Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Ironically, all of them have been massively destabilized and impoverished by US foreign policy.
He was also responsible for the ruthless decision to separate children from their parents as they cross into the United States from Mexico, in his determination to block immigration from central America, where decades of US illegal intervention, including the CIA funded Contra terror operations in Nicaragua and enforced free trade (under NAFTA or IMF rules) have devastated the region and merely enhanced the power of corrupt corporate elites and drug cartels.
As if this was not enough to worry about, Trump has also authorized a huge increase in both US defence spending and in the US nuclear arsenal, and changed the strategic posture of the US so that nuclear weapons can be used even for offensive operations and even when their use is not required to preempt a nuclear strike by an enemy power.
As any historian of conflict since the Second World War knows, it is only by a miracle that humankind has survived since 1945 without a nuclear war. Now the situation is more dangerous than ever before. Not only are we are now dependent on Trump's extremely unpredictable temperament but also increasingly on automated systems which can easily malfunction.
Trump and Republicans maintain they need to spend heavily on military equipment in order to counter the supposed Russian threat. However they seldom remind the public that the United States already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defence and that Russia's expenditure is far behind both that of the United States and only on about the same level of Saudi Arabia, and spends only 10% of what NATO spends.
It has also to be remembered that it is NATO and US forces which are operating right on the Russian border, not Russian forces on the American border. Russia's defence spending is clearly recognised by academics to be primarily defensive and responsive to US spending. What is desperately needed is a serious international dialogue at the highest level to decrease the danger of conflict, especially the risk of a terminal nuclear war and begin a process of multilateral disarmament.
On Thursday 12 July 2018, US president Donald Trump, the most dangerous man in the world, was welcomed to the United Kingdom by the British prime minister Theresa May. The following day the streets of London witnessed the biggest protest for over a decade as thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to express their anger at the British government extending a red carpet welcome for Trump.
Protesters pointed out the extreme threat to democracy, to those dependent on welfare, to womens' rights, to civil rights generally and even to the survival of humankind which Trump presents. Such assertions might seem extreme, but they are unfortunately fully justifiable.
As the president of what is by far the richest and most powerful country on earth, Trump has dedicated his term to accelerating the US addiction to fossil fuels and agribusiness, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accords, thereby accelerating global warming and climate change and presenting a huge threat to the continued existence of humankind.
Trump's presidency also marks another dangerous step in the erosion of democracy in the United States. Far from "draining the swamp" as he promised, Trump has surrounded himself with powerful figures from big business, especially major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, as well as his friends and allies in the fossil fuel and defence industires.
Government policy, more and more, reflects the direct interests of concentrated private power with the public having less and less influence. At the same time the Trump presidency has allied itself with some of the most ruthless regimes in the world and is profiting from Saudi Arabia's illegal war of aggression in Yemen which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. A serious war crime in which Donald Trump and Theresa May are both complicit.
Trump has also been keen to patronise the extreme nationalist constituency in the United States and through preaching a propaganda of fear his presidency has managed to oversee some of the most racist immigration policies ever to be implemented in the United States, targeted almost exclusively at Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Ironically, all of them have been massively destabilized and impoverished by US foreign policy.
He was also responsible for the ruthless decision to separate children from their parents as they cross into the United States from Mexico, in his determination to block immigration from central America, where decades of US illegal intervention, including the CIA funded Contra terror operations in Nicaragua and enforced free trade (under NAFTA or IMF rules) have devastated the region and merely enhanced the power of corrupt corporate elites and drug cartels.
As if this was not enough to worry about, Trump has also authorized a huge increase in both US defence spending and in the US nuclear arsenal, and changed the strategic posture of the US so that nuclear weapons can be used even for offensive operations and even when their use is not required to preempt a nuclear strike by an enemy power.
As any historian of conflict since the Second World War knows, it is only by a miracle that humankind has survived since 1945 without a nuclear war. Now the situation is more dangerous than ever before. Not only are we are now dependent on Trump's extremely unpredictable temperament but also increasingly on automated systems which can easily malfunction.
Trump and Republicans maintain they need to spend heavily on military equipment in order to counter the supposed Russian threat. However they seldom remind the public that the United States already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defence and that Russia's expenditure is far behind both that of the United States and only on about the same level of Saudi Arabia, and spends only 10% of what NATO spends.
It has also to be remembered that it is NATO and US forces which are operating right on the Russian border, not Russian forces on the American border. Russia's defence spending is clearly recognised by academics to be primarily defensive and responsive to US spending. What is desperately needed is a serious international dialogue at the highest level to decrease the danger of conflict, especially the risk of a terminal nuclear war and begin a process of multilateral disarmament.
APR 2005 From the Aeon of Regional Conflicts and World Wars,
to the Epoch of Clashing Civilizations & Global Uniculturalism.
[-] Notes from bilwander's suspended Facebook, now >here [-]
In the times of Globalization & the "progressive" illusion of Multicultural "Coexistence" ( i.e. devastative global uniculturalism ), Clashing Civilizations, Proxy Wars, Blind Terrorism, Uncontrolled Breeding and Consumerism, are ending this World, while ... Comics of ... Iconomics make the most epic failure ever of Democracy in the, so to say, developed societies.
Virtual Economies (thus Iconomies) generating elitist wealth out of deregulated money supply, leveraged credit expansion, permanently rolling-over and exponentially rising debt , impossible to be paid-off in any visible future, along with unsustainable consumption and "growth", and, in the end, extreme global socio-economic, geopolitical, environmental and currently, even health crises.
Crises of Massive Poverty, Misery and Migration, on a planet already crowded, littered, polluted and exploited to its limits; a planet where the wealthy suffer from diseases of affluence & longevity, and contaminated food, while the poor die early from malnutrition and lack of basic hygiene and medical care.
World Population and Inequality (Wealth Distribution Gap) grow faster than the Gross World Product (GWP) while Natural Resources are Draining Out, and Long-term Structural Unemployment & Poverty will deterministically continue to rise for at least this whole century as far as Governments and Peoples continue to ignore and defy the most crucial macroeconomic parameter (World Demographic Trend) and the components (Population Size & Quality) that define the Welfare Equation. In simple words : :
The More People On Earth The Much Worse Their Life Gets
The Mother of All Evil and Misery
In The Epoch of the Infinite Evolution of Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics and Eugenics, the forecasts for World Poverty are gravely pessimistic as far as the vast majority of people continue to over-exercise Outdated Reproductive Rights, without basic knowledge, responsibility and resources, or, even worse, with criminal and/or genetically detrimental records, factually instigating and perpetrating the most massive, continuous and silent Genocidal Crime of human history alongside an Overpopulation of self-condemned people ...
A more than obvious global crime, yet ignored and absent from any agenda, a taboo not even to be quoted within a defiant World Society and an idle Academic Community; the Mother of All Evil and Misery, a ticking time-bomb of total destruction whereas populist regimes and the hypocrisy of political correctness dominate and govern the populace ...
Family Planning, Genetic Engineering and, nowadays, Sexual Transgenderism (and eventually Androidification ) though yet far from consisting mainstream social procedures, and even with law deficits, are increasingly practiced altering already the traditional patterns of human reproduction and social institutions, thus defining the rise of a new epoch within the Anthropocene.
Qualitatively Controlled Human Reproduction by individual choice, assisted by Sperm & Ova Banks via Modified DNA and combination of superior genetic "materials" along with Artificial Intelligence, will eventually lead to intellectual and physical abilities, unprecedentedly superior to those of Homo Sapiens and its contemporary Universalis, so defining the species of the Androidified Human; a Homo Superius of “his/her/its” kind; the product of the Contemporary Dark Ages where Obsolete Reproductive Rights encroach and override Basic Human Rights, transforming the decadent democracies into de facto regimes of Extreme Populism, Anarchy, Illegalism, Oligarchy & Tyranny ....
In the future, most likely, even fewer countries and smaller populations than today will be able to obtain & maintain high standards of living, provided that they will manage to sustain robust, fiscally and monetarily disciplined, economies, based on advanced technology, secured energy self-sufficiency/accessibility, demographic sustainability with social security and geopolitical stability along with effective control & regulation of the migration influx and its intensifying impact and destabilizing potential on the function of the 'developed' economies and societies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's the People, stupid ! (15 APR 2016)
As usual, Soros just speaks out about preserving the Bubble of World Economy for as long as possible...
Who does actually care or can make a difference about next generations, peoples, people, proxy wars, clashing civilizations, migrants or refugees ? ... simply no one
The Bubble, like any bubble, has an undated, but deterministically approaching Burst Out Day .... and the World is already bankrupt in effect and long before the evolving Economic Meltdown, just because of its unregulated and unsustainable population size .....
It's the (Too Many & Stupid) People, Stupid !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
related tweets
Thunderstorms drift into Chowchilla, CA. I was chasing thunderstorms in the valley once again! What’s crazy was that I almost didn’t venture out since there was really nothing noteworthy on radar. But a thunderstorm so-happen to drift over my area in San Jose around noon with hail and thunder so that finally motivated me to head out lol. As a reward, heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning were all witnessed on this outing! The same storm system that had drenched us with widespread rain just the day prior was now ushering in a cold, unstable airmass (behind its main cold front), helping to destabilize the atmosphere to help fuel thunderstorm development, especially for the Central Valley. As for my storm chase, an area of t-storms had formed in the rural areas north of Los Banos around the 1 p.m. hour and then drifted down towards Chowchilla (where I witnessed the 1st encounter of the storm’s deluge of hail) and then continued (while intensifying still) southeast towards Madera/Fresno. Lots of hail and lightning was observed while traveling down the 99 towards Madera, while trying to get ahead of the storm. But due to traffic (likely due to the storm), I lost the chase to the storm and couldn’t get ahead of it anymore so I just exited on one of the exits to take in the lightning the storm was still putting out. Then I continued south a bit more and stopped around the northern areas of Madera to refuel at the Valero and had a quick snack (while also enjoying the winter wonderland of hail that the strong t-storm had left in its wake). As quickly as the storms came, skies turned bright and sunny again as I ate my snack and updated my socials lol. As it neared 4pm and after resting up, I went on the long journey back north towards home. I’ve never seen the air so clear… It has certainly been a while since I’ve chased in the valley. Just like old times! Until next time, happy storm chasing!
(Storm chase taken place Thursday afternoon, March 13, 2025)
The Case of Fabric
The exhibition articulates Tkačenko’s examination of space, at first developed as a series of short, night video recordings of street architecture in New York, which developed into a study that comprises one hundred Polaroid photographs. Technically limited potential of the Polaroid (low sensitivity of the camera lens and inability to control the result of the photographic process) followed by unfavorable conditions of night lightning appeared as the adequate framework for the treatment of the sight and its translation into picture. This resulted in a series of Polaroid photographs through which the spectacle of the spread out American flag (as the dominant signifier of the public space) is disrupted, appearing as destabilized object with the emphasis on its materiality. Fabric includes three exhibition segments that investigate the flag of USA as an object deprived of symbolical and ideological implications from different perspectives. Instead, the analysis of the object’s signifying potential and its politicality is performed through examination of material, as well as tactile appearances.
Saša Tkačenko
On Thursday 12 July 2018, US president Donald Trump, the most dangerous man in the world, was welcomed to the United Kingdom by the British prime minister Theresa May. The following day the streets of London witnessed the biggest protest for over a decade as thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to express their anger at the British government extending a red carpet welcome for Trump.
Protesters pointed out the extreme threat to democracy, to those dependent on welfare, to womens' rights, to civil rights generally and even to the survival of humankind which Trump presents. Such assertions might seem extreme, but they are unfortunately fully justifiable.
As the president of what is by far the richest and most powerful country on earth, Trump has dedicated his term to accelerating the US addiction to fossil fuels and agribusiness, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accords, thereby accelerating global warming and climate change and presenting a huge threat to the continued existence of humankind.
Trump's presidency also marks another dangerous step in the erosion of democracy in the United States. Far from "draining the swamp" as he promised, Trump has surrounded himself with powerful figures from big business, especially major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, as well as his friends and allies in the fossil fuel and defence industires.
Government policy, more and more, reflects the direct interests of concentrated private power with the public having less and less influence. At the same time the Trump presidency has allied itself with some of the most ruthless regimes in the world and is profiting from Saudi Arabia's illegal war of aggression in Yemen which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. A serious war crime in which Donald Trump and Theresa May are both complicit.
Trump has also been keen to patronise the extreme nationalist constituency in the United States and through preaching a propaganda of fear his presidency has managed to oversee some of the most racist immigration policies ever to be implemented in the United States, targeted almost exclusively at Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Ironically, all of them have been massively destabilized and impoverished by US foreign policy.
He was also responsible for the ruthless decision to separate children from their parents as they cross into the United States from Mexico, in his determination to block immigration from central America, where decades of US illegal intervention, including the CIA funded Contra terror operations in Nicaragua and enforced free trade (under NAFTA or IMF rules) have devastated the region and merely enhanced the power of corrupt corporate elites and drug cartels.
As if this was not enough to worry about, Trump has also authorized a huge increase in both US defence spending and in the US nuclear arsenal, and changed the strategic posture of the US so that nuclear weapons can be used even for offensive operations and even when their use is not required to preempt a nuclear strike by an enemy power.
As any historian of conflict since the Second World War knows, it is only by a miracle that humankind has survived since 1945 without a nuclear war. Now the situation is more dangerous than ever before. Not only are we are now dependent on Trump's extremely unpredictable temperament but also increasingly on automated systems which can easily malfunction.
Trump and Republicans maintain they need to spend heavily on military equipment in order to counter the supposed Russian threat. However they seldom remind the public that the United States already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defence and that Russia's expenditure is far behind both that of the United States and only on about the same level of Saudi Arabia, and spends only 10% of what NATO spends.
It has also to be remembered that it is NATO and US forces which are operating right on the Russian border, not Russian forces on the American border. Russia's defence spending is clearly recognised by academics to be primarily defensive and responsive to US spending. What is desperately needed is a serious international dialogue at the highest level to decrease the danger of conflict, especially the risk of a terminal nuclear war and begin a process of multilateral disarmament.
A distant thunderstorm while out in the valley. Just epic! This was around the outskirts of Chowchilla, CA. I was chasing thunderstorms in the valley once again! What’s crazy was that I almost didn’t venture out since there was really nothing noteworthy on radar. But a thunderstorm so-happen to drift over my area in San Jose around noon with hail and thunder so that finally motivated me to head out lol. As a reward, heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning were all witnessed on this outing! The same storm system that had drenched us with widespread rain just the day prior was now ushering in a cold, unstable airmass (behind its main cold front), helping to destabilize the atmosphere to help fuel thunderstorm development, especially for the Central Valley. As for my storm chase, an area of t-storms had formed in the rural areas north of Los Banos around the 1 p.m. hour and then drifted down towards Chowchilla (where I witnessed the 1st encounter of the storm’s deluge of hail) and then continued (while intensifying still) southeast towards Madera/Fresno. Lots of hail and lightning was observed while traveling down the 99 towards Madera, while trying to get ahead of the storm. But due to traffic (likely due to the storm), I lost the chase to the storm and couldn’t get ahead of it anymore so I just exited on one of the exits to take in the lightning the storm was still putting out. Then I continued south a bit more and stopped around the northern areas of Madera to refuel at the Valero and had a quick snack (while also enjoying the winter wonderland of hail that the strong t-storm had left in its wake). As quickly as the storms came, skies turned bright and sunny again as I ate my snack and updated my socials lol. As it neared 4pm and after resting up, I went on the long journey back north towards home. I’ve never seen the air so clear… It has certainly been a while since I’ve chased in the valley. Just like old times! Until next time, happy storm chasing! (Storm chase taken place Thursday afternoon, March 13, 2025)
22 Bomb Blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad in last two days
Yesterday, the 6 or so “low intensity” bomb blasts across Bangalore made news. Today, there have been 9 (some reports say 12) bomb blasts across Ahmedabad.
Again, what was used was apparently “low intensity” explosives. But there is a more disquieting similarity- both Karnataka and Gujarat are ruled by the BJP. Are these therefore attempts to destabilize BJP governments? Or are these blasts intended to be a “proof of concept” for the terrorists to demonstrate (to their own leadership, perhaps) the readiness of their cadres to deliver even more deadly strikes?
The media has been analyzing the blasts from various angles. By doing so, they are perhaps abetting the terrorists because such reports add to the general air of fear, uncertainty and dread. Ordinary citizens, already weighed down by the burden of rising inflation and falling stock markets, will only feel more depressed and resentful of the existing polotical dispensation- which, ultimately, is what anti-national elements want to foment. It is the job of the media to inform. But it should play this role responsibly. By reporting every single line of thinking etc., they serve to warn the perpetrators or worse, encourage them further.
~ Anand Krishna
P@P :- Daily Tadka : Winner Pic , 27-July-2008.
www.flickr.com/groups/photographersatpune/discuss/7215760...
Better Photography , May 2009 - 50mm Magic
Was in Explore Front Page for few minutes
Xplored:-Highest position: 35 on Monday, July 28, 2008
On Thursday 12 July 2018, US president Donald Trump, the most dangerous man in the world, was welcomed to the United Kingdom by the British prime minister Theresa May. The following day the streets of London witnessed the biggest protest for over a decade as thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to express their anger at the British government extending a red carpet welcome for Trump.
Protesters pointed out the extreme threat to democracy, to those dependent on welfare, to womens' rights, to civil rights generally and even to the survival of humankind which Trump presents. Such assertions might seem extreme, but they are unfortunately fully justifiable.
As the president of what is by far the richest and most powerful country on earth, Trump has dedicated his term to accelerating the US addiction to fossil fuels and agribusiness, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accords, thereby accelerating global warming and climate change and presenting a huge threat to the continued existence of humankind.
Trump's presidency also marks another dangerous step in the erosion of democracy in the United States. Far from "draining the swamp" as he promised, Trump has surrounded himself with powerful figures from big business, especially major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, as well as his friends and allies in the fossil fuel and defence industires.
Government policy, more and more, reflects the direct interests of concentrated private power with the public having less and less influence. At the same time the Trump presidency has allied itself with some of the most ruthless regimes in the world and is profiting from Saudi Arabia's illegal war of aggression in Yemen which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. A serious war crime in which Donald Trump and Theresa May are both complicit.
Trump has also been keen to patronise the extreme nationalist constituency in the United States and through preaching a propaganda of fear his presidency has managed to oversee some of the most racist immigration policies ever to be implemented in the United States, targeted almost exclusively at Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Ironically, all of them have been massively destabilized and impoverished by US foreign policy.
He was also responsible for the ruthless decision to separate children from their parents as they cross into the United States from Mexico, in his determination to block immigration from central America, where decades of US illegal intervention, including the CIA funded Contra terror operations in Nicaragua and enforced free trade (under NAFTA or IMF rules) have devastated the region and merely enhanced the power of corrupt corporate elites and drug cartels.
As if this was not enough to worry about, Trump has also authorized a huge increase in both US defence spending and in the US nuclear arsenal, and changed the strategic posture of the US so that nuclear weapons can be used even for offensive operations and even when their use is not required to preempt a nuclear strike by an enemy power.
As any historian of conflict since the Second World War knows, it is only by a miracle that humankind has survived since 1945 without a nuclear war. Now the situation is more dangerous than ever before. Not only are we are now dependent on Trump's extremely unpredictable temperament but also increasingly on automated systems which can easily malfunction.
Trump and Republicans maintain they need to spend heavily on military equipment in order to counter the supposed Russian threat. However they seldom remind the public that the United States already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defence and that Russia's expenditure is far behind both that of the United States and only on about the same level of Saudi Arabia, and spends only 10% of what NATO spends.
It has also to be remembered that it is NATO and US forces which are operating right on the Russian border, not Russian forces on the American border. Russia's defence spending is clearly recognised by academics to be primarily defensive and responsive to US spending. What is desperately needed is a serious international dialogue at the highest level to decrease the danger of conflict, especially the risk of a terminal nuclear war and begin a process of multilateral disarmament.
It's been, for long now, a common daily activity where hundreds of Syria War refugees along with illegal & undocumented Asian and African migrants are smuggled (in unseaworthy rubber boats and perilous conditions in the Aegean sea) from the Asian coast of Turkey to the Greek islands, by conveniently operating and hugely profiting traffickers (selling out even fake, water-absorbent life-jackets, to migrants), under the nose, if not guidance and pressure, of the Turkish coast guard, and despite the EU-Turkey Migration treaty.
Migrants arriving to Greek islands are then transferred by ferryboats to Piraeus with the prospect to be dispersed to "temporary" camps all over the Greek mainland, but most likely to remain "trapped" for undisclosed time, if not for ever, as far as the key migrant "European corridor" remains closed-down at the borders in the north region of Macedonia(Greece) with FYROM* in order to protect the rest of EU states (uneager to accept but a tiny number of documented refugees) and also discourage future migrants from heading to Europe.....
Meanwhile in Greece, migration inflow steadily surpasses outflow, as far as the war in Syria continues and Turkey capitalizes not only on Syrian refugees but on all its Asian and African migrants reaching swiftly (with cheap TurkishAirlines fare & e-visa) Istanbul, Europe's backdoor, by smuggling them to Greece so assisting its expansionist policy through the ethnological, cultural and economic destabilization of the small communities in the islands and (given the huge influx and the border blockage), all over Greece, while generating also an instability potential of the status quo in the Aegean Sea that Turkey's "deep state" would like to change by dividing it in the middle (if not by taking over whatever Greek land) at a given opportunity, alike with the Invasion of Cyprus in 1974 ...
Consequently, Greece, already suffering a deep socio-economic & political crisis under its divisive, incompetent and obsessed neo-communist leadership, is turned into a de facto European "migrant buffer zone", and has to manage alone, just with EU "technical assistance", the unstoppable migration influx from Turkey and an additional, social crisis. It looks as if Greece is declining into a state of uncontrolled anarchy (UPDATE MAR31 less than 24hrs after OP) while EU is imploding and fragmenting from the backlash of its own misdeeds and consequent crises ....
Crises that emerged from the geopolitical games and the wars imposed and/or exploited by the .... Great European Powers ( UK, France, Germany), along with the USA, NATO, as well as the Sunni Islamists of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, last but not least, Turkey and its neo-ottoman styled leadership that promoted the war in Syria and cooperated undercover with ISIS, further escalating its own undeclared (civil) war against the Kurds, not just within Turkey, but also in Syria
Wars fancily dubbed as "against tyranny and terror", have in fact caused by far more misery, terror and havoc with the disintegration of Iraq, Libya and Syria, the eventual creation of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the other jihadist organizations that preach and exercise blind hatred, and terrorism against the West, while they impose their domain and Brutal Rule of Terror on a number of regions across Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
UPDATES
MAR.31 : Migrants Clash at Pireus Port
APR .. 1 : Violence at Chios Island Migrant Camp
APR . 4 : First Deportations to Turkey While Migrant Boats Continue Ariving to Greek Islands
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*FYROM, (originally Vardarska or Vardar Banovina), a landlocked country and non EU member state, is usually referred as "Macedonia" in the "narrative overlay" of media such as CNN, BBC etc that systematically defy the only officially recognized (by UN, EU, NATO, IOC, IAAF etc. etc) name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), for their very own reasons. if not for assisting the agenda of specific interests (of USA, NATO, UK, certain EU member states and, as usual, Turkey) in the allready quite broken apart and multi-divided, Balkans ...
FYROM also should not be confused, with the historical region of Macedonia in Greece as the later incorporates the whole area where Ancient Macedonian People firstly appeared and lived more than 2500 years ago, that is about 1000 years earlier than the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans....
“The British Government has unveiled a new vaccine research facility, where scientists are working to prevent future pandemics. It’s located at Porton Down, a high security research facility best known for its work on chemical warfare. Experts are preparing for what is known as ‘Disease X’ or the next pandemic virus.”
Oh, the irony!
“Scientists have estimated that 1.67 million yet-to-be-discovered viruses exist in mammals and birds, and about half of them have the potential to spill to humans.”
Say it ain’t so!
“Rising global temperatures could unleash zombie viruses frozen for thousands of years in the permafrost.”
The zombie apocalypse…noOoo!
The next pandemic could spring from corporate farms (big farma), where millions of livestock come in close contact with one another. Thousands of animals are tightly crammed together in poor living conditions, which causes them great stress and anxiety. These unnatural conditions not only produce unhealthier animals, but they also create the perfect environment to foster disease. “If you actually want to create global pandemics, then build factory farms.” Experts warn that the next pandemic will likely be a zoonotic outbreak (a disease that transfers from animals to humans).
Disease X, the con artist formerly known as Twitter.
We must implement protocols to prepare for Pandemic X. We must work together with Big Pharma and Big Farma (what could go wrong?). We will vaccinate livestock with mRNA technology. We will make genetically modified mRNA plants. Genetically modified food genetically modifies those who eat it…the road to transhumanism…slowly modifying the population one step at a time! From real meat we will move on to genetically modified plant-based meat, then on to genetically modified insect-based meat, and finally on to a sustainable Soylent Green human-based meat diet. Go green, recycle!
To protect against the next plandemic we will need a more robust health-surveillance system than before…contact tracing anyone? We will use a global event-based surveillance system. This dystopian reporting network will be transparent and apolitical. Such a system, of course, will fall under the authority of the New World Order Health Organization.
We are currently working on new brain surveillance monitoring technology. With the Internet of Things, this cyber-physical system will connect billons of devices. 5G connectivity and AI technology will soon push us into the trillion-sensor age. This new trillion-sensor universe will span across the global ecosystem, and it will be used for the monitoring and control of humanity. This trillion-sensor Beast system will be an immensely complex techno-ecosystem. The pinnacle of this system will be the All-Seeing Smartchip, which will take humanity into the transhuman age. This smartchip technology is known as Brain Electrode Augmentation Signaling Technology (BEAST).
Many terrifying diseases have originated in labs *cough* *cough* I mean animals, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19. These so-called zoonotic outbreaks are usually due to a lack of government oversight. Therefore, the W.H.O. must be able to respond to public health emergencies by overriding the sovereignty of nations. They must draft a new agreement under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This new legally-binding pandemic accord must provide a comprehensive, complementary, and synergistic set of global health agreements to combat all inequality, environmental degradation and climate destabilization, as well as combat new surges in populism and white supremacy, misinformation and disinformation, economic uncertainty, and growing public health threats. It’s for your own safety!
Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light, so don’t be surprised if his servants do likewise. Therefore, humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee (for we are not ignorant of his schemes).
Every spring the sun shines on the side of the stack of layers at the North Pole of Mars known as the north polar layered deposits. The warmth destabilizes the ice and blocks break loose.
When they reach the bottom of the more than 500 meter tall cliff face, the blocks kick up a cloud of dust. The layers beneath are different colors and textures depending on the amount of dust mixed with ice.
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
here in this virtual museum space we are able to observe these perfectly preserved technoprinted robot heads - still fully functioning, quietly watching us all.
many people ask how we prevented the printmix from disassembling - well as you know much of the first technoprinted robotic organisms destabilized when the artificial consciousness within them left this channel of discernible reality - where it went is a mystery although the nanotech inside the smart slime/printmix was rendered useless.
so we created the infinite copy system - we reboot the slime every second using state of the art vibrational code manipulators.
#Jon Boam #Drawing
Although you probably know that the third eye is associated with wisdom and intuition, you may not be aware of the side effects that can come with opening your third eye. For example, it can induce uncomfortable physical sensations. Similarly, it can make it hard to regulate your own behavior, and it can lead to confusing experiences during your sleep. So, does this mean that it is better to keep your third eye closed? Alternatively, do the benefits outweigh the potential costs?
We’ll explore how to open your third eye and explain how to tell if your third eye is open already, along with considering the dangers of opening third eye chakras. As it turns out, all of these dangers can be mitigated by careful foresight. To that end, we'll suggest a range of techniques that will help you ensure that your third eye is a source of empowerment rather than fear.
What Is Your ‘Third Eye’?
The third eye is located in your pineal gland, which ancient philosophers believed was the seat of the soul. It is the third eye that allows us to intuit possible futures and make sense of our own potential, and it evolved to help us identify underlying patterns in our lives.
Everyone has a third eye, and everyone gains access to it. However, some use it more than others, and with greater intensity.
Any time that you have a gut feeling, you're drawing from the perception of your third eye. For example, just think about the times when you simply knew you should go to a particular place or seek contact with a particular person, even though you couldn't justify this choice with articulable logic.
It's helpful to think of the third eye as a unique sense organ; one that can be honed and sharpened with work.
In addition to helping you read your environment and access intuitions about the path you should follow in life, it can help you tune into particular vibrations in other people. This means that strengthening your use of the third eye not only enhances your perception but also assists you in connecting with people whose energy fits with yours.
Further Reading
Third Eye Chakra Healing For Beginners: How To Open Your Third Eye
7 Chakras: What Is A Chakra? How To Balance Chakras For Beginners
Third Eye Awakening: How To Know If Your Third Eye Is Open
Many people mistakenly think that they need to work on causing a third eye awakening when in fact it is already open. This is largely because fear and uncertainty can prompt us to ignore what we take in with the third eye; we are often raised to discount our “hunches”.
So, how do you know if your own third eye is open? The easiest way to answer this question is to pay attention to whether you have gut feelings, even one that you suppress. The more seemingly baseless intuitions you have, the more likely it is that your third eye is currently open, whether you want it to be or not.
Third Eye Opening Side Effects
In addition to causing strong gut feelings, having an open third eye can induce a wide range of other side effects.
In particular, look out for the following third eye opening side effects:
A light feeling of pressure between your eyebrows. This could be similar to the sensation of someone gently pressing a finger to the skin in that area. This needn't happen when you're feeling particularly spiritual, but it is often a reminder that the spiritual dimension of life is currently relevant.
Starting to picture things in your mind (or even starting to dream about particular things) before they happen.
A sense that colors are brighter and that your environment is sharper. An open third eye allows you to take in light and details that you would otherwise miss, and this can be intense or overwhelming at first.
Feeling like you are changing on a fundamental level, even if you struggle to put it into words. It's common for the third eye to open because of transformative experiences, or to occur just before a period of great growth.
More frequent tension headaches (i.e., headaches that feel like pressure on your temples or like a band around your head). This is sometimes explained as being a result of your mind working harder than usual.
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What Causes Third Eye Chakra Blockages Or Imbalances?
It's important to be aware that you may struggle to open or utilize your third eye. In particular, blockages or imbalances can develop in the location of the third eye chakra, and it is only by dislodging these blockages that you'll be able to access the full power of your intuition. Common causes of this sort of imbalance include exhaustion, resistance to the power of your third eye, high levels of consistent stress, and repeated emotional conflict in your life.
Remember, your third eye can be underactive or overactive, so be aware of different cues. If it is underactive, you may struggle to concentrate, feel anxious, find it difficult to self-reflect, and feel somehow disconnected from the people around you.
Meanwhile, if you're dealing with an overactive third eye, you may be trapped in over-analyzing your current situation, feel mentally “fogged up”, and repeatedly escape into daydreams rather than engaging with real life.
7 ‘Dangers’ Of Opening Your Third Eye
As you’re now aware, there are many reasons why you might want to open your third eye and lots of ways in which you can benefit from doing so.
Of course, however, opening one’s third eye is not without risks.
If the process is improperly managed, you can end up feeling overwhelmed and may struggle to deal with your new sense of power. Third eye opening side effects include the following, all of which can be effectively managed with careful planning.
1. Vivid Dreams And Nightmares
If your third eye opens at a time that you don't expect and you're ill-equipped to manage it, your sleep can be severely disrupted.
In particular, you may experience especially intense dreams and nightmares, some of which can be frightening. You may also wake up feeling tired, and find the images from your dreams keep returning throughout the day in a way that makes it hard to concentrate or relax.
Meditating before going to bed can help you to counteract this possible side effect of third eye experiences, encouraging your mind to enter into a calm and balanced state that facilitates less erratic input from the third eye.
In addition, keeping a dream journal can help you understand the underlying themes from dreams and nightmares, and your third eye will typically stop overloading you with repeatedly intense imagery if you process the lesson or message that is being represented during your sleep.
2. Scary Accurate Intuition
When your third eye first opens, your finely honed faculty of intuition may feel like more of a burden than a gift. You may become so good at predicting what will happen in your life (or how others behave) that you feel truly unnerved by it and find it daunting rather than useful.
In time, you will become used to the improved accuracy of your gut feelings. The lesson here is not to try and repress your gut feelings. Instead of reducing their frequency, pushing them away tends to make them come back with a greater level of intensity. This includes in the form of dreams, as mentioned above.
To deal with the scarily accurate predictions involved in opening your third eye, try to remind yourself that these intuitions will help you make good choices. While it can seem bizarre at first, it is also the key to a happier, more informed future.
3. You May Become Fearless
Sometimes, people report a fearlessness associated with opening your third eye chakra, as they have a sense of being invincible or super-human. The opening of the third eye can be deeply empowering, and with this empowerment often comes a dramatic increase in self-confidence.
So, what should you do to ensure that this new fearlessness is healthy?
Firstly, it's important to note that an open third eye doesn't make you omniscient So, it's still important to think carefully about everything you choose to do in life.
Secondly, it's helpful to deliberately engage the rational parts of your mind in order to make sure you get some logical input to balance the raw intuition few to you by the third eye. For example, it can be helpful to write a pros and cons list about something you're thinking about doing. In addition, write down all the feelings and intuitions that strike you.
4. Astral Projection
When you astrally project, part of you leaves your body and travels elsewhere. This typically happens in bed at night, when your soul or essence may raise up above your physical body and leave you feeling frightened and confused. As you become more spiritually powerful by opening your third eye, this power can emerge at unpredictable times and this can be difficult to get used to at first.
The trick here is to realize that there is nothing inherently dangerous about astral projection. You can not get “stuck” outside of your body. Plus, nothing bad will happen to your body during the period in which you temporarily detach from it. Try to view experiences of astral projection as signals that your intuitive faculties are sharpening and that you are becoming more and more in tune with the universe. Once this type of experience becomes more normal, you may even find it pleasurable or profound.
5. Your Eye Chakra Could Become Overactive
When your third eye becomes oversensitive, you may experience some of the physical side effects that we discussed above. Most notably, you may develop a sensitivity to light, with bright sun and vivid colors becoming almost offensive to look at.
In addition, you might start to get uncomfortable headaches that your doctor considers to be unexplained. It's unpleasant to deal with these signs of having an oversensitive third eye. Therefore, it's important to work on balancing your third eye charka (more on that below).
In addition to this balancing, you may find it helpfully to temporarily limit your exposure to, especially stimulating environments. By gradually increasing the time you spend outside, for example, you can slowly allow your third eye to become acclimatized to the intense sights and sounds that flood it. Meanwhile, relaxing your body will help to reduce the tension in your head muscles, potentially dulling your headaches.
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6. Third Eye Awakening Can Be Confusing And Scary
The mere opening of the third eye can itself lead to feeling confused and frightened. In this way, you may even start to ask how to close your third eye as the new flood of information can leave you destabilized. In some cases, you may even wonder if there's a way to go back to how things were before.
However, it's vital to remember that you are merely gaining access to information that already existed all around you.
You're not changing the future or reading the thoughts of others; you're just tuning in to cues that you didn't use to know how to interpret.
When you attempt to view the opening of the third eye as just an increase in a previous capacity, it can seem much less frightening. Further, try to remind yourself that your spiritual awakening can really only be good for you in the long term. It will help you understand your life's true purpose.
7. Chaotic Behavior
Finally, as well as feeling frightened, you might notice you start to behave in inconsistent ways. This is similar to the way in which any major change can lead to erratic behavior. You may want time to adjust to the opening of your third eye, and time to figure out what your newly sharpened intuition should mean for how you behave.
Be patient with yourself, and don't expect yourself to immediately know exactly how to manage everything you're learning and feeling.
As well as simply waiting out this adjustment period, it can be helpful to exercise a little more restraint than usual. In other words, question the urges you feel before simply acting on them. Plus, quickly check that you can stand by your behavior before you choose to put it into practice.
Meanwhile, let those you are close to knowing that you're going through a period of growth and adjustment so that they can offer support and compassion.
“I Opened My Third Eye And I Regret It!” – How To Balance Your Third Eye
If you're worried about opening your third eye and want to ensure that you don't regret it, make a consistent effort to keep your third eye chakra balanced in a healthy way.
The following techniques are especially effective in balancing your third eye:
Practice meditation on a daily basis. This can be a simple 10-minute exercise during which you focus on your breathing or scan your body for sensations. Or, it can be a more complex meditative journey if you're already experienced.
Put lavender or neroli essential oils on the pulse points of your wrists, or light scented candles that include these oils.
Ensure you get approximately eight hours of sleep per night. Practice good sleep hygiene! For example, remove electronic devices from your bedroom and do something relaxing for at least an hour before bed.
Eat foods to nourish the third eye (including red onion, blueberries, blackberries, eggplant, red grapes, and raspberries). In general, any red and purple foods are said to be connected to a balanced third eye chakra.
Recite daily affirmations that relate to the third eye, such as “I acknowledge the wisdom that comes from within me” and “I am open to the inner guidance of my third eye.”
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Since ancient times, the third eye had been revered by all kinds of cultures. Today, we know it as the pineal gland, but it is still called the third eye in the spiritual realm. The third eye is viewed as a spiritual sign representing our capability to conquer all kinds of challenges in daily life by tapping into our inner wisdom.
But there is much more to the third eye than that. In most Eastern traditions, the third eye is undoubtedly real; a thing that anybody can perceive and obviously feel if they have a strong sense of self and mindfulness. It is what is often referred to as the connection between our body and our spirit.
When we meditate with any consistency, the third eye opens and your inner guide becomes stronger and a more present guiding force in your life.
HERE ARE FIVE SIGNS YOUR THIRD EYE IS OPENING:
1. A DULL SENSATION OF PRESSURE BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS.
Generally when the third eye starts to manifest on a much deeper level, there’s a related consciousness of sensation between eyebrows. It could seem like somebody is lightly touching us at that moment, or you might feel a spreading of warmth.
Sometimes this sensation could appear from nowhere; whether we have spiritual feelings or not. It’s as if it’s a signal to pull us back in that spiritual state of mind.
2. INCREASED FORESIGHT.
Among the most obvious signals of third eye opening is an increase in foresight or intuition we start to experience – if we are paying attention.
Intuition is the capability to know something might happen before it does or knowing something is right or wrong because of a feeling or sense. It often comes and goes without notification. However with time, this feeling could get stronger, and turn out to be a guiding process in our daily lives.
We might start to sense warning signs or what our next action should be without explanation. Don’t dispute your intuition. Use it! It might not always be right; however it most certainly will put us on the right path.
3. PRONE TO LIGHT SENSITIVITY.
With the opening third eye, we could find ourselves a little more sensitive to light and seeing colors more brightly.
Vivid colors and our awareness of light may begin subtly; they are not always instantly obvious or overwhelming. However, the sensitivity to light often brings further awareness of what is happening around us. When focusing deeply on the third eye (like in meditation), the lights of the third eye might appear.
The third eye and it’s reference to light has been talked about for years in many traditions worldwide. It is well-known in many forms of art and religious works. If you study the works, you can often see the light reference in circular shapes and star-shaped lights peeking through the clouds.
Our eyes will change over time, and we might feel like we just can’t get enough sun on our skin. This is normal. Soak it up! Just make sure you are not harming the skin.
4. A FEELING OF GRADUAL AND CONTINUAL CHANGE.
Most importantly, fostering a healthy third eye steadily changes our perspective and personality in life. It results in beneficial changes because we want, and maybe even crave them. We can usually see it in the way we treat others. We might become more tolerant and less selfish.
5. INCREASED HEADACHES.
A headache pressure is stronger than the pressure talked about earlier that happens between the eyebrows. At times, that pressure can begin to ache a little. Consider it a little bit of energy overload. Go outdoors and do a thing you cherish, like meditate or walk.
Head pressure is an actual sign of the spiritual eye opening, particularly in the center of the forehead. It is an indication that one’s pineal gland is developing energetically.
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TIPS TO ENGAGE THE THIRD EYE
When our Third Eye is opening, we’ll begin body-to-soul discussions in our mind with an understanding of our place in the Universe and that we are the creator of our reality!
We will encounter greater states of mindfulness, enabling us to visualize a better life and take focused action to help us live up to our potential. We’ll become very intuitive, possess a good memory, and we’ll have the ability to understand without any problem.
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Domitian (Latin: Domitianus; 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was the Roman emperor from 81 to 96. He was the son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, and the last member of the Flavian dynasty. During his reign, the authoritarian nature of his rule put him at sharp odds with the Senate, whose powers he drastically curtailed.
Domitian had a minor and largely ceremonial role during the reigns of his father and brother. After the death of his brother, Domitian was declared emperor by the Praetorian Guard. His 15-year reign was the longest since that of Tiberius. As emperor, Domitian strengthened the economy by revaluing the Roman coinage, expanded the border defenses of the empire, and initiated a massive building program to restore the damaged city of Rome. Significant wars were fought in Britain, where his general Agricola attempted to conquer Caledonia (Scotland), and in Dacia, where Domitian was unable to procure a decisive victory against King Decebalus. Domitian's government exhibited strong authoritarian characteristics. Religious, military, and cultural propaganda fostered a cult of personality, and by nominating himself perpetual censor, he sought to control public and private morals. As a consequence, Domitian was popular with the people and army, but considered a tyrant by members of the Roman Senate.
Domitian's reign came to an end in 96 when he was assassinated by court officials. He was succeeded the same day by his advisor Nerva. After his death, Domitian's memory was condemned to oblivion by the Senate, while senatorial and equestrian authors such as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius propagated the view of Domitian as a cruel and paranoid tyrant. Modern revisionists instead have characterized Domitian as a ruthless but efficient autocrat whose cultural, economic, and political programs provided the foundation of the peaceful second century.
Domitian was born in Rome on 24 October 51, the youngest son of Titus Flavius Vespasianus—commonly known as Vespasian—and Flavia Domitilla Major. He had an older sister, Domitilla the Younger, and brother, also named Titus Flavius Vespasianus.
Decades of civil war during the 1st century BC had contributed greatly to the demise of the old aristocracy of Rome, which a new Italian nobility gradually replaced in prominence during the early part of the 1st century. One such family, the Flavians, or gens Flavia, rose from relative obscurity to prominence in just four generations, acquiring wealth and status under the emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Domitian's great-grandfather, Titus Flavius Petro, had served as a centurion under Pompey during Caesar's civil war. His military career ended in disgrace when he fled the battlefield at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC.
Nevertheless, Petro managed to improve his status by marrying the extremely wealthy Tertulla, whose fortune guaranteed the upward mobility of Petro's son Titus Flavius Sabinus I, Domitian's grandfather. Sabinus himself amassed further wealth and possible equestrian status through his services as tax collector in Asia and banker in Helvetia (modern Switzerland). By marrying Vespasia Polla he allied the Flavian family to the more prestigious gens Vespasia, ensuring the elevation of his sons Titus Flavius Sabinus II and Vespasian to senatorial rank.
The political career of Vespasian included the offices of quaestor, aedile, and praetor, and culminated in a consulship in 51, the year of Domitian's birth. As a military commander, Vespasian gained early renown by participating in the Roman invasion of Britain in 43. Nevertheless, ancient sources allege poverty for the Flavian family at the time of Domitian's upbringing, even claiming Vespasian had fallen into disrepute under the emperors Caligula (37–41) and Nero (54–68). Modern history has refuted these claims, suggesting these stories later circulated under Flavian rule as part of a propaganda campaign to diminish success under the less reputable Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and to maximize achievements under Emperor Claudius (41–54) and his son Britannicus.
By all appearances, the Flavians enjoyed high imperial favour throughout the 40s and 60s. While Titus received a court education in the company of Britannicus, Vespasian pursued a successful political and military career. Following a prolonged period of retirement during the 50s, he returned to public office under Nero, serving as proconsul of the Africa Province in 63, and accompanying the emperor Nero during an official tour of Greece in 66.
That same year Jews from the Province of Judaea revolted against the Roman Empire, sparking what is now known as the First Jewish–Roman War. Vespasian was assigned to lead the Roman army against the insurgents, with Titus—who had completed his military education by this time—in charge of a legion.
Of the three Flavian emperors, Domitian would rule the longest, despite the fact that his youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his older brother. Titus had gained military renown during the First Jewish–Roman War. After their father, Vespasian, became emperor in 69 following the civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors, Titus held a great many offices, while Domitian received honours, but no responsibilities.
By the time he was 16 years old, Domitian's mother and sister had long since died, while his father and brother were continuously active in the Roman military, commanding armies in Germania and Judaea. For Domitian, this meant that a significant part of his adolescence was spent in the absence of his near relatives. During the Jewish–Roman wars, he was likely taken under the care of his uncle Titus Flavius Sabinus II, at the time serving as city prefect of Rome; or possibly even Marcus Cocceius Nerva, a loyal friend of the Flavians and the future successor to Domitian.
He received the education of a young man of the privileged senatorial class, studying rhetoric and literature. In his biography in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Suetonius attests to Domitian's ability to quote the important poets and writers such as Homer or Virgil on appropriate occasions, and describes him as a learned and educated adolescent, with elegant conversation. Among his first published works were poetry, as well as writings on law and administration.
Unlike his brother Titus, Domitian was not educated at court. Whether he received formal military training is not recorded, but according to Suetonius, he displayed considerable marksmanship with the bow and arrow. A detailed description of Domitian's appearance and character is provided by Suetonius, who devotes a substantial part of his biography to his personality:
He was tall of stature, with a modest expression and a high colour. His eyes were large, but his sight was somewhat dim. He was handsome and graceful too, especially when a young man, and indeed in his whole body with the exception of his feet, the toes of which were somewhat cramped. In later life he had the further disfigurement of baldness, a protruding belly, and spindling legs, though the latter had become thin from a long illness.
Domitian was allegedly extremely sensitive regarding his baldness, which he disguised in later life by wearing wigs. According to Suetonius, he even wrote a book on the subject of hair care. With regard to Domitian's personality, however, the account of Suetonius alternates sharply between portraying Domitian as the emperor-tyrant, a man both physically and intellectually lazy, and the intelligent, refined personality drawn elsewhere.
Historian Brian Jones concludes in The Emperor Domitian that assessing the true nature of Domitian's personality is inherently complicated by the bias of the surviving sources. Common threads nonetheless emerge from the available evidence. He appears to have lacked the natural charisma of his brother and father. He was prone to suspicion, displayed an odd, sometimes self-deprecating sense of humour, and often communicated in cryptic ways.
This ambiguity of character was further exacerbated by his remoteness, and as he grew older, he increasingly displayed a preference for solitude, which may have stemmed from his isolated upbringing. Indeed, by the age of eighteen nearly all of his closest relatives had died by war or disease. Having spent the greater part of his early life in the twilight of Nero's reign, his formative years would have been strongly influenced by the political turmoil of the 60s, culminating with the civil war of 69, which brought his family to power.
On 9 June 68, amid growing opposition of the Senate and the army, Nero committed suicide and with him the Julio-Claudian dynasty came to an end. Chaos ensued, leading to a year of brutal civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors, during which the four most influential generals in the Roman Empire—Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian—successively vied for imperial power.
News of Nero's death reached Vespasian as he was preparing to besiege the city of Jerusalem. Almost simultaneously the Senate had declared Galba, then governor of Hispania Tarraconensis (modern northern Spain), as Emperor of Rome. Rather than continue his campaign, Vespasian decided to await further orders and send Titus to greet the new Emperor.
Before reaching Italy, Titus learnt that Galba had been murdered and replaced by Otho, the governor of Lusitania (modern Portugal). At the same time Vitellius and his armies in Germania had risen in revolt and prepared to march on Rome, intent on overthrowing Otho. Not wanting to risk being taken hostage by one side or the other, Titus abandoned the journey to Rome and rejoined his father in Judaea.
Otho and Vitellius realized the potential threat posed by the Flavian faction. With four legions at his disposal, Vespasian commanded a strength of nearly 80,000 soldiers. His position in Judaea further granted him the advantage of being nearest to the vital province of Egypt, which controlled the grain supply to Rome. His brother Titus Flavius Sabinus II, as city prefect, commanded the entire city garrison of Rome. Tensions among the Flavian troops ran high but so long as either Galba or Otho remained in power, Vespasian refused to take action.
When Otho was defeated by Vitellius at the First Battle of Bedriacum, the armies in Judaea and Egypt took matters into their own hands and declared Vespasian emperor on 1 July 69. Vespasian accepted and entered an alliance with Gaius Licinius Mucianus, the governor of Syria, against Vitellius. A strong force drawn from the Judaean and Syrian legions marched on Rome under the command of Mucianus, while Vespasian travelled to Alexandria, leaving Titus in charge of ending the Jewish rebellion.
In Rome, Domitian was placed under house arrest by Vitellius, as a safeguard against Flavian aggression. Support for the old emperor waned as more legions around the empire pledged their allegiance to Vespasian. On 24 October 69, the forces of Vitellius and Vespasian (under Marcus Antonius Primus) met at the Second Battle of Bedriacum, which ended in a crushing defeat for the armies of Vitellius.
In despair, Vitellius attempted to negotiate a surrender. Terms of peace, including a voluntary abdication, were agreed upon with Titus Flavius Sabinus II but the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard—the imperial bodyguard—considered such a resignation disgraceful and prevented Vitellius from carrying out the treaty. On the morning of 18 December, the emperor appeared to deposit the imperial insignia at the Temple of Concord but at the last minute retraced his steps to the Imperial palace. In the confusion, the leading men of the state gathered at Sabinus' house, proclaiming Vespasian as Emperor, but the multitude dispersed when Vitellian cohorts clashed with the armed escort of Sabinus, who was forced to retreat to the Capitoline Hill.
During the night, he was joined by his relatives, including Domitian. The armies of Mucianus were nearing Rome but the besieged Flavian party did not hold out for longer than a day. On 19 December, Vitellianists burst onto the Capitol and in a skirmish, Sabinus was captured and executed. Domitian managed to escape by disguising himself as a worshipper of Isis and spent the night in safety with one of his father's supporters, Cornelius Primus.
By the afternoon of 20 December, Vitellius was dead, his armies having been defeated by the Flavian legions. With nothing more to be feared, Domitian came forward to meet the invading forces; he was universally saluted by the title of Caesar and the mass of troops conducted him to his father's house. The following day, 21 December, the Senate proclaimed Vespasian emperor of the Roman Empire.
The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (detail), by Rembrandt (1661). During the Batavian rebellion, Domitian eagerly sought the opportunity to attain military glory, but was denied command of a legion by superior officers.
Although the war had officially ended, a state of anarchy and lawlessness pervaded in the first days following the demise of Vitellius. Order was properly restored by Mucianus in early 70 but Vespasian did not enter Rome until September of that year. In the meantime, Domitian acted as the representative of the Flavian family in the Roman Senate. He received the title of Caesar and was appointed praetor with consular power.
The ancient historian Tacitus describes Domitian's first speech in the Senate as brief and measured, at the same time noting his ability to elude awkward questions. Domitian's authority was merely nominal, foreshadowing what was to be his role for at least ten more years. By all accounts, Mucianus held the real power in Vespasian's absence and he was careful to ensure that Domitian, still only eighteen years old, did not overstep the boundaries of his function. Strict control was also maintained over the young Caesar's entourage, promoting away Flavian generals such as Arrius Varus and Antonius Primus and replacing them with more reliable men such as Arrecinus Clemens.
Equally curtailed by Mucianus were Domitian's military ambitions. The civil war of 69 had severely destabilized the provinces, leading to several local uprisings such as the Batavian revolt in Gaul. Batavian auxiliaries of the Rhine legions, led by Gaius Julius Civilis, had rebelled with the aid of a faction of Treveri under the command of Julius Classicus. Seven legions were sent from Rome, led by Vespasian's brother-in-law Quintus Petillius Cerialis.
Although the revolt was quickly suppressed, exaggerated reports of disaster prompted Mucianus to depart the capital with reinforcements of his own. Domitian eagerly sought the opportunity to attain military glory and joined the other officers with the intention of commanding a legion of his own. According to Tacitus, Mucianus was not keen on this prospect but since he considered Domitian a liability in any capacity that was entrusted to him, he preferred to keep him close at hand rather than in Rome.
When news arrived of Cerialis' victory over Civilis, Mucianus tactfully dissuaded Domitian from pursuing further military endeavours. Domitian then wrote to Cerialis personally, suggesting he hand over command of his army but, once again, he was snubbed. With the return of Vespasian in late September, his political role was rendered all but obsolete and Domitian withdrew from government devoting his time to arts and literature.
Where his political and military career had ended in disappointment, Domitian's private affairs were more successful. In 70 Vespasian attempted to arrange a dynastic marriage between his youngest son and the daughter of Titus, Julia Flavia, but Domitian was adamant in his love for Domitia Longina, going so far as to persuade her husband, Lucius Aelius Lamia Plautius Aelianus, to divorce her so that Domitian could marry her himself. Despite its initial recklessness, the alliance was very prestigious for both families. Domitia Longina was the younger daughter of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, a respected general and honoured politician who had distinguished himself for his leadership in Armenia. Following the failed Pisonian conspiracy against Nero in 65, he had been forced to commit suicide. She was also a granddaughter of Junia Lepida, a descendant of Emperor Augustus. The new marriage not only re-established ties to senatorial opposition, but also served the broader Flavian propaganda of the time, which sought to diminish Vespasian's political success under Nero. Instead, connections to Claudius and Britannicus were emphasised, and Nero's victims, or those otherwise disadvantaged by him, rehabilitated.
In 80, Domitia and Domitian's only attested son was born. It is not known what the boy's name was, but he died in childhood in 83. Shortly following his accession as Emperor, Domitian bestowed the honorific title of Augusta upon Domitia, while their son was deified, appearing as such on the reverse of coin types from this period. Nevertheless, the marriage appears to have faced a significant crisis in 83. For reasons unknown, Domitian briefly exiled Domitia, and then soon recalled her, either out of love or due to rumours that he was carrying on a relationship with his niece Julia Flavia. Jones argues that most likely he did so for her failure to produce an heir. By 84, Domitia had returned to the palace, where she lived for the remainder of Domitian's reign without incident. Little is known of Domitia's activities as Empress, or how much influence she wielded in Domitian's government, but it seems her role was limited. From Suetonius, we know that she at least accompanied the Emperor to the amphitheatre, while the Jewish writer Josephus speaks of benefits he received from her. It is not known whether Domitian had other children, but he did not marry again. Despite allegations by Roman sources of adultery and divorce, the marriage appears to have been happy.
The Triumph of Titus, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1885), depicting the Flavian family during the triumphal procession of 71. Vespasian proceeds at the head of the family, dressed as pontifex maximus, followed by Domitian with Domitia Longina, and finally Titus, also dressed in religious regalia. An exchange of glances between Titus and Domitia suggests an affair upon which historians have speculated. Alma-Tadema was known for his meticulous historical research on the ancient world.
Before becoming Emperor, Domitian's role in the Flavian government was largely ceremonial. In June 71, Titus returned triumphant from the war in Judaea. Ultimately, the rebellion had claimed the lives of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, a majority of whom were Jewish. The city and temple of Jerusalem were completely destroyed, its most valuable treasures carried off by the Roman army, and nearly 100,000 people were captured and enslaved.
For his victory, the Senate awarded Titus a Roman triumph. On the day of the festivities, the Flavian family rode into the capital, preceded by a lavish parade that displayed the spoils of the war. The family procession was headed by Vespasian and Titus, while Domitian, riding a magnificent white horse, followed with the remaining Flavian relatives.
Leaders of the Jewish resistance were executed in the Forum Romanum, after which the procession closed with religious sacrifices at the Temple of Jupiter. A triumphal arch, the Arch of Titus, was erected at the south-east entrance to the Forum to commemorate the successful end of the war.
Yet the return of Titus further highlighted the comparative insignificance of Domitian, both militarily and politically. As the eldest and most experienced of Vespasian's sons, Titus shared tribunician power with his father, received seven consulships, the censorship, and was given command of the Praetorian Guard; powers that left no doubt he was the designated heir to the Empire. As a second son, Domitian held honorary titles, such as Caesar or Princeps Iuventutis, and several priesthoods, including those of augur, pontifex, frater arvalis, magister frater arvalium, and sacerdos collegiorum omnium, but no office with imperium.
He held six consulships during Vespasian's reign but only one of these, in 73, was an ordinary consulship. The other five were less prestigious suffect consulships, which he held in 71, 75, 76, 77 and 79 respectively, usually replacing his father or brother in mid-January. While ceremonial, these offices no doubt gained Domitian valuable experience in the Roman Senate, and may have contributed to his later reservations about its relevance.
Under Vespasian and Titus, non-Flavians were virtually excluded from the important public offices. Mucianus himself all but disappeared from historical records during this time, and it is believed he died sometime between 75 and 77. Real power was unmistakably concentrated in the hands of the Flavian faction; the weakened Senate only maintained the facade of democracy.
Because Titus effectively acted as co-emperor with his father, no abrupt change in Flavian policy occurred when Vespasian died on 24 June 79. Titus assured Domitian that full partnership in the government would soon be his, but neither tribunician power nor imperium of any kind was conferred upon him during Titus' brief reign.
Two major disasters struck during 79 and 80. In October/November 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the surrounding cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under metres of ash and lava; the following year, a fire broke out in Rome that lasted three days and destroyed a number of important public buildings. Consequently, Titus spent much of his reign coordinating relief efforts and restoring damaged property. On 13 September 81, after barely two years in office, he unexpectedly died of fever during a trip to the Sabine territories.
Ancient authors have implicated Domitian in the death of his brother, either by directly accusing him of murder, or implying he left the ailing Titus for dead, even alleging that during his lifetime, Domitian was openly plotting against his brother. It is difficult to assess the factual veracity of these statements given the known bias of the surviving sources. Brotherly affection was likely at a minimum, but this was hardly surprising, considering that Domitian had barely seen Titus after the age of seven.
Whatever the nature of their relationship, Domitian seems to have displayed little sympathy when his brother lay dying, instead making for the Praetorian camp where he was proclaimed emperor. The following day, 14 September, the Senate confirmed Domitian's powers, granting tribunician power, the office of Pontifex maximus, and the titles of Augustus ("venerable"), and Pater Patriae ("father of the country").
As Emperor, Domitian quickly dispensed with the republican facade his father and brother had maintained during their reign. By moving the centre of government (more or less formally) to the imperial court, Domitian openly rendered the Senate's powers obsolete. In his view, the Roman Empire was to be governed as a divine monarchy with himself as the benevolent despot at its head.
In addition to exercising absolute political power, Domitian believed the emperor's role encompassed every aspect of daily life, guiding the Roman people as a cultural and moral authority. To usher in the new era, he embarked on ambitious economic, military, and cultural programs with the intention of restoring the Empire to the splendour it had seen under the Emperor Augustus.
Despite these grand designs, Domitian was determined to govern the Empire conscientiously and scrupulously. He became personally involved in all branches of the administration: edicts were issued governing the smallest details of everyday life and law, while taxation and public morals were rigidly enforced. According to Suetonius, the imperial bureaucracy never ran more efficiently than under Domitian, whose exacting standards and suspicious nature maintained historically low corruption among provincial governors and elected officials.
Although he made no pretence regarding the significance of the Senate under his absolute rule, those senators he deemed unworthy were expelled from the Senate, and in the distribution of public offices he rarely favored family members, a policy that stood in contrast to the nepotism practiced by Vespasian and Titus. Above all, however, Domitian valued loyalty and malleability in those he assigned to strategic posts, qualities he found more often in men of the equestrian order than in members of the Senate or his own family, whom he regarded with suspicion, and promptly removed from office if they disagreed with imperial policy.
The reality of Domitian's autocracy was further highlighted by the fact that, more than any emperor since Tiberius, he spent significant periods of time away from the capital. Although the Senate's power had been in decline since the fall of the Republic, under Domitian the seat of power was no longer even in Rome, but rather wherever the Emperor was. Until the completion of the Flavian Palace on the Palatine Hill, the imperial court was situated at Alba or Circeii, and sometimes even farther afield. Domitian toured the European provinces extensively, and spent at least three years of his reign in Germania and Illyricum, conducting military campaigns on the frontiers of the Empire.
For his personal use, he was active in constructing many monumental buildings, including the Villa of Domitian, a vast and sumptuous palace situated 20 km outside Rome in the Alban Hills.[citation needed]
In Rome itself, he built the Palace of Domitian on the Palatine Hill. Six other villas are linked with Domitian at Tusculum, Antium, Caieta, Circei, Anxur and Baiae. Only the one at Circei has been identified today, where its remains can be visited by the Lago di Paola.
The Stadium of Domitian was dedicated in 86 AD as a gift to the people of Rome as part of an Imperial building program, following the damage or destruction of most of the buildings on the Field of Mars by fire in 79 AD. It was Rome's first permanent venue for competitive athletics, and today occupied by the Piazza Navona.
In Egypt too, Domitian was quite active in constructing buildings and decorating them. He appears, together with Trajan, in offering scenes on the propylon of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. His cartouche also appears in the column shafts of the Temple of Khnum at Esna.
Upon his accession, Domitian revalued the Roman currency by increasing the silver content of the denarius by 12%. Domitian's tendency towards micromanagement was nowhere more evident than in his financial policy. The question of whether Domitian left the Roman Empire in debt or with a surplus at the time of his death has been fiercely debated. The evidence points to a balanced economy for the greater part of Domitian's reign. Upon his accession he revalued the Roman currency dramatically. He increased the silver purity of the denarius from 90% to 98% – the actual silver weight increasing from 2.87 grams to 3.26 grams. A financial crisis in 85 forced a devaluation of the silver purity and weight to 93.5% and 3.04 grams respectively.
Nevertheless, the new values were still higher than the levels that Vespasian and Titus had maintained during their reigns. Domitian's rigorous taxation policy ensured that this standard was sustained for the following eleven years. Coinage from this era displays a highly consistent degree of quality including meticulous attention to Domitian's titulature and refined artwork on the reverse portraits.
Jones estimates Domitian's annual income at more than 1.2 billion sestertii, of which over one-third would presumably have been spent maintaining the Roman army. The other major expense was the extensive reconstruction of Rome. At the time of Domitian's accession the city was still suffering from the damage caused by the Great Fire of 64, the civil war of 69 and the fire in 80.
Much more than a renovation project, Domitian's building program was intended to be the crowning achievement of an Empire-wide cultural renaissance. Around fifty structures were erected, restored or completed, achievements second only to those of Augustus. Among the most important new structures were an odeon, a stadium, and an expansive palace on the Palatine Hill known as the Flavian Palace, which was designed by Domitian's master architect Rabirius.
The most important building Domitian restored was the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, said to have been covered with a gilded roof. Among those completed were the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, the Arch of Titus and the Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum), to which he added a fourth level and finished the interior seating area.
In order to appease the people of Rome an estimated 135 million sestertii was spent on donatives, or congiaria, throughout Domitian's reign. The Emperor also revived the practice of public banquets, which had been reduced to a simple distribution of food under Nero, while he invested large sums on entertainment and games. In 86 he founded the Capitoline Games, a quadrennial contest comprising athletic displays, chariot racing, and competitions for oratory, music and acting.
Domitian himself supported the travel of competitors from all corners of the Empire to Rome and distributed the prizes. Innovations were also introduced into the regular gladiatorial games such as naval contests, nighttime battles, and female and dwarf gladiator fights. Lastly, he added two new factions to the chariot races, Gold and Purple, to race against the existing White, Red, Green and Blue factions.
The military campaigns undertaken during Domitian's reign were generally defensive in nature, as the Emperor rejected the idea of expansionist warfare. His most significant military contribution was the development of the Limes Germanicus, which encompassed a vast network of roads, forts and watchtowers constructed along the Rhine river to defend the Empire. Nevertheless, several important wars were fought in Gaul, against the Chatti, and across the Danube frontier against the Suebi, the Sarmatians, and the Dacians.
The conquest of Britain continued under the command of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who expanded the Roman Empire as far as Caledonia, or modern day Scotland. Domitian also founded a new legion in 82, the Legio I Minervia, to fight against the Chatti. Domitian is also credited on the easternmost evidence of Roman military presence, the rock inscription near Boyukdash mountain, in present-day Azerbaijan. As judged by the carved titles of Caesar, Augustus and Germanicus, the related march took place between 84 and 96 AD.
Domitian's administration of the Roman army was characterized by the same fastidious involvement he exhibited in other branches of the government. His competence as a military strategist was criticized by his contemporaries however. Although he claimed several triumphs, these were largely propaganda manoeuvres. Tacitus derided Domitian's victory against the Chatti as a "mock triumph", and criticized his decision to retreat in Britain following the conquests of Agricola.
Nevertheless, Domitian appears to have been very popular among the soldiers, spending an estimated three years of his reign among the army on campaigns—more than any emperor since Augustus—and raising their pay by one-third. While the army command may have disapproved of his tactical and strategic decisions, the loyalty of the common soldier was unquestioned.
Once Emperor, Domitian immediately sought to attain his long delayed military glory. As early as 82, or possibly 83, he went to Gaul, ostensibly to conduct a census, and suddenly ordered an attack on the Chatti. For this purpose, a new legion was founded, Legio I Minervia, which constructed some 75 kilometres (46 mi) of roads through Chattan territory to uncover the enemy's hiding places.
Although little information survives of the battles fought, enough early victories were apparently achieved for Domitian to be back in Rome by the end of 83, where he celebrated an elaborate triumph and conferred upon himself the title of Germanicus. Domitian's supposed victory was much scorned by ancient authors, who described the campaign as "uncalled for", and a "mock triumph". The evidence lends some credence to these claims, as the Chatti would later play a significant role during the revolt of Saturninus in 89.
One of the most detailed reports of military activity under the Flavian dynasty was written by Tacitus, whose biography of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola largely concerns the conquest of Britain between 77 and 84. Agricola arrived c. 77 as governor of Roman Britain, immediately launching campaigns into Caledonia (modern Scotland).
In 82 Agricola crossed an unidentified body of water and defeated peoples unknown to the Romans until then. He fortified the coast facing Ireland, and Tacitus recalls that his father-in-law often claimed the island could be conquered with a single legion and a few auxiliaries. He had given refuge to an exiled Irish king whom he hoped he might use as the excuse for conquest. This conquest never happened, but some historians believe that the crossing referred to was in fact a small-scale exploratory or punitive expedition to Ireland.
Turning his attention from Ireland, the following year Agricola raised a fleet and pushed beyond the Forth into Caledonia. To aid the advance, a large legionary fortress was constructed at Inchtuthil. In the summer of 84, Agricola faced the armies of the Caledonians, led by Calgacus, at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Although the Romans inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, two-thirds of the Caledonian army escaped and hid in the Scottish marshes and Highlands, ultimately preventing Agricola from bringing the entire British island under his control.
In 85, Agricola was recalled to Rome by Domitian, having served for more than six years as governor, longer than normal for consular legates during the Flavian era. Tacitus claims that Domitian ordered his recall because Agricola's successes outshone the Emperor's own modest victories in Germania. The relationship between Agricola and the Emperor is unclear: on the one hand, Agricola was awarded triumphal decorations and a statue, on the other, Agricola never again held a civil or military post in spite of his experience and renown. He was offered the governorship of the province of Africa but declined it, either due to ill health or, as Tacitus claims, the machinations of Domitian.
Not long after Agricola's recall from Britain, the Roman Empire entered into war with the Kingdom of Dacia in the East. Reinforcements were needed, and in 87 or 88, Domitian ordered a large-scale strategic withdrawal of troops in the British province. The fortress at Inchtuthil was dismantled and the Caledonian forts and watchtowers abandoned, moving the Roman frontier some 120 kilometres (75 mi) further south. The army command may have resented Domitian's decision to retreat, but to him the Caledonian territories never represented anything more than a loss to the Roman treasury.
The most significant threat the Roman Empire faced during the reign of Domitian arose from the northern provinces of Illyricum, where the Suebi, the Sarmatians and the Dacians continuously harassed Roman settlements along the Danube river. Of these, the Sarmatians and the Dacians posed the most formidable threat. In approximately 84 or 85 the Dacians, led by King Decebalus, crossed the Danube into the province of Moesia, wreaking havoc and killing the Moesian governor Oppius Sabinus.
Domitian quickly launched a counteroffensive, personally travelling to the region accompanied by a large force commanded by his praetorian prefect Cornelius Fuscus. Fuscus successfully drove the Dacians back across the border in mid-85, prompting Domitian to return to Rome and celebrate his second triumph.
The victory proved short-lived, however: as early in 86 Fuscus embarked on an ill-fated expedition into Dacia. Fuscus was killed, and the battle standard of the Praetorian Guard was lost. The loss of the battle standard, or aquila, was indicative of a crushing defeat and a serious affront to Roman national pride.
Domitian returned to Moesia in August 86. He divided the province into Lower Moesia and Upper Moesia, and transferred three additional legions to the Danube. In 87, the Romans invaded Dacia once more, this time under the command of Tettius Julianus, and finally defeated Decebalus in late 88 at the same site where Fuscus had previously perished. An attack on the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa was forestalled when new troubles arose on the German frontier in 89.
In order to avert having to conduct a war on two fronts, Domitian agreed to terms of peace with Decebalus, negotiating free access of Roman troops through the Dacian region while granting Decebalus an annual subsidy of 8 million sesterces. Contemporary authors severely criticized this treaty, which was considered shameful to the Romans and left the deaths of Sabinus and Fuscus unavenged. For the remainder of Domitian's reign Dacia remained a relatively peaceful client kingdom, but Decebalus used the Roman money to fortify his defenses.
Domitian probably wanted a new war against the Dacians, and reinforced Upper Moesia with two more cavalry units brought from Syria and with at least five cohorts brought from Pannonia. Trajan continued Domitian's policy and added two more units to the auxiliary forces of Upper Moesia, and then he used the build up of troops for his Dacian wars. Eventually the Romans achieved a decisive victory against Decebalus in 106. Again, the Roman army sustained heavy losses, but Trajan succeeded in capturing Sarmizegetusa and, importantly, annexed the Dacian gold and silver mines.
Domitian firmly believed in the traditional Roman religion, and personally saw to it that ancient customs and morals were observed throughout his reign. In order to justify the divine nature of the Flavian rule, Domitian emphasized connections with the chief deity Jupiter, perhaps most significantly through the impressive restoration of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. A small chapel dedicated to Jupiter Conservator was also constructed near the house where Domitian had fled to safety on 20 December 69. Later in his reign, he replaced it with a more expansive building, dedicated to Jupiter Custos.
The goddess he worshipped the most zealously, however, was Minerva. Not only did he keep a personal shrine dedicated to her in his bedroom, she regularly appeared on his coinage—in four different attested reverse types—and he founded a legion, Legio I Minervia, in her name.
Domitian also revived the practice of the imperial cult, which had fallen somewhat out of use under Vespasian. Significantly, his first act as an Emperor was the deification of his brother Titus. Upon their deaths, his infant son, and niece, Julia Flavia, were likewise enrolled among the gods. With regards to the emperor himself as a religious figure, both Suetonius and Cassius Dio allege that Domitian officially gave himself the title of Dominus et Deus ("Lord and God"). However, not only did he reject the title of Dominus during his reign, but since he issued no official documentation or coinage to this effect, historians such as Brian Jones contend that such phrases were addressed to Domitian by flatterers who wished to earn favors from the emperor.
To foster the worship of the imperial family, he erected a dynastic mausoleum on the site of Vespasian's former house on the Quirinal, and completed the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, a shrine dedicated to the worship of his deified father and brother. To memorialize the military triumphs of the Flavian family, he ordered the construction of the Templum Divorum and the Templum Fortuna Redux, and completed the Arch of Titus.
Construction projects such as these constituted only the most visible part of Domitian's religious policy, which also concerned itself with the fulfilment of religious law and public morals. In 85, he nominated himself perpetual censor, the office that held the task of supervising Roman morals and conduct. Once again, Domitian acquitted himself of this task dutifully, and with care. He renewed the Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis, under which adultery was punishable by exile. From the list of jurors he struck an equestrian who had divorced his wife and taken her back, while an ex-quaestor was expelled from the Senate for acting and dancing.
As eunuchs were popularly used as servants, Domitian punished people who castrated others and wanted to ban the eunuchs themselves. Subsequent emperors made similar prohibitions, but Domitian may have been the first to do so. Despite his moralizing, Domitian had his own favorite eunuch boy, Earinus, who was commemorated by the contemporary court poets Martial and Statius.
Domitian also heavily prosecuted corruption among public officials, removing jurors if they accepted bribes and rescinding legislation when a conflict of interest was suspected. He ensured that libellous writings, especially those directed against himself, were punishable by exile or death. Actors were likewise regarded with suspicion. Consequently, he forbade mimes from appearing on stage in public. Philosophers did not fare much better. Epictetus, who had set himself up in Rome as a professor of philosophy, remarked that philosophers were able to "look tyrants steadily in the face", and it was Domitian's decree of 94, expelling all philosophers from Rome, that caused Epictetus to shift his base to the recently founded Roman city of Nicopolis, in Epirus, Greece, where he lived simply, worked safely and died of old age.
Coin of Domitian, found in the Buddhist stupa of Ahin Posh, dedicated under the Kushan Empire in 150–160, in modern Afghanistan.
In 87, Vestal Virgins were found to have broken their sacred vows of lifelong public chastity. As the Vestals were regarded as daughters of the community, this offense essentially constituted incest. Accordingly, those found guilty of any such transgression were condemned to death, either by a manner of their choosing, or according to the ancient fashion, which dictated that Vestals should be buried alive.
Foreign religions were tolerated insofar as they did not interfere with public order, or could be assimilated with the traditional Roman religion. The worship of Egyptian deities in particular flourished under the Flavian dynasty, to an extent not seen again until the reign of Commodus. Veneration of Serapis and Isis, who were identified with Jupiter and Minerva respectively, was especially prominent.
4th century writings by Eusebius maintain that Jews and Christians were heavily persecuted toward the end of Domitian's reign. The Book of Revelation and First Epistle of Clement are thought by some to have been written during this period, the latter making mention of "sudden and repeated misfortunes", which are assumed to refer to persecutions under Domitian. Although Jews were heavily taxed, no contemporary authors give specific details of trials or executions based on religious offenses other than those within the Roman religion. Suetonius mentions having seen in his youth a nonagenarian being stripped by a procurator to see if he was circumcised.
On 1 January 89, the governor of Germania Superior, Lucius Antonius Saturninus, and his two legions at Mainz, Legio XIV Gemina and Legio XXI Rapax, revolted against the Roman Empire with the aid of the Germanic Chatti people. The precise cause for the rebellion is uncertain, although it appears to have been planned well in advance. The Senatorial officers may have disapproved of Domitian's military strategies, such as his decision to fortify the German frontier rather than attack, as well as his recent retreat from Britain, and finally the disgraceful policy of appeasement towards Decebalus.
At any rate, the uprising was strictly confined to Saturninus' province, and quickly detected once the rumour spread across the neighbouring provinces. The governor of Germania Inferior, Aulus Bucius Lappius Maximus, moved to the region at once, assisted by the procurator of Rhaetia, Titus Flavius Norbanus. From Spain, Trajan was summoned, while Domitian himself came from Rome with the Praetorian Guard.
By a stroke of luck, a thaw prevented the Chatti from crossing the Rhine and coming to Saturninus' aid. Within twenty-four days the rebellion was crushed, and its leaders at Mainz savagely punished. The mutinous legions were sent to the front in Illyricum, while those who had assisted in their defeat were duly rewarded.
Lappius Maximus received the governorship of the province of Syria, a second consulship in May 95, and finally a priesthood, which he still held in 102. Titus Flavius Norbanus may have been appointed to the prefecture of Egypt, but almost certainly became prefect of the Praetorian Guard by 94, with Titus Petronius Secundus as his colleague. Domitian opened the year following the revolt by sharing the consulship with Marcus Cocceius Nerva, suggesting the latter had played a part in uncovering the conspiracy, perhaps in a fashion similar to the one he played during the Pisonian conspiracy under Nero.
Although little is known about the life and career of Nerva before his accession as Emperor in 96, he appears to have been a highly adaptable diplomat, surviving multiple regime changes and emerging as one of the Flavians' most trusted advisors. His consulship may therefore have been intended to emphasize the stability and status quo of the regime. The revolt had been suppressed and the Empire returned to order.
Since the fall of the Republic, the authority of the Roman Senate had largely eroded under the quasi-monarchical system of government established by Augustus, known as the Principate. The Principate allowed the existence of a de facto dictatorial regime, while maintaining the formal framework of the Roman Republic. Most Emperors upheld the public facade of democracy, and in return the Senate implicitly acknowledged the Emperor's status as a de facto monarch.
Some rulers handled this arrangement with less subtlety than others. Domitian was not so subtle. From the outset of his reign, he stressed the reality of his autocracy. He disliked aristocrats and had no fear of showing it, withdrawing every decision-making power from the Senate, and instead relying on a small set of friends and equestrians to control the important offices of state.
The dislike was mutual. After Domitian's assassination, the senators of Rome rushed to the Senate house, where they immediately passed a motion condemning his memory to oblivion. Under the rulers of the Nervan-Antonian dynasty, senatorial authors published histories that elaborated on the view of Domitian as a tyrant.
Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that Domitian did make concessions toward senatorial opinion. Whereas his father and brother had concentrated consular power largely in the hands of the Flavian family, Domitian admitted a surprisingly large number of provincials and potential opponents to the consulship, allowing them to head the official calendar by opening the year as an ordinary consul. Whether this was a genuine attempt to reconcile with hostile factions in the Senate cannot be ascertained. By offering the consulship to potential opponents, Domitian may have wanted to compromise these senators in the eyes of their supporters. When their conduct proved unsatisfactory, they were almost invariably brought to trial and exiled or executed, and their property was confiscated.
Both Tacitus and Suetonius speak of escalating persecutions toward the end of Domitian's reign, identifying a point of sharp increase around 93, or sometime after the failed revolt of Saturninus. At least twenty senatorial opponents were executed, including Domitia Longina's former husband Lucius Aelius Lamia Plautius Aelianus and three of Domitian's own family members, Titus Flavius Sabinus, Titus Flavius Clemens and Marcus Arrecinus Clemens. Flavius Clemens was a cousin of Domitian, and the emperor had even designated Clemens' two young sons as his successors, calling them as "Vespasian" and "Domitian". Some of these men were executed as early as 83 or 85, however, lending little credit to Tacitus' notion of a "reign of terror" late in Domitian's reign. According to Suetonius, some were convicted for corruption or treason, others on trivial charges, which Domitian justified through his suspicion:
He used to say that the lot of Emperors was most unfortunate, since when they discovered a conspiracy, no one believed them unless they had been murdered.
Jones compares the executions of Domitian to those under Emperor Claudius (41–54), noting that Claudius executed around 35 senators and 300 equestrians, and yet was still deified by the Senate and regarded as one of the good Emperors of history. Domitian was apparently unable to gain support among the aristocracy, despite attempts to appease hostile factions with consular appointments. His autocratic style of government accentuated the Senate's loss of power, while his policy of treating patricians and even family members as equals to all Romans earned him their contempt.
According to Suetonius, Domitian worshipped Minerva as his protector goddess with superstitious veneration. In a dream, she is said to have abandoned the emperor prior to the assassination.
Domitian was assassinated on 18 September 96 in a conspiracy by court officials. A highly detailed account of the plot and the assassination is provided by Suetonius. He alleges that Domitian's chamberlain Parthenius played the main role in the plot, and historian John Grainger cites Parthenius' likely fear over Domitian's recent execution of Nero's former secretary Epaphroditus as a possible motive. The act itself was carried out by a freedman of Parthenius named Maximus, and a steward of Domitian's niece Flavia Domitilla, named Stephanus.
According to Suetonius, a number of omens had foretold Domitian's death. The Germanic soothsayer Larginus Proclus predicted the date of Domitian's death and was consequently sentenced to death by him. Several days prior to the assassination, Minerva had appeared to the emperor in a dream. She announced that she had been disarmed by Jupiter and could no longer give Domitian her protection. According to an auspice he had received, the Emperor believed that his death would be at midday. As a result, he was always restless around that time. On the day of the assassination, Domitian was distressed and repeatedly asked a servant to tell him what time it was. The servant, who was himself one of the plotters, lied to the emperor, telling him that it was already late in the afternoon. Apparently put at ease, the Emperor went to his desk to sign some decrees. Stephanus, who had been feigning an injury to his arm for several days and wearing a bandage to allow him to carry a concealed dagger, suddenly appeared:
...he pretended that he had discovered a plot, and was for that reason granted an audience: whereupon, as the amazed Domitian perused a document he had handed him, Stephanus stabbed him in the groin. The wounded Emperor put up a fight, but succumbed to seven further stabs, his assailants being a subaltern named Clodianus, Parthenius's freedman Maximus, Satur, a head-chamberlain and one of the imperial gladiators.
During the attack, Stephanus and Domitian had struggled on the floor, during which time Stephanus was stabbed by the emperor and died shortly afterward. Domitian's body was carried away on a common bier and unceremoniously cremated by his nurse Phyllis. Later, she took the emperor's ashes to the Flavian Temple and mingled them with those of his niece, Julia. He was 44 years old. As had been foretold, his death came at midday.
Cassius Dio, writing nearly a hundred years after the assassination, suggests that the assassination was improvised, while Suetonius implies it was a well-organized conspiracy, citing Stephanus' feigned injury and claiming that the doors to the servants' quarters had been locked prior to the attack and that a sword Domitian kept concealed beneath his pillow as a last line of personal protection against a would-be assassin, had also been removed beforehand.
Dio included Domitia Longina among the conspirators, but in light of her attested devotion to Domitian—even years after her husband had died—her involvement in the plot seems highly unlikely. The precise involvement of the Praetorian Guard is unclear. One of the guard's commanders, Titus Petronius Secundus, was almost certainly aware of the plot. The other, Titus Flavius Norbanus, the former governor of Raetia, was a member of Domitian's family.
Upon the death of Domitian, Nerva was proclaimed Emperor by the Senate.
The Fasti Ostienses, the Ostian Calendar, records that on the same day as Domitian's assassination, the Senate proclaimed Marcus Cocceius Nerva emperor. Despite his political experience, this was a remarkable choice. Nerva was old and childless, and had spent much of his career out of the public light, prompting both ancient and modern authors to speculate on his involvement in Domitian's assassination.
According to Cassius Dio, the conspirators approached Nerva as a potential successor prior to the assassination, suggesting that he was at least aware of the plot. He does not appear in Suetonius' version of the events, but this may be understandable, since his works were published under Nerva's direct descendants Trajan and Hadrian. To suggest the dynasty owed its accession to murder would have been less than sensitive.
On the other hand, Nerva lacked widespread support in the Empire, and as a known Flavian loyalist, his track record would not have recommended him to the conspirators. The precise facts have been obscured by history, but modern historians believe Nerva was proclaimed Emperor solely on the initiative of the Senate, within hours after the news of the assassination broke. The decision may have been hasty so as to avoid civil war, but neither appears to have been involved in the conspiracy.
The Senate nonetheless rejoiced at the death of Domitian, and immediately following Nerva's accession as Emperor, passed damnatio memoriae on Domitian's memory; his coins and statues were melted, his arches were torn down and his name was erased from all public records. Domitian and, over a century later, Publius Septimius Geta were the only emperors known to have officially received a damnatio memoriae, though others may have received de facto ones. In many instances, existing portraits of Domitian, such as those found on the Cancelleria Reliefs, were simply recarved to fit the likeness of Nerva, which allowed quick production of new images and recycling of previous material.[181] Yet the order of the Senate was only partially executed in Rome, and wholly disregarded in most of the provinces outside Italy.
According to Suetonius, the people of Rome met the news of Domitian's death with indifference, but the army was much grieved, calling for his deification immediately after the assassination, and in several provinces rioting. As a compensation measure, the Praetorian Guard demanded the execution of Domitian's assassins, which Nerva refused. Instead he merely dismissed Titus Petronius Secundus, and replaced him with a former commander, Casperius Aelianus.
Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs continued to loom over Nerva's reign, and ultimately erupted into a crisis in October 97, when members of the Praetorian Guard, led by Casperius Aelianus, laid siege to the Imperial Palace and took Nerva hostage. He was forced to submit to their demands, agreeing to hand over those responsible for Domitian's death and even giving a speech thanking the rebellious Praetorians. Titus Petronius Secundus and Parthenius were sought out and killed. Nerva was unharmed in this assault, but his authority was damaged beyond repair. Shortly thereafter he announced the adoption of Trajan as his successor, and with this decision nearly abdicated (Wikipedia).
I hope you find the time to read this (long) text - Eupalinos
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In his brilliant two-part book Endgame, my friend Derrick Jensen asks:
“Do you believe that our culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living?
For the last several years I’ve taken to asking people this question, at talks and rallies, in libraries, on buses, in airplanes, at the grocery store, the hard- ware store. Everywhere. The answers range from emphatic nos to laughter. No one answers in the affirmative. One fellow at one talk did raise his hand, and when everyone looked at him, he dropped his hand, then said, sheepishly, “Oh, voluntary? No, of course not.” My next question: how will this understand- ing—that this culture will not voluntarily stop destroying the natural world, eliminating indigenous cultures, exploiting the poor, and killing those who resist—shift our strategy and tactics? The answer? Nobody knows, because we never talk about it: we’re too busy pretending the culture will undergo a magical transformation."
In this article, my friend Elisabeth Robson and I invite you to imagine the scope of changes necessary to make our society sustainable. This transformation could be done voluntarily. But as Derrick reminds us, there is no evidence that will happen. On the contrary, every indicator of ecological health is heading in the wrong direction, and greenwashing abounds. This, ultimately, is why I am an ecological revolutionary.
by Max Wilbert and Elisabeth Robson
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Since January 15th, 2021, we have been fighting to Protect Thacker Pass from a proposed open-pit lithium mine.
For some people, our protest is confusing. Most mainstream environmentalists support lithium mining for producing electric car batteries. Yet here we are, proud environmentalists who have fought the fossil fuel industry for many years, now fighting the electric car industry.
Electric Cars are Not a Solution
We argue that switching to electric cars won’t significantly help solve global warming—a position that is actually backed by evidence (see, for instance, this chart, or read the book Bright Green Lies).
Mining lithium and the other materials used in electric cars destroys sensitive wildlife habitat, releases toxic pollution, bulldozes Native American sacred sites—and pumps out quite a lot of greenhouse gasses.
Electric cars provide the illusion that we’re making progress. And (not coincidentally) they make car manufacturers a LOT of money. Tesla’s Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. Electric car manufacturers and the mining companies providing their raw materials are quite happy for the public to remain ignorant of what’s required to make their products. The idea that buying an electric car will save the planet is called “greenwashing”—false advertising persuasion by eco-propaganda that white washes the true ecological harm caused by a product or process.
The only thing green about EVs is the money being made.
Are Fossil Fuels the Answer?
No. Fossil fuels extraction, processing, and burning causes catastrophic habitat destruction, toxic pollution, and global climate destabilization. Look at the legacy of oil drilling in Nigeria, at the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, at the toxicity caused by the fracking industry, or at the ecocide of mountaintop removal coal mining. Continuing to burn fossil fuels is unacceptable.
As grassroots activists, we’ve spent years fighting oil pipelines and blockading coal trains to stop the destruction caused by drilling and burning fossil fuels. And we’re not funded by the fossil fuel industry. Every dollar we’ve raised comes from donations from regular people who are fed up with the greenwashing lies.
The problem is that mining lithium, cobalt, and silicon and the many other metals and minerals required to build EVs, their batteries, and other “clean” technologies is just as bad for the planet as fossil fuels are.
There isn’t much difference between an open-pit coal mine and open-pit lithium mine. Both destroy habitat. Both poison water. And both release massive quantities of greenhouse gases.
So, What’s the Solution?
One of the most common questions we’re asked is “If electric vehicles aren’t the answer, what is your solution?”
True sustainability is not nearly as simple and easy as buying different products, like electric cars, and putting up solar panels and wind turbines. A truly sustainable life doesn’t mean swapping out gas for lithium-ion batteries.
The state of the planet is dire, from melting ice caps to expanding deserts, from clearcut logging to soil erosion, from the collapse of ocean fish populations to rising temperatures. Our planet is already deep into the 6th mass extinction crisis.
Reversing these trends will mean transforming our entire society, from top to bottom. It will entail changing the foundation of our economy, our communities, our work, our political structures, and beyond. This is daunting, and it is also our only hope.
But this is still vague. What, exactly, does this transformation look like? What is our solution?
What is “Sustainability”?
In the broadest sense, sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. Hopefully it is clear to everyone reading this that the societies we live in are not sustainable in the sense of being able to be maintained continuously over time.
Almost everything we consume, do, and create currently depends on fossil fuels, which are rapidly being drawn down as the world uses over 100 million barrels of oil per day and 24 million tons of coal per day.
Look around you. It’s probably true that every human-made object surrounding you right now was created with the help of fossil fuel energy.
These minerals took hundreds of millions of years to form and, if we continue burning them, they will run out. Burning fossil fuels is causing climate change. This is on top of the harms of extracting fossil fuels—the oil spills, clearcuts, mountaintop removal mining, and so on. Relying on fossil fuels to power our lives is not sustainable.
Even if we were able to replace fossil fuel energy with solar and wind power, and fossil fuel plastics with other materials, that would still not be sustainable, since the other materials we use to construct our human “stuff” are also non-renewable. For instance, lithium, a key ingredient in electric car batteries, is concentrated by volcanic eruptions, rock weathering, and water evaporation over millions of years. Just like fossil fuels, once we use up all the lithium we can find, we will never be able to get more from the Earth. This is also true of the other metals and minerals required to build cars, wind turbines, and solar panels, among many other things. And while 100% recycling is a good idea in theory, in practice, 100% recycling is impossible — and industrial recycling is itself an energy-intensive and highly polluting industry.
The Costs of Modernity
True sustainability means meeting two conditions: first, we must use only what the Earth can regenerate on human time-scales. And second, that use must not degrade the natural world (this would reduce the Earth’s carrying capacity over time).
All of us descend from lines of ancestors who lived for thousands of years using the energy of the sun, energy stored in plants through photosynthesis, energy stored in the animals who ate those plants, and the animals who ate other animals. Living sustainably meant ensuring that we gave back as much as we took from the Earth, returning our biodegradable waste to the environment to decompose and provide food for animals, returning the energy we used to the circle of life.
If you find yourself balking, pause for a moment and take a deep breath. Your doubtfulness makes sense. We’ve all been raised to venerate technology, idolize engineers and scientists, and see modernity as progress. And it’s self-evident that modern technology is useful — and at times, lifesaving. There are certainly benefits from industrial modernity, especially for the wealthiest nations and people in the world.
Consider again, however, the costs. We live on the only planet known to support life in the universe, and as the global climate is destabilizing, 200 species a day are being driven extinct, overshoot is accelerating, and planetary life-support systems like forests and oceans are failing. Industrial civilization is undermining its own foundation; and as the historian Arnold Toynbee noted, “Great civilizations are not murdered. They take their own lives.” We are not immune from this historic pattern.
If environmental collapse is coming—or already here, with every indicator of ecological health heading in the wrong direction and accelerating—then returning to a simpler way of life is inevitable. The only question is, will we do so willingly, or will we be forced as modernity crumbles around us?
We face a choice: either we sacrifice the ability of future generations to live so that we can have another decade of smart phones and cars, or we make a change. The moral choice is clear.
The 6 Elements of Sustainability
Sustainability requires a completely different way of thinking and being in the world. It also requires concrete action. In this section, we lay out 6 elements to initiate transition to a truly sustainable society.
We Must Reduce
We Must Relocalize
We Must Ration
We Must Restore
We Must Rethink
We Must Remember
As you read through each element, you’ll see that all the elements are related to one another. We can’t ration if we don’t reduce. We can’t relocalize if we don’t restore the natural environment. And we can’t do any of this if we don’t rethink our way of being in the world, remember our connections to and dependency upon nature, and make revolutionary, not just incremental, change.
These are mutually supporting efforts that entail fundamental shifts in the goals we pursue in our culture and economy. Achieving them will require far-reaching political vision and leadership, some level of global cooperation, and an emergency mobilization of all society.(1)
Element 1: We Must Reduce
Reusing is trendy, recycling is mainstream, but reduction is taboo. We live in societies built on growth, where economic stagnation or negative population growth is considered an emergency. To move towards sustainability, we must dramatically reduce the size of the economy (including the amount we consume) and the size of our population.
Reducing consumption includes reducing and eventually eliminating our consumption of cars. The average household in the United States owns 1.88 cars. This is not sustainable.
Population, contrary to popular belief, can reduced in humane ways. It begins with making culturally-appropriate family planning, sex education, and birth control widely available. It also requires reproductive freedom for women. Such programs have been proven effective to reduce birth rates to below replacement level (2.1 children per woman), which means population will go down.
Reducing our consumption and our population is a key element to enable a rapid weaning off industrial fuels, energy, and materials, along with industrial agriculture (one of the main industries destroying the planet)
Element 2: We Must Relocalize
We live in the most mobile, globalized society to ever exist, depending on fossil-fueled trucks, cars, trains, airplanes, and ships to transport huge quantities of goods and huge numbers of people all over the planet on a daily basis. This is ecologically untenable.
The fact that many of us enjoy rapid, convenient travel is not important compared to life on this planet. Reversing ecological collapse isn’t about what we want and desire. It’s about what the planet can sustain.
A sustainable future is a local future, in which people live, work, and get the basic necessities of life close to home, and rarely travel long distances. The “locavore” movement has proposed the idea of a 100-mile diet to combat an unsustainable food system. The same concept should be adapted to travel.
Producing and powering automobiles is incredibly destructive to nature, and so a sustainable world means we must retire all cars and stop producing new ones. Reducing and eliminating car production and use means almost everything about our lifestyles has to change. If we try to completely replace cars with public transportation—attempting to allow the kind of freedom of travel we currently enjoy—we’re just going to create new problems to replace the old problems. Some public transportation will help in the transition to a world in which we all travel less, but the reality is, we’re all going to have to learn how to travel less.
This will be incredibly disruptive, but not as disruptive as ecological collapse. And there are benefits. In the future, we’ll walk and bike more, which means we’ll work close to where we live. We’ll need to depend more on our local communities. To carpool, or share a car with a neighborhood during a transition period, we’ll need to get to know the people we live next to a whole lot better. We won’t move as often, and we’ll probably live closer to our friends and families so we don’t have to travel so far to see them.
Relocalizing also means relocalizing what we consume, including food, clothes, what we use to build our homes and the stuff we put in them, medical care, and more. Currently, our society relies on global shipping networks of ships, trains, and trucks to deliver the things we use. This global shipping network cannot exist in a truly sustainable society. Therefore, we must learn how to live using only what we can get from our local areas. Initially that local area may be the entire country, then perhaps the state we live in, and then, finally, our local community.
We must be careful in the process of relocalizing because without simultaneously reducing population and consumption, this process could quickly destroy the environments around our local communities. It is critical that we prioritize what is most important—food, water, shelter, basic medical care—as we relocalize our communities and minimize our use of all material goods that are not absolutely essential.
Element 3: We Must Ration
Confronting ecological reality means confronting scarcity. When we stop making new cars, and begin gradually eliminating fossil fuels, the wealthy and powerful may seek to hoard resources (let’s be real: they’re already doing it). This results in violence and suffering, and will exacerbate shortages already occurring due to overshoot and ecological collapse.
Faced with this predicament, the moral approach is to ration what is left. Rationing must of course be accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the consumption of energy as well as material goods. A reasonable starting goal here (depending on the level of consumption in a given region) would be to rapidly reduce energy and material consumption by half, then aim for 90 percent or more.
Rationing should be implemented in fair ways and will require guardrails and procedures. For example, food, medical care, and other basic needs should be prioritized over shopping malls, consumer goods, entertainment, and so on (people should continue having fun, of course—but not in ways that are wasteful of energy and materials).
This rationing should also be implemented fairly and equitably on an international level. People in the U.S. and Europe, for example, should not be “rationed” an allotment of cobalt mined by slave labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nor should Congolese people be “rationed” an allotment of salmon exported from the Pacific Rim. Rationing will feel more dramatic in the wealthiest nations, because we use way, way too much. In poorer countries, rationing will not be as dramatic. We don’t subscribe to the colonial assertion that all countries should aim for a “Low-energy European lifestyle,” as is a common refrain in some degrowth communities. A low energy European lifestyle is grossly unsustainable when compared to land-based peoples, the only sustainable societies on Earth.
Element 4: We Must Restore
As we implement reduction, relocalizing, and rationing, we must simultaneously take action to protect forests, rivers, prairies, and other wild lands from development, logging, mining, and other destructive activities. As much as possible must be preserved.
To be effective, this will require a dramatic shift in economic structures. For example, jobs in extractive industries must be temporarily replaced with jobs in restoration (removing dams, tearing up concrete, dismantling malls and vast parking lots, earthworks to reduce erosion and build soil, waterworks to increase soil health and restore aquifers, and so on)—beginning with the least materially important/most frivolous sectors, and rapidly expanding to other areas of the economy.
As we reduce consumption—of everything—the economy as we know it will no longer exist. Going to the grocery store to get food that arrives there from all over the country and the world will no longer be an option. The food we eat will need to come from local sources, which means restoring habitat, soils, and watersheds. Surviving as part of nature rather than by dominating nature will not be an option without healthy, flourishing natural communities. Restoring these natural communities (“ecosystems”) and our relationships with the natural world should become everyone’s top priority. Restoring our local environments is also what will enable us to find enough food, clean water, and materials to build shelter without degrading the natural communities we depend on: we cannot relocalize without also restoring.
Focusing on restoration rather than a growing consumption-based economy will require global, widespread education programs and job retraining programs that can educate people in ecosystem restoration, watershed health, subsistence food production, biology, ecology, and permaculture.
This education should begin with young children, and as many people as possible should be put to work tearing down destructive infrastructure and replacing it with restored natural communities. Small-scale, place-based, ecologically embedded methods for survival and flourishing should be developed simultaneously. Shifting government subsidies from extractive, military, and other ecologically destructive activities would provide funding for these programs.
Element 5: We Must Rethink
Shifting from a lifestyle of consumption, immediate gratification, and a worldview that we are separate from the world and that the world is ours to consume will require completely changing how we think and the stories we tell. We must change from stories of domination to stories of cooperation, respect and gratitude for our place in the natural world.
Our entire media landscape is focused on selling us things, most of which we don’t really need. This is what keeps the growth economy growing. These stories perpetuate and expand unsustainable lifestyles of consumption, and they do so all around the world.
Instead, we need stories that help us understand how to live in a world of ecological collapse, a world in which our society, our population, and our consumption must scale down, rather than scaling forever up. We need stories that are local, that teach us how to live well in the place we are now, and how to deal with the challenges we all will face as we shift in our way of being in the world. And we need culture, education, music, poetry, and other traditions that support that shift.
Element 6: We Must Remember
Karl Benz was the first person to sell cars. Between 1888 and 1893, he sold 25 Benz gas-powered vehicles, or “horseless carriages,” to customers. The Motorwagen, as it was called, had a 1 liter single-cylinder engine with 2/3 of one horsepower. By 1899, Benz was the largest car company in the world, selling 572 cars.
Many of you probably have great grandparents, or great-great grandparents, who were born before 1899. It’s likely none of them owned a car. And yet it is unthinkable for most people in the United States to imagine life without a car, or without being able to get on a plane, or a train, or a bus. In little more than 130 years we’ve completely transformed our society from one in which most people walked everywhere to one in which most people own a car and drive whenever they want. Three generations—a blink of the eye in compared to the 300,000 or so years humans have been on this Earth—is all it took to forget what it’s like to get around without a motor.
We can remember. If your grandparents or great grandparents are still alive, ask them what it was like before most people owned a car. Ask them what it was like before we had plastic, when most things people purchased were made to last a lifetime.
This is just the beginning of the remembering required to change our stories. We must remember that before industrial civilization, before we forgot that we aren’t at the top of some imagined hierarchy allowed to take whatever we want from the world without giving anything back, humans lived in cooperation with the rest of the natural world, and the stories our ancestors told each other reflected that. These are the stories we must remember.
Facing Reality
If all of this sounds like a fantasy to you, we feel the same way. The massive transformation we’ve outlined in these elements is incredibly unlikely to happen at the speed and scale necessary to halt the ongoing ecological crisis. There is simply too much inertia and power behind endless growth.
This makes it likely we are facing the collapse of civilization in coming years and decades. In fact, the gradual unraveling has begun.
Everything is heading in the wrong direction: population growth and consumption goes up, so economic growth goes up, so development goes up, so extraction goes up, so pollution goes up, and so habitat and species loss goes up. These trends have been described by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) as the Great Acceleration, and you may be familiar with the graphic the IGBP published in 2015 illustrating skyrocketing trends across 24 socioeconomic and earth system categories:
In 2015, there were 7.3 billion people on the planet. There are now 8 billion. Governments encourage population growth with child tax credits and, in some countries, by paying people to have more children.
In 2015, there were 1.2 billion cars and commercial vehicles in use around the world. Now there is almost 1.5 billion. Governments encourage electric car purchases with tax credits, and encourage car corporations by lowering corporate tax rates, and by making sure these companies stay in business with bailouts and fiscal incentives.
In 2015, global average CO2 concentration was 399 ppm. In 2022, it’s up to 421 ppm. Governments work hard to ensure steady economic growth through central bank fiscal policies, laws friendly to corporations, and aid packages during recessions. Economic growth is tied to CO2 concentrations because economic growth is tied to fossil fuel use and materials use.
Each year, industrial culture grows. Each year, we get further away from sustainability.
It is anathema in our society to suggest that growth might not be desirable. Imagine a politician running for congress or the presidency in the United States, saying: “We need to cut back, reverse economic growth, tighten our belts, curb population growth, stop being consumeristic, and spend less money.” Do you think that politician would be successful in getting elected? No, we don’t either. (Nonetheless, we expect this to become a pillar of independent political parties in the future, and gradually become more mainstream).
Instead of understanding ourselves as animals completely dependent on habitat for our lives, modern society teaches us to see ourselves as consumers. The stories we are told by corporations and the stories we tell each other are that growth is good, and we get there by consuming more. And so, we are encouraged every day by our governments, by corporations, even by our peer groups, to believe that we can buy our way out of the crises we face. If we just buy an electric vehicle, or buy our electricity from a community solar project, or buy a pair of jeans from a company that has pledged to build a “sustainable supply chain,” then everything will be okay.
But we all know this is wrong. Once we begin to understand the scale and scope of the impacts of industrial culture, it quickly becomes obvious that we can’t buy our way out of this predicament, and that incremental change will never be enough. We must face that reality.
The Revolutionary Moment
Ecological collapse is already well underway and social collapse is not far behind. So what do we do?
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” We need completely different ways of thinking, completely different ways of living in the world, and completely different stories. And we need concrete change to the institutions and political structures of our world. In short, we need revolutionary change.
“Revolutionary” means “involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.” When you hear the word “revolutionary” you might immediately wonder, “Does that mean I need to help overthrow the government, because maybe I’m not up for that.” Revolutionary change means changing everything, from where we get our food, to how we build our homes, to how we get around, to—yes—creating different kinds of government. In these revolutionary times, revolutionary responses are justified—especially since many powerful people and institutions are prepared to lie, cheat, and fight to defend the old status quo.
Radical changes are coming, whether we want them or not. We are entering a revolutionary moment, where the contradiction — the fundamental conflict — between civilization and ecology is coming to a head. We are already seeing increased environmental radicalism and an associated authoritarian backlash. We believe in observing these truths and acting upon them, rather than trying to deny reality. In this moment, we believe that means acting to steer the future towards the most just, humane outcomes.
It’s time to gather our courage. We are not alone. We are not alone in facing the ecological crisis, and we will not be alone if we work together on the solution. To reiterate what we said earlier, it will take all of us: all our different passions and skills, and whatever each individual has to offer. We will each play a part, and do what we can, together.
Top 15 Actions To Begin Moving Towards A Truly Sustainable Society
Governments must stop subsidizing all environmentally and socially destructive activities and shift those subsidies to activities that restore biotic communities and that promote local self-sufficiency.
Governments must ensure reproductive freedom and full political, economic, and sexual liberty for women around the world.
Immediately and permanently halt all extractive and destructive activities: mining, fracking, mountaintop removal, tar sands production, nuclear power, and offshore drilling chief among them. This includes halting manufacture and production of all cars.
Immediately and completely protect all remaining native forests, prairies, and wetlands.
Restore all damaged lands and restore soil. Confiscate land from those who do not do this.
Immediately halt all activities that draw down acquifers.
Restore all polluted and compromised rivers, including halting all dam construction and removing all existing dams.
Immediately begin phasing-out mono-crop agriculture.
Charge government with increasing the number and range of threatened and endangered wildlife and the habitat they require.
Governments stop funding for new, large infrastructure and development projects, including new highways, dams, power projects, mines, etc.
Reduce carbon emissions by 20% per year, over the next five years to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Begin to contract global economies while ensuring all have basic needs met.
Significantly reduce consumption of all but strictly necessary goods and services.
Punish environmental crimes commensurate with the harm caused to the public and to the planet.
Close all U.S. military bases on foreign soil, and bring home all military personnel within two years. Reduce the military budget by 20% per year until it reaches 20% of its current size. Replace the Department of Defense with the Department of Peace.
Despite the magnitude of change that’s required, local and regional efforts to begin the work described above will pay dividends regardless, mitigating some of the worst outcomes.
One Possible Future
There’s a lot to describe about a long term vision—we could write a book about such a vision. So we highlight just some of the ways we see our solution unfolding if humanity could come together to make it happen.
50 years:
Birth rates have fallen significantly and the great decline in population has begun, reducing pressure on Earth’s ecosystems.
The most wasteful, least-useful, most polluting industries (e.g. cruise ships, shopping malls, golf courses, chemical manufacturers) have been shut down for decades.
All new fossil fuel extraction has ended and a rationing program is in place. Fossil fuel use from the remaining stored reserves is prioritized for the most important uses: food, water, and emergency medical use, and total burn is less than 2% of peak levels.
Material extraction has plummeted. Populations have migrated from suburbs, isolated rural homes, and urban centers alike to cluster in small, widely spaced villages, where they repurpose materials from buildings torn down in areas that are being restored and engage in small scale food production and craft industry.
The foundation for new governmental structures based on direct democracy and representative assemblies has been laid. Militaries have been dramatically scaled down and restructured to focus on land restoration.
100 years:
Human population is nearing 2 billion and steadily falling.
As population has declined, most people have migrated from areas of extreme cold and heat to more temperate zones where less energy is required to stay warm and grow food. We all live hyper-local lives, living near relatives and friends for our entire lives, and spend most of the day restoring ecosystems, hunting and growing food, relaxing, and building community.
No fossil fuels are being burned. All mining and chemical manufacturing has been terminated. All nuclear power plants have been shut down and all nuclear waste has been stored as safely as possible. All large dams have been removed.
Small electrical systems are maintained in a few regional locations for medical procedures. People rely on simple, time-tested technologies such as passive solar, perennial polycultures, and animal husbandry for basic needs.
Government is becoming more local, but regional confederations and even global trade networks are maintained for diplomacy, a small amount of trade, and information sharing.
500 years:
Human population is less than 100 million.
Each year there are more salmon that return to rivers than the previous year; each year there are more songbirds than the previous year. Forests are beginning to grow old again, creating thriving habitat for plants and animals, and humans have begun to relearn how to exist as human mammals in the great web of life.
Natural communities are well on their way to recovery, so food and cleaner water are once again abundant. Forever chemicals still pollute every square inch of the world, and continue impacting our health, but over the coming millennia will gradually pose less of a problem for humans and the rest of the natural world as they become sequestered under layers of soil and rock.
Children are no longer raised learning the names of corporations, but instead learn stories about the names of plants and animals, how to hunt and fish, which plants are edible and which are not, how to build shelters, and how to stay warm. The stories told around the fire at night describe the great rehumanizing of our species, our recovered relationships with the natural world, and the sacredness of all life on Planet Earth.
Posted by Max Wilbert on facebook
On Thursday 12 July 2018, US president Donald Trump, the most dangerous man in the world, was welcomed to the United Kingdom by the British prime minister Theresa May. The following day the streets of London witnessed the biggest protest for over a decade as thousands marched on Trafalgar Square to express their anger at the British government extending a red carpet welcome for Trump.
Protesters pointed out the extreme threat to democracy, to those dependent on welfare, to womens' rights, to civil rights generally and even to the survival of humankind which Trump presents. Such assertions might seem extreme, but they are unfortunately fully justifiable.
As the president of what is by far the richest and most powerful country on earth, Trump has dedicated his term to accelerating the US addiction to fossil fuels and agribusiness, dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency and withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accords, thereby accelerating global warming and climate change and presenting a huge threat to the continued existence of humankind.
Trump's presidency also marks another dangerous step in the erosion of democracy in the United States. Far from "draining the swamp" as he promised, Trump has surrounded himself with powerful figures from big business, especially major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, as well as his friends and allies in the fossil fuel and defence industires.
Government policy, more and more, reflects the direct interests of concentrated private power with the public having less and less influence. At the same time the Trump presidency has allied itself with some of the most ruthless regimes in the world and is profiting from Saudi Arabia's illegal war of aggression in Yemen which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. A serious war crime in which Donald Trump and Theresa May are both complicit.
Trump has also been keen to patronise the extreme nationalist constituency in the United States and through preaching a propaganda of fear his presidency has managed to oversee some of the most racist immigration policies ever to be implemented in the United States, targeted almost exclusively at Muslim countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Ironically, all of them have been massively destabilized and impoverished by US foreign policy.
He was also responsible for the ruthless decision to separate children from their parents as they cross into the United States from Mexico, in his determination to block immigration from central America, where decades of US illegal intervention, including the CIA funded Contra terror operations in Nicaragua and enforced free trade (under NAFTA or IMF rules) have devastated the region and merely enhanced the power of corrupt corporate elites and drug cartels.
As if this was not enough to worry about, Trump has also authorized a huge increase in both US defence spending and in the US nuclear arsenal, and changed the strategic posture of the US so that nuclear weapons can be used even for offensive operations and even when their use is not required to preempt a nuclear strike by an enemy power.
As any historian of conflict since the Second World War knows, it is only by a miracle that humankind has survived since 1945 without a nuclear war. Now the situation is more dangerous than ever before. Not only are we are now dependent on Trump's extremely unpredictable temperament but also increasingly on automated systems which can easily malfunction.
Trump and Republicans maintain they need to spend heavily on military equipment in order to counter the supposed Russian threat. However they seldom remind the public that the United States already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defence and that Russia's expenditure is far behind both that of the United States and only on about the same level of Saudi Arabia, and spends only 10% of what NATO spends.
It has also to be remembered that it is NATO and US forces which are operating right on the Russian border, not Russian forces on the American border. Russia's defence spending is clearly recognised by academics to be primarily defensive and responsive to US spending. What is desperately needed is a serious international dialogue at the highest level to decrease the danger of conflict, especially the risk of a terminal nuclear war and begin a process of multilateral disarmament.
APR 2005 From the Aeon of Regional Conflicts and World Wars,
to the Epoch of Clashing Civilizations & Global Uniculturalism.
[-] Notes from bilwander's suspended Facebook, now >here [-]
In the times of Globalization & the "progressive" illusion of Multicultural "Coexistence" ( i.e. devastative global uniculturalism ), Clashing Civilizations, Proxy Wars, Blind Terrorism, Uncontrolled Breeding and Consumerism, are ending this World, while ... Comics of ... Iconomics make the most epic failure ever of Democracy in the, so to say, developed societies.
Virtual Economies (thus Iconomies) generating elitist wealth out of deregulated money supply, leveraged credit expansion, permanently rolling-over and exponentially rising debt , impossible to be paid-off in any visible future, along with unsustainable consumption and "growth", and, in the end, extreme global socio-economic, geopolitical, environmental and currently, even health crises.
Crises of Massive Poverty, Misery and Migration, on a planet already crowded, littered, polluted and exploited to its limits; a planet where the wealthy suffer from diseases of affluence & longevity, and contaminated food, while the poor die early from malnutrition and lack of basic hygiene and medical care.
World Population and Inequality (Wealth Distribution Gap) grow faster than the Gross World Product (GWP) while Natural Resources are Draining Out, and Long-term Structural Unemployment & Poverty will deterministically continue to rise for at least this whole century as far as Governments and Peoples continue to ignore and defy the most crucial macroeconomic parameter (World Demographic Trend) and the components (Population Size & Quality) that define the Welfare Equation. In simple words : :
The More People On Earth The Much Worse Their Life Gets
The Mother of All Evil and Misery
In The Epoch of the Infinite Evolution of Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics and Eugenics, the forecasts for World Poverty are gravely pessimistic as far as the vast majority of people continue to over-exercise Outdated Reproductive Rights, without basic knowledge, responsibility and resources, or, even worse, with criminal and/or genetically detrimental records, factually instigating and perpetrating the most massive, continuous and silent Genocidal Crime of human history alongside an Overpopulation of self-condemned people ...
A more than obvious global crime, yet ignored and absent from any agenda, a taboo not even to be quoted within a defiant World Society and an idle Academic Community; the Mother of All Evil and Misery, a ticking time-bomb of total destruction whereas populist regimes and the hypocrisy of political correctness dominate and govern the populace ...
Family Planning, Genetic Engineering and, nowadays, Sexual Transgenderism (and eventually Androidification ) though yet far from consisting mainstream social procedures, and even with law deficits, are increasingly practiced altering already the traditional patterns of human reproduction and social institutions, thus defining the rise of a new epoch within the Anthropocene.
Qualitatively Controlled Human Reproduction by individual choice, assisted by Sperm & Ova Banks via Modified DNA and combination of superior genetic "materials" along with Artificial Intelligence, will eventually lead to intellectual and physical abilities, unprecedentedly superior to those of Homo Sapiens and its contemporary Universalis, so defining the species of the Androidified Human; a Homo Superius of “his/her/its” kind; the product of the Contemporary Dark Ages where Obsolete Reproductive Rights encroach and override Basic Human Rights, transforming the decadent democracies into de facto regimes of Extreme Populism, Anarchy, Illegalism, Oligarchy & Tyranny ....
In the future, most likely, even fewer countries and smaller populations than today will be able to obtain & maintain high standards of living, provided that they will manage to sustain robust, fiscally and monetarily disciplined, economies, based on advanced technology, secured energy self-sufficiency/accessibility, demographic sustainability with social security and geopolitical stability along with effective control & regulation of the migration influx and its intensifying impact and destabilizing potential on the function of the 'developed' economies and societies.
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It's the People, stupid ! (15 APR 2016)
As usual, Soros just speaks out about preserving the Bubble of World Economy for as long as possible...
Who does actually care or can make a difference about next generations, peoples, people, proxy wars, clashing civilizations, migrants or refugees ? ... simply no one
The Bubble, like any bubble, has an undated, but deterministically approaching Burst Out Day .... and the World is already bankrupt in effect and long before the evolving Economic Meltdown, just because of its unregulated and unsustainable population size .....
It's the (Too Many & Stupid) People, Stupid !
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related twits
(This was supposed to be a derringer and then I got carried away)
Captain Richard Almsfield stood upon his ship's deck, in a confident commanding stance, making a deliberate effort to be seen casually overseeing his crew's efforts to disembark. Internally, he felt awkward and uncomfortable, and was considering leaving when he finally saw his mark: The rest of the expedition.
The non-crew members of the expedition slowly and nervously approached the skyship's boarding ramp. They needed someone to give them confidence that this insane endeavor would not lead to their deaths. Almsfield himself had only been through the rifts three times, and only once as a captain. All of his crew had been through that many times or less. Inter-dimensional travel was still very new, very unknown, hence this exploratory expedition.
Almsfield would provide a strong face, even though he was just as clueless to what they may face. He did have one other thing, beyond his own courage, to offer to his passengers.
As the expedition's members gathered awkwardly upon the ship's deck, Captain Almsfield gestured to a nearby crate, which his first mate opened and tilted for all to see. A neat row of handles could be seen, sticking out of the cloth padding keeping each of the devices secure. They looked like massive, clumsy pistols, or some sort of over-engineered flare.
"We do not know all that we may face. We do not know how many different planes of existence we will journey through and across. We cannot have a specialized weapon for everything, we must make do with the most effective, general purpose arms we have. Yet we do have one thing that Artificer Oswick has created for us. He calls them 'Destabilizing Lanterns' and I expect you all to familiarize yourselves with their use. They have only one shot per lantern, so we cannot afford to have you waste them. But they may save your life, and we will make sure there is always one nearby, on or off the ship. The ship's quartermaster will instruct you further, but the gist of the weapon is this: It will deliver a single, concentrated, high powerful beam of every sort of energy currently known. Arcane, natural, and divine energies. The thought is simple, when faced with a dangerous threat beyond what normal arms can dispatch, point a lantern and unleash every energy possible and hope the target is vulnerable to one. It may not destroy, but it should be enough to buy your escape. Please, do not use them idly, it goes without saying that such a weapon is ridiculously dangerous if misfired, but such is the nature of our exploration."
A reboot of the sheriffs car that was used in the 2001 movie, When Strangers Appear, shot entirely in and around Foxton during April-June 2000 on a $3 million budget and which was acquired by Ian Little after filming was finished and used as a static display for a few years at the Main St. entranceway to the Foxton trolleybus museum depot.
In a movie goof, the sheriffs squad car and a Jeep suburban utility vehicle (SUV) that was also used in the movie had the same license plate, supposedly Oregon VLP-077, the Jeep SUV featuring in a scene at the roadside diner which was constructed in Kere Kere Rd., just off the Foxton-Shannon road..
WHEN STRANGERS APPEAR MOVIE REVIEW
By Robert Cettl
(Robert Cettl’s review published on Letterboxd):
The rural film noir has become something of a minor sub-genre in American film. Directors such as John Dahl and J.S. Cardone have spun intriguing thrillers based on the desolate roadside fixtures of isolated areas, often populated by seemingly nomadic psychopaths and disillusioned heroes at the point of personal despair. These films are bleak, with people driven by an un-stated but desperate need for connection. They are placed near roads and tackle the notion of a stalled journey, where the road becomes the site of conflict. Often, these people cannot even make it to the open road and remain trapped, unsure of where to turn or how to escape. When they make the road, it is often full of lurking menace. It is this legacy of films that the New Zealand based When Strangers Appear seeks in part to evoke. New Zealand director Scott Reynolds has shown a proclivity for the notion of youth psychosis in his cult serial killer film, The Ugly, and in his latest thriller attempts to blend his interest in youthful psychopaths with the angst-driven despair of the 20-something so-called Generation X. Although the effort is there, the result is more a curiosity.
When Strangers Appear is set mostly around a roadside diner, not too far down from a motel. A young woman (Radha Mitchell) walks to work and opens up the diner. A dirty car pulls up and the driver watches. As she readies the diner, he enters, a dishevelled, unshaven youth (Barry Watson) who seems unbearably intense and pressured. She chats to him, but when another car pulls up, Watson hides. Three men, led by a rugged surfer (Josh Lucas) enter, eat and leave. Watson tells Mitchell that they are after him. At first she disbelieves but when he collapses, revealing a stab wound, she takes it on herself to care for him and takes him to a motel, where the three men are also staying. She takes him to a doctor for treatment, but later gets a call from the doctor that he believes the wound may be self-inflicted. She turns to Lucas, a man who may have more involvement than he lets on and who urges her not to go the police. Nevertheless, not knowing who to trust, she turns to a local cop (Kevin Anderson) with whom she has a troubled past. The doctor is now missing and it seems that someone may be a murderer.
The film starts out as the portrait of a young 20-something woman who seems bored and dissatisfied with her routine and is full of attitude. Her interest in strangers as a means of disrupting the boredom ultimately leads her into trouble as she realizes that she cannot trust anybody and that appearances are deceiving. Although this is certainly conventional and familiar material, the film does manage an irony which is at times effectively disconcerting, although until briefly at the end it never achieves the idea of absurdity and futility that it circles around. In structure, the film seeks to achieve the gathering momentum usually referred to as the snowball effect and as day becomes night seeks to immerse its characters in a world of shadowy uncertainty. It achieves this based on the audience’s expectation of schizophrenic behaviour. Thus, once it is revealed that one of the characters is apparently taking anti-psychotic medication, the film flirts with the idea of a drifting psychopath. The uncertainty over what to expect from a potentially psychotic killer is intended to destabilize the viewer and drive the momentum of the film through its expected series of twists. Although some of the twists are novel, the plot seems a hastily assembled addition meant to give some form to this idea of uncertainty.
In the moral order of films of this kind, curiosity and even compassionate involvement with strangers is a punishable sin and so the film sets out to give Mitchell a lesson for her initial know-it-all attitude. She must learn her place, the film asserts, and so takes her on a journey through mounting despair towards a supposed humility. The layers of uncertainty along this journey struggle for invention however, and by the time the mystery surrounding the strangers is revealed, it has become tired and pointlessly ridiculous as if the filmmakers are at a loss to fully explain it all and so reached out for the flimsiest of plot irrelevances. Thus, the film is more adept at creating uncertainty than it is at resolving it, although it seems needlessly to want to neatly do both. However, the circularity to the film’s final stages is momentarily a fine demonstration of the notion of an absurd universe and of people trapped forever in a repetitive cycle. Sadly, the film also dissipates this idea and the resolution fails to ring true to much of the preceding drama. Nevertheless, for much of the film, this is an involving if minor thriller that constantly promises how much better and tighter it could have been. What is unhurriedly and tautly developed at the outset is dissipated: just as the film is supposed to become more involving and suspenseful it feels merely rushed.
The visual transfer, although preserving a widescreen ratio, is something of a merely serviceable job. The film itself is too well (if flatly) lit to ever achieve any film noirish subtleties although it seems that it is deliberately bright at first in order to heighten the danger felt as day turns into night, a transition it only partly accomplishes (and must resort to flashbacks to structure properly). The picture is clear throughout but rarely achieves more than a downcast sense of atmosphere, although colours seem to be more pronounced as it proceeds as if perception has been heightened, particularly at night. This suggestion is also dissipated over time however to give an impression of flat technical competence. Even the cold weather fails to add much of a palpable presence. The landscapes however are suitably inhospitable although their otherworldly possibility is never utilized beyond a backdrop.
The sound transfer is again a matter of rote technical competence. It does however effectively use quiet and the sense of increasingly desperate voices. Aside from the score (especially the songs over both sets of credits), much of the film seems centred, even mono at times, although voices are crisp enough. The abruptness of certain sounds effectively disrupts the quiet and helps to build a modicum of tension to an otherwise lethargically paced film. Subtly shifting tones of voice carry the evolving uncertainty well but most of the film seems concerned with injecting sound into an initially quiet, boring and peaceful world, gathering aural momentum until a climactic explosion. At capturing this apparent intention, the transfer works well enough. It hopes to create a sense of uncontrollable propulsion, pausing only to reinforce the notion of danger as if retreating only to find calm and quiet increasingly impossible to maintain.
“WHEN STRANGERS APPEAR” MOVIE GOOFS
Errors in geography
- Even though the film is set in Oregon, USA, the Firestone ad on the side of the gas station refers to "tyres" not "tires". Beth also refers to the "car park", a term which is not used in the USA.
- The sign on the doctor's office says "Surgery". This is a term used in the UK, as well as New Zealand, for a doctor's office.
- The sheriff mispronounces the name of the state he lives in (Oregon).
Factual errors
- The motorway diner has not open,yet when the owner goes to check the till it is full of money.
- When the gas station attendant looks up at the wall from behind the register, the clock has no hands on its face.
- The cop's squad car and wife's SUV had the same license plate, supposedly Oregon VLP-077.
WHEN STRANGERS APPEAR (2001) YouTube trailer.....
Here's everything you wanted to know about the 2021 washout along the Cowichan Valley Rail Trail but were afraid to ask because someone might make a video and have you look at it:
Cowichan Valley Trail Washout 2024
Report: The 2021 Washout Along the Cowichan Valley Rail Trail
Overview
The Cowichan Valley Rail Trail, located on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, experienced a significant washout in 2021. This event had substantial impacts on the local environment, community, and the trail's infrastructure.
Background
The Cowichan Valley Rail Trail is a multi-use trail popular among hikers, cyclists, and outdoor enthusiasts. It follows the former railway corridor, offering scenic views and connecting various communities within the Cowichan Valley.
The Washout Event
In the winter of 2021, the Cowichan Valley experienced unprecedented rainfall. The heavy and persistent rains led to severe flooding in many areas, including along the rail trail. The excessive water flow eroded the trail bed, washed away significant portions of the trail, and destabilized surrounding areas.
Causes
1. Heavy Rainfall: The primary cause was the extreme weather event characterized by heavy and prolonged rainfall.
2. Poor Drainage: Existing drainage systems were overwhelmed by the volume of water, leading to erosion and washouts.
3. Geological Factors: The trail traverses varied geological features, some of which are more prone to erosion and instability when exposed to excessive water.
Impacts
1. Trail Damage: Several sections of the trail were rendered impassable due to washouts and erosion.
2. Environmental Impact: The washout disrupted local ecosystems, affecting flora and fauna along the trail.
3. Community Disruption: The trail is a crucial recreational asset for the local community. Its damage limited access and usage, affecting tourism and local businesses that benefit from trail users.
Response and Recovery
1. Immediate Actions: Initial responses included closing affected sections of the trail to ensure public safety and prevent further damage.
2. Assessment: Engineers and environmental specialists conducted thorough assessments to determine the extent of the damage and necessary repairs.
3. Restoration Efforts: Restoration involved rebuilding washed-out sections, improving drainage systems, and reinforcing vulnerable areas to prevent future washouts.
Challenges
1. Funding: Securing adequate funding for the extensive repairs posed a significant challenge.
2. Environmental Concerns: Ensuring that restoration efforts did not further harm the environment required careful planning and execution.
3. Community Involvement: Balancing the needs and expectations of various stakeholders, including local residents, businesses, and trail users, was essential for successful recovery.
Long-term Solutions
1. Enhanced Drainage: Upgrading drainage infrastructure to handle future extreme weather events.
2. Trail Reinforcement: Strengthening vulnerable sections of the trail to withstand potential washouts.
3. Monitoring and Maintenance: Implementing regular monitoring and maintenance schedules to identify and address issues before they escalate.
Conclusion
The 2021 washout along the Cowichan Valley Rail Trail was a significant event that highlighted the vulnerabilities of infrastructure to extreme weather. Through collaborative efforts, the community, engineers, and environmental specialists have worked towards restoring and enhancing the trail to ensure its resilience and continued enjoyment for future generations.
Recommendations
1. Invest in Climate Resilience: Allocate resources to improve infrastructure resilience against extreme weather events.
2. Community Engagement: Foster ongoing communication and involvement with the local community to support recovery and maintenance efforts.
3. Sustainable Practices: Adopt environmentally sustainable practices in all restoration and maintenance activities to preserve the natural beauty and ecological health of the trail.
This report by Bill Irvine provides a comprehensive overview of the 2021 washout event along the Cowichan Valley Rail Trail, its impacts, responses, and long-term solutions to enhance the trail's resilience and sustainability.
©2011 RESilU | Please don't use this image without my explicit permission.
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Set: The Innocence of Spring ...
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"She lives four years in the country without end .... isolation .... retreat .... it is the place of her soul .... slowly .... slowly she learns to fly .... merging of body and soul .... slowly .... she learns to fly .... slowly ...."
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[...] The experience of death and rebirth, and the dismemberment of the re-healing subject seems to be a psychological and / or mental transformation process that occurs mainly in overwhelmingly strong emotional arousal and stress conditions.
The excitement increased mental tension and conflict to unbearable.
The result is a crisis in the old structuring forces are no longer able to sustain the former psychological balance.
The old forces psychodynamic conflicts, habits, conditionings, structures, beliefs, and the old identity - are brought to its knees, the organization of the psyche collapses temporarily.
Key result of this collapse is to Stanislav Grof, that the old self-image and the associated restrictive being and world view are demolished.
This destabilizing process is projected to visualize and recorded as an image sequence. This is called auto-symbolic images that one's own mental state illustrative. Thus, the first phase of the unbearable psychic tension and collapse - for patient as with shamans - are seen as a symbolic vision of physical torture, physical Zerrissenwerdens (disruptive), death and decay, or as war and destruction ceremony.
For this new destructured chaos grows reorganization and reconstruction. This reorganization takes place in a psyche that is old, confining, distorting habits now, at least partially exempted.
can be controlled, the reorganization of archetypal forces and the drive for wholeness (Holotropismus) that so many psychologists and Contemplative have described as being part of the psyche.
The result, a new combined level of consciousness, the less conflict-prone, vulnerable and arrested the past, healthier, more integrated, is healing.
The old identity is dead, and a new one is born. [...]
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Die Erfahrung des Todes und der Wiedergeburt, der Zerstückelung und des Wieder-Heil-Werdens scheint ein psychologischer und/oder geistiger Transformationsprozess zu sein, der vor allem in überwältigend starken emotionalen Erregungs- und Stresszuständen auftritt.
Die Erregung steigert psychische Spannung und Konflikt bis ins Unerträgliche.
Das Ergebnis ist eine Krise, in der alte strukturierende Kräfte nicht mehr in der Lage sind, das frühere psychische Gleichgewicht aufrechtzuerhalten.
Die alten psychodynamischen Kräfte-Konflikte, Gewohnheiten, Konditionierungen, Strukturen, Überzeugungen und die alte Identität – werden in die Knie gezwungen, die Organisation der Psyche bricht vorübergehend zusammen.
Schlüsselresultat dieses Zusammenbruchs ist, nach Grof, dass das alte Selbstbild und die damit zusammenhängende restriktive Seins- und Weltsicht gesprengt werden.
Dieser destabilisierende Prozess wird projiziert, verbildlich und als Bildfolge aufgenommen. Es handelt sich um so genannte autosymbolische Bilder, die den eigenen psychischen Zustand veranschauliche. So kann die erste Phase der unerträglichen psychischen ‚Spannung und Zusammenbruchs - bei Patietnen ebenso wie bei Schamanen – symbolisch als Vision physischer Folter, körperlichen Zerrissenwerdens, des Sterbens und Verwesens oder als Kriegs- und Zerstörungszeremonie erlebt werden.
Aus diesem neu destrukturierten Chaos erwächst Reorganisation und Rekonstruktion. Diese Reorganisation findet statt in einer Psyche, die von alten , einengenden, verzerrenden Gewohnheiten nun zumindest, teilweise befreit ist.
Gesteuert werden kann die Reorganisation von archetypischen Kräften und von dem Trieb zur Ganzheit (Holotropismus), den so viele Psychologen und Kontemplative als Wesenteil der Psyche beschrieben haben.
Das Ergebnis kann eine neu zusammengesetztes Bewusstsein, das weniger konfliktträchtig, anfällig und der Vergangenheit verhaftet, gesünder, integrierter, heiler ist.
Die alte Identität ist tot, und eine neuer ist geboren.
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Source: Roger N. Walsh - "The Spirit of Shamanism" | Chapter: "Kulimination to find: light, death and rebirth | | Translated by Mr. Google
Quelle: Roger N. Walsh - "Der Geist des Schamanismus" | Kapitel: "Kulimination der Suche: Licht, Tod und Wiedergeburt || Translated by Mr. Google
The crews are building footings that will receive precast concrete pieces that will eventually be the walkway the people will promenade on. I was surprised to see a bunch of Ice behind the crane. A construction worker informed me that they have frozen the ground to prevent the sea water from destabilizing the ground around the viaduct and the tunnel they are presently boring under the viaduct. I think it is all fascinating.
Spring fresco from the Villa Arianna, Stabiae, one of the best-known and iconic Roman frescoes. ArchaiOptix - Own work
Object type: wall painting (fresco) - description: Flora (or Persephone or the allegory of Spring ...) barefooted walking into the depth, holding a cornucopiae in her left arm - period / date: third style of pompeian wall painting - height: 38 cm - width: 32 cm - findspot: Stabiae (Castellammare die Stabia), Villa (di) Arianna, cubiculum w 26 - museum / inventory number: Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 8834
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The Eruption of 79 AD - Main article: Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD
In 62 AD the city os Stabiae was hit by a violent earthquake that affected the whole region, causing considerable damage to the buildings and creating the need for restoration work, which was never finished.
According to a letter written by his nephew, Pliny the Elder was at the other side of the bay in Misenum when the eruption of 79 AD started. He sailed by galley across the bay, partly to observe the eruption more closely, and partly to rescue people from the coast near the volcano.
Pliny died at Stabiae the following day. This coincides with the arrival of the sixth and largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption caused by the collapse of the eruption plume. The very diluted outer edge of this surge reached Stabiae and left two centimetres of fine ash on top of the immensely thick aerially-deposited tephra which further protected the underlying remnants.
Post-eruption
Unlike Pompeii, the eruption did not end human activity as about 40 years later the road to Nuceria was rebuilt, as its 11th milestone recovered from the cathedral site shows. Also Publius Papinius Statius (c. 45–96) asked in a poem for his wife to join him in what he called "Stabias renatas" (Stabiae reborn). It continued to be an important centre for trade as the surrounding agricultural area needed a port and that of Stabiae was restored whilst that of Pompeii had been destroyed. In the 2nd c. AD new necropoles were created at Grotta S.Biagio (below the Villa Arianna), Santa Maria la Carità and Pimonte.
After the Crisis of the Third Century the city (Stabiae) decreased in importance. Between the third and fourth centuries, as demonstrated by the discovery of a sarcophagus, were the first traces of a Christian community. The fifth century saw the formation of the diocese with the first bishops Orso and Catello. In the 5th century it was known as a centre of the Benedictine Order.
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The Crisis of the Third Century (also known as the Imperial Crisis, 235-284 CE) was the period in the history of the Roman Empire during which it splintered into three separate political entities: the Gallic Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Palmyrene Empire. These breakaway empires, as well as the social turmoil and chaos which characterized the period, resulted from a number of factors: a shift in the paradigm of leadership following the assassination of the emperor Alexander Severus (222-235 CE) in 235 CE by his own troops, increased participation by the military in politics, lack of adherence to a clear policy of succession for emperors, inflation and economic depression caused by a devaluation of currency under the Severan Dynasty, increased pressure on the emperor to defend the provinces from invading tribes, the plague which heightened fears and destabilized communities, and larger armies which required more men and decreased the agricultural labor force.
After the assassination of Alexander Severus, the empire would see over 20 emperors rise and fall in the almost 50 years between 235-284 CE as compared with the 26 emperors who reigned from the time of Augustus Caesar (27 BCE - 14 CE) to Severus, 27 BCE - 235 CE, a period of over 250 years. The empire was restored through the efforts of Emperor Aurelian (270-275 CE) whose initiatives were developed further by Diocletian (284-305 CE) who is credited with ending the crisis and ensuring the future survival of the empire.
It's been, for long now, a common daily activity where hundreds of Syria War refugees along with illegal & undocumented Asian and African migrants are smuggled (in unseaworthy rubber boats and perilous conditions in the Aegean sea) from the Asian coast of Turkey to the Greek islands, by conveniently operating and hugely profiting traffickers (selling out even fake, water-absorbent life-jackets, to migrants), under the nose, if not guidance and pressure, of the Turkish coast guard, and despite the EU-Turkey Migration treaty.
Migrants arriving to Greek islands are then transferred by ferryboats to Piraeus with the prospect to be dispersed to "temporary" camps all over the Greek mainland, but most likely to remain "trapped" for undisclosed time, if not for ever, as far as the key migrant "European corridor" remains closed-down at the borders in the north region of Macedonia(Greece) with FYROM* in order to protect the rest of EU states (uneager to accept but a tiny number of documented refugees) and also discourage future migrants from heading to Europe.....
Meanwhile in Greece, migration inflow steadily surpasses outflow, as far as the war in Syria continues and Turkey capitalizes not only on Syrian refugees but on all its Asian and African migrants reaching swiftly (with cheap TurkishAirlines fare & e-visa) Istanbul, Europe's backdoor, by smuggling them to Greece so assisting its expansionist policy through the ethnological, cultural and economic destabilization of the small communities in the islands and (given the huge influx and the border blockage), all over Greece, while generating also an instability potential of the status quo in the Aegean Sea that Turkey's "deep state" would like to change by dividing it in the middle (if not by taking over whatever Greek land) at a given opportunity, alike with the Invasion of Cyprus in 1974 ...
Consequently, Greece, already suffering a deep socio-economic & political crisis under its divisive, incompetent and obsessed neo-communist leadership, is turned into a de facto European "migrant buffer zone", and has to manage alone, just with EU "technical assistance", the unstoppable migration influx from Turkey and an additional, social crisis. It looks as if Greece is declining into a state of uncontrolled anarchy (UPDATE MAR31 less than 24hrs after OP) while EU is imploding and fragmenting from the backlash of its own misdeeds and consequent crises ....
Crises that emerged from the geopolitical games and the wars imposed and/or exploited by the .... Great European Powers ( UK, France, Germany), along with the USA, NATO, as well as the Sunni Islamists of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, last but not least, Turkey and its neo-ottoman styled leadership that promoted the war in Syria and cooperated undercover with ISIS, further escalating its own undeclared (civil) war against the Kurds, not just within Turkey, but also in Syria
Wars fancily dubbed as "against tyranny and terror", have in fact caused by far more misery, terror and havoc with the disintegration of Iraq, Libya and Syria, the eventual creation of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the other jihadist organizations that preach and exercise blind hatred, and terrorism against the West, while they impose their domain and Brutal Rule of Terror on a number of regions across Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
UPDATES
MAR.31 : Migrants Clash at Pireus Port
APR .. 1 : Violence at Chios Island Migrant Camp
APR . 4 : First Deportations to Turkey While Migrant Boats Continue Ariving to Greek Islands
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*FYROM, (originally Vardarska or Vardar Banovina), a landlocked country and non EU member state, is usually referred as "Macedonia" in the "narrative overlay" of media such as CNN, BBC etc that systematically defy the only officially recognized (by UN, EU, NATO, IOC, IAAF etc. etc) name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), for their very own reasons. if not for assisting the agenda of specific interests (of USA, NATO, UK, certain EU member states and, as usual, Turkey) in the allready quite broken apart and multi-divided, Balkans ...
FYROM also should not be confused, with the historical region of Macedonia in Greece as the later incorporates the whole area where Ancient Macedonian People firstly appeared and lived more than 2500 years ago, that is about 1000 years earlier than the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans....
Exact location and time unknown, presumably same timeframe as issue 1 and 2).
Jericho: “Time to wake up, my friend. Rise and shine. We have missed you dearly. I’ll explain everything to you on the way out.”
I wake up with my eyes, groggy as hell. They feel dry. So do my lips. And my limbs, stuck permanently to something that feels like glue.
Harry: “Jer? Why am I all tied up in this? You making me a hostage?”
Jericho: “No, we have to keep you alive. It’s important.”
Harry: “Then cut me loose. What are you waiting for?”
Jericho: “Couple of years ago you saved a kid in Dubai, and all these missions you went on—now, you’ve gotten a proper rest.”
Harry: “I never rest. And I’m barely alive inside.”
Jericho: “Good to know. I’ll let you down now.”
I take a deep breath, and the water drains around me. I realize I’m stuck in a tube, which has given me oxygen and energy. I’m completely naked, as I check my body—the scars, the wounds, it’s all still there, but the feeling is fresh.
Jericho signals to a few men who hand me over a towel, my clothes, socks and boots, but none of my gear and weapons are present. I quickly dry myself and get dressed, all fully black.
Most importantly, the mask is present.
(A while later…)
Jericho: “You shouldn’t be afraid to let yourself be seen to others, Harry.”
Harry:” My pain is my business. Now drop the fucking cryptic act, Jer. I don’t know what game you’re playing.”
Jericho:” Going there now huh? I guess I can’t fault into rushing you around…”
Harry: “What happened since Paladin? My mind tampered by a moon mission? Keeping me prisoner?”
Jericho: “Stasis. Cryogenic. The only viable option for your psychological procedure. It went successful, and you’re still the same you. And I need to mention, we’re keeping your in Greece.”
Harry: “What?! You should have never taken me to Greece. It’s not a damn trip down memory lane. This ain’t funny, Jer.”
Jericho: “We had no choice.”
Harry: “You know it’s my home. It’s fucking dead. I haven’t returned in 7 years. My family is dead. I am a living weapon. I have no one.”
Jericho: “You still have us, for now.”
Harry: “For now? We were friends, Jer. Last I remember, you chained me for a while—and it felt literally just right now.
Jericho: “What would you have me do? Nothing? Listen, we need you. We are nothing more than truth seekers Theodore. I want you to know we are doing this for the sake of the world.
Harry: “Bullshit. You’re lying. Trying to guilt trip me for your cause? No, this isn’t the Jericho I know. Whatever fucking ulterior motives you’ve got, I’m not in. For anything.”
Jericho: “But it’s reality. The world needs to know. You need to know.”
Harry: “No.”
***
I have to admit I’m very bad at arguments. At talking, I’m better at insults, back and forth. Fights are reserved for the last emergency exits; and this is just not the right time. Invisibility is just like contortions, not everyone in the world has this power, let alone to learn it well.
As expected, Jericho wants to do a negotiation. He signals the other rogue agents to lower their tranquilizer guns, assuming I’m not a destructive force of nature. In the current situation, I would have taken everyone down—with the power left in me.
Jericho: “We’re going stage an uprising, and we’re spending the next few years doing it. Are you with me?”
Harry: “You expect to look and ask a ruthless killer who’s not beneficial to anyone? As I said, cut me loose.”
Jericho: “Even if I do, you’ll be nowhere.”
Harry: “I’ll find one. I have my ways.”
Jericho: “How long can you do it before you’ll give up?”
Harry: “Until I’m tired, Jer. I’ve always been trapped in my own void, what would you have me do?”
Voice: “But we’ve got ways to fix it.”
I hear it. He sounds familiar—it’s the White Ninja, stepping out of the shadows. So everyone’s in cohorts now, for the benefit of power, diving straight. Espionage means work.
White Ninja: “Hello, Ghostforge. We’ve got a lot more catching up to do nowadays.”
Harry: “Convenience. Then I won’t be out for a long time. This a fucking cult of yours?”
White Ninja: “No, you won’t. I would say, resistance is the better answer.”
Harry: “Make me. You need a lot of convincing to say things, because I fucking hate you. ”
White Ninja: “I wouldn’t do that either.”
Harry: “Then enough bullshit.”
White Ninja: “I’m not laying a hand on you, because the truth is, you’re dying. Your fate is sealed. Few years left to live. You and I are condemned to that.”
Harry: “Saying it like I haven’t been dead for years, if it weren’t for my friends. They know it too.”
Jericho: “And that’s what’s next—we saved you, we’re going to destabilize Paladin. Completely.”
Harry: “That’s it? Keep me in a tank so I’m your secret weapon, so we can fight?”
Jericho: “Correct.”
Harry: “Maybe, just maybe, I’ll need to think the fuck outta this.”
***
"The key is to not hesitate."
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OSRA has done it yet again with their latest addition to their weapons platform: the S designated rifle, with S standing for sniper, i.e sniper rifle.
The ARA-S is a living proof of concept and a design that defies most gun mechanisms. Even the ammunition it fires is defiant. Originating only as a concept and not yet a design in the 2080s, this weapon wouldn't be designed yet for the first time until 2085, where research and advancements skyrocketed as groups, nations, etc competed against one another. OSRA, being a manufacturer of some of the most high-end weapons, decided to enter the race and submitted multiple designs for an experimental sniper rifle. One design included a bullpup configuration with a bolt able to chamber .338; although it sacrificed compactness, it evoked the older gun mechanisms and provided enough room for the bolt to cycle.
Another design was also submitted, but it was nothing like the first one. It was a bullpup configuration like the former, but there was no room for the bolt to cycle and the design didn't suggest a Korobov-styled mechanism either. Many were puzzled as to how the design worked, and few were in favor of it. Most disapproved of the idea because of the lack of a Korobov-esque mechanism, but OSRA felt it was something worth shooting for because the idea was never done before.
Design schematics were vague but after deciphering them enough, the design became more and more simple. The weapon feeds from a 20 round magazine, which is only the width of a typical intermediate round, yet the projectile is longer, ranging from .338 to even .50 BMG. How was this possible? Caseless ammunition was used to give a rough concept as to how these projectiles would function and the designer noted that these projectiles were compressed, able to match the length of a shorter bullet. The actual bullet would be a hologram that would be 3D printed as soon as the weapon was fired, which operated similar to a railgun. There was no 'bolt' system per se; the projectile simply launched forward via electromagnetism. The concept was, however, bolt action but this was only to chamber the next bullet in. As for the casings that housed the hologram, they simply broke down into eventually nothing, disappearing into thin air. This is because the casings themselves are made with the same material that offers the holograms its holographic properties. This material was simply altered to have a more physical and concrete state, which would destabilize due to a lack of the holographic bullet countering its stability, causing decomposition.
An ejection port was included just in case casings fail to break down, or if rounds fail to fire and need to be cleared. The magazine capacity hadn't changed at all, however; it was still at a maximum of 20 rounds as OSRA felt that reloading should be kept to a minimum, while keeping magazines at a low enough capacity.
A neat feature of the holographic bullet is that the shooter can adjust the length at any time if they wish. This makes the weapon able to adapt easily, making it an efficient sniper rifle and even a deadly AMR in the right hands. Linked with OSRA HUD systems, shooters can adjust the bullet length at any time with their display, which is transmitted to them at all times. The lengths that can be adjusted to range from .338 all the way up to .50 BMG.
The handguard, which is a standard OSRA-made RIS, can be swapped out. This means shooters can choose to have a shorter handguard and make the ARA-S a more compact, DMR-esque, weapon, or they can choose a longer handguard if that's their preference. Iron sights are included for close-mid range engagements though optics and scopes are available for the sniper in need. Iron sights are equipped with tritium for nighttime visibility and are flippable as well as detachable.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.
Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.
As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.
In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.
The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.
While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.
In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.
In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.
The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.
The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.
Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.
The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.
World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.
In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.
The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.
Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.
On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.
On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.
A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.
The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.
Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.
Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.
A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.
With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.
The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.
Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.
With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.
Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.
Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.
The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.
On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.
Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.
At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.
Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.
Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.
The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.
Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.
On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.
By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.
Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.
Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.
By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.
In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.
Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.
Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.
On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.
From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.
Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.
As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.
An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.
Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".
On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.
The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.
Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.
Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.
On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.
Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.
The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.
The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.
Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.
However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.
Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.
In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.
The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.
Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.
Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.
Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).
Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.
On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.
The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.
Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.
Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.
In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.
A tough to swallow medicine or just straight poison?
Macro Monday project – 05/14/12
"It’s All About the Shadow"
For the record, I exercise to find a new angle when that pretty girl stared at me and lowered her head. Her pretty smile somewhat destabilized me, hence this rather unusual framing, 3/4 of the fountain which was the primary target and 1/4 of this beautiful smile ... LOL /;-).
A smile which i couldn't resist .../:-)