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Holy Willie's Prayer (pages 21-25 of the The Glenriddel Manuscripts, which contain a selection of Burn’s poems and letters, compiled in two volumes, for presentation to Burns's friend, Robert Riddell of Glenriddell (1755-1794), during the years 1791 to 1793.) The first volume, contains copies of poems both in Burns's hand and in that of a scribe. It contains over 50 poems, most famously a full version of Holy Willie's Prayer. This is the most devastating and amusing of Burns's diatribes against the apparent hypocrisy of certain sections of his native Church. It is directed against William Fisher, a farmer in Montgarswood and an elder of Mauchline Kirk. Burns uses this hypocrite - who had initiated disciplinary action against the poet's friend, Gavin Hamilton, for failing to attend the Kirk regularly - to savage the orthodox Calvinist doctrine of double predestination. The satire was so severe that it circulated in handwritten form for some three years before its publication as part of a pamphlet. Written in August 1785, this is one of the poet's earliest satirical works on orthodox Calvinism and is the only version of the poem in Burns's hand.
Is it sinful to be a hypocrite? I posted a picture of my Pentax MX film camera a few days ago and got some nice comments and emails about how It inspired some to leave their digital home for the day and shoot film. I felt a bit of a hypocrite that I do not have some recent film shots with that old Pentax. So this morning I went out and shot a roll. I shot black and white so I could develop it and print it at my Dad's house. Just getting used to the camera after a few years so some basic easy shots to get used to the manual focus lenses and, well, manual everything. I'm happy with how they turned out, there is some dust, scratches and fibers if you look close but I had fun and will do it again. It was strange to realize I had only 36 shots in my camera compared to hundreds if I need them on digital. I also realized as I was scanning the photos onto my computer that, ironically, these are now digital images too. But I don't feel like such a hypocrite anymore. Taken for our daily challenge - something sinful
Holy Willie's Prayer (pages 21-25 of the The Glenriddel Manuscripts, which contain a selection of Burn’s poems and letters, compiled in two volumes, for presentation to Burns's friend, Robert Riddell of Glenriddell (1755-1794), during the years 1791 to 1793.) The first volume, contains copies of poems both in Burns's hand and in that of a scribe. It contains over 50 poems, most famously a full version of Holy Willie's Prayer. This is the most devastating and amusing of Burns's diatribes against the apparent hypocrisy of certain sections of his native Church. It is directed against William Fisher, a farmer in Montgarswood and an elder of Mauchline Kirk. Burns uses this hypocrite - who had initiated disciplinary action against the poet's friend, Gavin Hamilton, for failing to attend the Kirk regularly - to savage the orthodox Calvinist doctrine of double predestination. The satire was so severe that it circulated in handwritten form for some three years before its publication as part of a pamphlet. Written in August 1785, this is one of the poet's earliest satirical works on orthodox Calvinism and is the only version of the poem in Burns's hand.
American Society of Buddhist Studies, 214 Centre St, 01 November 2009.
Members of a Buddhist temple remove a Shepard Fairey Obey Giant wheatpaste defacing their temple. Fairey was in town this week for a corporate ad gig at Levi Strauss in Times Square. Apparently, along the way he put up a bunch of obey andre giant posters all over the place including a few spots in the Lower East Side and Chinatown.
I don't see WHY this place should be a target of a obey giant wheatpaste. HOW is this place "establishment" "mainstream" "corporate" that would stand in the way of the so-called ideals of obey giant? THE ANSWER is that obey giant has no ideals anymore. Whatever fucking ideals Fairey had, he lost it years ago.
This is simply inane and bullshit corporate brand placement pure and simple. The assholes at the obey giant collective owe these people an apology.
I love to write from this self-imposed quarantine. My quarantine is perhaps less extreme than yours. I have ‘him indoors’, who apparently can forgive me anything, whilst you have your beloved four-legged companions, who are also unconditional in their devotion to you, so both of us seem to be somewhat capable of doing this, managing seclusion that is.
Of course, I would never put pressure on you to visit. That would be more than hypocritical. We have chosen not to fly for 11 years now, so I would never encourage anyone else to, not anymore at least. The Netherlands might turn out to be somewhat of a disappointment anyway, not being as ‘liberal’ or as ‘free’ as people universally imagine. It is probably better than most places, but the rot has set in universally, I am afraid.
I do sort of understand you choosing dogs over people though. The last few years have been a period of cutting off, of self-quarantining. That’s had more to do with coming to terms with the sexual abuse in my childhood than anything else. I am afraid I might have traversed every possible boundary with people, friends I mean, so I decided to remove myself. What followed after that proved to be more fruitful, and I have been happier since then too. I suspect this might reverberate for you too. I see it as somewhat of an ‘Irish Problem’, that might also mean something to you, given your saying to me that you would have real problems returning there. I will never go back there again. My last trip there, with ‘Him Indoors’, was my last visit there, or anywhere. He wanted to see it, so we went to a family wedding (since divorced). At least they do have divorce there now.
So now I am writing it all down to the best of my ability, fading memory allowing. Making art has fallen away mainly due to the incredible expense. I had one large show here, in Amsterdam, some ten years ago, and stopped making after that. I nearly bankrupted us! Was it not always so? I have no trouble bankrupting myself, but the idea of bankrupting ‘Hi’ (my acronym for ‘him indoors’) as well was not really tenable. Now I write, and it uses all of the same muscles, and the only expense is the external hard-drive, attached to my computer. Storage is no real problem. I have also written all my life, why they even gave me a doctorate for it, so I am now trying to work that into a ‘fiction’, embracing two pandemics, from HIV to Covid, though the way things are going, I might have to include Monkeypox too, and a possible World War 3. Trying to write about these with some humour, and ‘Hope’ even, is proving to be quite a challenge.
You know I traverse boundaries, sometimes unfairly, but I fear that this is the nature of the beast (something I am struggling to contain). We even started off that way, with you so instantly agreeing to pose for the very first Icon. It was a very extreme beginning, that asking you to stand naked, holding one object you thought defined you, whilst also holding a prophylactic, something I defined as our only ‘suit of armour’ in a time of that sexually generated plague. I said that I, in turn, would mount you in 24 carat Gold, acknowledging both your ‘sainthood’ and ‘godlike’ status. You were the first. I want to thank you for trusting me. I sort of knew what I was doing. It seemed very clear to me that we had to be acknowledged, by we, I mean us transgressors, us people living outside the norm. I don’t mean choosing to live outside that norm either, I mean more their finding themselves there simply because of who they were. There was no choice, none at all. Regardless of the choices we think we make, I see us just as being ourselves reacting to our environment and attempting to ensure our own continuance, a real ‘survival of the un-fittest’, if there ever was one. Even the unfittest survive until they don’t, and their demise, that slinking off, is deserving of description, perhaps as an adjunct to Mr. Darwin’s thesis. We watched each other fall. I won’t go as far as saying that the best fell, some did, and some survived, ditto some of the 'worst' did one or the other. We watched, we struggled to survive, and described as best we could.
I will probably generate acronyms for all involved, living breathing cyphers. Then there are other made up names: Rack is Rack, and I am, of course, Ruin, rampaging Rack and Ruin even, so there is possibly room for those types of names, non-specific, but possibly tribal, identifiers: Rack, Ruin, Sorcha (meaning Light, as you know), Hi (Him indoors, of course), and whatever. Perhaps you can be your 'Do(g)nut'. I haven’t quite worked that one out yet, though I do have 400,000 words approximately to hang these names on. One could be Dream, even. Aisling is the Gaelic name derived from Dream. But the words are more or less already there, generated by 20 years of writing emails. Initially I was trying to write something built out of these emails and responses, but now I sort of realise that I cannot use the responses, that I have to somehow generate the ‘characters’ through my responses to them.
It's like trying to create characters out of a vacuum, but then, if the truth be told, that is exactly what ‘fiction’ is.
So here we are, you are now very much included, at the beginning of this ‘story’. I won’t use what you reply, what you write, but I will use what you provoke in me, what you cause me to remember and there will be a picture built of you, another one.
This time you can keep all your clothes on.
There’s a strange ‘Hope’ in bothering to try to make art or to write, and both are very easy to be cynical about. Cynicism is possibly the easiest route to take, and the saddest too. I see that it always demands a slightly religious fervour, the making process, so I understand why this cynicism is generated. We are awash in plagues, some of us have been for the last 40 years, even, and longer. There are also, of course, wars and rumours of wars, and the tyranny imposed by dictators, including those Fortune 500 companies, so the very idea that there might be a future where people might read, or choose to even look at art, or simply that there might be even people, at all, there to indulge in both ‘rarified luxuries’ seems to be in that balance, or lack of balance. Nadezhda Mandelstam described it, in her memoir ‘Hope Against Hope’, as the obligation that each of us has to scream out against injustice, so that it might echo out there, even if the universe is busily, with our help, emptying itself.
But then one has to chuckle to oneself at the idea that we could empty infinity, that arrogance is sublimely human. Hope, perhaps, resides in that chuckle too.
There it is, that double-mask of comedy and tragedy combined.
Mitt Romney, in traditional hunting attire accessorized with a dog whistle and a Morman pin, riding a Republican Elephant. The elephant is traversing a landscape cluttered with a Tea Party hunting dog, a Don't Tread on Me" rattle snake, and loose money. A raven or crow is perched on the elephant's trunk symbolizing "The Trickster." The Citzens United plane is carpet bombing the scene with campaign dollars.
Willard Mitt Romney aka Mitt Romney is a former Governor of Massachusetts and a perenial Republican presidential candidate. He is a Republican presidential candidate for 2012.
Image sources:
Mitt Romney's face: CC from nmfbihop's Flickr photostream.
Elephant: CC from Visnu Pitiyanuvath's Flickr photostream.
Crow / Raven: : CC from Grand Canyon NPS Flickr Photostream.
Fox hunter and hunting dog: a photo by Carol Highsmith available via the Library of Congress.
Rattle Snake: CC's from plural's flickr photostream and Jeffery Love's flickr photostream.
Jet: a photo from Nasa.
CC = Creative Commons licensed photo.
www.facebook.com/labbaykyahusayn
The Martyr of Karbala Tears of Karbala
Karbala is the name of the place where the grand-son of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and his family, fell martyr among his faithful companions, victims of the soldiers of the Caliph Yazid son of Muawiya usurper, who then took them women and children of the Prophet's family captive.
"Ashura" means the tenth day of the Islamic month of Moharram in which the martyrdom took place, during which it is still celebrated with great fervor.
Karbala and Ashura 'is the beating heart of the faithful of the Family of the Prophet, peace be with them, beating heart that has continued over the centuries, to keep alive the spirit of truth and justice and continue to do so until
Last day.
Rather than historical analysis, which can qu'escamoter dimensions both deeper and more human tragedy, it is a story that I convierais a similar story to those who passed on since centuries in the commemorative meetings of the martyrdom of Karbala '.
But before I begin, I invited you to taste a few words of the People of Prophetic House, peace be with them, and to a few of their followers poets.
The great scholar Ahmad Ibn Hanbal reported in his Mosnad (vol.1, p.85, had.648) that Imam 'Ali, may God ennoble his face, has said:
"One day I went to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and his family, his eyes brimming with tears. I asked: "O Messenger of God, someone you would he angry? Why your eyes overflowing with tears they?
- The angel Gabriel, he said, just leave me.
He told me that [my little son] Husayn will be killed at the Euphrates River. "Do you want me to make you feel the earth [where he will be killed]?" He said. I said yes. He then held his hand, took a handful of [this] land and gave it to me ...
Then I could not stop my tears from falling. "
(Mosnad Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, vol.1, p.85, had.648).
It is also reported from Imam 'Ali ibn Musa ar-Rida, grand-son of Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq, himself great-grand-son of Imam Hussein, peace be with them , he said:
"Muharram is a month in which people in the Jahiliyya considered unlawful to make war, and that they considered it lawful to shed our blood, they have undermined our worthy wives, they have captured our women and children and they set fire to our camp and plundered what was there our treasures: they did nothing to show due respect for the Messenger of God for us.
In truth, the day of our eyelids Hossein bruised and shed our tears. He who is dear to us has been debased into a land of Karbala which left us a legacy of affliction (Karb) and test (bala ') until the day when all will be finished.
So that those who mourn over someone like al-Hossayn because it reduces crying over the great sins.
When entering the month of Moharram, we never saw my father laugh. It was dominated by the sentence until the tenth day, when the day arrived for him it was a day of misery, sadness and tears, and he said: "This is the day which killed Hossein ... "
The great Egyptian Shaykh al-Busiri, author of the famous qasîda known as al-Borda, also made another great poem praising the Prophet, may God bless him and his family, known as the al-Mahdi Khayri Hamziyya fī l-bariyya (Rhyming Poem hamza in the glory of the best creatures).
Here are a few verses of this last poem in which the Shaykh addressed to the Prophet, may God bless him and his family, citing the misfortunes that befell his two grandchildren son, Imam al-Hasan and al-Hossayn, peace be with them:
I honor these martyrs nor [the battle] Taff or [of] Karbala not make me forget the misfortunes
In both, the subordinates respected thy right
As leaders, although they betrayed their commitment to you.
They invertirent affection and support your parents
Hypocrites and their heads came out of their holes misleading
And their hearts were hardened against those whose
Earth lamented the death wept like heaven.
And you, the crying so much that you can mourn
Because it is that little cry when misfortune is so great.
Every day and every land, by my affliction for them,
Is Karbala and Ashura ', [because of my affliction to them]
(Al-Mahdi Khayri Hamziyya fi l-bariyya "Rhyming Poem hamza in the glory of the best creatures")
The story begins in Iraq in the city of Kufa, which was then one of two cities in the country. We are in the last days of the year 60 AH, 682 AD, less than fifty years after the painful demise of the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and his family and give them peace. suite
Let's see, now.
The Mayor sends his kids to private schools as he eviscerates the public schools and fires and demoralizes teachers and staff.
Chicago's outlying neighborhoods have been walloped by foreclosures, especially Bronzeville, Englewood and parts of the west side. Even before the 2008 meltdown, entire blocks in these neighborhoods were vacant, without a building left standing.
Chicago lost nearly 200,000 people between 2000 and 2010. It has lost nearly a third of its population since 1950.
Speaker Boehner allows the Tea Party to bring our country to the brink of default so they can score political points against President Obama. One of the Tea Party's leading hypocrite nut jobs, Rep. Joe Walsh, who publicly called the President of the United States a liar and has been lecturing him about "fiscal responsibility" for months, is revealed in a lawsuit by his ex-wife to owe $100,000 in alimony and child support for his 3 children.
So children glimpsing painted-on panties on a fully-clothed statue of an actress who has been dead almost 50 years is the least of our problems. Good Lord, the MPAA censors (who still did the "ladder test" on the cleavage in actresses' costumes in 1955) allowed this movie to be seen by anyone with 75 cents to get into the theater. If those children have brothers and sisters and their parents accidentally left the master bedroom door open, they've probably seen (or heard) much more than Marilyn cooing as the breeze from the subway sends her pleated skirt airborne.
This guy has an interesting story to tell.
An excerpt:
I am embarking on a journey unlike most get to experience. Some call me crazy; others call me stupid. I say I’m both.
My purpose in this endeavor is to belittle the difference between norm and exception and justify the worth of each soul. Every day I witness the “hierarchy of men” put one man’s worth beneath the next until it reaches rock bottom; homelessness.
I am a hypocrite in a sense.
I've come to appreciate the dynamics of life, how humans change, how we were once dull and superficial compared to how we are now that we've grown and learned.
But for some reason, and I don't know why, I saw homeless people as the exception to the rule. They weren't people who used to have a family and a home. They weren't people who have grown and changed. They were just constant pores peppered in our lives every once in a while. They were snapshots of life: never changing, never learning, never growing.
I convinced myself of these falsities while growing up, being hesitant in approaching “homeless people”. Only offering a helping hand at church service projects or Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I grew disappointed in myself, for judging the unknown. For assuming they are worthless just because they don’t sleep in a bed with covers.
I wanted to make a change; I wanted to taste of their hardships. So, I bought a van for $500 and moved in. I began talking to “homeless” people and found they are just like every other person I have come to know. They have a story. And I noticed that the only difference between them and me is that they have more trials. They still eat, they still worship, and they still love. I realized they aren’t homeless just because they’re houseless.
Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a life-story to tell.
I’m here to tell theirs.
Well, Obama, I can definitely see how 'for the women' you are when you accept $1,000,000 from Maher and your wife appears on Letterman.
David Letterman:
1. "One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."
2. Sarah Palin "bought makeup at Bloomingdale's to update her slutty flight attendant look."
Bill Maher:
1. "Sarah Palin finally heard what happened in Japan and she’s demanding that we invade Tsunami. I mean, she says, 'These Tsunamians will not get away with this.' Oh speaking of dumb tw*ts, did you…"
2. Regarding Sarah Palin: “Speaking of dumb tw*ts, this is a category five moron we have on our hands and I am unapologetic."
3. "Sarah Palin agreed to do commentary on Fox News, which is actually very similar to her day job… talking to a baby with down syndrome."
5. "In Bristol’s new memoir 'Not Afraid of Life' - working title, 'Whoops, There's a Dick in Me' - Bristol claims that the night she lost her virginity she had accidentally gotten drunk on wine coolers that she didn't know contained alcohol and then blacked out and didn't remember a thing. Oh, the Palins. I tell you, the shit doesn't fall far from the bat.
[Applause]
Bristol, just admit it. You were horny, and while we're at it stop claiming that you were on birth control pills that didn't work when you got pregnant. Here's a tip, hon: they're not birth control pills if they're shaped like Fred Flintstone."
Barack Obama:
1. Regarding Rush Limbaugh: "The remarks that were made don’t have any place in the public discourse."
2. "I thought about Malia and Sasha, and I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way and I don’t want them attacked or called horrible names because they are being good citizens."
For a more elaborate breakdown of the misogyny of leftist media mouthpieces visit Kirsten Powers articles:
1.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/04/rush-limbaugh-s-apology-liberal-men-need-to-follow-suit.html
2.http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/08/critics-of-rush-limbaugh-ignore-bill-maher-matt-taibbi-misogyny.html
Kirsten Powers is a liberal woman who Keith Olbermann loathes with every drop of misogynistic blood that pumps through his hypocritical body for exposing (read: "selling out"-his words, not mine) the democrats in the media. These men may be complete misogynists but because they support Obama and aid in the production of the Obama zombie youth, we are NOT supposed to shine a light on them. We're supposed to believe Obama just loves women (read: loves the women's vote) and will fight for their uteruses this coming election. But is it about their uteruses or the right to have sex on taxpayer dollars? Hmmm...
So apparently joe doing a teen vogue photoshoot and interview that features demi...
Someone asked me for my opinion so let me explain, dont get mad at me because it is my opinion. and you don't have to read this if you don't want to.
I admit i am a little hypocritical because sometimes i like them together, other times, not so much. i loved them as best friends. When they started dating, i was cool with it. Then I started disliking them together. i don't know. but they seem happy together, and its not like any of us can do anything about it, just gonna have to get use to it.
Mitt Romney, in traditional hunting attire accessorized with a dog whistle and a Morman pin, riding a Republican Elephant. The elephant is traversing a landscape cluttered with a Tea Party hunting dog, a Don't Tread on Me" rattle snake, and loose money. A raven or crow is perched on the elephant's trunk symbolizing "The Trickster." The Citzens United plane is carpet bombing the scene with campaign dollars.
Willard Mitt Romney aka Mitt Romney is a former Governor of Massachusetts and a perenial Republican presidential candidate. He is a Republican presidential candidate for 2012.
Image sources:
Mitt Romney's face: CC from nmfbihop's Flickr photostream.
Elephant: CC from Visnu Pitiyanuvath's Flickr photostream.
Crow / Raven: : CC from Grand Canyon NPS Flickr Photostream.
Fox hunter and hunting dog: a photo by Carol Highsmith available via the Library of Congress.
Rattle Snake: CC's from plural's flickr photostream and Jeffery Love's flickr photostream.
Jet: a photo from Nasa.
CC = Creative Commons licensed photo.
___
For more of Mario Piperni's illustrations and opinion on political issues visit mariopiperni.com
To view a slideshow of Mario's illustration art see:
"THE MORPHEUS DEVICE" is the World's first CREDIBLE, PRACTICAL, & yet SIMPLE design of a COMPACT instrumentality for RECORDING Human nocturnal DREAMS, in REAL-TIME! This is NO cockamamie 'RUBE GOLDBERG DREADLOCKS MACHINE', folks --- with scores of unkempt electrodes & wires DANGLING from one's snoozing NOGGIN! Indeed, "THE MORPHEUS DEVICE" elaborates the only FEASIBLE way our nightly dreams can be easily, accurately, & rapidly RECORDED in maximum, full-color, HD resolution, FOR ALL TIME. And then PLAYED-BACK at one's leisure for PROFOUND emotional, psychological, intellectual, philosophical, spiritual, artistic, & even political EDIFICATION and INSPIRATION on an EPOCHAL scale! And for a mere $25,000,000 (USD), you can PURCHASE outright ALL ownership, design, reproduction, publishing, manufacturing, sales, TV, cable, screenplay, movie, Hollywood, Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Internet, pod-casting, Blockchain, & otherwise LEGAL RIGHTS to the watershed "THE MORPHEUS DEVICE" (Dream Recording Machine) Invention Proposal. (See Proposal, Pg. 37.) In the proverbial Final Analysis, "THE MORPHEUS DEVICE" --- vis-à-vis exploiting our RETINAS (vs. 'GREY MATTER') to record nightly DREAMS --- is both figuratively & literally the biggest 'NO-Brainer' in the History of MANKIND, TECHNOLOGY, & SCIENCE to boot! Thank you, & PLEASANT nightmares to all!
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I am not sure if it is funny, but the pandemic and slowly thinking whether my actions are hypocritical of my words. As such I didn't chase many rare birds in Kansas during 2020, I stayed close to home and ventured out alone or with my wife and kids predominantly, and that I didn't focus on year species totals. This bird has been around Lawrence Kansas and close to home for 10 days, yet I didn't go see it last year even though it would have been a year tick and county tick. I also noticed the person directly in front of me for the state this year would probably enjoy beating me, so it was a win win.
I caved this past weekend and went to Globe Prairie to see this bird. I parked and simply enjoyed watching it from a distance, which only resulted in the next car parking right below the bird and flushing it. I asked my girls and wife if they wanted to go with, but they decided to stay home. I am hoping carpooling is soon an option again.
Here is a backside view of the bird.
As-salam-O-Alikum Friends
(When you say As-Salam-O-Alaikum, you are actually guaranteeing the believing brother/sister protection from any evil from ourselves and that we will not do a single thing to harm them either physically or spiritually)
As usual i am late to post a ramadan(the holly month for muslims) picture and i apologise for that.
U know as i lack sophisticated equipment therefore i couldnt get you guys picture of the moon that is kinda tradition as Islam has lunar months but i some how managed to get this sunrise on first of ramadan
I am not that religious and can't present a good debate on ramadan month but i believe that a muslim should try to be a muslim every single day not just in this month, sorry to say i have seen many hypocrites and thats quite sad.( no offence )
I remember all my friends whether muslims or non-muslims every single day not just in this month so dont forget to remember me back in your prayers.
May God bless all of us
Camera: Sony DSC-F828
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/2000)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 7.1 mm
ISO Speed: 64
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Inscribed over a door in Kilmainham Gaol by a prisoner during the Irish Civil War 1922-23, quoting a speech by the iconic Irish nationalist Padraig Pearse who was executed on 3rd May 1916 for his part in the Easter Rising. Here’s the speech the quotation came from;
The Rebel I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow, That have no treasure but hope, No riches laid up but a memory Of an Ancient glory. My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born, I am of the blood of serfs; The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten, Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters, And, though gentle, have served churls; The hands that have touched mine, the dear hands whose touch is familiar to me, Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles, Have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers, I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone, I that have never submitted; I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people's masters, I that have vision and prophecy and the gift of fiery speech, I that have spoken with God on the top of His holy hill. And because I am of the people, I understand the people, I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire: My heart has been heavy with the grief of mothers, My eyes have been wet with the tears of children, I have yearned with old wistful men, And laughed or cursed with young men; Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it, Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free, Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full, Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and of their jailors With their writs of summons and their handcuffs, Men mean and cruel! I could have borne stripes on my body rather than this shame of my people. And now I speak, being full of vision; I speak to my people, and I speak in my people's name to the masters of my people. I say to my people that they are holy, that they are august, despite their chains, That they are greater than those that hold them, and stronger and purer, That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their God, God the unforgetting, the dear God that loves the peoples For whom He died naked, suffering shame. And I say to my people's masters: Beware, Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people, Who shall take what ye would not give. Did ye think to conquer the people, Or that Law is stronger than life and than men's desire to be free? We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held, Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!
He had a way with the words did Padraig.
Check out Renewin' Strathewen
A benevolent social hack
Now published at seldomlogical.com/2009/09/12/a-benevolent-social-hack
"I wanted Alan Turing to be raised into the pantheon of great Britons, but I felt it would be hypocritical to do so without recognising that Britain treated him so badly" [0]
Today I witnessed a social hack by a UK hacker who in the space of a month turned around 60 years of history. What did it take? A simple idea, a measure of determination, some imagination and a bit of luck. What did he achieve? He persuaded the government of the United Kingdom with the help of fellow citizens, to acknowledge the maltreatment of a deceased fellow Hacker.
What is a Hacker?
You might have heard of Hackers in the media. [1] Those pesky 12 year-old boys and their computers at it again, breaking into Government computers and causing millions of dollars damage. If you believe the media, Hackers are also responsible for numerous other electronic sins when the most likely explanation is probably a poor choice of operating system. [2] Hackers have something of an image problem. In fact the term Hacker has been hijacked and misused. It used to mean a person who playfully enjoyed puzzles, reveled in understanding complicated and building new technology. Hackers tend to be benevolent. Less interested in exploiting for gain [3], more interested in mastery and exploits to show amongst their friends. [4]
Malevolent vs Benevolent
Instead, the media cottoned onto the term Hackers to describe malevolent behaviour and the broken understanding has persisted ever since. [5] So Instead of using the correct technical term Cracker, the term Hacker has now become synonymous with bad. Here is a simple way for you to correct this. Whenever you hear the term Hacker in the media, ask yourself, "is the behaviour benevolent or malevolent?" If it's malevolent substitute Hacker for Cracker. If the behaviour is benevolent you are getting a definition closer to the original idea describing a Hacker. So to summarise, Hackers are curious and benevolent by nature, enjoy understanding the and mastering the complex and creating new technology. [6]
A social hack
Just as Hackers enjoy creating new technology, sometimes malevolent Hackers, Crackers, try to engineer people for information. [7] Exploiting the cognitive biases of humans for personal gain. [8] I can only think of a few instances of social hacks being done for good instead of evil. [9] But today, I witnessed a benevolent social hack. An example illustrating the benevolence of Hackers. An existence proof of a good "social hack". But first a short detour into technology history.
If there is a birthplace of modern hackers you might be tempted to think MIT. [10] But you'd be wrong. Modern computer technology had it's birthplace in the United Kingdom. First there was Charles Babbage. Babbage created a mechanical calculating device, Ada Lovelace supplied the software programming. The first hardware and software development team. [11] Babbage and Lovelace might have supplied the early inspiration but it took the Second World War, another 83 years [12] to encourage the theoretical framework and a complete working example of what we now know as Computers to exist. And at the centre of all this was one man, Alan Mathison Turing. [13]
Alan Mathison Turing
Turing is the original Hacker. He excelled as a mathematician, code breaker and computer scientist and had a measurable effect on the infant science of computers with the creation of the Turing machine" [14] and the thought experiment, "Intelligent Machinery". [15] Turing also designed calculating machines, part electrical, part mechanical to crack the German Enigma and numerous other algorthyms to help crack encrypted messages vital for the German war machine. [16] In the mid to late 1940's, Turing continued to apply himself to the big problem of the time, outlined in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" [17], software for the Manchester Mark 1 [18] and developed the "Turing Test" [19] as a means to test if a machine is in fact intelligent.
Turing was clearly a man of his time, able to influence the future course of computer technology for a better world. But Turing was also a man born into the wrong time. Turing's crime was his sexuality. In a time where sexual orientation was not a choice but law, Turing was persecuted. Turing was subject to unethical medical procedures by the UK Government. The same Allied government who turned to ordinary people like Turing to help to defeat Germany. To defeat the Nazi regime and put a stop to the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and anyone else who didn't fit the plan for a master race.
The idea behind a social hack is to somehow change the way people behave, perceive and judge. A social hack is much harder to achieve than a playing around with technology. A social hack relies on being able to persuade other people to do something they might not originally think of, want or imagine possible. A good social hack is done to improve some aspect of society for altruistic reasons.
Recognition, gratitude, apology
Almost a month ago a UK Hacker and nerd, John Graham-Cumming, wrote about [20] a petition [21] he organising to get the UK Government to formally apologise to Alan Turing. An apology for the mistreatment he received on behalf of the government. Well almost a month later after many emails, blog posts, twits later, John persuaded the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown on behalf of the government of United Kingdom to publicly apologise to Alan Turing for his maltreatment and recognise the importance of Turing's technical and scientific contribution to the war effort and science and technology in general. [22] The most rewarding surprise is the discovery of existing members of Turing's family who now get some closure on the matter. In 2012 it will be the centenary of the birth of Turing London on June 23. [23] For nerds and people who work in computing, the Turing year is going to be big. Maybe not as big as Y2K, but big enough.
So thank you John for this benevolent "social hack". A reminder that Hackers do good things. A reminder that in a just society, people and Hackers alike should be judged by their achievements and not their race, religion, sex or orientation.
Reference
[0] ABC News, Reuters, "Brown sorry for code-breaker's 'appalling' treatment",
[Accessed Saturday, 12th September 2009]
www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/12/2683906.htm
[1] mit.edu, Bruce Stirling, "The Hacker Crackdown",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html
[2] Wikipedia, Storm botnet: In 2007 a Storm botnet controlled by criminal gangs estimated to total between 150,000 to 1 million PC's to enable a distributed denial of service attack. It was reported that up to 80% of the machines involved used Microsoft Windows operating system.
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_botnet
[3] It has been known for Hackers have exploited their knowledge to gain access and excessive CPU access and I suspect the fascination for lock picking probably has a very practical reason behind it. Historically this was a necessity as access to precious processing time was limited. Limited enough to hack a solution. You can read more about early Hackers here by "Eric Steven Raymond", "A Brief History of Hackerdom",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/hacker-histor...
[4] Woz.org, Steve Wozniak, "Letters-General Questions Answered (Woz on hacking)",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.woz.org/letters/general/59.html
[4] The confusion between Hackers and Crackers means to use the word Hacker means Bad to most people.
[5] catb.org, Eric Steven Raymond, "The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them."
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is
[6] Scientific American, Herbert H. Thompson, "How I Stole Someone's Identity",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=anatomy-of-a-so...
[7] Wikipedia, "A cognitive biases is a hickup in rational thought that can be used by Crackers to socially engineer a human for malevolent (bad) reasons.",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
[8] Dashes.com, Anil Dash, "Bill Gates and the Greatest Tech Hack Ever" I have a bit of trouble with this one but it's worth looking at despite the involvement of Microsoft."
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
dashes.com/anil/2008/06/bill-gates-and-the-greatest-tech-hack-ever.html
[9] mitadmissions.org, Michael Snively, "Hacking/Snively's Blog: If you've never seen "Hackers" then you're depriving yourself and should make a point of getting on that train.* I get asked about hacking at MIT a lot, which is natural;"
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/hacks_traditions/hackin...
[10] Wikipedia, Ada Lovelace, "She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, encoding an algorithm in a form to be processed by a machine—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built.",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
[11] computerhistory.org, Charles Babbage, "1849 is the year Babbage is reported to have created a version of his analytical machine."
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
http:www.computerhistory.org/babbage/ number10.gov.uk
[12] alanturing.net, "Born 23 June 1912 in London, died 7 June 1954 in Cheshire, United Kingdom. Computer scientist, mathematician and cryptographer.",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
[13] Wikipedia, "Turing machine",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine#Informal_description
[14] Wikipedia, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence. A paper written in 1950 for 'Mind' in which Turing discusses artificial intelligence, proposes the 'Turing test' of intelligence and asks important questions such as, 'can machines think?'",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_Machinery_and_Intelligence/
[15] Wikipedia, "Cryptanalysis: Where Turing works at Bletchley Park during the Second World War in order to crack German cryptographic cyphers."
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Cryptanalysis
[16] abelard.org, A. M. Turing, "Computing machinery and intelligence"
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.php
[17] computer50.org, "Manchester Mark 1: By April 1949 was generally available for computation in scientific research in the University. With the integration of a high speed magnetic drum by the Autumn (the ancestor of today's disc) this was the first machine with a fast electronic and magnetic two-level store. It in turn was the basis of the first commercially available computer, the Ferranti Mark 1, the first machine off the production line being delivered in February 1951."
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.computer50.org/mark1/MM1.html22
[18] Wikipedia, "Turing test",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Early_computers_and_the...
[19] jgc.org, John Graham-Cumming, "Alan Turing deserves an apology from the British Government",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/alan-turing-deserves-apology-fro...
[20] number10.gov.uk, John Graham-Cumming, "number10.gov.uk: E-Petitions: Submitted by John Graham-Cumming – Deadline to sign up by: 20 January 2010 – Signatures: 31,172"
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/
[21] number10.gov.uk, "Treatment of Alan Turing was 'appalling'"
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
[22] cs.swan.ac.uk, "THE ALAN TURING YEAR",
[Accessed Friday, 11th September 2009]
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Charles Bradlaugh (/ˈbrædlɔː/; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist, atheist and British republican. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866.
In 1880, Bradlaugh was elected as the Liberal MP for Northampton. His attempt to affirm as an atheist, rather than take a parliamentary Oath of Allegiance which assumed a new MP was a Christian (and a Monarchist), ultimately led to his temporary imprisonment, fines for voting in the Commons illegally, and a number of by-elections at which Bradlaugh regained his seat on each occasion. He was finally allowed to take an oath in 1886. Eventually, a parliamentary bill which he proposed became law in 1888 which allowed members of both Houses of Parliament to affirm, if they so wished, when being sworn in. The new law also resolved the issue for witnesses in civil and criminal court cases.
Born in Hoxton (an area in the East End of London), Bradlaugh was the son of a solicitor's clerk. He left school at the age of eleven and then worked as an office errand-boy and later as a clerk to a coal merchant. After a brief spell as a Sunday school teacher, he became disturbed by discrepancies between the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church and the Bible. When he expressed his concerns, the local vicar, John Graham Packer, accused him of atheism and suspended him from teaching. He was thrown out of the family home and was taken in by Eliza Sharples Carlile, the widow of Richard Carlile, who had been imprisoned for printing Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. Soon Bradlaugh was introduced to George Holyoake, who organised Bradlaugh's first public lecture as an atheist.
At the age of 17, he published his first pamphlet, A Few Words on the Christian Creed. However, refusing financial support from fellow freethinkers, he enlisted as a soldier with the Seventh Dragoon Guards hoping to serve in India and make his fortune. Instead he was stationed in Dublin. In 1853, he was left a legacy by a great-aunt and used it to purchase his discharge from the army.
Bradlaugh returned to London in 1853 and took a post as a solicitor's clerk. By this time he was a convinced freethinker and in his free time he became a pamphleteer and writer about "secularist" ideas, adopting the pseudonym "Iconoclast" to protect his employer's reputation. He gradually attained prominence in a number of liberal or radical political groups or societies, including the Reform League, Land Law Reformers, and Secularists.
He was President of the London Secular Society from 1858. In 1860 he became editor of the secularist newspaper, the National Reformer, and in 1866 co-founded the National Secular Society, in which Annie Besant became his close associate. In 1868, the Reformer was prosecuted by the British Government for blasphemy and sedition. Bradlaugh was eventually acquitted on all charges, but fierce controversy continued both in the courts and in the press.
A decade later (1876), Bradlaugh and Besant decided to republish the American Charles Knowlton's pamphlet advocating birth control, The Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People, whose previous British publisher had already been successfully prosecuted for obscenity. The two activists were both tried in 1877, and Charles Darwin refused to give evidence in their defence, pleading ill-health, but at the time writing to Bradlaugh that his testimony would have been of little use to them because he opposed birth control. They were sentenced to heavy fines and six months' imprisonment, but their conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal on the basis that the prosecution had not set out the precise words which were alleged to be obscene in the indictment. The Malthusian League was founded as a result of the trial to promote birth control. He was a member of a Masonic lodge in Bolton, although he was later to resign due to the nomination of the Prince of Wales as Grand Master.
On 6 March 1881 he spoke at the opening of Leicester Secular Society's new Secular Hall in Humberstone Gate, Leicester. The other speakers were George Jacob Holyoake, Annie Besant and Harriet Law.
Bradlaugh was an advocate of trade unionism, republicanism, and women's suffrage, and he opposed socialism. His anti-socialism was divisive, and many secularists who became socialists left the secularist movement because of its identification with Bradlaugh's liberal individualism. He was a supporter of Irish Home Rule, and backed France during the Franco-Prussian War. He took a strong interest in India.
In 1880 Bradlaugh was elected Member of Parliament for Northampton. To take his seat and become an active Parliamentarian, he needed to signify his allegiance to the Crown and on 3 May Bradlaugh came to the Table of the House of Commons, bearing a letter to the Speaker "begging respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm" instead of taking the religious Oath of Allegiance, citing the Evidence Amendment Acts of 1869 and 1870. Speaker Brand declared that he had "grave doubts" and asked the House for its judgment. Lord Frederick Cavendish, for the Government, moved that a Select Committee be set up to decide whether persons entitled to make a solemn affirmation in court were also allowed to affirm instead of taking the Parliamentary oath.
This Select Committee held only one brief meeting on 12 May 1880. The Attorney General, Sir Henry James, moved that anyone entitled to affirm to give evidence in court was also entitled to affirm instead of taking the Oath in Parliament. Sir John Holker, Conservative MP for Preston, moved an amendment to reverse this finding, and the committee split down the middle with eight members (seven Conservatives and Charles Henry Hopwood, Liberal MP for Stockport) supporting the amendment and eight (all Liberals) opposing it; on the casting vote of the chairman Spencer Horatio Walpole the amendment was carried. Bradlaugh was not surprised that the Committee had gone against him, and notified the Speaker that he would attend to take the Oath on 21 May.
To explain his actions, Bradlaugh wrote an open letter to The Times which was published on the morning of 21 May. He said it would have been hypocritical to voluntarily take the oath "including words of idle and meaningless character" without protest when another form of words was available, but now that the Select Committee had ruled he must, he would do so and "regard myself as bound not by the letter of its words, but by the spirit which the affirmation would have conveyed had I been permitted to use it." Bradlaugh's letter was regarded as a direct provocation by his opponents, and when he came to the table, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff rose to object to the administration of the Oath to Bradlaugh. Speaker Brand allowed him to object, and Wolff argued that the Evidence Amendment Acts referred to by Bradlaugh only allowed an affirmation to one who regarded the oath as meaningless, so the House should not allow Bradlaugh to take it. Prime Minister William Gladstone, alerted to the fact that a protest was possible, moved to set up a second Select Committee to examine whether it was possible to interfere with a Member wishing to take the oath. Gladstone's amendment was carried by 289 to 214.
The Select Committee began deliberating on 1 June 1880, when it considered a paper put in by Sir Thomas Erskine May, the Clerk of the House. Sir Thomas found several precedents for Members disabled to sit for refusing to take the Oath, together with Quaker MP Joseph Pease who was permitted to affirm, and Jewish MPs Baron Lionel de Rothschild and David Salomons who were eventually allowed to take the Oath while omitting the words "on the true faith of a Christian." On the following day, Erskine May and Bradlaugh himself were questioned by the Committee, with Bradlaugh arguing that, should the Committee decide he had no right to affirm, he would take the oath and regard it as binding on his conscience. When the Committee decided its report, it agreed by one vote an amendment declaring that the House could "and, in the opinion of your Committee, ought to" prevent Bradlaugh taking the Oath. It also added (by 12 votes to 9) that it would be possible for an action in the High Court of Justice to test whether an affirmation was genuinely legal, and therefore recommended that if Bradlaugh sought to affirm, he should be allowed to do so in order that such an action be brought to clarify the law. The second Select Committee had effectively reversed the outcome of the first.
When it was known that this was the likely outcome of the Select Committee, Bradlaugh's fellow Northampton MP Henry Labouchère initiated a debate on a motion to allow Bradlaugh to affirm. Sir Hardinge Giffard moved an amendment that Bradlaugh be not permitted to take either the Oath or make an affirmation. After two days of debate,[ Giffard's amendment was carried by 275 to 230, a defeat which surprised Gladstone. The majority comprised 210 Conservatives, 34 Liberals and 31 Irish Home Rulers; supporting Bradlaugh were 218 Liberals, 10 Home Rulers and 2 Conservatives. On the next day, Bradlaugh came to the Table claiming to take the Oath; in consequence of the previous night's vote the Speaker ordered him to withdraw. Bradlaugh was permitted to address the House from behind the Bar (which was technically outside the Chamber), and treated the occasion as his maiden speech. He based his argument on law, contending that he was not legally disqualified, and asking "as one man against six hundred" for the same justice he would receive in the Courts. Although well received, the speech was too late to reverse the decision, and Henry Labouchère was forced to withdraw a motion to rescind it.
At that point Bradlaugh was summoned back to the table to be told the outcome of the debate; having relayed it, the Speaker then ordered him to withdraw. Bradlaugh "respectfully refused" to obey an order of the House which was "against the law." The Conservative leader Sir Stafford Northcote successfully moved a motion that Bradlaugh be required to withdraw (agreed on a division by 326 to 38, Liberal MPs being unwilling to challenge a motion which sustained the House's legal authority) but Bradlaugh "positively refused to obey." The Serjeant-at-Arms was sent for and led Bradlaugh out to the Bar of the House, but Bradlaugh then immediately returned to the table claiming to take the Oath. At this Sir Stafford Northcote moved that Bradlaugh be taken into custody. The House agreed, on a division by 274 votes to 7 and Bradlaugh was taken to the small prison cell located under Big Ben in the Clock Tower.
Lord Randolph Churchill roused the Conservatives by leading resistance to Bradlaugh.
Because Members had to take the oath before being allowed to take their seats, he effectively forfeited his seat in Parliament. His seat fell vacant and a by-election was declared. Bradlaugh was re-elected by Northampton four times in succession as the dispute continued. Supporting Bradlaugh were William Ewart Gladstone, T. P. O'Connor and George Bernard Shaw as well as hundreds of thousands of people who signed a public petition. Opposing his right to sit were the Conservative Party, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other leading figures in the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church.
On at least one occasion, Bradlaugh was escorted from the House by police officers. In 1883 he took his seat and voted three times before being fined £1,500 for voting illegally. A bill allowing him to affirm was defeated in Parliament.
In 1886 Bradlaugh was finally allowed to take the oath, and did so at the risk of prosecution under the Parliamentary Oaths Act. Two years later, in 1888, he secured passage of a new Oaths Act,which enshrined into law the right of affirmation for members of both Houses, as well as extending and clarifying the law as it related to witnesses in civil and criminal trials (the Evidence Amendment Acts of 1869 and 1870 had proved unsatisfactory, though they had given relief to many who would otherwise have been disadvantaged). Bradlaugh spoke in Parliament about the London matchgirls strike of 1888.
The Biography of Charles Bradlaugh by Adolphe Headingle (1880) states (p. 64) "In 1854, Bradlaugh married the daughter of Mr. Hooper, a working plasterer who had attended the meetings at Bonner's Fields, where he was among the foremost to applaud his future son-in-law, the boy orator, whose eloquence delighted so many Chartists and Freethinkers." ("BONNER'S FIELDS. An open space on the banks of the Regent's Canal, near one of the entrances to Victoria Park, and so called from the House of Bishop Bonner at Bethnal Green, lately taken down. These fields were one of the places of assemblage of the Chartist Rioters of 1848. – Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850. Quoted from the online The Dictionary of Victorian London.)
His daughter Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner (1858–1935) was a peace activist, author, atheist and freethinker. He named her after Hypatia, the Ancient Greek pagan philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and teacher, who was murdered by a mob of Coptic monks devoted to the Christian archbishop Cyril of Alexandria.
Bradlaugh died on 30 January 1891. His funeral was attended by 3,000 mourners, including a 21-year-old Mohandas Gandhi.
In 1898, Bradlaugh's daughter Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner wrote a pamphlet in answer to the question that was often addressed to her: whether her father "changed his opinions and became a Christian" before he died. Bonner laid out all the evidence and concluded that her father gave no indication that his opinions had changed in the "smallest" way.
A statue of Bradlaugh is located on a traffic island at Abington Square, Northampton. The statue points west towards the centre of Northampton, the accusing finger periodically missing due to vandalism]. In 2014 the statue was cleaned and returned to the stonework. New signs are to be installed in 2015 on the roundabout reading "Charles Bradlaugh MP".
Since 2002, an "Annual Commemoration" has taken place beneath the statue at 3 pm on the Sunday closest to his birthday, organised by the Charles Bradlaugh Society. Attendees are invited to speak about Charles Bradlaugh. 2014 saw the addition of the inaugural Bradlaugh Talk with speakers on issues relevant to Bradlaugh. The first speaker was Graham Smith, CEO of Republic.
Bradlaugh Fields, a community wildlife park situated to the north of Northampton, was named after Charles Bradlaugh when it opened in 1998.[29] Other landmarks bearing his name include The Charles Bradlaugh pub, and Charles Bradlaugh Hall at the University of Northampton.
Brookwood Cemetery, Remembrance Sunday, Brookwood, Surrey.
Shot for a class project.
Remember to check my Facebook Page and my Twitter Account.
Listen to Sadistik - November
Sometimes, I cant handle the cold
Ill break another heart too fragile to hold
Love dies, Im standing alone,
painting false hopes is a habit Ive grown
Come find, why I said I dont love you
and instead I was humbled and content with the struggle
That you gave me, and said that I was crazy
Words became chains and love became safety
I saw trust until I lost the view...
And then I lost faith in us like I always do
I refused, to complement your weakness
Through all our ups and downs til I was sea-sick
...Flashbacks I remember so well, we both held
In November, when the snow fell
But that changed, you were not a friend to me
I distorted and soon I lost identity
And when we fought and I tried to break the innocence
You said lies, and I became a hypocrite
You tried to hold the sadness when you grabbed tight
(But I moved on from the shadows of our past life)
You said you couldn't live if I ran away
But part of me died, anyway, when I had to stay
In a storm that I saw in groundview
And I couldn't find the I (eye), it was all about U (you)
Year One! I felt the dear sun
A brand new hope before the tears come
Year two! I see In clear view
Ashamed of myself when I am near you
Year three! I watch the stars fade
Im a zombie whos walking through a heartache
Year four! Youre forever away and the sun now shines as my memories fade
All the feelings I have are hard to word
I cant see the problem, my vision starts to blur
Into an image of a violent struggle
Of a slow suicide since the time I loved you
Id, gladly die if youd pacify
But you need too many things that I cant provide, so
You looked for it inside another's arms
Lied through ya teeth and cried that nothings wrong
(It didn't stop) all the cryin in public
Or telling me Im not the only guy you were fuckin!
But I gave in to all my fears instead
The only thing that ran more than me (were the tears you shed)
When you told me you cut inside ya flesh
Youre depressed and youd rather die instead
I could feel my heart tear to bits
(The first time Ive cried ever since my parents split)
And I knew, there was no you and I
I kissed you goodbye, it felt like suicide
Ob a bond that was made to sever
When I turned my back on you and wouldn't face the weather
And for a moment, it felt like nothing mattered
Theres givers and theres takers, and youre just the latter
I needed help but I got a struggle
When I fell to pieces you couldn't solve the puzzle
(We wept in puddles) til we were lost at sea
(With regretful struggles) and a faded promise ring
Your hands were full cuz you seemed to hold grudges
While I chased both of our dreams through rosebushes, in November
Year One! I felt the dear sun
A brand new hope before the tears come
Year two! I see In clear view
Ashamed of myself when I am near you
Year three! I watch the stars fade
Im a zombie whos walking through a heartache
Year four! Youre forever away and the sun now shines as my memories fade
I couldn't think to hold a single hope
So I pressed on my luck until my fingers broke
Im treading steps through quicksand of past love
To find closure from ice shoulders and hands touch
And my mind is still plagued with the fragrances
Of pain and bliss, and razorblades you made me grip
When Id watch ya face with teary eyes
And I had to cut myself so I could feel alive, but
I found a place where the weather is much better now
In greener pastures, where the rain is never out
And ya face is replaced by another
November's leaves stay, but have changed for the summer
(and my) hope meddles (where I) go settle
In the line that blurs from love to rose petals
And the silence hurt, so I just followed through
On a beaten street, never reaching peaks which I saw in you/
And now I see that you just took me for granted/
Had a diamond in the rough and you still took me for granite/
Cuz in November we gazed at sea scapes/
With each wave, symbolizing thïngs that wed make
Love and war we were born as keepsakes
To underscore loves accord when peace breaks, In November
'If the chanting of God's name is restricted to your mouth only, it is not going to render any spiritual benefits to you and it is not going to change your character.' - His #Divine Eminence
Germany's energy crisis threatens a family-run business:
The Duran: Putin delivers confident Federal assembly speech, suspense start nuclear treaty:
en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70565
Presidential Address to Federal Assembly
Vladimir Putin delivered his Address to the Federal Assembly. The ceremony took place in Gostiny Dvor, Moscow.
February 21, 2023 13:50
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon,
Members of the Federation Assembly – senators, State Duma deputies,
Citizens of Russia,
This Presidential Address comes, as we all know, at a difficult, watershed period for our country. This is a time of radical, irreversible change in the entire world, of crucial historical events that will determine the future of our country and our people, a time when every one of us bears a colossal responsibility.
One year ago, to protect the people in our historical lands, to ensure the security of our country and to eliminate the threat coming from the neo-Nazi regime that had taken hold in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, it was decided to begin the special military operation. Step by step, carefully and consistently we will deal with the tasks we have at hand.
Since 2014, Donbass has been fighting for the right to live in their land and to speak their native tongue. It fought and never gave up amid the blockade, constant shelling and the Kiev regime’s overt hatred. It hoped and waited that Russia would come to help.
In the meantime, as you know well, we were doing everything in our power to solve this problem by peaceful means, and patiently conducted talks on a peaceful solution to this devastating conflict.
This appalling method of deception has been tried and tested many times before. They behaved just as shamelessly and duplicitously when destroying Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They will never be able to wash off this shame. The concepts of honour, trust, and decency are not for them.
Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony, they got used to being allowed everything, got used to spitting on the whole world. It turned out that they treat people living in their own countries with the same disdain, like a master. After all, they cynically deceived them too, tricked them with tall stories about the search for peace, about adherence to the UN Security Council resolutions on Donbass. Indeed, the Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.
We firmly defend our interests as well as our belief that in today’s world there should be no division into so-called civilised countries and all the rest and that there is a need for an honest partnership that rejects any exclusivity, especially an aggressive one.
We were open and sincerely ready for a constructive dialogue with the West; we said and insisted that both Europe and the whole world needed an indivisible security system equal for all countries, and for many years we suggested that our partners discuss this idea together and work on its implementation. But in response, we received either an indistinct or hypocritical reaction, as far as words were concerned. But there were also actions: NATO’s expansion to our borders, the creation of new deployment areas for missile defence in Europe and Asia – they decided to take cover from us under an ‘umbrella’ – deployment of military contingents, and not just near Russia’s borders.
I would like to stress –in fact, this is well-known – that no other country has so many military bases abroad as the United States. There are hundreds of them – I want to emphasise this – hundreds of bases all over the world; the planet is covered with them, and one look at the map is enough to see this.
The whole world witnessed how they withdrew from fundamental agreements on weapons, including the treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles, unilaterally tearing up the fundamental agreements that maintain world peace. For some reason, they did it. They do not do anything without a reason, as we know.
Finally, in December 2021, we officially submitted draft agreements on security guarantees to the USA and NATO. In essence, all key, fundamental points were rejected. After that it finally became clear that the go-ahead for the implementation of aggressive plans had been given and they were not going to stop.
The threat was growing by the day. Judging by the information we received, there was no doubt that everything would be in place by February 2022 for launching yet another bloody punitive operation in Donbass. Let me remind you that back in 2014, the Kiev regime sent its artillery, tanks and warplanes to fight in Donbass.
We all remember the aerial footage of airstrikes targeting Donetsk. Other cities also suffered from airstrikes. In 2015, they tried to mount a frontal assault against Donbass again, while keeping the blockade in place and continuing to shell and terrorise civilians. Let me remind you that all of this was completely at odds with the documents and resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, but everyone pretended that nothing was happening.
Let me reiterate that they were the ones who started this war, while we used force and are using it to stop the war.
Those who plotted a new attack against Donetsk in the Donbass region, and against Lugansk understood that Crimea and Sevastopol would be the next target. We realised this as well. Even today, Kiev is openly discussing far-reaching plans of this kind. They exposed themselves by making public what we knew already.
We are defending human lives and our common home, while the West seeks unlimited power. It has already spent over $150 billion on helping and arming the Kiev regime. To give you an idea, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the G7 countries earmarked about $60 billion in 2020–2021 to help the world’s poorest countries. Is this clear? They spent $150 billion on the war, while giving $60 billion to the poorest countries, despite pretending to care about them all the time, and also conditioning this support on obedience on behalf of the beneficiary countries. What about all this talk of fighting poverty, sustainable development and protection of the environment? Where did it all go? Has it all vanished? Meanwhile, they keep channelling more money into the war effort. They eagerly invest in sowing unrest and encouraging government coups in other countries around the world.
The recent Munich Conference turned into an endless stream of accusations against Russia. One gets the impression that this was done so that everyone would forget what the so-called West has been doing over the past decades. They were the ones who let the genie out of the bottle, plunging entire regions into chaos.
According to US experts, almost 900,000 people were killed during wars unleashed by the United States after 2001, and over 38 million became refugees. Please note, we did not invent these statistics; it is the Americans who are providing them. They are now simply trying to erase all this from the memory of humankind, and they are pretending that all this never happened. However, no one in the world has forgotten this or will ever forget it.
None of them cares about human casualties and tragedies because many trillions of dollars are at stake, of course. They can also continue to rob everyone under the guise of democracy and freedoms, to impose neoliberal and essentially totalitarian values, to brand entire countries and nations, to publicly insult their leaders, to suppress dissent in their own countries and to divert attention from corruption scandals by creating an enemy image. We continue to see all this on television, which highlights greater domestic economic, social and inter-ethnic problems, contradictions and disagreements.
I would like to recall that, in the 1930s, the West had virtually paved the way to power for the Nazis in Germany. In our time, they started turning Ukraine into an “anti-Russia.”
Actually, this project is not new. People who are knowledgeable about history at least to some extent realise that this project dates back to the 19th century. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland had conceived it for one purpose, that is, to deprive Russia of these historical territories that are now called Ukraine. This is their goal. There is nothing new here; they are repeating everything.
The West expedited the implementation of this project today by supporting the 2014 coup. That was a bloody, anti-state and unconstitutional coup. They pretended that nothing happened, and that this is how things should be. They even said how much money they had spent on it. Russophobia and extremely aggressive nationalism formed its ideological foundation.
Quite recently, a brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was named Edelweiss after a Nazi division whose personnel were involved in deporting Jews, executing prisoners of war and conducting punitive operations against partisans in Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece. We are ashamed to talk about this, but they are not. Personnel serving with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Guard are particularly fond of chevrons formerly worn by soldiers from Das Reich, Totenkopf (Death’s Head) and Galichina divisions and other SS units. Their hands are also stained with blood. Ukrainian armoured vehicles feature insignia of the Nazi German Wehrmacht.
Neo-Nazis are open about whose heirs they consider themselves to be. Surprisingly, none of the powers that be in the West are seeing it. Why? Because they – pardon my language – could not care less about it. They do not care who they are betting on in their fight against us, against Russia. In fact, anyone will do as long as they fight against us and our country. Indeed, we saw terrorists and neo-Nazis in their ranks. They would let all kinds of ghouls join their ranks, for God’s sake, as long as they act on their will as a weapon against Russia.
In fact, the anti-Russia project is part of the revanchist policy towards our country to create flashpoints of instability and conflicts next to our borders. Back then, in the 1930s, and now the design remains the same and it is to direct aggression to the East, to spark a war in Europe, and to eliminate competitors by using a proxy force.
We are not at war with the people of Ukraine. I have made that clear many times. The people of Ukraine have become hostages of the Kiev regime and its Western handlers, who have in fact occupied that country in the political, military and economic sense and have been destroying Ukrainian industry for decades now as they plundered its natural resources. This led to social degradation and an immeasurable increase in poverty and inequality. Recruiting resources for military operations in these circumstances was easy. Nobody was thinking about people, who were conditioned for slaughter and eventually became expendables. It is a sad and dreadful thing to say, but it is a fact.
Responsibility for inciting and escalating the Ukraine conflict as well as the sheer number of casualties lies entirely with the Western elites and, of course, today’s Kiev regime, for which the Ukrainian people are, in fact, not its own people. The current Ukrainian regime is serving not national interests, but the interests of third countries.
The West is using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia and as a testing range. I am not going to discuss in detail the West's attempts to turn the war around, or their plans to ramp up military supplies, since everyone is well aware of that. However, there is one circumstance that everyone should be clear about: the longer the range of the Western systems that will be supplied to Ukraine, the further we will have to move the threat away from our borders. This is obvious.
The Western elite make no secret of their goal, which is, I quote, “Russia’s strategic defeat.” What does this mean to us? This means they plan to finish us once and for all. In other words, they plan to grow a local conflict into a global confrontation. This is how we understand it and we will respond accordingly, because this represents an existential threat to our country.
However, they too realise it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield and are conducting increasingly aggressive information attacks against us targeting primarily the younger generation. They never stop lying and distorting historical facts as they attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religious organizations in our country.
Look what they are doing to their own people. It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life. They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages. Bless their hearts, let them do as they please. Here is what I would like to say in this regard. Adult people can do as they please. We in Russia have always seen it that way and always will: no one is going to intrude into other people’s private lives, and we are not going to do it, either.
But here is what I would like to tell them: look at the holy scripture and the main books of other world religions. They say it all, including that family is the union of a man and a woman, but these sacred texts are now being questioned. Reportedly, the Anglican Church is planning, just planning, to explore the idea of a gender-neutral god. What is there to say? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Millions of people in the West realise that they are being led to a spiritual disaster. Frankly, the elite appear to have gone crazy, and it looks like there is no cure for that. But like I said, these are their problems, while we must protect our children, which we will do. We will protect our children from degradation and degeneration.
Clearly, the West will try to undermine and divide our society and to bet on the fifth columnists who, throughout history, and I want to emphasise this, have been using the same poison of contempt for their own Fatherland and the desire to make money by selling this poison to anyone who is willing to pay for it. It has always been that way.
Those who have embarked on the road of outright betrayal, committing terrorist and other crimes against the security of our society and the country’s territorial integrity, will be held accountable for this under law. But we will never behave like the Kiev regime and the Western elite, which have been and still are involved in witch hunts. We will not settle scores with those who take a step aside and turn their back on their Motherland. Let this be on their conscience, let them live with this – they will have to live with it. The main point is that our people, the citizens of Russia, have given them a moral assessment.
I am proud, and I think we are all proud that our multi-ethnic nation, the absolute majority of our citizens, have taken a principled stance on the special military operation. They understand the basic idea of what we are doing and support our actions on the defence of Donbass. This support primarily revealed their true patriotism – a feeling that is historically inherent in our nation. It is stunning in its dignity and deep understnding by everyone – I will stress, everyone – of the inseparable link between one’s own destiny and the destiny of the Fatherland.
My dear friends, I would like to thank everyone, all the people of Russia for their courage and resolve. I would like to thank our heroes, soldiers and officers in the Army and the Navy, the Russian Guards, the secret services staff, and all structures of authority, the fighters in Donetsk and Lugansk corps, volunteers and patriots who are now fighting in the ranks of the BARS combat army reserve.
I would like to apologise that I will not be able to mention everyone during today’s speech. You know, when I was drafting this speech, I wrote a very long list of these heroic units but then removed it from my text because, as I said, it is impossible to mention everyone, and I was afraid to offend anyone I might leave out.
My deepest gratitude to the parents, wives and families of our defenders, the doctors and paramedics, combat medics and medical nurses that are saving the wounded; to the railway workers and drivers that are supplying the front; to the builders that are erecting fortifications and restoring housing, roads and civilian facilities; to the workers and engineers at defence companies, who are now working almost around-the-clock, in several shifts; and to rural workers who reliably ensure food security for the country.
I am grateful to the teachers who sincerely care for the young generations of Russia, especially those that are working in very difficult, almost front-line conditions; the cultural figures that are visiting the zone of hostilities and hospitals to support the soldiers and officers; volunteers that are helping the front and civilians; journalists, primarily war correspondents, that are risking their lives to tell the truth to the world; pastors of Russia’s traditional religions and military clergy, whose wise words support and inspire people; government officials and business people – all those who fulfill their professional, civil and simply human duty.
My special words go to the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. You, my friends, determined your future at the referendums and made a clear choice despite the neo-Nazis’ threats and violence, amid the close military actions. But there has been nothing stronger than your intent to be with Russia, with your Motherland.
(Applause)
I want to emphasise that this is the reaction of the audience to the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Once again, our deepest respect for them all.
We have already begun and will expand a major socioeconomic recovery and development programme for these new regions within the Federation. It includes restoring production facilities, jobs, and the ports on the Sea of Azov, which again became Russia’s landlocked sea, and building new, modern road,s like we did in Crimea, which now has a reliable land transport corridor with all of Russia. We will definitely implement all of these plans together.
Russia’s regions are currently providing direct assistance to the cities, districts and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. They are doing it sincerely, like true brothers and sisters. We are together again, which means that we have become even stronger, and we will do everything in our power to bring back the long-awaited peace to our land and ensure the safety of our people. Our soldiers, our heroes are fighting for this, for their ancestors, for the future of their children and grandchildren, for uniting our people.
Friends, I would like to ask you to pay your respects to our fellow soldiers who were killed in the attacks of neo-Nazis and raiders, who gave up their lives for Russia, for civilians, the elderly, women and children.
(A minute of silence)
Thank you.
We all understand, and I understand also how unbearably hard it is for their wives, sons and daughters, for their parents who raised those dignified defenders of the Fatherland – like the Young Guard members from Krasnodon, young men and women who fought against Nazism and for Donbass during the Great Patriotic War. Everyone in Russia remembers their courage, resilience, enormous strength of spirit and self-sacrifice to this day.
Our duty is to support the families that have lost their loved ones and to help them raise their children and give them an education and a job. The family of each participant in the special military operation must be a priority and treated with care and respect. Their needs must be responded to immediately, without bureaucratic delays.
I suggest establishing a dedicated state fund for bringing targeted, personalised assistance to the families of fallen fighters, as well as veterans of the special military operation. This entity will be tasked with coordinating efforts to offer social, medical support and counselling, and also address matters related to sending them to health resorts and providing rehabilitation services, while also assisting them in education, sports, employment and in acquiring a new profession. This fund will also have an essential mission to ensure long-term home care and high-technology prosthetics for those who need that.
I am asking the Government to work with the State Council Commission on Social Policy and with the regions to resolve the organisational matters as quickly as possible.
The state fund must be transparent in its work, while streamlining assistance and operating as a one-stop-shop, free from red tape or administrative barriers. Every family without exception, and every veteran will have their personal social worker, a coordinator, who will be there for them in person to resolve in real time any issue they might face. Let me emphasise that the fund must open its offices in all regions of the Russian Federation in 2023.
We already have measures in place for supporting Great Patriotic War veterans, combat veterans, as well as participants in local conflicts. I believe these essential elements will be added to the state fund’s mission moving forward. We need to explore this possibility, and I am asking the Government to do so.
Make no mistake: the fact that we are establishing a state fund does not mean that other institutions or officials at other levels of government will be relieved of their responsibility. I expect all federal agencies, regions and municipalities to stay focused on veterans, on service personnel and their families. In this context, I would like to thank the senior regional officials, mayors, and governors who routinely meet with people, including by visiting the line of contact, and support their fellow countrymen.
On a special note, let me say that today, career service personnel, mobilised conscripts, and volunteers all share frontline hardships, including in terms of provisions, supplies and equipment, remuneration, and insurance payments to the wounded, as well as healthcare services. However, there are complaints that make it all the way to my office, as well as to the governors, as they have been telling me, and to the military prosecutor’s office and the Human Rights Commissioner, showing that some of these issues have yet to be resolved. We need to get to the bottom of each complaint on a case-by-case basis.
And one more thing: everyone understands that serving in the special military operation zone causes immense physical and mental stress, since people risk their lives and health every day. For this reason, I believe that the mobilised conscripts, as well as all service personnel, and all those taking part in the special military operation, including volunteers, must benefit from a leave of absence of at least 14 days every six months without counting the time it takes them to travel to their destination. This way, every fighter will be able to meet family and spend time with their loved ones.
Colleagues, as you are aware, a 2021–2025 plan for building and developing the Armed Forces was approved by a Presidential Executive Order and is being implemented and adjusted as necessary. Importantly, our next steps to reinforce the Army and the Navy and to secure the current and future development of the Armed Forces must be based on actual combat experience gained during the special military operation, which is extremely important, I would even say absolutely invaluable to us.
For example, the latest systems account for over 91 percent, 91.3 percent, of Russia's nuclear deterrence forces. To reiterate, based on our newly acquired experience, we must access a similarly high quality level for all other components of the Armed Forces.
Officers and sergeants who act as competent, modern and decisive commanders, and they are many, will be promoted to higher positions as a matter of priority, sent to military universities and academies, and will serve as a powerful personnel reserve for the Armed Forces. Without a doubt, they are a valuable resource in civilian life and at governments at all levels. I just want our colleagues to pay attention to that. It is very important. The people must know that the Motherland appreciates their contribution to the defence of the Fatherland.
We will widely introduce the latest technology to ensure high-quality standards in the Army and Navy. We have corresponding pilot projects and samples of weapons and equipment in each area. Many of them are significantly superior to their foreign counterparts. Our goal is to start mass production. This work is underway and is picking up pace. Importantly, this relies on domestic research and the industrial base and involves small- and medium-sized high-tech businesses in implementation of the state defence order.
Today, our plants, design bureaus and research teams employ experienced specialists and increasing numbers of talented and highly skilled young people who are oriented towards breakthrough achievements while remaining true to the tradition of Russian gunsmiths, which is to spare no effort to ensure victory.
We will certainly strengthen the guarantees for our workforce, in part concerning salaries and social security. I propose launching a special programme for low-cost rental housing for defence industry employees. The rental payments for them will be significantly lower than the going market rate, since a significant portion of it will be covered by the state.
The Government reviewed this issue. I instruct you to work through the details of this programme and start building such rental housing without delay, primarily, in the cities that are major defence, industrial and research centres.
Colleagues,
As I have already said, the West has opened not only military and informational warfare against us, but is also seeking to fight us on the economic front. However, they have not succeeded on any of these fronts, and never will. Moreover, those who initiated the sanctions are punishing themselves: they sent prices soaring in their own countries, destroyed jobs, forced companies to close, and caused an energy crisis, while telling their people that the Russians were to blame for all of this. We hear that.
What means did they use against us in their efforts to attack us with sanctions? They tried disrupting economic ties with Russian companies and depriving the financial system of its communication channels to shutter our economy, isolate us from export markets and thus undermine our revenues. They also stole our foreign exchange reserves, to call a spade a spade, tried to depreciate the ruble and drive inflation to destructive heights.
Let me reiterate that the sanctions against Russia are merely a means, while the aim as declared by the Western leaders, to quote them, is to make us suffer. “Make them suffer” – what a humane attitude. They want to make our people suffer, which is designed to destabilise our society from within.
However, their gamble failed to pay off. The Russian economy, as well as its governance model proved to be much more resilient than the West thought. The Government, parliament, the Bank of Russia, the regions and of course the business community and their employees all worked together to ensure that the economic situation remained stable, offered people protection and preserved jobs, prevented shortages, including of essential goods, and supported the financial system and business owners who invest in their enterprises, which also means investing in national development.
As early as in March 2022, we launched a dedicated assistance package for businesses and the economy worth about a trillion rubles. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this has nothing to do with printing money. Not at all. Everything we do is solidly rooted in market principles.
In 2022, there was a decline in the gross domestic product. Mr Mishustin called me to say, “I would like to ask you to mention this.” I think that these data were released yesterday, right on schedule.
You may remember that some predicted that the economy would shrink by 20 to 25 percent, or maybe 10 percent. Only recently, we spoke about a 2.9 percent decline, and I was the one who announced this figure. Later it came down to 2.5 percent. However, in 2022, the GDP declined by 2.1 percent, according to the latest data. And we must be mindful of the fact that back in February and March of last year some predicted that the economy would be in free fall.
Russian businesses have restructured their logistics and have strengthened their ties with responsible, predictable partners – there are many of them, they are the majority in the world.
I would like to note that the share of the Russian ruble in our international settlements has doubled as compared to December 2021, reaching one third of the total, and including the currencies of the friendly countries, it exceeds half of all transactions.
We will continue working with our partners to create a sustainable, safe system of international settlements, which will be independent of the dollar and other Western reserve currencies that are bound to lose their universal appeal with this policy of the Western elite, the Western rulers. They are doing all this to themselves with their own hands.
We are not the ones reducing transactions in dollars or other so-called universal currencies – they are doing everything with their own hands.
You know, there is a maxim, cannons versus butter. Of course, national defence is the top priority, but in resolving strategic tasks in this area, we should not repeat the mistakes of the past and should not destroy our own economy. We have everything we need to both ensure our security and create conditions for confident progress in our country. We are acting in line with this logic and we intend to continue doing this.
Thus, many basic, I will stress, civilian industries in the national economy are far from being in decline, they have increased their production last year by a considerable amount. The scale of housing put into service exceeded 100 million square meters for the first time in our modern history.
As for agricultural production, it recorded two-digit growth rates last year. Thank you very much. We are most grateful to our agricultural producers. Russian agrarians harvested a record amount – over 150 million tonnes of grain, including over 100 million tonnes of wheat. By the end of the agricultural season, that is, June 30, 2023, we will bring our grain exports to 55–60 million tonnes.
Just 10 or 15 years ago, this seemed like a fairy tale, an absolutely unfeasible plan. If you remember, and I am sure some people do remember this – the former Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture are here – just recently, agrarians took in 60 million tonnes overall in a year, whereas now 55–60 million is their export potential alone. I am convinced we have every opportunity for a similar breakthrough in other areas as well.
We prevented the labour market from collapsing. On the contrary, we were able to reduce unemployment in the current environment. Today, considering the major challenges coming at us from all sides, the labour market is even better than it used to be. You may remember that the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent before the pandemic, and now, I believe, it is 3.7 percent. What is the figure, Mr Mishustin? 3.7 percent? This is an all-time low.
Let me reiterate that the Russian economy has prevailed over the risks it faced – it has prevailed. Of course, it was impossible to anticipate many of them, and we had to respond literally on the fly, dealing with issues as they emerged. Both the state and businesses had to move quickly. I will note that private actors, SMEs, played an essential role in these efforts, and we must remember this. We avoided having to apply excessive regulation or distorting the economy by giving the state a more prominent role.
What else there is to say? The recession was limited to the second quarter of 2022, while the economy grew in the third and fourth quarters. In fact, the Russian economy has embarked on a new growth cycle. Experts believe that it will rely on a fundamentally new model and structure. New, promising global markets, including the Asia-Pacific, are taking precedence, as is the domestic market, with its research, technology and workforce no longer geared toward exporting commodities but manufacturing goods with high added value. This will help Russia unleash its immense potential in all spheres and sectors.
We expect to see a solid increase in domestic demand as early as this year. I am convinced that companies will use this opportunity to expand their manufacturing, make new products that are in high demand, and to take over the market niches vacated or about to be vacated by Western companies as they withdraw.
Today, we clearly see what is going on and understand the structural issues we have to address in logistics, technology, finance, and human resources. Over the past years, we have been talking a lot and at length about the need to restructure our economy. Now these changes are a vital necessity, a game changer, and all for the better. We know what needs to be done to enable Russia to make steady progress and to develop independently regardless of any outside pressure or threats, while guaranteeing our national security and interests.
I would like to point out and to emphasise that the essence of our task is not to adapt to circumstances. Our strategic task is to take the economy to a new horizon. Everything is changing now, and changing extremely fast. This is not only a time of challenges but also a time of opportunities. This is really so today. And our future depends on the way we realise these opportunities. We must put an end – and I want to emphase this – to all interagency conflicts, red tape, grievances, doublespeak, or any other nonsense. Everything we do must contribute to achieving our goals and delivering results. This is what we must strive to achieve.
Enabling Russian companies and small family-run businesses to successfully tap the market is a victory in itself. Building cutting-edge factories and kilometres of new roads is a victory. Every new school, every new kindergarten we build is a victory. Scientific discoveries and new technologies – these are also victories, of course. What matters is that all of us contribute to our shared success.
What areas should we focus the partnership of the state, the regions and domestic business on?
First, we will expand promising foreign economic ties and build new logistics corridors. A decision has already been made to extend the Moscow-Kazan expressway to Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, and eventually to Irkutsk and Vladivostok with branches to Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. This will, in part, allows us to considerably expand our ties with Southeast Asian markets.
We will develop Black Sea and Sea of Azov ports. We will pay special attention to the North-South international corridor, as those who work on this every day know. Vessels with a draft of up to 4.5 meters will be able to pass through the Volga-Caspian Sea Canal this year. This will open up new routes for business cooperation with India, Iran, Pakistan, and the Middle Eastern countries. We will continue developing this corridor.
Our plans include expedited modernisation of the eastern railways – the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal-Amur Railway (BAM) – and building up the potential of the Northern Sea Route. This will create not only additional freight traffic but also a foundation for reaching our national goals on developing Siberia, the Arctic and the Far East.
The infrastructure of the regions and the development of infrastructure, including communications, telecommunications and railways will receive a powerful impetus. Next year, 2024, we will bring to a proper condition at least 85 percent of all roads in the country’s largest metropolises, as well as over half of all regional and municipal roads. I am sure we will achieve this.
We will also continue our free gas distribution programme. We have already made the decision to extend it to social facilities – kindergartens and schools, outpatient clinics and hospitals, as well as primary healthcare centres. This programme will now be permanent for our citizens – they can always request a connection to the gas distribution system.
This year, we will launch a large programme to build and repair housing and utility systems. Over the next ten years, we plan to invest at least 4.5 trillion rubles in this. We know how important this is for our people and how neglected this area has been. It is necessary to improve this situation, and we will do it. It is important to give the programme a powerful start. So, I would like to ask the Government to ensure stable funding for this.
Second, we will need to significantly expand our economy’s production capabilities and to increase domestic industrial capacity.
An industrial mortgage tool has been created, and an easy-term loan can now be taken out not only to purchase production facilities, but also to build or upgrade them. The size of such a loan was discussed many times and there were plans to increase it. It is a decent amount for a first step: up to 500 million rubles. It is available at a rate of 3 or 5 percent for up to seven years. It sounds like a very good programme and should be put to good use.
New terms for industrial clusters took effect this year, including a lower fiscal and administrative burden on resident companies, and long-term state orders and subsidies to support demand for their innovative products, which are just entering the market.
According to estimates, these measures will generate high-demand projects worth over 10 trillion rubles by 2030. Investment is expected to reach about 2 trillion this year alone. Please note that these are not forecasts, but existing benchmarks.
Therefore, I would like the Government to expedite the launch of these projects, give a hand to businesses and come up with systemic support measures, including tax incentives. I am aware that the financial bloc does not like to provide incentives, and I partly share this approach: the taxation system must be consistent and without niches or exemptions, but this particular case calls for a creative approach.
So, starting this year, Russian companies will be able to reduce their revenue taxes if they purchase advanced domestic IT solutions and AI-enhanced products. Moreover, these expenses will be credited at one and a half times the actual cost, meaning that every ruble invested in purchasing such products will result in a tax deduction of 1.5 rubles.
I propose extending these deductions to purchases of all kinds of Russian high-tech equipment. I would like the Government to come up with a list of such equipment by specific industry and with the procedure for granting deductions. This is a good solution to reinvigorate the economy.
Third, a crucial issue on our economic development agenda to do with the new sources of funding investment, which we have been talking about a lot.
Thanks to our strong payments balance, Russia does not need to borrow funds abroad, kowtow and beg for money, and then hold long discussions on what, how much and on what conditions we would pay back. Russian banks are working stably and sustainably and have a solid margin for security.
In 2022, the volume of bank loans for the corporate sector increased, I repeat, increased. There was considerable concern about that, but we have reported growth, an increase of 14 percent, or more than we reported in 2021, before the miliary operation. In 2021, the figure was 11.7 percent; last year, it was 14 percent. The mortgage portfolio went up by 20.4 percent. We are growing.
Last year, the banking sector as a whole operated at a profit. It was not as large as in the preceding years, but it was considerable nevertheless: 203 billion rubles. This is another indicator of the stability of the Russian financial sector.
According to our estimates, inflation in Russia will approach the target figure of 4 percent in the second quarter this year. I would like to remind you that the inflation rate has reached 12, 17 and 20 percent in some EU countries. Our figure is 4 or 5 percent; the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry are still discussing the figure, but it will be close to the target. Given these positive dynamics and other macroeconomic parameters, we are creating objective conditions for lowering long-term interest rates in the economy, which means that loans for the real economic sector will become more affordable.
Individual long-term savings are a vital source of investment resources around the world, and we must also stimulate their attraction into the investment sphere. I would like the Government to expedite the submission of draft laws to the State Duma to launch the relevant state programme as soon as this April.
It is important to create additional conditions to encourage people to invest and earn at home, in the country. At the same time, it is necessary to guarantee the safety of people’s investment in voluntary retirement savings. We should create a mechanism here similar to the one used for insuring bank deposits. I would like to remind you that such savings, worth up to 1.4 million rubles, are insured by the state on guarantee deposits. I propose doubling the sum to 2.8 million rubles for voluntary retirement savings. Likewise, we must protect people’s investment in other long-term investment instruments, including against the possible bankruptcy of financial brokers.
Separate decisions must be taken to attract funds to rapidly growing and high-tech businesses. We will approve support for the placement of their shares on the domestic stock market, including tax benefits for both the companies and the buyers of their stock.
Freedom of enterprise is a vital element of economic sovereignty. I will repeat: against the backdrop of external attempts to contain Russia, private businesses have proven their ability to quickly adapt to the changing environment and ensure economic growth in difficult conditions. So, every business initiative aimed at benefiting the country should receive support.
I believe it is necessary to return, in this context, to the revision of a number of norms of criminal law as regards the economic elements of crime. Of course, the state must control what is happening in this area. We should not allow an anything-goes attitude here but we should not go too far, either. It is necessary to move faster towards the decriminalisation I mentioned. I hope the Government will consistently and seriously conduct this work together with Parliament, the law-enforcement bodies and business associations.
At the same time, I would like to ask the Government to suggest, in close cooperation with Parliament, additional measures for speeding up the de-offshorisation of the economy. Businesses, primarily those operating in key sectors and industries should operate in Russian jurisdiction – this is a fundamental principle.
Colleagues, in this context I would like to make a small philosophical digression. This is what I would like to single out.
We remember what problems and imbalances the Soviet economy faced in its later stages. This is why after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its planned system, in the chaos of the 1990s, the country began to create its economy along the lines of market relations and private ownership. Overall, this was the right thing to do. The Western countries were largely an example to follow in this respect. As you know, their advisers were a dime a dozen, and it seemed enough to simply copy their models. True, I remember they still argued with each other – the Europeans argued with the Americans on how the Russian economy should develop.
And what happened as a result? Our national economy was largely oriented to the West and for the most part as a source of raw materials. Naturally, there were different nuances, but overall, we were seen as a source of raw materials. The reasons for this are also clear – naturally, the new Russian businesses that were taking shape were primarily oriented toward generating profit, quick and easy profit in the first place. What could provide this? Of course, the sale of resources – oil, gas, metals and timber.
Few people thought about other alternatives or, probably, they did not have the opportunity to invest long-term. This is the reason other, more complex industries did not make much headway. It took us years – other governments saw this clearly – to break this negative trend. We had to adjust our tax system and make large-scale public investments.
We have achieved real and visible change. Indeed, the results are there, but, again, we should keep in mind the circumstances in which our major businesses developed. Technologies were coming from the West, cheaper sources of financing and lucrative markets were in the West, and capital started flowing to the West as well. Unfortunately, instead of expanding production and buying equipment and technology to create new jobs in Russia, they spent their money on foreign mansions, yachts and luxury real estate.
They began to invest in the economy later, but initially the money flowed rapidly to the West for consumption purposes. And since their money was there, that is where their children were educated, where their life was, their future. It was very difficult and almost impossible for the state to track and prevent these developments, because we lived in a free market paradigm.
Recent events have clearly shown that the image of the West as a safe haven for capital was a mirage. Those who failed to understand this in time, who saw Russia only as a source of income and planned to live mostly abroad, have lost a lot. They just got robbed there and saw even their legitimate money taken away.
At some point I made a joke – many may still remember it – I told Russian businesspeople that they will make themselves sick running from courtroom to courtroom and from office to office in the West trying to save their money. That is exactly how it turned out.
You know, I will say something that is quite simple, but truly important. Trust me, not a single ordinary citizen in our country felt sorry for those who lost their assets in foreign banks, lost their yachts or palaces abroad, and so on. In their conversations around the kitchen table, people have all recalled the privatisation of the 1990s, when enterprises that had been built by our entire nation were sold for next to nothing and the so-called new elites flaunted their lavish lifestyle.
There are other key aspects. During the years that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, the West never stopped trying to set the post-Soviet states on fire and, most importantly, finish off Russia as the largest surviving portion of the historical reaches of our state. They encouraged international terrorists to assault us, provoked regional conflicts along the perimeter of our borders, ignored our interests and tried to contain and suppress our economy.
I am saying this because big business in Russia controls strategic enterprises with thousands of workers that determine the socioeconomic well-being of many regions and, hence, the overall state of affairs. So, whenever leaders or owners of such businesses become dependent on governments that adopt policies that are unfriendly to Russia, this poses a great threat to us, a danger to our country. This is an untenable situation.
Yes, everyone has a choice. Some may choose to live in a seized mansion with a blocked account, trying to find a place for themselves in a seemingly attractive Western capital, a resort or some other comfortable place abroad. Anyone has the right to do that, and we will never infringe on it. But it is time to see that in the West these people have always been and will always remain second class strangers who can be treated any way, and their money, connections and the acquired titles of counts, peers or mayors will not help at all. They must understand that they are second class people there.
There is another option: to stay with your Motherland, to work for your compatriots, not only to open new businesses but also to change life around you in cities, towns and throughout your country. We have quite a few businesspeople like this, real fighters in our business community, and we associate the future of our business with them. Everyone must know that the sources of their prosperity and their future can only be here, in their native country Russia.
If they do, we will create a very strong and self-sufficient economy that will not remain aloof in the world but will make use of all its competitive advantages. Russian capital, the money earned here, must be put to work for the country, for our national development. Today, we see huge potential in the development of infrastructure, the manufacturing sector, in domestic tourism and many other industries.
I would like those who have come up against the predatory mores of the West to hear what I have to say: running around with cap in hand, begging for your own money makes no sense, and most importantly, it accomplishes nothing, especially now that you realise who you are dealing with. Stop clinging to the past, resorting to the courts to get at least something back. Change your lives and your jobs, because you are strong people – I am addressing our businesspeople now, many of whom I have known for years, who know what is what in life.
Launch new projects, earn money, work hard for Russia, invest in enterprises and jobs, and help schools and universities, science and healthcare, culture and sports. In this way, you will increase your wealth and will also win the respect and gratitude of the people for a generation ahead. The state and society will certainly support you.
Let us consider this as a message for your business: get moving in the right direction.
To be continued.
I'm feeling rather hypocritical uploading this considering it was taken with a digital camera. :)
Sony A7
Canon FD 50/1.4
View On White I feel hypocritical posting multiples of the same subject so close together. At least two of my friends know that, in my opinion, variations introduce dilution of concept. But as with everything else, rules can be broken. I am experimenting with diffusion, today with the Softar filters from Carl Zeiss. First time I use any of them.
One of the inscribed inset portions of the walkway to the Visitors Center at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield noting important events in Civil War history.
P3110043 c
A PLEA FOR CAPTAIN JOHN BROWN
By Henry David Thoreau
[Read to the citizens of Concord, Mass.,
Sunday Evening, October 30, 1859.]
"I trust that you will pardon me for being here. I do not wish to force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, I would fain do my part to correct the tone and the statements of the newspapers, and of my countrymen generally, respecting his character and actions. It costs us nothing to be just. We can at least express our sympathy with, and admiration of, him and his companions, and that is what I now propose to do.
First, as to his history. I will endeavor to omit, as much as possible, what you have already read. I need not describe his person to you, for probably most of you have seen and will not soon forget him. I am told that his grandfather, John Brown, was an officer in the Revolution; that he himself was born in Connecticut about the beginning of this century, but early went with his father to Ohio. I heard him say that his father was a contractor who furnished beef to the army there, in the war of 1812; that he accompanied him to the camp, and assisted him in that employment, seeing a good deal of military life,—more, perhaps, than if he had been a soldier; for he was often present at the councils of the officers. Especially, he learned by experience how armies are supplied and maintained in the field,—a work which, he observed, requires at least as much experience and skill as to lead them in battle. He said that few persons had any conception of the cost, even the pecuniary cost, of firing a single bullet in war. He saw enough, at any rate, to disgust him with a military life; indeed, to excite in his a great abhorrence of it; so much so, that though he was tempted by the offer of some petty office in the army, when he was about eighteen, he not only declined that, but he also refused to train when warned, and was fined for it. He then resolved that he would never have anything to do with any war, unless it were a war for liberty.
When the troubles in Kansas began, he sent several of his sons thither to strengthen the party of the Free State men, fitting them out with such weapons as he had; telling them that if the troubles should increase, and there should be need of his, he would follow, to assist them with his hand and counsel. This, as you all know, he soon after did; and it was through his agency, far more than any other's, that Kansas was made free.
For a part of his life he was a surveyor, and at one time he was engaged in wool-growing, and he went to Europe as an agent about that business. There, as everywhere, he had his eyes about him, and made many original observations. He said, for instance, that he saw why the soil of England was so rich, and that of Germany (I think it was) so poor, and he thought of writing to some of the crowned heads about it. It was because in England the peasantry live on the soil which they cultivate, but in Germany they are gathered into villages, at night. It is a pity that he did not make a book of his observations.
I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union. Slavery he deemed to be wholly opposed to these, and he was its determined foe.
He was by descent and birth a New England farmer, a man of great common-sense, deliberate and practical as that class is, and tenfold more so. He was like the best of those who stood at Concord Bridge once, on Lexington Common, and on Bunker Hill, only he was firmer and higher principled than any that I have chanced to hear of as there. It was no abolition lecturer that converted him. Ethan Allen and Stark, with whom he may in some respects be compared, were rangers in a lower and less important field. They could bravely face their country's foes, but he had the courage to face his country herself, when she was in the wrong. A Western writer says, to account for his escape from so many perils, that he was concealed under a "rural exterior"; as if, in that prairie land, a hero should, by good rights, wear a citizen's dress only.
He did not go to the college called Harvard, good old Alma Mater as she is. He was not fed on the pap that is there furnished. As he phrased it, "I know no more of grammar than one of your calves." But he went to the great university of the West, where he sedulously pursued the study of Liberty, for which he had early betrayed a fondness, and having taken many degrees, he finally commenced the public practice of Humanity in Kansas, as you all know. Such were his humanities and not any study of grammar. He would have left a Greek accent slanting the wrong way, and righted up a falling man.
He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most part, see nothing at all,—the Puritans. It would be in vain to kill him. He died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared here. Why should he not? Some of the Puritan stock are said to have come over and settled in New England. They were a class that did something else than celebrate their forefathers' day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, not making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates.
"In his camp," as one has recently written, and as I have myself heard him state, "he permitted no profanity; no man of loose morals was suffered to remain there, unless, indeed, as a prisoner of war. 'I would rather,' said he, 'have the small-pox, yellow-fever, and cholera, all together in my camp, than a man without principle.... It is a mistake, sir, that our people make, when they think that bullies are the best fighters, or that they are the fit men to oppose these Southerners. Give me men of good principles,—God-fearing men,—men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of them I will oppose any hundred such men as these Buford ruffians.'" He said that if one offered himself to be a soldier under him, who was forward to tell what he could or would do, if he could only get sight of the enemy, he had but little confidence in him.
He was never able to find more than a score or so of recruits whom he would accept, and only about a dozen, among them his sons, in whom he had perfect faith. When he was here, some years ago, he showed to a few a little manuscript book,—his "orderly book" I think he called it,—containing the names of his company in Kansas, and the rules by which they bound themselves; and he stated that several of them had already sealed the contract with their blood. When some one remarked that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would have been glad to add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found one who could fill that office worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the United States army. I believe that he had prayers in his camp morning and evening, nevertheless.
He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat sparingly and fare hard, as became a soldier, or one who was fitting himself for difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.
A man of rare common-sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,—that was what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or transient impulse, but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that he did not overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. I remember, particularly, how, in his speech here, he referred to what his family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to his pent-up fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue. Also referring to the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said, rapidly paring away his speech, like an experienced soldier, keeping a reserve of force and meaning, "They had a perfect right to be hung." He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, had no need to invent anything but to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and eloquence in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It was like the speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordinary king.
As for his tact and prudence, I will merely say, that at a time when scarcely a man from the Free States was able to reach Kansas by any direct route, at least without having his arms taken from him, he, carrying what imperfect guns and other weapons he could collect, openly and slowly drove an ox-cart through Missouri, apparently in the capacity of a surveyor, with his surveying compass exposed in it, and so passed unsuspected, and had ample opportunity to learn the designs of the enemy. For some time after his arrival he still followed the same profession. When, for instance, he saw a knot of the ruffians on the prairie, discussing, of course, the single topic which then occupied their minds, he would, perhaps, take his compass and one of his sons, and proceed to run an imaginary line right through the very spot on which that conclave had assembled, and when he came up to them, he would naturally pause and have some talk with them, learning their news, and, at last, all their plans perfectly; and having thus completed his real survey he would resume his imaginary one, and run on his line till he was out of sight.
When I expressed surprise that he could live in Kansas at all, with a price set upon his head, and so large a number, including the authorities, exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying, "It is perfectly well understood that I will not be taken." Much of the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from sickness, which was the consequence of exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But though it might be known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes commonly did not care to go in after him. He could even come out into a town where there were more Border Ruffians than Free State men, and transact some business, without delaying long, and yet not be molested; for, said he, "No little handful of men were willing to undertake it, and a large body could not be got together in season."
As for his recent failure, we do not know the facts about it. It was evidently far from being a wild and desperate attempt. His enemy, Mr. Vallandigham, is compelled to say, that "it was among the best planned executed conspiracies that ever failed."
Not to mention his other successes, was it a failure, or did it show a want of good management, to deliver from bondage a dozen human beings, and walk off with them by broad daylight, for weeks if not months, at a leisurely pace, through one State after another, for half the length of the North, conspicuous to all parties, with a price set upon his head, going into a court-room on his way and telling what he had done, thus convincing Missouri that it was not profitable to try to hold slaves in his neighborhood?—and this, not because the government menials were lenient, but because they were afraid of him.
Yet he did not attribute his success, foolishly, to "his star," or to any magic. He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defence of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.
But to make haste to his last act, and its effects.
The newspapers seem to ignore, or perhaps are really ignorant of the fact, that there are at least as many as two or three individuals to a town throughout the North who think much as the present speaker does about him and his enterprise. I do not hesitate to say that they are an important and growing party. We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in. Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics. Though we wear no crape, the thought of that man's position and probable fate is spoiling many a man's day here at the North for other thinking. If any one who has seen him here can pursue successfully any other train of thought, I do not know what he is made of. If there is any such who gets his usual allowance of sleep, I will warrant him to fatten easily under any circumstances which do not touch his body or purse. I put a piece of paper and a pencil under my pillow, and when I could not sleep, I wrote in the dark.
On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days. I have noticed the cold-blooded way in which newspaper writers and men generally speak of this event, as if an ordinary malefactor, though one of unusual "pluck,"—as the Governor of Virginia is reported to have said, using the language of the cock-pit, "the gamest man he ever saw,"—had been caught, and were about to be hung. He was not dreaming of his foes when the governor thought he looked so brave. It turns what sweetness I have to gall, to hear, or hear of, the remarks of some of my neighbors. When we heard at first that he was dead, one of my townsmen observed that "he died as the fool dieth"; which, pardon me, for an instant suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven-hearted, said disparagingly, that "he threw his life away," because he resisted the government. Which way have they thrown their lives, pray?—such as would praise a man for attacking singly an ordinary band of thieves or murderers. I hear another ask, Yankee-like, "What will he gain by it?" as if he expected to fill his pockets by this enterprise. Such a one has no idea of gain but in this worldly sense. If it does not lead to a "surprise" party, if he does not get a new pair of boots, or a vote of thanks, it must be a failure. "But he won't gain anything by it." Well, no, I don't suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year round; but then he stands a chance to save a considerable part of his soul,—and such a soul!—when you do not. No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to.
Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.
The momentary charge at Balaclava, in obedience to a blundering command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some years, against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely higher command, is as much more memorable than that, as an intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you think that that will go unsung?
"Served him right,"—"A dangerous man,"—"He is undoubtedly insane." So they proceed to live their sane, and wise, and altogether admirable lives, reading their Plutarch a little, but chiefly pausing at that feat of Putnam, who was let down into a wolf's den; and in this wise they nourish themselves for brave and patriotic deeds some time or other. The Tract Society could afford to print that story of Putnam. You might open the district schools with the reading of it, for there is nothing about Slavery or the Church in it; unless it occurs to the reader that some pastors are wolves in sheep's clothing. "The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions" even, might dare to protest against that wolf. I have heard of boards, and of American boards, but it chances that I never heard of this particular lumber till lately. And yet I hear of Northern men, and women, and children, by families, buying a "life membership" in such societies as these. A life-membership in the grave! You can get buried cheaper than that.
Our foes are in our midst and all about us. There is hardly a house but is divided against itself, for our foe is the all but universal woodenness of both head and heart, the want of vitality in man, which is the effect of our vice; and hence are begotten fear, superstition, bigotry, persecution, and slavery of all kinds. We are mere figureheads upon a hulk, with livers in the place of hearts. The curse is the worship of idols, which at length changes the worshipper into a stone image himself; and the New-Englander is just as much an idolater as the Hindoo. This man was an exception, for he did not set up even a political graven image between him and his God.
A church that can never have done with excommunicating Christ while it exists! Away with your broad and flat churches, and your narrow and tall churches! Take a step forward, and invent a new style of out-houses. Invent a salt that will save you, and defend our nostrils.
The modern Christian is a man who has consented to say all the prayers in the liturgy, provided you will let him go straight to bed and sleep quietly afterward. All his prayers begin with "Now I lay me down to sleep," and he is forever looking forward to the time when he shall go to his "long rest." He has consented to perform certain old-established charities, too, after a fashion, but he does not wish to hear of any new-fangled ones; he doesn't wish to have any supplementary articles added to the contract, to fit it to the present time. He shows the whites of his eyes on the Sabbath, and the blacks all the rest of the week. The evil is not merely a stagnation of blood, but a stagnation of spirit. Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and by habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.
We dream of foreign countries, of other times and races of men, placing them at a distance in history or space; but let some significant event like the present occur in our midst, and we discover, often, this distance and this strangeness between us and our nearest neighbors. They are our Austrias, and Chinas, and South Sea Islands. Our crowded society becomes well spaced all at once, clean and handsome to the eye,—a city of magnificent distances. We discover why it was that we never got beyond compliments and surfaces with them before; we become aware of as many versts between us and them as there are between a wandering Tartar and a Chinese town. The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the market-place. Impassable seas suddenly find their level between us, or dumb steppes stretch themselves out there. It is the difference of constitution, of intelligence, and faith, and not streams and mountains, that make the true and impassable boundaries between individuals and between states. None but the like-minded can come plenipotentiary to our court.
I read all the newspapers I could get within a week after this event, and I do not remember in them a single expression of sympathy for these men. I have since seen one noble statement, in a Boston paper, not editorial. Some voluminous sheets decided not to print the full report of Brown's words to the exclusion of other matter. It was as if a publisher should reject the manuscript of the New Testament, and print Wilson's last speech. The same journal which contained this pregnant news, was chiefly filled, in parallel columns, with the reports of the political conventions that were being held. But the descent to them was too steep. They should have been spared this contrast,—been printed in an extra, at least. To turn from the voices and deeds of earnest men to the cackling of political conventions! Office-seekers and speech-makers, who do not so much as lay an honest egg, but wear their breasts bare upon an egg of chalk! Their great game is the game of straws, or rather that universal aboriginal game of the platter, at which the Indians cried hub, bub! Exclude the reports of religious and political conventions, and publish the words of a living man.
But I object not so much to what they have omitted, as to what they have inserted. Even the Liberator called it "a misguided, wild, and apparently insane—effort." As for the herd of newspapers and magazines, I do not chance to know an editor in the country who will deliberately print anything which he knows will ultimately and permanently reduce the number of his subscribers. They do not believe that it would be expedient. How then can they print truth? If we do not say pleasant things, they argue, nobody will attend to us. And so they do like some travelling auctioneers, who sing an obscene song, in order to draw a crowd around them. Republican editors, obliged to get their sentences ready for the morning edition, and accustomed to look at everything by the twilight of politics, express no admiration, nor true sorrow even, but call these men "deluded fanatics,"—"mistaken men,"—"insane," or "crazed." It suggests what a sane set of editors we are blessed with, not "mistaken men"; who know very well on which side their bread is buttered, at least.
A man does a brave and humane deed, and at once, on all sides, we hear people and parties declaring, "I didn't do it, nor countenance him to do it, in any conceivable way. It can't be fairly inferred from my past career." I, for one, am not interested to hear you define your position. I don't know that I ever was, or ever shall be. I think it is mere egotism, or impertinent at this time. Ye needn't take so much pains to wash your skirts of him. No intelligent man will ever be convinced that he was any creature of yours. He went and came, as he himself informs us, "under the auspices of John Brown and nobody else." The Republican party does not perceive how many his failure will make to vote more correctly than they would have them. They have counted the votes of Pennsylvania & Co., but they have not correctly counted Captain Brown's vote. He has taken the wind out of their sails,—the little wind they had,—and they may as well lie to and repair.
What though he did not belong to your clique! Though you may not approve of his method or his principles, recognize his magnanimity. Would you not like to claim kindredship with him in that, though in no other thing he is like, or likely, to you? Do you think that you would lose your reputation so? What you lost at the spile, you would gain at the bung.
If they do not mean all this, then they do not speak the truth, and say what they mean. They are simply at their old tricks still.
"It was always conceded to him," says one who calls him crazy, "that he was a conscientious man, very modest in his demeanor, apparently inoffensive, until the subject of Slavery was introduced, when he would exhibit a feeling of indignation unparalleled."
The slave-ship is on her way, crowded with its dying victims; new cargoes are being added in mid-ocean; a small crew of slaveholders, countenanced by a large body of passengers, is smothering four millions under the hatches, and yet the politician asserts that the only proper way by which deliverance is to be obtained, is by "the quiet diffusion of the sentiments of humanity," without any "outbreak." As if the sentiments of humanity were ever found unaccompanied by its deeds, and you could disperse them, all finished to order, the pure article, as easily as water with a watering-pot, and so lay the dust. What is that that I hear cast overboard? The bodies of the dead that have found deliverance. That is the way we are "diffusing" humanity, and its sentiments with it.
Prominent and influential editors, accustomed to deal with politicians, men of an infinitely lower grade, say, in their ignorance, that he acted "on the principle of revenge." They do not know the man. They must enlarge themselves to conceive of him. I have no doubt that the time will come when they will begin to see him as he was. They have got to conceive of a man of faith and of religious principle, and not a politician or an Indian; of a man who did not wait till he was personally interfered with or thwarted in some harmless business before he gave his life to the cause of the oppressed.
If Walker may be considered the representative of the South, I wish I could say that Brown was the representative of the North. He was a superior man. He did not value his bodily life in comparison with ideal things. He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. For once we are lifted out of the trivialness and dust of politics into the region of truth and manhood. No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all. He needed no babbling lawyer, making false issues, to defend him. He was more than a match for all the judges that American voters, or office-holders of whatever grade, can create. He could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist. When a man stands up serenely against the condemnation and vengeance of mankind, rising above them literally by a whole body,—even though he were of late the vilest murderer, who has settled that matter with himself,—the spectacle is a sublime one,—didn't ye know it, ye Liberators, ye Tribunes, ye Republicans?—and we become criminal in comparison. Do yourselves the honor to recognize him. He needs none of your respect.
As for the Democratic journals, they are not human enough to affect me at all. I do not feel indignation at anything they may say.
I am aware that I anticipate a little,—that he was still, at the last accounts, alive in the hands of his foes; but that being the case, I have all along found myself thinking and speaking of him as physically dead.
I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in our hearts, whose bones have not yet crumbled in the earth around us, but I would rather see the statue of Captain Brown in the Massachusetts State-House yard, than that of any other man whom I know. I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am his contemporary.
What a contrast, when we turn to that political party which is so anxiously shuffling him and his plot out of its way, and looking around for some available slave holder, perhaps, to be its candidate, at least for one who will execute the Fugitive Slave Law, and all those other unjust laws which he took up arms to annul!
Insane! A father and six sons, and one son-in-law, and several more men besides,—as many at least as twelve disciples,—all struck with insanity at once; while the same tyrant holds with a firmer gripe than ever his four millions of slaves, and a thousand sane editors, his abettors, are saving their country and their bacon! Just as insane were his efforts in Kansas. Ask the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane? Do the thousands who know him best, who have rejoiced at his deeds in Kansas, and have afforded him material aid there, think him insane? Such a use of this word is a mere trope with most who persist in using it, and I have no doubt that many of the rest have already in silence retracted their words.
Read his admirable answers to Mason and others. How they are dwarfed and defeated by the contrast! On the one side, half-brutish, half-timid questioning; on the other, truth, clear as lightning, crashing into their obscene temples. They are made to stand with Pilate, and Gesler, and the Inquisition. How ineffectual their speech and action! and what a void their silence! They are but helpless tools in this great work. It was no human power that gathered them about this preacher.
What have Massachusetts and the North sent a few sane representatives to Congress for, of late years?—to declare with effect what kind of sentiments? All their speeches put together and boiled down,—and probably they themselves will confess it,—do not match for manly directness and force, and for simple truth, the few casual remarks of crazy John Brown, on the floor of the Harper's Ferry engine-house,—that man whom you are about to hang, to send to the other world, though not to represent you there. No, he was not our representative in any sense. He was too fair a specimen of a man to represent the like of us. Who, then, were his constituents? If you read his words understandingly you will find out. In his case there is no idle eloquence, no made, nor maiden speech, no compliments to the oppressor. Truth is his inspirer, and earnestness the polisher of his sentences. He could afford to lose his Sharp's rifles, while he retained his faculty of speech,—a Sharp's rifle of infinitely surer and longer range.
And the New York Herald reports the conversation verbatim! It does not know of what undying words it is made the vehicle.
I have no respect for the penetration of any man who can read the report of that conversation, and still call the principal in it insane. It has the ring of a saner sanity than an ordinary discipline and habits of life, than an ordinary organization, secure. Take any sentence of it,—"Any questions that I can honorably answer, I will; not otherwise. So far as I am myself concerned, I have told everything truthfully. I value my word, sir." The few who talk about his vindictive spirit, while they really admire his heroism, have no test by which to detect a noble man, no amalgam to combine with his pure gold. They mix their own dross with it.
It is a relief to turn from these slanders to the testimony of his more truthful, but frightened jailers and hangmen. Governor Wise speaks far more justly and appreciatingly of him than any Northern editor, or politician, or public personage, that I chance to have heard from. I know that you can afford to hear him again on this subject. He says: "They are themselves mistaken who take him to be madman.... He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and it is but just to him to say, that he was humane to his prisoners.... And he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous," (I leave that part to Mr. Wise,) "but firm, truthful, and intelligent. His men, too, who survive, are like him.... Colonel Washington says that he was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw in defying danger and death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, and held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dear as they could. Of the three white prisoners, Brown, Stephens, and Coppic, it was hard to say which was most firm."
Almost the first Northern men whom the slaveholder has learned to respect!
The testimony of Mr. Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman."
"All is quiet at Harper's Ferry," say the journals. What is the character of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder prevail? I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out, with glaring distinctness, the character of this government. We needed to be thus assisted to see it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the slave, it reveals itself a merely brute force, or worse, a demoniacal force. It is the head of the Plug-Uglies. It is more manifest than ever that tyranny rules. I see this government to be effectually allied with France and Austria in oppressing mankind. There sits a tyrant holding fettered four millions of slaves; here comes their heroic liberator. This most hypocritical and diabolical government looks up from its seat on the gasping four millions, and inquires with an assumption of innocence: "What do you assault me for? Am I not an honest man? Cease agitation on this subject, or I will make a slave of you, too, or else hang you."
We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented. A semi-human tiger or ox, stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that.
The only government that I recognize,—and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army,—is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!
Treason! Where does such treason take its rise? I cannot help thinking of you as you deserve, ye governments. Can you dry up the fountains of thought? High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever recreates man. When you have caught and hung all these human rebels, you have accomplished nothing but your own guilt, for you have not struck at the fountain-head. You presume to contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets and rifled cannon point not. Can all the art of the cannon-founder tempt matter to turn against its maker? Is the form in which the founder thinks he casts it more essential than the constitution of it and of himself?
The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape. Such are not all the inhabitants of Massachusetts, but such are they who rule and are obeyed here. It was Massachusetts, as well as Virginia, that put down this insurrection at Harper's Ferry. She sent the marines there, and she will have to pay the penalty of her sin.
Suppose that there is a society in this State that out of its own purse and magnanimity saves all the fugitive slaves that run to us, and protects our colored fellow-citizens, and leaves the other work to the government, so-called. Is not that government fast losing its occupation, and becoming contemptible to mankind? If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services. Of course, that is but the shadow of a government whose existence necessitates a Vigilant Committee. What should we think of the Oriental Cadi even, behind whom worked in secret a vigilant committee? But such is the character of our Northern States generally; each has its Vigilant Committee. And, to a certain extent, these crazy governments recognize and accept this relation. They say, virtually, "We'll be glad to work for you on these terms, only don't make a noise about it." And thus the government, its salary being insured, withdraws into the back shop, taking the Constitution with it, and bestows most of its labor on repairing that. When I hear it at work sometimes, as I go by, it reminds me, at best, of those farmers who in winter contrive to turn a penny by following the coopering business. And what kind of spirit is their barrel made to hold? They speculate in stocks, and bore holes in mountains, but they are not competent to lay out even a decent highway. The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunnelled under the whole breadth of the land. Such a government is losing its power and respectability as surely as water runs out of a leaky vessel, and is held by one that can contain it.
I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came?—till you and I came over to him? The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if not millions; apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and devoted humanity; ready to sacrifice his life at any moment for the benefit of his fellow-man. It may be doubted if there were as many more their equals in these respects in all the country—I speak of his followers only—for their leader, no doubt, scoured the land far and wide, seeking to swell his troop. These alone were ready to step between the oppressor and the oppressed. Surely they were the very best men you could select to be hung. That was the greatest compliment which this country could pay them. They were ripe for her gallows. She has tried a long time, she has hung a good many, but never found the right one before.
When I think of him, and his six sons, and his son-in-law, not to enumerate the others, enlisted for this fight, proceeding coolly, reverently, humanely to work, for months if not years, sleeping and waking upon it, summering and wintering the thought, without expecting any reward but a good conscience, while almost all America stood ranked on the other side—I say again that it affects me as a sublime spectacle. If he had any journal advocating 'his cause,' any organ, as the phrase is, monotonously and wearisomely playing the same old tune, and then passing round the hat, it would have been fatal to his efficiency. If he had acted in any way so as to be let alone by the government, he might have been suspected. It was the fact that the tyrant must give place to him, or he to the tyrant, that distinguished him from all the reformers of the day that I know.
It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others. Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death. I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me. At any rate, I do not think it is quite sane for one to spend his whole life in talking or writing about this matter, unless he is continuously inspired, and I have not done so. A man may have other affairs to attend to. I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the policeman's billy and handcuffs! Look at the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain of the regiment! We are hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and maintain slavery. I know that the mass of my countrymen think that the only righteous use that can be made of Sharp's rifles and revolvers is to fight duels with them, when we are insulted by other nations, or to hunt Indians, or shoot fugitive slaves with them, or the like. I think that for once the Sharp's rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them.
The same indignation that is said to have cleared the temple once will clear it again. The question is not about the weapon, but the spirit in which you use it. No man has appeared in America, as yet, who loved his fellow-man so well, and treated him so tenderly. He lived for him. He took up his life and he laid it down for him. What sort of violence is that which is encouraged, not by soldiers, but by peaceable citizens, not so much by laymen as by ministers of the Gospel, not so much by the fighting sects as by the Quakers, and not so much by Quaker men as by Quaker women?
This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death,—the possibility of a man's dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in America before; for in order to die you must first have lived. I don't believe in the hearses, and palls, and funerals that they have had. There was no death in the case, because there had been no life; they merely rotted or sloughed off, pretty much as they had rotted or sloughed along. No temple's veil was rent, only a hole dug somewhere. Let the dead bury their dead. The best of them fairly ran down like a clock. Franklin,—Washington,—they were let off without dying; they were merely missing one day. I hear a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They haven't got life enough in them. They'll deliquesce like fungi, and keep a hundred eulogists mopping the spot where they left off. Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. Do you think that you are going to die, sir? No! there's no hope of you. You haven't got your lesson yet. You've got to stay after school. We make a needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take. Memento mori! We don't understand that sublime sentence which some worthy got sculptured on his gravestone once. We've interpreted it in a grovelling and snivelling sense; we've wholly forgotten how to die.
But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you know how to begin, you will know when to end.
These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man's acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard. It has already quickened the feeble pulse of the North, and infused more and more generous blood into her veins and heart, than any number of years of what is called commercial and political prosperity could. How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!
One writer says that Brown's peculiar monomania made him to be "dreaded by the Missourians as a supernatural being." Sure enough, a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing. He shows himself superior to nature. He has a spark of divinity in him.
"Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"
Newspaper editors argue also that it is a proof of his insanity that he thought he was appointed to do this work which he did,—that he did not suspect himself for a moment! They talk as if it were impossible that a man could be "divinely appointed" in these days to do any work whatever; as if vows and religion were out of date as connected with any man's daily work; as if the agent to abolish slavery could only be somebody appointed by the President, or by some political party. They talk as if a man's death were a failure, and his continued life, be it of whatever character, were a success.
When I reflect to what a cause this man devoted himself, and how religiously, and then reflect to what cause his judges and all who condemn him so angrily and fluently devote themselves, I see that they are as far apart as the heavens and earth are asunder.
The amount of it is, our "leading men" are a harmless kind of folk, and they know well enough that they were not divinely appointed, but elected by the votes of their party.
Who is it whose safety requires that Captain Brown be hung? Is it indispensable to any Northern man? Is there no resource but to cast this man also to the Minotaur? If you do not wish it, say so distinctly. While these things are being done, beauty stands veiled and music is a screeching lie. Think of him,—of his rare qualities!—such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages to understand; no mock hero, nor the representative of any party. A man such as the sun may not rise upon again in this benighted land. To whose making went the costliest material, the finest adamant; sent to be the redeemer of those in captivity; and the only use to which you can put him is to hang him at the end of a rope! You who pretend to care for Christ crucified, consider what you are about to do to him who offered himself to be the savior of four millions of men.
Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution. Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? Is there any necessity for a man's being a tool to perform a deed of which his better nature disapproves? Is it the intention of law-makers that good men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you? Is it for you to make up your mind,—to form any resolution whatever,—and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and which ever pass your understanding? I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another thing. A counterfeiting law-factory, standing half in a slave land and half in free! What kind of laws for free men can you expect from that?
I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character,—his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.
I see now that it was necessary that the bravest and humanest man in all the country should be hung. Perhaps he saw it himself. I almost fear that I may yet hear of his deliverance, doubting if a prolonged life, if any life, can do as much good as his death.
"Misguided"! "Garrulous"! "Insane"! "Vindictive"! So ye write in your easy-chairs, and thus he wounded responds from the floor of the Armory, clear as a cloudless sky, true as the voice of nature is: "No man sent me here; it was my own prompting and that of my Maker. I acknowledge no master in human form."
And in what a sweet and noble strain he proceeds, addressing his captors, who stand over him: "I think, my friends, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity, and it would be perfectly right for any one to interfere with you so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in bondage."
And, referring to his movement: "It is, in my opinion, the greatest service a man can render to God."
"I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them; that is why I am here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you, and as precious in the sight of God."
You don't know your testament when you see it.
"I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed by the slave power, just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful."
"I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, all you people at the South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of that question, that must come up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now; but this question is still to be settled,—this negro question, I mean; the end of that is not yet."
I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge."
[public domain text]
Big East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2985, 1967. Photo: Balinski.
East German actress Angelika Waller (1944) appeared in more than hundred films and TV productions since 1962. Her first leading role was in Das Kaninchen bin ich/The Rabbit Is Me (1965), a film which was banned in East Germany and which had its world premiere only in 1989.
Angelika Waller was born in 1944 in Bärwalde in der Neumark in former East-Germany (GDR). She went to school in Biesenthal in Brandenburg. As a kid, she already developed an interest in acting. From 1963 to 1966 she was trained as an actress at the youth studio of the Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF), the former state television broadcaster in East Germany. To finance her studies, she worked as an ice cream seller and furniture painter. In 1965, Helene Weigel took her to the Berliner Ensemble, and since 1966 she has been a member of the theatre company. She made her stage debut in the comedy Frau Flinz by Helmut Baierl. She appeared in several Bertolt Brecht plays, including as Polly in Brecht's Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera). Her film debut is also her most famous role, which was only made public in 1989 (some sources say 1990). The film, Das Kaninchen bin ich/The Rabbit I Am (Kurt Maetzig, 1965) came in the GDR on the index . She played 19-year-old Maria Morzeck, who dreams of studying Slavistics, but her hopes are shattered when her brother, Dieter, is sent to prison after being convicted of sedition against the state. She cannot enter college, and becomes a waitress. Maria meets and falls in love with Paul Deister, an older, married man who turns out to be the judge who convicted her brother. Their affair ends when Deister is exposed as hypocritical and corrupt. After Dieter's release, he learns of his sister's relationship with the judge and assaults her. Eventually, Maria distances herself from both of them, and decides to pursue her forgotten dream. The film was based on Manfred Bieler's book Maria Morzeck or the Rabbit is Me. It was made in the aftermath of the VI Party Congress of the Socialist Unity Party at January 1963, during which the establishment allowed a measure of liberalisation in the cultural life of East Germany. Although Bieler's novel was highly critical of the court system, he and Maetzig took care to include several "alibi scenes" in the film that were intended to put the state in a better light and also prevent the banning of the picture. The scenes were also meant to present the judicial reforms that took place between 1961 and 1963. The short era of liberalisation ended gradually when Leonid Brezhnev took power in the Soviet Union and introduced a conservative, more repressive course on cultural questions. Das Kaninchen bin ich, alongside eleven other films that were deemed politically damaging, was banned in 1965. In 1989, shortly before the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the picture had its world premiere and was released for public screening. It was presented at the Berlin and Locarno film festivals, and was elected as one of the 100 most important German films by a group of historians and critics in 1995.
Angelika Waller became a crowd favourite with her second film, the circus film Schwarze Panther/Black Panthers (Josef Mach, 1966). She played the young Martina, who, despite the opposition of her father, tames the panthers in the circus ring and, according to Filmportal.de, “she impresses, among other things, by her artistic talent.” In subsequent years, she is seen in numerous films in larger and smaller roles, repeated under the direction of Rolf Losansky. In the epic film series Osvobozhdenie/Liberation (Juri Oserow, Julius Kun, 1969-1970), Waller played Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun. The five-part film series is a dramatized account of the liberation of the Soviet Union's territory during World War II and the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany. The series was a Soviet-Polish-East German-Italian-Yugoslav co-production and according to official Soviet statistics, Liberation sold more than 400 million tickets worldwide. In the English-speaking world, a shorter, 118-minutes long version was distributed as The Great Battle. In the meanwhile the DEFA studio gave Waller only a few meaty parts, in which she could present her many acting facets, but the television offered her more possibilities. At the East-German television, she could convince in modern women's roles. She embodied emancipated women who decide for themselves in difficult situations. An extremely popular role was the title heroine - a postwoman - in the TV film Rotfuchs/Red fox (Manfred Mosblech, 1973). She also regularly played in the Krimi series Polizeiruf 110/Police Call 110 (1972-1987). Very popular was also the TV series Johann Sebastian Bach (1985) in which she played Bach's first wife. Since the 1970s, Angelika Weller worked as a teacher, and later as a professor at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst „Ernst Busch“ Berlin (Academy of Dramatic Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin). She also worked as a director and staged plays at the Berliner Arbeiter-Theater. Until 1992 she remained a member of the Berliner Ensemble. In 1990, she returned to the cinema in the post-war comedy Der Bruch/The Break-In (Frank Beyer, 1990) alongside Götz George, Rolf Hoppe and Otto Sander. Waller played a busty woman, cheated by her spouse, who clearly expresses her material wishes. Next, she appeared in two TV films, the comedy baby-sitter/Babysitter (Peter Welz, 1992) and again together with Götz George - in Tote sterben niemals aus/Dead people never die out (Jürgen Goslar, 1996). She starred in the role of Omi in the experimental film Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Thomas Imbach, 2001) on Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian. In addition, she also lent her voice as a voice actor to among others Geneviève Bujold in the TV film Anthony and Cleopatra (James Cellan Jones, 1976) and Linda Purl in the TV mini-series The last days of Pompeii (Peter R. Hunt, 1984). In 1978 she received the Art Prize of the GDR. Since 2010 Waller has been a regular guest lecturer at the Thomas Bernhard Institute for Acting and Directing at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Most recently, she appeared in the cinemas as the grandmother in Rückenwind von vorn/Away You Go (Philipp Eichholtz, 2018). Angelika Waller lives in Berlin. Her daughter Susann Thiede (born 1963) also works as an actress.
Sources: Ines Walk (Filmzeit.de– German), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.
My books - mes livres
"Tartuffe" became a commun name to design an hypocrite man (or - why not - woman). But many french people have forgotten who was "Tartuffe"...... it's a matter of generation
"The Most Blessed of Patriarchs" Talk on Jefferson at Jay
Annette Gordon Reed and Peter Onuf for shared their scholarship on Jefferson with Jay Heritage Center members and fellow historians at John Jay's family home in Rye on October 22nd.
A fully engaged audience first heard Lincoln historian and colleague Harold Holzer introduce the two co-authors of Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination. Holzer noted that “aside from Monticello itself ...and perhaps Mount Vernon…[there are] very few more stirringly appropriate venues to host these remarkable scholars. What could better serve the ongoing effort to comprehend the intersection of time and place than to hear these historians speak on this property, brimming as it is with its own memories of a founding hero at the boyhood home of a New York founder whose family owned human beings, and who like Jefferson well understood the perilous contradiction between American freedom and American enslavement."
Professors Gordon-Reed and Onuf described their unique collaboration navigating over 19,000 letters and drawing informed inferences as only they could to make the “impenetrable” Virginian more accessible to modern day readers. They detailed the process of taking a twenty-year old conversation about one of our nation's greatest thinkers, “a Virginian and a revolutionary” and putting it on paper. The triumphant result is a fresh perspective on the private life, obsessions and beliefs of Thomas Jefferson told in a united voice and illustrated through a rigorous study of the family – children, grandchildren, and enslaved family who surrounded him at his refuge at Monticello. The lively conversation gave guests an intimate look at the dilemma facing historians - how to objectively write the narrative of complicated man who was enlightened for his era but by today’s modern standards is too easily cast simply as a hypocrite and flawed character.
The program was funded in part through a generous grant from Con Edison and is a continuation of talks that focus on the evolution of social justice in America.
--
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www.vizartwork.co.uk/baxter-basics-by-election-361-p.asp
Disclaimer “Fair Use” Act ,- Non Profit - For Educational & Entertainment Purposes Only
Baxter Basics ("The MP who loves to eMPty his nuts") was a fictional character in the British comic Viz.
He is the most political of Viz's characters. Baxter was a politician and member of the Conservative Party.
He is essentially a sexual pervert, closet homosexual and utterly corrupt, yet he always attempted to portray himself as a fine and upstanding family man of utter integrity.
Baxter Basics first appeared in the early 1990s and his name is a spoof of the then British Prime Minister John Major's rallying call for his Conservative Party to "get back to basics", widely interpreted as meaning a return to traditional family values and morality.
This was mocked a great deal as it was followed by a time when Conservatives were frequently mired in political scandals involving adultery and other forms of sexual misbehaviour (e.g. David Mellor, Stephen Milligan) or corruption.
A complete hypocrite, Baxter would denounce the evils of things like prostitution, yet he frequently hired the services of prostitutes.
He once had a sexual relationship with a young man and in that same episode, when he was later asked by a reporter if he was gay ("Are you a lifter of gentlemen's shirts sir?")
www.vizartwork.co.uk/baxter-basics-unfortunate-and-foolis...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_Basics_(campaign)
www.viz.co.uk/ www.facebook.com/VizComic
www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue19/whofarted.htm
Disclaimer “Fair Use” Act ,- Non Profit - For Educational & Entertainment Purposes Only
Senator Joshua David Hawley (R-MO), banker's son, Stanford Phi Beta Kappa and Yale Law graduate, was a clenched-fisted populist profile in courage on January 6, 2021.
Buildings damage is shown on the west side of 14th Street NW looking south at Monroe Street toward Park Rd. April 9, 1968 after the city quieted following widespread civil disturbances that broke out after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The city exploded in anger at the news and experienced among the greatest property damage of the more than 125 cities that erupted April 4-7, 1968 and set a then U.S. record for mass arrests when more than 6,100 were detained.
Twelve died, mostly due to becoming entrapped in burning buildings and over 1,100 were injured. Property damage was extensive in a number of corridors: 14th Street NW, 7th Street NW, U Street NW, H Street NE and Nichols Ave SE (later Martin Luther King Jr. Ave) were set afire. 1,200 buildings were burned.
Washington, D.C. had been simmering before King’s assassination.
Clarence J. Brooker was shot in the back on Minnesota Ave. NE May 7, 1967 sparking protests, including a sit-in at the District Building. On May 23, 1967, two youths were shot at a playground by a police officer that sparked another round of demonstrations.
A standoff with police began August 1, 1967 when lines of officers began moving a crowd back from a burning Salas furniture store at 1307 7th Street NW. Dozens threw rocks and bottles at police who responded in turn with billy clubs.
The outbreak occurred at about 12:30 am and lasted until about 3:00 a.m. resulting in 11 fires, 50 store windows broken and 34 arrests.
The disturbance area was confined to 7th Street between K and P NW and on 13th & 14th Streets NW near U Street—two areas that would be hit hard following King’s murder.
Dozens of other cities had already experienced widespread rebellion against authority including New York, Watts and Newark along with dozens of outbreaks in smaller cities..
In the immediate aftermath of King’s assassination, 125 cities across the country experienced a social breakdown.
In Washington, D.C. mainstream black leaders such as the appointed mayor Walter Washington and singer James Brown urged black people to contain their anger and leave the streets.
Some white leaders blamed “agitators” such as Maryland Senator Daniel Brewster who called for former SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael’s arrest after Carmichael held a press conference at SNCC headquarters in D.C. and also gave a speech at Howard University calling on black people to arm themselves.
The full text of Carmichael’s press conference is here: flic.kr/p/Rqtckc
Newspapers were filled quotes from residents both black and white decrying the burning and looting.
But the tens of thousands of black people who took part had a different point of view.
Reginald Booker, a black activist primarily known for his anti-freeway work, gave his thoughts in a May 1, 1968 hearing of the appointed city council at Eastern High School on Rehabilitation of District of Columbia Areas Damaged by Civil Disorders that was later incorporated into congressional testimony on the issue.
Booker started off calling the disturbances a “revolution” and defended the property destruction and looting.
“The burning, the devastation, you can call it riots, you can call it looting. I know what black people call it and I know what I call it.”
“Any time oppressed people are so denied, and so oppressed, and the channels of the so-called usual mechanisms of dealing with these ills, if they cannot solve the problems, then black people and all other people have the right to burn and bring destruction if that alleviates their misery.”
“Does it take burning? Does it take looting? Of course, I know the people who were looting, they were only taking back what was theirs all the time.”
“I know they were taking back what was theirs because when the rebellion broke out, I was right out there in the street with my people.”
“Now, a whole lot of those hypocritical white folks, they said, ‘well, look they even burned down some of their own people so it couldn’t have been racial. They were just out to steal something.’”
“How can you steal from a crook?”
“It was pointed out recently, for example, that Safeway, on the day that welfare recipients receive checks, raise their prices.”
“Recently the Washington Post ran a series of stories on certain credit merchants on 7th Street, on how they exploit black people. How can you buy a TV that is worth $50 and end up paying $300-plus for it, and then if you don’t make all the payments it is repossessed and the man sells it over about 10 times again?”
Press reports indicated that certain businesses were clearly targeted, including Safeway and so-called easy credit businesses.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsk4zGPDw
Photo by F. Routt. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Minke Whale meat on the menu at Vinhusid Steakhouse, ReykjavÃk, Iceland. I boycotted all restaurants which served it © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com March 14, 2014
I boycotted ALL restaurants which served whale, shark or puffin (Lundi) while visiting Iceland. Whale meat and puffins (Lundi) are also on the menu at Hereford Steikhus, ReykjavÃk, Iceland
According to Elding, a great Icelandic eco whale watching tour, only 5% of the whales killed in Iceland are consumed by locals and 40% by tourists looking for a kick. Some of whom had just stepped off the whale watching tour- very hypocritical. Since a campaign by IFAW to stop this opportunistic experimentation, tourist consumption has dropped to 20%. Now the one company still killing fin and minke whales, Hvalur, managed by Kristján Loftsso (Kristjan Loftsson), is selling byproducts of its cruel product to a local beer company, Steðja Brewery. I'm adding them to my boycott list. I later learned that the picturesque Icelandic horses we see offered for rides to tourists are also bred for meat. © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com Feb 21, 2014
www.ifaw.org/united-states/our-work/whales/meet-us-don%E2...
Meet Us Don't Eat Us: Campaign to take whale meat off the menu for tourists
Tourists who visit Iceland during the summer may be greeted by a high-profile campaign from IFAW and Ice Whale (Icelandic Whale Watching Association), encouraging them to enjoy responsible whale watching but to avoid sampling whale meat.
The campaign, Meet Us Don't Eat Us is aimed at dispelling the myth some tourists believe that whale meat is a popular dish enjoyed by most Icelanders. However, according to a 2010 Gallup poll survey, only about 5% of Icelanders say they eat it regularly.
Similarly, many people believe Iceland's commercial whaling is a centuries-old tradition, but in reality it started in 1948 and stopped in 1989, with a few boats resuming minke whaling in 2003, initially for so-called scientific research.
IFAW believes an estimated 40% of tourists are persuaded to eat whale meat while in Iceland, mainly out of curiosity. The result is that whales are killed every year just to be sampled by tourists.
The Meet Us Don't Eat Us campaign urges visitors to think carefully about the menu choices they make in the country's excellent restaurants to ensure they don't go home with a bad taste in their mouths.
The campaign, which runs from June to September, is being promoted around Reykjavik by volunteers dressed in whale tail costumes. The volunteers will be talking to tourists in downtown Reykjavik and asking them to sign postcards promising to avoid whale meat and asking Iceland to stop whaling.
The campaign, which ran for the first time in 2011, has ruffled some feathers in Iceland. Despite IFAW signing and paying a four-month contract to place adverts in Keflavik Airport last year, the airport's general manager ordered IFAW to remove them shortly after they went on display following complaints from whalers. The campaign then sparked a major media debate in the country on the issue of free speech and IFAW was delighted to see many Icelanders, including politicians, speak out in defence of the campaign.
In early May, 2012 Kristjan Loftsson, the lone Icelandic whaler responsible for killing 280 endangered fin whales in Icelandic waters over the past six years, told Icelandic media that because of economic issues, including difficulties in trading the meat with Japan following its tsunami tragedy, he would not be fin whaling in 2012. This is the second year in a row that Loftsson has cancelled the hunt, having laid off 30 staff last year. IFAW welcomed this decision and sees it as a positive sign that Loftsson recognises that fin whaling is uneconomic. Icelanders traditionally do not eat fin whale meat and these whales have been killed with a view to selling the meat to Japan, which has so far met with little success.
However, commercial hunting of minke whales in Iceland continues. In total, 58 minke whales were killed last season, by two companies. This was from a self-allocated catch limit of 216. IFAW urges Iceland to end all whaling now to protect whales for future generations and to safeguard its successful whale watching industry.
IFAW ran the first workshop looking into the feasibility of whale watching in Iceland more than 20 years ago and has worked closely with Icelandic whale watch operators for several years to promote whale watching as a humane and profitable alternative to the cruelty of whaling.
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/iceland...
Iceland's Newest Beer Ingredient: Whale
One brewery is experimenting with a whale of an ale or technically, an ale of a whale.
SVATI KIRSTEN NARULA
JAN 9 2014, 12:46 PM ET
Iceland doesn't treat cetaceans the way most of the world wants them to be treated. Like Japan and Norway, Iceland has continued to hunt fin and minke whales in defiance of an international moratorium on the practice. It's not a challenge to find a restaurant serving whale meat in the capital city of ReykjavÃk. With all this in mind, is it really surprising that Iceland's whaling business has recently teamed up with a brewery to produce "whale beer"?
Steðja Brewery
Hvalur, the company managed by "the Icelandic Ahab" Kristján Loftsson, is providing whale mealâa byproduct of processing the animal's meat and oilâto Steðja Brewery to create a limited edition product tied to Iceland's annual mid-winter festival Thorrablot. The beer, marketed as a drink for "true vikings," will only be available from January 24 through February 22. It's 5.2 percent alcohol and is supposedly "healthy" by virtue of containing whale, which is, according to the brewery, high in protein and low in fat.
Dagbjartur Ariliusson, the brewery's owner, told reporters that whale beer makes sense in the context of Thorrablot and the country's history. For many centuries, he said, they have celebrated this festival by eating "cured food, including whale fat, and now we have the beer to drink with this food." Pickled whale blubber is a traditional Thorrablot menu item.
Like so much else Iceland does with whales, the development is drawing impassioned ire from conservationists and anti-whaling activists. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) society's campaign managers have called the beer launch an attempt "to diversify whale products in the face of almost nonexistent local consumer demand" and "about as immoral and outrageous as you can get." WDC has also gone after Hvalur for "perversely" powering its whale-hunting ships with whale oil.
The outcry probably won't stop tourists from rushing to sample whale steaks and sashimi at ReykjavÃk restaurants. Even if whale beer doesn't taste very good because, let's be honest, putting meat of any kind in beer is uncommon and gross it could, one day, be yet another item on a traveler's bucket list.
www.ifaw.org/united-states/news/september-drew-end-so-did...
As September drew to an end, so did whaling in Iceland, but for how long?
By: Robbie Marsland
Posted: Mon, 10/14/2013
2013 was a grim year, with a decrease in minke whales killed offset by a vast increase in the number of fin whales killed.
There are two types of whaling in Iceland.
These days, minke whaling is carried out primarily by one vessel, Hrafnreyður KÃ-100.
The number of whales killed each season for the small Icelandic whale meat market has dropped from 58 in 2011, to 52 in 2012 and 35 this year.
Less than 5% of Icelanders regularly eat whale meat and thanks to IFAW's Meet Us Don't Eat Us and Whale Friendly Restaurants initiatives in the country, the percentage of tourists eating whale meat has dropped from around 40% to around 20%.
SEE ALSO: "Whale friendly" is the way forward for Icelandic tourism
Not only are sales down for the minke whalers, but it looks like their costs are up. Facing an extended whale watching sanctuary and the displeasure of the Icelandic tourism community, this year the minke whalers kept out of the enormous Faxafloi bay outside Reykjavik, the capital.
They motored around Iceland's western fjords and started to worry the whale watchers in the north of Iceland between Akureyri and Husavik the northern home of Icelandic whale watching. Not surprisingly, their presence there was also hotly contested by whale watching companies.
So as the winter storms start hitting Iceland, we will have to wait and see if the whalers decide it is worth enduring further international and national criticism to go out and cruelly kill minke whales for a steadily declining market that must yield little or no financial return¦
Fin whales are the second species hunted and cruelly killed in Iceland.
In recent years fin whales have only been hunted by one operator. He is Kristjan Loftsson, the son of a whaler who made a fortune from whaling in the 60s, 70s and 80s - before the vast majority of the world (including Iceland) saw sense and stopped killing whales.
Mr Loftsson started killing fin whales again in 2009. No-one was really sure why he started again because fin whale meat is not eaten in Iceland, and the only other place international trade laws allow him to sell the meat is Japan, and they don't seem overly keen to buy fin whale meat from him.
So it wasn't a surprise when Mr Loftsson didn't go fin whaling in 2011 and 2012. But it was a surprise when he sent his ships out to kill the second largest whale in the world again last June.
As of the end of September his two 1940s steam-driven whaling boats had dragged 134 fin whales back to his whaling station just outside Reykjavik.
But it's not been plain sailing for Mr Loftsson this season.
He was used to the idea of there being celebrations when he brought in the first fin whale of the season. Instead of showing a proud Mr Loftsson flensing (cutting up) his first whale, the newspapers chose to cover the small crowd of demonstrators on the hill above the station holding the banner: What's the point in Icelandic whaling?
Later in the season one of his minority shareholders was quoted in the national newspapers as being very concerned that the fin whaling was losing money and depreciating the value of the company shares.
Loftsson's worst moment came in July when a consignment of his fin whale meat was rejected by the port of Rotterdam which wanted nothing to do with his cruel and controversial trade.
Not only that but he had to see photos plastered all over the TV and newspapers of a whale watching boat greeting the returning whale meat with enormous pointing hands and, once again, the message What's the point in Icelandic whaling?
Rotterdam was closed to his trade and so his export options seem to be dwindling.
2013 was a grim year for us with a decrease in minke whales killed offset by a vast increase in the number of fin whales killed.
However, there does seem to have been a sea change in Icelandic attitudes towards this so-called industry and more and more people are asking themselves and in public, what is the point of Icelandic whaling?
--RM
IFAW will continue to work closely with the whale watching and tourism sector and supportive MPs over the winter months. Stay tuned!
HORSE SLAUGHTER of foals in Iceland
www.pferd-und-fleisch.de/Horsemeat/iceland.htm
ICELANDIC SLAUGHTERHOUSE ADVERTISES FOR HORSES TO FEED OVERSEAS DINERS
MAY 5, 2012 VIVIAN GRANT FARRELL
tuesdayshorse.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/icelandic-slaughte...
Let's see, now.
The Mayor sends his kids to private schools as he eviscerates the public schools and fires and demoralizes teachers and staff.
Chicago's outlying neighborhoods have been walloped by foreclosures, especially Bronzeville, Englewood and parts of the west side. Even before the 2008 meltdown, entire blocks in these neighborhoods were vacant, without a building left standing.
Chicago lost nearly 200,000 people between 2000 and 2010. It has lost nearly a third of its population since 1950.
Speaker Boehner allows the Tea Party to bring our country to the brink of default so they can score political points against President Obama. One of the Tea Party's leading hypocrite nut jobs, Rep. Joe Walsh, who publicly called the President of the United States a liar and has been lecturing him about "fiscal responsibility" for months, is revealed in a lawsuit by his ex-wife to owe $100,000 in alimony and child support for his 3 children.
So children glimpsing painted-on panties on a fully-clothed statue of an actress who has been dead almost 50 years is the least of our problems. Good Lord, the MPAA censors (who still did the "ladder test" on the cleavage in actresses' costumes in 1955) allowed this movie to be seen by anyone with 75 cents to get into the theater. If those children have brothers and sisters and their parents accidentally left the master bedroom door open, they've probably seen (or heard) much more than Marilyn cooing as the breeze from the subway sends her pleated skirt airborne.
Marc Shaw, a history student at UCL, originally from Essex explains that as he is a vegetarian, he went for the cheapest non-leather shoes he could find… but adds: “That said I am being kind of a hypocrite as I’m wearing a leather jacket, but it’s second-hand so it’s not too bad. I bought it in Covent Garden from a vintage shop and I found some weird pills in the pocket. I don’t know if it was owned by a drug dealer or something before, but I got rid of those sharpish as it was pretty scary!” The 23-year-old is also wearing a vintage striped shirt teamed with black Topman skinny jeans and a pair of shades from Camden market. The student who now lives in the area, said: “I was slightly overwhelmed moving to London for my first year of study… you think it’s going to be this super cool place, and it is quite cool, but a tad overrated.
Reasons why I haven't really been posting much:
1. I have a disliking for my camera, so I need to save up
2. It seems that most of the really nice pictures on Flickr (pretty much all Explored) aren't really raw images. (Call me a hypocrite because of the last picture, blah blah blah). But I'm serious! There's so much photoshopping that people can barely call themselves a "photographer".
3. It's not like anybody missed me.
A couple years ago Workcycles built a series of Fr8 bikes for Danish pharmaceuticals firm Novo Nordisk, arranged by then DK distributor Basikeli. Baiskikeli then sold similarly equipped Fr8's for several other firms but then the orders mysteriously stopped.
It turned out that Baisikeli had copied our bike to the millimeter, making just just enough cosmetic changes to evade legal problems and has them made very crudely and with lower spec components. Please do not confuse their unauthorized, very inferior... and actually more expensive bike with the original Fr8!
More about it here:
www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/2011/03/31/inspirations-and-hypoc...
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.
All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.
We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?’
1984 George Orwell
This was a nice friendly kid who didn't have a mean bone in his body who made the horrid mistake of being caught by Pennsylvania state troopers with a few ounces of weed. Long story to short the cops tore his car down to a pile of scrap and he was charged with felony possession and did a couple of years in a state prison filled with hardened criminals were he was repeatedly beaten and raped. When he came out traumatized and stigmatized with a felony conviction and less than a year later he took his life in despair. For those of you who are too young or were born after the sixties or seventies it was still a time were people were given very serious hard time for what would be considered a minor drug offense today. I knew one guy spent weeks in the hellhole of Riker's Island until his friends scrapped the money for bail for possession of a dime bag of weed. Down in the southern states in those days forget about it. I remember there was one horror story that made the national news during the early seventies were some unlucky hippie got caught for one joint and it was in one of those hardcore redneck states was given a twenty year sentence. I knew way too many people from those days whose lives were badly disrupted or outright ruined from this country's insane and failed war on drugs. One of most hypocritical aspects of this is I knew several people who would later became cops that blew weed, tripped acid and snorted coke when they were teenagers or in their early twenties. In more recent years I served on grand jury and about 2/3 of the cases were for petty drug sales and got into some very heated arguments with fellow jurors over some of those cases.
A couple years ago Workcycles built a series of Fr8 bikes for Danish pharmaceuticals firm Novo Nordisk, arranged by then DK distributor Basikeli. Baiskikeli then sold similarly equipped Fr8's for several other firms but then the orders mysteriously stopped.
It turned out that Baisikeli had copied our bike to the millimeter, making just just enough cosmetic changes to evade legal problems and has them made very crudely and with lower spec components. Please do not confuse their unauthorized, very inferior... and actually more expensive bike with the original Fr8!
More about it here:
www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/2011/03/31/inspirations-and-hypoc...