the ghost

CULT OF TRADITION. The old ways are best. The New is not worthwhile.

REJECT MODERNISM The development of Western philosophy post-Enlightenment is seen as a descent into depravity. See also : Reject post-modernism, which is seen as an even greater descent into irrationality.

ACTION FOR ACTION'S SAKE. Action is to be taken without reflection or introspection - that's for weaklings and degenerates. Often seen in a derision of "intellectual elites".

DISAGREEMENT IS TREASON. Analytical criticism cannot be allowed. A pantomime of discourse may be allowed, but only within the accepted framework and only if reaching the foregone conclusion.

FEAR OF DIFFERENCE. Outsiders are your enemy. Those who are different are evil and want to corrupt you and destroy all you hold dear.

APPEAL TO A FRUSTRATED MIDDLE CLASS Capitalising on genuine frustrations by pointing them toward convenient scapegoats. Real concerns used a recruiting tools.

OBSESSION WITH A PLOT. There is a conspiracy run by THEM. You are besieged by THEM. THEY are behind all your ills. THEY are working in the shadows to enslave and destroy you.

THE ENEMY IS BOTH STRONG AND WEAK. When rhetorically convenient, THEY are all-powerful. When rhetorically convenient, THEY are feeble, stupid, weak. The rhetorical focus shifts regardless of self-contradiction, because all that matters is positioning the enemy where the speaker's goal requires them to be at any given moment.

PACIFISM IS THE ENEMY. LIFE IS ETERNAL WAR. There must always be an enemy to fight. When that enemy is defeated, another must be found. When they cannot be found, they must be created, even from within. There is always the promise of a Final Solution bringing Ultimate Triumph, but it can never be achieved.

CONTEMPT FOR THE WEAK. Elitism disguised as populism. Everyone of US is superior to THEM, cockroaches and drains on society that they are. But people are sheep who require strong leaders, who are by their nature superior to others.

EVERYONE IS TAUGHT TO BE THE HERO. A CULT OF DEATH. Where in myth the hero is exceptional, in fascism everyone must be the hero. They crave heroic death, the reward for heroic life. In seeking it, they send others to die. (See also: Militarism).

MACHISMO. Disdain for women and femininity. Intolerance of non-standard sexuality and gender expression.

SELECTIVE POPULISM. The People are viewed as a monolith with a single will, as interpreted (in reality, determined) by the leaders. Democratic institutions are viewed as illegitimate because they run counter to the narrative of the existence of a single Voice Of The People.

"we have to oppress some people to make things right but don't worry, we're not talking about you"

They're not talking about you YET.

“Is it green energy if it’s impacting cultural traditional sites?”

Yakama Nation Tribal Councilman Jeremy Takala sounded weary. For five years, tribal leaders and staff have been fighting a renewable energy development that could permanently destroy tribal cultural property. “This area, it’s irreplaceable.”

The privately owned land, outside Goldendale, Washington, is called Pushpum, or “mother of roots,” a first foods seed bank. The Yakama people have treaty-protected gathering rights there. One wind turbine-studded ridge, Juniper Point, is the proposed site of a pumped hydro storage facility. But to build it, Boston-based Rye Development would have to carve up Pushpum — and the Yakama Nation lacks a realistic way to stop it.

Back in October 2008, unbeknownst to Takala, Scott Tillman, CEO of Golden Northwest Aluminum Corporation, met with the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a collection of governor-appointed representatives from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana […]. Tillman, who owned a shuttered Lockheed Martin aluminum smelter near Goldendale, told the council about the contaminated site’s redevelopment potential, specifically for pumped hydro storage […]. Shortly thereafter, Klickitat County’s public utility department tried to implement Tillman’s plan […].

Meanwhile, Tillman cleaned up and sold another smelting site, just across the Columbia River in The Dalles, Oregon, a Superfund site where Lockheed Martin had poisoned the groundwater with cyanide. He sold it to Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which operates water-guzzling data centers in The Dalles and plans to build more. For nine years, the county and Rye plotted the fate of Pushpum — without ever notifying the Yakama Nation.

The tribal government only learned of the development in December 2017, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a public notice of acceptance for Rye’s preliminary permit application. Tribal officials had just 60 days to catch up on nine years of development planning and issue their initial concerns and objections as public comments. […]

When the tribe objected, FERC said it could file more public comments to the docket instead of consulting. […]

When asked what Rye could offer the Yakama people as compensation for the irreversible destruction of their cultural property, Steimle suggested “employment associated with the project.” […] Presented with the reality that Yakama people might not want Rye’s jobs, Steimle hesitated. “Yeah, I mean I, I can’t argue that — maybe it won’t be meaningful to them.” […]

Klickitat County’s eagerness creates another barrier to the Yakama Nation. In Washington, a developer can take one of two permitting paths: through the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or through county channels. Both lead to FERC. In this case, working with the county benefits Rye: Klickitat, a majority Republican county, has a contentious relationship with the Yakama Nation […]. “Klickitat County refuses to work with us,” said Takala. […]

Fighting Rye’s proposal has required the efforts of tribal attorneys, archaeologists and government staffers from a number of departments. […]

And Rye’s project is just one of dozens proposed within the Yakama Nation’s 10 million-acre treaty territory. Maps from the tribe and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife show that of the 51 wind and solar projects currently proposed statewide — not including geothermal or pumped hydro storage projects, which are also renewable energy developments — at least 34 are on or partially on the Yakama Nation’s ceded lands.

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Right now, holding up a sign in St. Petersburg condemning this war is the textbook definition of “neither safe nor careful.”

All of it! Ha. It is first and foremost a personal symbol, for multiple reasons I shall not elaborate on.

Beyond that, there is, of course, the expected symbolism of a cyclical nature, cunning, wisdom, protection, the feminine and the masculine both. A part that is near and dear to my heart, however, is rather a Slavic one, which is that snakes are associated with earth and, consequently, Mother Earth: they are chthonic creatures, keepers of wealth, blessed beings that must be respected and honoured, and which appear as demons and nobility near parallel to humankind.

"I have seen a great multitude of snakes there, ten or more of them winding round a tree branch; they are not killed and do not harm anyone." - Ahmad ibn Fadlan in Slavs

- https://savelife.in.ua/en/

Charity fund Come Back Alive that supports soldiers on front lines and after service.

- https://voices.org.ua/en/

Charitable Foundation Voices of Children, mostly with focus on mental health and development of children in Lughansk and Donetsk region.

- https://www.peoplesproject.com/en/

Ukraine's military and civil crowdfunding.

You can also donate directly to Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, for logistical or medical support. More info here: https://mil.gov.ua/en/donate.html

Please do not ignore individual calls for aid and crowdfunding too! Whether they come in form of patreon links, emergency commissions, etc. I'd say setting up a patreon account to support creators and people in need would be the surest way to help, since things like PayPal, Ko-Fi, CashApp etc do not work in Ukraine (although some people still use them through friends or relatives in different countries). Not all circumstances are dire enough to need organizational help, but even 10$ can really help an individual person who had to evacuate from their town, relocate from a damaged building, etc.

Ocean serpent from my gouache stream (Wednesday)

An iridescent dance mastered by the knights of the pond. Blade thin like glass. Cuts like diamonds and sings like silver. Insect-Like.