So, I gave a little speech about art, and war. The Internationale Agentur für Freiheit, a Berlin art and cultural association, asked me to do that to open their exhibition, Make Art Not War. I couldn’t turn them down.
As my readers may have noticed, I haven’t had very much to say about “The War on Hamas,” or “The War on Gaza,” or “The Liquidation of Gaza,” or whatever you want to call it. (It doesn’t look like much of a “war” to me, but then, nothing really has for quite a while.)
I wrote about it in October and November of last year. And I said a few things about it in my speech. But, mostly, I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut. I don’t have much to contribute to the … well, I can’t really call it a discussion, or debate, or an argument. It feels like people screaming slogans into each other’s faces, accusing each other of this and that, and calling each other names, and so on. Which … I get why people are inclined to do that. I’m not. But I get why other folks are. So, I think it’s best if I just shut my pie hole (as much as possible) and let folks do that.
It isn’t going to change what’s happening. GloboCap (or whatever you call the system we’re all living under) has been occupying, destabilizing, and restructuring the Middle East for decades. It’s not going to stop. It is going to continue. As the restructuring of the West is going to continue.
GloboCap doesn’t have anything else to do.
Anyway, before I ramble on any further, here’s the English version of the speech I gave at the exhibition. Many thanks to those of you who attended … and apologies again for my German. I’ll get the hang of it one of these days.
Fighting Monsters
The name of this exhibition is “Make Art not War.” So I’m going to say a few things about art, and war. You’re not going to like all of them. Or at least I hope not. If you did, I wouldn’t be a very good artist, but I might be a pretty good propagandist.
I grew up in the 1960s and 70s. In the USA. The war was on television. In Vietnam. Cambodia. Cuba. The Middle East. Then in El Salvador. Nicaragua. Iran. Libya. Yugoslavia. Afghanistan. Iraq. The list goes on and on. I am almost 63 years old. All my life we’ve been at war. Not just Americans. All of us. People. Someone always at war with someone. And all my life there have been other people calling for peace. Protesting the war. Whatever war it was at the time.
If you read a little history, as I like to do sometimes, you will learn that someone has been at war with someone over something since the dawn of civilization. Certainly Western civilization. The history of Western art and literature begins with war. Genocidal war. The Illiad is a poem about a genocidal war. Rape. Mass murder. The slaughter of children. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are about war, or are set during a war, or have something to do with someone killing someone over something.
Some of that history happened right here. There are bunkers below us where people sheltered during the bombing raids in the Second World War. Legend has it the Stasi operated listening stations right here in these rooms. When I first arrived in Berlin, twenty years ago, I lived in a sublet on this street. This was my neighborhood, the Bötzowviertel. There were still bullet holes in the facades of buildings. People died here. Civilians. Children. Women were raped here. Families were dragged out of their homes and sent to the death camps here. This is Berlin. You know the history. I don’t need to recite all the details.
What’s my point? Well, my point is … that is war. Indiscriminate killing. Rape. Mass atrocities. That’s what war is. That is what it has always been. And we’ve been doing it to each other since the dawn of civilization. It is not going to stop. We are not going to stop it. Art is certainly not going to stop it. We are, whether we like it or not, a violent species, human beings. It isn’t all we are, but it is part of what we are. We are also lovers, teachers, healers, artists, and other beautiful things. But sometimes we are vicious killers. Monsters. Genocidal monsters.
A crazy old German philosopher once warned us, “beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.” He was joking, of course. There are no monsters. Or, rather, there are only monsters, on every side of every war. In a war, there are no good guys and bad guys. There is just our side and the other side. Our atrocities and their atrocities. And whoever wins gets to write the history.
That’s it. The rest is propaganda. Their propaganda and our propaganda. Of course, our propaganda is not propaganda. Our propaganda is just the truth. Because we’re not monsters. They are the monsters.
This is Day 202 of Israel’s war on Hamas, or its liquidation of Gaza, depending on your perspective. I haven’t said too much about it publicly. I said a few things about it when it began. That didn’t go well. No one was listening. The propaganda from both sides was already deafening. I described the Hamas attack as mass murder. My pro-Palestinian readers didn’t like that. I described Israel as a typical mass-murdering nation-state, no different than the United States of America, Germany, France, Spain, The Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the British empire, the Ottoman empire, the Holy Roman Empire, or any other mass-murdering nation-state or empire. My pro-Israeli readers didn’t like that. Neither side wanted to hear about history. The history of asymmetric warfare, or terrorism, depending on your perspective. The history of nation-states and empires. They wanted to hear a story about monsters. About the monsters on the other side.
I told you you weren’t going to like everything I said, right?
OK, let me say a few things about art now. If you didn’t like what I said about war, maybe you’ll like what I say about art. I can’t speak for other artists, but I’ll tell you why I think I became an artist, and what I have been trying to do as an artist.
I haven’t been trying to stop any wars. Or to pacify the human species. I don’t know how to do either of those things. And I am not a fan of propaganda. I confess, I have engaged in it from time to time, but mostly what I’ve been trying to do is deprogram minds, starting with my own.
We are all, by the time we realize we exist, the products of programming, ideological conditioning. I believe it is the job of artists to undo that, or at least to marginally interfere with it. That’s what art, and artists, did for me. They introduced me to my mind. My programmed mind. They forced me to think, and to see, and listen. They taught me to question, to pay attention. They dared me to deprogram my mind, and provided me with the tools to do it. OK, sure, some mind-altering drugs also helped, but it was artists that introduced me to those drugs. Then they introduced me to the monster I’ve been fighting.
I have been fighting this monster, in my art, in my mind, and out in the world for as long I remember. You have to fight it everywhere at once. To fight it in your mind, you have to fight it out in the world. And to fight it out in the world, you have to fight it in your mind.
Let me tell you about the monster.
The monster is legion. It goes by many names. It wears many faces. They change over time. William S. Burroughs called it “The Control Machine.” Some people call it the corporatocracy. I call it global capitalism. The monster doesn’t care what we call it. It doesn’t care who we are, what our politics are, or which side of what war we think we are on. It doesn’t care what we believe, which religion we profess. It couldn’t care less how we “identify.”
All it cares about is power. All it cares about is control.
It is everywhere, and nowhere. It has no country. No nationality. It doesn’t exist. It is everything, and nothing. It is the non-existent empire occupying the entire planet. It has no external enemies because there is no outside, not anymore. So there is no real war. There are only insurrections, carried out by rebels, traitors, terrorists.
The monster, our non-existent empire, is the first global empire in human history. It is not a group of evil people. It is maintained by people, but they are all interchangeable. It has no headquarters. There is no emperor. There isn’t any “Bastille” to storm. It is a logos. A system. An operating system.
It has no politics, no ideology. Its official ideology is “reality.” Thus it has no political opposition. Who would argue against or oppose “reality”? Lunatics. Extremists. The terminally deranged. And thus there are no dissidents, no opposing political parties. There are only apostates, heretics, blasphemers, sowers of discord, “reality” deniers.
It manufactures “reality.” Whatever “reality” it needs. The War on Terror. The War on Populism. The War on the Virus. The War on the Weather. The War on Hate. The War on Whatever. It doesn’t matter. It is all the same war. The same “Clear-and-Hold” op. The same counterinsurgency. It has been for about 30 years.
If things seem crazy, if you’re wondering what’s happening, that is what’s happening. That is all that is happening. That is all that has been happening since the end of the Cold War.
The empire is eliminating internal resistance, any and all forms of internal resistance. The monster is monsterizing everything and everyone. Transforming societies into markets. It doesn’t have anything else to do. It is erasing values. It is dissolving borders. It is “sensitivity-editing” culture. Synchronizing everything and everyone in conformity to its only value … money. Rendering everything a commodity.
It is the apotheosis of liberal democracy, the part where the monster does away with democracy, with the simulation of democracy, and proclaims itself “democracy.” It is global-capitalist Gleichschaltung.
That’s the monster I have been fighting.
Which makes me a terrorist. A conspiracy theorist. A Russian propagandist. A Covid denier. A right-wing extremist. An anti-vaxxer. An anti-Semite. A transphobic racist. An enemy of “democracy.” A Hamas supporter. A Donald Trump supporter. An AfD supporter. Whatever the official enemy happens to be today.
It makes me a criminal. A thought criminal. An art criminal.
Which I literally am. The German authorities are prosecuting me for disseminating art. For tweeting art. Pictures. Words. They banned one of my books. So maybe I’m marginally interfering with their ideological conditioning, with their programming, with their New Normal Gleichschaltung op.
If so, good, because, if I can quote another German, “art is not a mirror held up to reality, it is a hammer to shape reality with.”
And I’ll go a little further than Brecht. Every work of art we make shapes reality one way or another, whether we intend it to or not. It either feeds the monster or it fucks with the monster. The monster out there, and the monster in here, inside us, all of us … because it’s all the same monster.
Thank you, all of you who are fucking with the monster. That is all. Let’s keep it up.
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Excellent…! Bravo….!
A quote from Joseph Campbell: LIFE AS IT IS. “The obvious lesson…is that the first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think – and their name is legion – that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, and unfit for illumination. Or those who think – as do many – “Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable, and so they will always be. So it you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. To live in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is”
I have a friend who says, “Yeah, so what.” to everything I offer.
“9/11. inside job.”
“Yeah, so what.”
“34000 dead in Gaza.”
“Yeah, so what.”
“Pandemic is a scam.”
“Yeah, so what.”
“Russia is right to invade Ukraine.”
“Yeah, so what.”
Is this the point of Hopkins’ article?
I believe the point (in both settings) is to stop bringing up symptoms in place of their cause(s). It’s like complaining about Trump without knowing why (in 2016 at least) he was fully substitutable.
I thought you won your court case..?
That is right, but the prosecutor appealed the original verdict.
No, no one is fighting the monster. Everyone wants to benefit from it and feed it with our souls. My house, my boat, my car, my property, mine, mine, mine. Man’s greed, selfishness is the monster. Capitalism is just the mirror image that shows us what we have made of ourselves. Capitalism is not alive, we breathe new life into it every day…
Nein, niemand bekämpft das Monster. Alle wollen davon profitieren und füttern es mit unseren Seelen. Mein Haus, mein Boot, mein Auto, mein Grundstück, mein, meins, meins. Die Gier des Menschen, der Egoismus ist das Monster. Der Kapitalismus ist nur das Spiegelbild, welches uns zeigt, was wir aus uns gemacht haben. Der Kapitalismus lebt nicht, wie hauchen ihm täglich neues Leben ein…
Artists generally believe they are above the peasant fray but sometimes they simply don’t know very much. I was like that when I took drugs.
I observed a definite bias in Hopkins’ Gaza commentary. Condemning Hamas.
Turns out his wife is Jewish and he is an American living in an American military occupied country (Germany). So not totally unbiased.
Not JJH greatest piece of writing. It reeks of cinicism and intellectual nonchalance. Regarding the genocide in Gaza, the author briefly touches upon the difficulty of characterizing it as war, but elaborate no further. If he did and defined the respective roles of occupied vs occupiers; refugees vs conquerors or victims vs aggressor, this would undermine his whole narrative of ‘all parties are equally bad.’
Hence, CJH is content with a superficial analysis of the concept of war. He articulates a morally relativistic position which basically implies that there could never be profound justifications for war, not even for self-defense. Needless to say, this utterly naive view is contradicted by historical precedents, and is particularly incongruant with the events following ‘the Nakba.’
In my view, there’s no equivalency between the Israeli regime and the Palestinian resistance, just as there would be no equivalency between a bunch of thugs on a rampage and a person fighting to protect his familly from being raped and enslaved by them!
The author’s oversimplifies and attempts to abstract the profound socio-historical, psychoanalytic and religious dimensions of the realities of war.
“The daily drumbeat of anti-Semitic hate leaves Jewish Britons living in fear”
The Telegraph supplies the drumbeat while complaining about it.
Touche! … not only does the comic ‘supply the drumbeat’ … it is the drumbeat.
Unfortunately, it is also the drumbeat for the march of the slavish-politicians. Murdoch and his progeny are the reincarnation of Maxwell’s spooks … they hunt with the hounds and run with the ‘fox’ …
Reminds them of Germany in the 40’s.. 💤
If you guys can fight the monster inside yourself, YOU rule the world.
This is a fact with logo and therefore its the truth with reason, and you know it deep inside yourself 😎 .
Great article CJ. I believe the enemy and our saviour are within each one of us. We need to own our space, our responsibility for our part of what is. ‘Grow some balls.’ We all like to play judge and jury for others actions, to seek out new heroes to save us, but we all have a hand in what is. Let’s all try and do better. Otherwise history will keep playing the same old shit show.
Nope, you aren’t an artist, you are a propagandist. You don’t get to say which one, other people get to say. There were some Nazi film-makers that thought they were artists, but the future told them that they were propagandists.
The artists are the ones that in the end get liked. Propagandists are the ones that get hated. You are in the wrong side of the line, it’s as simple as that. Saying that you take the side of the enemy as an artistic choice is just showing that your understanding of art is out-dated and flawed.
If you really wanted to be a writer, you would read and listen. And resist the temptation of hitting that bloody keyboard until you know you have something worthwhile to write. Read, listen, and show some restraint. That’s all you needed to do, and you failed to do it.
Maria ‘DaVinci’ l take it ?
The only propaganda free art – pure, unadulterated art – is that most modern of all art which says absolutely nothing. In other words, it is the triumph of the form, the defeat of the content.
No art genuinely having content can ever escape being the artist’s own idea(s). The artist wishes the audience to see not only the composition – the form – but the idea or ideas informing – composing – the content. To that extent, the artist cannot avoid being a propagandist – if only of his own idea(s): his own propaganda.
To me, one of, if not, the greatest piece of art ever produced is Picasso’s “Guernica.” It is a treatise of why killing is wrong.
“The artists are the ones that in the end get liked. Propagandists are the ones that get hated.”
No. Successful propagandists successfully disguise that they are successful propagandists. Successful propagandists decide who among the artists are those that in the end get liked, and which propagandists are in the end unsuccessful.
So now Trump is all in on the Israel war against Gaza and so is his MAGA cult. Primarily because their “enemies”, the so called liberals, are protesting the genocidal act by Israel at colleges. So obviously, THEY can’t be against Israel’s war. Trump came out yesterday and said London is “unrecognizable” and open for Jihad, in other words, Trump is right with the War OF Terror and scaring the public to think there will be terrorist attacks. He’s been saying terrorists are coming across the border. The MAGA cult is so fucked up now they can’t even see straight. They pretend to be all about the constitution but want a police state, a Dictator, and to abolish the first Amendment. The fucking cognitive dissonance is off the charts.
The enemy is inside ourselves, inside our borders, inside our homes, and under our beds.
There are terrorists and monsters EVERYWHERE, and Trump is going to clean them out!
Faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap over tall buildings!
Great comment – thank you. It’s quite clear where MAGA is coming from: the Constitution was never meant to apply to anyone but them. Anyone who can’t see that is not a true American. It’s no accident that Bible Belters make up most if not all of the MAGA cult. As Voltaire noted: “He who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities.” And in their hero – Trump – we have the best of both worlds: an absurdity and an atrocity.
Same for dementia Joe as well.
Absolutely.
“The fucking cognitive dissonance is off the charts.”
It’s only cog dis if you can (even subconsciously) see it. To that end, it helps ease cog dis greatly if you “get religion”. In politics, if at least all the drones do. That’s why operatives nurtured the Woke religion in parallel with the Evangelical religion. Two drone armies in existential holy war, The Smart Guys vs The Good Guys.
Anti-War protests are now, Marxist revolution, are they? My, how the Monsters project a force field around Western War Empire to keep it grinding out death everywhere. I’m sorry, but conservatives need to study history so they don’t let themselves be led by the nose with ludicrous word-carrots, like Marxism. Study the McCarthy trials circus of stupidity for example. “Communism” is still the lead dog whistle to keep ignorant Americans waving the flag of superiority and settler colonialism privilege all over Earth.
“Fast forward to the Marxist revolution spreading like stage four cancer at the nation’s colleges and universities, anti-Israel and counter-protesters found common ground, or perhaps a glimpse of solidarity, when both sides were heard chanting “F**K Joe Biden” this week at the University of Alabama.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fk-joe-biden-anti-israel-counter-protesters-university-chant-solidarity-democrats-panic
“The Illiad is a poem about a genocidal war.”
On the contrary, compared to the Zionazi viewpoint of the writers of the Old Testament, Homer’s version of the War with Troy is remarkably objective and filled with “the pity of war”. Homer’s Trojan characters are as heroic and noble as his Greeks, the scales of victory balance evenly, all mortals are subject to Zeus, and Zeus is subject to Destiny.
Unlike Vergil, Homer does not show the final fall of Troy; he ends with a unique chapter: the reconciliation, born of sorrow, between aged Priam the Trojan and young Achilles the Greek; a scene that makes the Illiad in some ways a precursor of the New Testament and and the Koran ie, of Christianity and Islam: the Religions of Peace.
Wonderful piece of writing; keep up the good fight because some of us are listening; and, even more importantly, some of us need exactly this type of art to keep on keeping on. God Bless you and yours! RGB-Y4 out!!
“Best images of the student protests”:
https://dumptheguardian.com/us-news/2024/may/02/university-protests-gaza-student-pictures
I don’t recall “best images of the convid protests” – it was more “a few thousand protested lockdown… Piers Corbyn said/did something dreadful… extreme right… nothing much to see here… move along… “.
Whatever the reason, the treatment of the two sets of protests is very different.
Yes, it sure is. I wonder how many of those students will now face what the Jan 6 protestors faced, and if so, will the lightbulb go on then? Will they see that using heavy handed surveillance tactics against those they don’t agree with WILL come home and bite them in the proverbial ass? As that was ALWAYS intended to do? Are they seeing how they are portrayed as violent terrorists when they have not committed all that much violence against actual other people? Destruction of property is all OK on a uni campus, but when someone smashes a window at the Capitol of Corruption that should be fully prosecuted to the full extent of the law? Jail time? Long prison sentences? Bank accounts frozen and assets seized? Are we awake yet? Apparently not.
And really, I just gotta say it, the pictures I’ve seen where all these protestors are all diapered up just kill me. You wanna protest and supposedly put your ass on the line, you wanna gum up the war machine by occupying a college campus, but you’re still frightened of a virus that’s never been proven to even exist? Just wow. But then no one should be shocked any more at all at the cognitive dissonance of any of this today.
Shit stirring X 10:
https://twitter.com/AFpost/status/1785790063902908893
“House passes bill to define alleging Jewish involvement in Christ’s crucifixion as antisemitism, with 320-91 majority.”
‘Hysterical.’ but unfortunately true. I trudged the Via Dolorosa in 1995. I’ve just got out my two ‘keffiyehs’ wot I bought from an Arab stall in the Old City. In case I need to show some solidarity. You didn’t need to be diligently searched to walk around the Dome of the Rock/Al Aksa, but the Western Wall was a completely different story.
As I have said:
“Schindler’s List” was a film about how 60 mio died in WWII because they tried to save 6 mio Doos.
Then who killed Christ? Obviously it was governor Pontius Pilate, flicking off a speck of dust from the tidy Roman State.
But I agree that modern Gentiles should not “follow a mob to do evil” against modern Jews by invoking the guilt of those ancient Jews who “followed a mob to do evil” against the GOAT Jew (greatest Jew of all time).
What people tend to forget regarding Christ is that the Jewish people never accepted him as the Messiah/Savior prophesied in the Old Testament . They – at least as represented by the Israelis – are still awaiting their Messiah.
Messiah is Hebrew and it is exactly the same thing as Christ in Greek.
It is the same thing.
That these nouns in those languages are masculine does not mean that Christ or Messiah is a male person, or a man.
God is not a man. Christ is Spirit. Spirit has no gender.
https://biblehub.com/greek/3323.htm
And the word Jesus literally means ”God saves”. It is the Savior Spirit, the Spirit of God saving us, liberating us, setting us free from the bondage of the Devil.
“regarding Christ is that the Jewish people never accepted him as the Messiah/Savior”
Most of Yeshuah’s early followers were Jews; including Syrian Jews like St.Paul when belief in Yeshuah as The Christ spread from the Syrian Roman provinces of Galilee and Judea to the utmost bounds of Syria – and beyond. In the Roman Empire itself, part of the persecution of early Christianity came from the bad reputation of Jews. Romans remembered the Jewish Wars, and anti-Jewish sentiment was still strong (like anti-German sentiment in the British Empire after WW1).
I have no idea what Christ you Christians are talking about.
Is it a man? Is it God? Is it killed? Is it dead?
Is it something that was a long time ago? Is it something that happened in the Middle East? Is it in the past, as history?
So the question about ”who killed Christ”, why do you assume Christ is dead?
It was not Pontius Pilate but the Chief Priest and supporters of the Jewish Pharisees:
John 18:38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him”.
Luke: “But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.”
Matthew. “So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.”
John. “Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.”
So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”
When the Jewish chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”
Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.””
So Pilate gave the final permission for crucifixion, even though he found no guilt in the prisoner. Covered himself both ways like a typical political appointee.
They call it democracy.
The majority crowd vote and yell their horrible demands to the politicians who carry out the crowd’s demands.
The Politicians are then guilty because they followed our orders.
Another way of framing it is:
“Politicians are only doing ‘we the voter”s dirty job.”
‘The monster…is not a group of evil people’.
So there are no controllers, no instigators, no psychopathic cabal, just the impersonal logic of a system?
Only if we ignore all the evidence!
“The monster, our non-existent empire, is the first global empire in human history.”
That would be the British Empire. The Seven Years War was the first ‘world war’. That’s at the very least.
BTW it’s important war isn’t defined as conflict between nation-states, it’s organised mass violence regardless of the source. What the British East India, for example, perpetuated was war. A narrow definition let the likes of H.G. Wells pose as “anti-war” while intending extermination on a mass scale. War in the name of globalism would love to masquerade as no war at all, just a small policing action.
“War in the name of globalism would love to masquerade as no war at all, just a small policing action.”
Or an SMO? (Special Military Action).
No military dictatorship except UN military dictatorship?
ICC (International Criminal Court) arrest warrant for Natan Yahoo as for Vladimir Putin?
These are heavy problems for International Law.
“cry me a gender fluid river”
What a woke crybaby Simon Elmer is. a hissyfit that anyone dares calls Michael a hoffman and many other excellent critiques with historical receipts also known a revisionist history works not toeing the holo believe it or GET CANCELLED line.
Simon wokebaby Elmer has now left OFF G due to the many bad comments left by Off G commentators that didn’t suit his ADL official get imprisoned if you dont believe the holo story opinion.
just like ADL or the MSM media wokey Elmo says cancelled people, wokey Elmer has cancelled the OFFG very evil anti s comment section that dares to not believe the official narrative or leave heart felt ass lick your so amazing comments to tickle his insatiable ego the day before the U.K May selection.
as another pointed out it smells stinks of MIC alt media political nudge unit.
it suits a political landscape narrative having the hissyfit throw your toys out the pram episode he just had..
Although not bad in its entirety, this text should have been divided into two sections. One reflecting on the intrinsic nature of human existence and art per se, and the other examining the developments that have lead to the current state of the world.
There was a hint of a discussion on the other day about the nature of existence, the implicit dichotomy being a) the notion that the world is progressing toward a perfect society, a paradise, that will one day be instituted, and b) the acknowledgment that no such progress is taking place, that a perfect world is a utopian illusion, Fukuyama’s delusions being a case in point. The author clearly embraces b), which is what most people should so as to avoid drawing the wrong conclusions, especially if they hallucinate that the perfect world will emerge after an apocalyptic event, which might make them wanna make such an event happen. An interesting text on that subject is here.
As to the alleged monsters who have emerged after the Cold War, it’s like this. A few hundred years ago, people realized that if they join forces they’ll have a collective power that exceeds the individual power of whoever was their overlord (who naturally was exploiting the shit out of them) and learned to exercise their collective power. That realization gave birth to such concepts and socialism, communism, welfare state, trade unions. These collectivist concepts were quite successful and forced feudalists, capitalists, dictators, autocrats, every asshole who thrives on exploiting others to share stuff with the rest, to much greater a degree than before. Combined with the surplus energy provided by the carbon pulse (discovery and use of fossil fuels), the living standard of the masses vastly improved, especially in the western part of the world which was more aggressive and successful in waging wars, the English speaking world in particular.
The success of collectivism was propped by its implementation in the Second World, where its relative successes – such as WWII victory, space exploration, and some positive societal institutions, such as universal healthcare and education – were a threat to the First World, where the leaders (dormant individualists) provided the masses with as much luxury as they could to prevent them going the communist way too. Often through massive debt. This is where the luxury of the First World comes from – the fear that people would go collectivist and bribing them with material luxuries. Sure, people’s creativity facilitated by the greater freedom under so-called capitalism played a role, but it wasn’t the main factor. Capitalism finally defeated socialism, the collectivist movement of the past few centuries lost the battle.
Idiots who naively expected that the world will proceed toward some kind of liberal paradise, such as the aforementioned Fukuyama, were naturally wrong. With the collective power of the masses having been discredited and people having been indoctrinated with the notion that everybody can be a miniature capitalist, a nanoscopic monarch, the dormant dictators, as well as new ones who have since emerged, had the path paved toward reinstating feudalism, slavery. The world has been heading in that direction ever since, as the author correctly observes.
Everything is exacerbated by the situation concerning resources, where it’s obvious that there simply is not enough shit on the planet to provide everybody with limitless luxury (as per the nanoscopic monarch).
How all this will play out, who the fuck knows. One problem is that not everybody has the same level of intelligence. There are smart people and there are people dumb as fuck. Likewise, there are people who are not necessarily dumb, but they’re fucked up in the head psychologically and act contrary to their interests. It might be argued that if everybody was as smart as the other guy, or as fucked up, a lot of the problems would disappear because there would be no idiots who would succumb to the smartness of their more intelligent counterparts. It would probably work the other way around too, if everybody was a stupid fuck, they wouldn’t be able to pull wool over the other guy’s eyes. Can we somehow achieve that, eh? The same applies to the size of one’s dick/tits, whether actual or perceive, a major factor in how a person interacts with the world.
Questions, questions! So much shit to consider!
Another major issue revolving around intellectual tyranny is the question, do kids wake themselves up sexually? Or is a third party required to perform this task, and yes, size does matter with this issue as short comings only lead to disappointment and eventually despair, which is where we currently are as a humanity.
I think there may be an element regarding the old standby “penis size” that people tend to overlook. Namely, a bigger penis is a better instrument for impregnating a woman. Humans reduce to banal practicality in almost every aspect of life.
In that regard, in contrast, it is interesting that almost all medieval and Renaissance depictions of male nudes stresses the size of the testicles – not the penis.
CJ Hopkins is absolutely right but his is a top view of things dealing with manifestations of the problem rather than bottom up core of war.
It is absolutely true that in last 12,000 years of this particular civilization war is continued either by his narrow definition or by much broader my own. It is too easy to just blame human nature which doesn’t exists at all as we don’t even have any essence as animals do.
We are born essence-free animals who via non-biological social evolution suppose to graduate into common humanity. What it means’s that we suppose not just sense but realize and understand our human commons (abstract concept) but that requires controlling or shedding animal fears comprehending potential of and accordingly valuing cooperation much more than completion which is a precursor and prerequisite of any war.
Human species of “Homo Sapiens” with DNA identical to contemporary humans survived about 300,000 years before so called “civilization” developed despite being one of physically weakest animals on earth. It was solely because of realization that no conflict but strong cooperation and long term complex abstract planing was the only way for humans to survive.
And they did it by deliberately choosing hunting and gathering (H&G) economy that requires not physical strength or confrontation but deception, complex group collaboration, studying weather, plant and animal patterns to set the most economically advantageous yearly migration paths. The control over fire was a direct result of concerted efforts to understand nature and use it to human advantage but that required overcoming fear of nature as they previously overcame fear of one another.
One of most important for humans’ success of hunters and gatherers was introduction on large scale division of labor according to best skills and capabilities while they retained equal importance of every cog small or big in hunting and gathering machine. That itself introduced idea of caring, equitable sharing and sense of collectivism as required for success. Moreover, it made such H&G communities essentially egalitarian (classless) as no physical power or wit of selected few alone could do it all successfully and therefore willful cooperation and smooth collective execution made difference between demise or survival.
There was virtually no wars among tribes of hunters and gatherers as it would have meant unforgiving for all sides damage, weakness and eradication via starvation or attacks by other animals. .
So what happened, why ensuing12,000 years old “civilization” we revere today became civilization of war?
The answer is simple. Agrarian culture permanent settlements and inevitable need to defend the range/land from animals (ranching) as well as protecting investment of labor and in land itself like water feeders and drainage and rich soil for many years into the future was the culprit.
The first wars among humans were driven by periodic weather anomalies that reduced crop yields causing starvation and seeking relief but ultimately placing claim on food reserves of other more lucky or smart or successful agricultural tribes. As yields were very low and every agricultural community was always close to starvation they couldn’t accommodate additional demand from other less fortunate tribes and had to defend their own. That had by itself catastrophic consequences.
One resentment grew leading to disputes, distrust and ultimately conflict often not only to take other tribe food but in long ran taking others land that provided better yields. This was the very origin of war among humans in classical sense. It was about economic instability and imperative of defending productive land. But there was another even more severe consequence that perpetuates wars even today.
As human tribes engaged in such de facto economic conflict after series’ of years of bad crops and numerous successful raids against neighboring tribes to steal their food some more skilled in robbery tribes decided to completely stop relying on agriculture and live of pillaging others or ultimately to control others tribes successful agriculture operations in a form of slavery.
That in turn created critical needed for defending agricultural investment in the land and inevitable creation of security guard elite that did not toil the soil at all as well as administration that kept track if anything was stolen by enemies and if food security was assured. That was a seed of class society and start of a class war waged by elites who didn’t work the land and those who did and had to feed them for “common” good.
As raids of enemy tribes increased costs of defending land increased as well and most critically increased importance of leading and controlling position of specialized tribe defenders (soldiers) was solidified. And that importance was behind increased demand by elites on a share of crops to be much more than equitable one. That in weak crop years resulted in growing internal resentment and (class) conflicts often remedied by turning elites’ war skills against their own tribal members or conveniently shifting blame of shortages on enemy tribes.
Those were foundations of socioeconomic and political system which reincarnation we are suffering from today that has war in its core and can’t exists without it.
Yes my friends we are living in civilization of war despite the fact that at todays technological level it is no longer about fighting to survive but for sole reason of elites’ to keep control over productive assets of society and its natural and Human Resources so they can perpetuate class division that gave them millennia ago power and control.
Most of wars of the past and all wars of today are solely for elites’ sake anything else about reasons for war like inherent warlike people’s character, need to defend land or culture or way of living or economic interests is of marginal importance or completely bogus never warranting pain suffering or destruction as misery is in XXI century a creation artificially maintained by elites to divide people and to hold on to power.
So what does it mean to be anti war these days?
it means to reject the system that perpetuate war, overthrow it in a revolution that would root out original sin of elitism and supremacy of property assets over peoples labor with intend to organize society of commons along line of egalitarianism, equality, equity of caring and sharing while abolishing state structures for disperse diverse local self governance and economic self sustainability.
The question whether or not such society is possible is the same question as whether or not peace among people will ever be possible on this earth. Or more deeply if human species is to survive or will self eradicate via war it cannot abolish.
Your effort to look way, way past where the eye of the random motherfucker bothers to is greatly appreciated.
I wonder about your assumption that peaceful cooperation existed in the age-old hunter-gatherer communities. I can imagine that the groups were ruled ruthlessly by the strongest and/or smartest dude, or the one with the biggest dick. The dick size, BTW, is also something you omit from the equation, an issue of paramount importance, not to be underestimated. Ditto the fullness of the boobs of a woman from the hunter-gatherer community on the other side of the forest and the roundness of her bum and the lust for her on the part of one of them hunters, especially if combined with hots on her part for him. If she’s the daughter of the tribe’s chief executive officer, war it is! Don’t forget that sex is the second strongest instinct after food.
Anyways, I don’t think things were as rosy as you paint them, it was probably quite the opposite.
Is an egalitarian society possible? Who knows. But you’d certainly have to change some factors in the equation. Namely, it means that resources, that is everything people crave, would have to be limitless, including the boobs/bum & dick size and shape. Or you’d have to re-program people, take their individuality away, make them identical generic units with no volition on their own. That would have to be done physically because efforts to do that mentally, such as the Christian religion, have largely failed.
Anyway, war is only one of the ways in which the human species might eradicate itself. Another, equally as dangerous if not more, is overconsumption, overshoot, destruction of the natural habitat.
Since most people think that it’s all the elites’ fault, and that paradise would ensue if there were no elites, I wonder – how do you propose to rid the world of so-called elites?
There is something that is common to all people: wisdom. Humanity isn’t just biological bodies, but more importantly, humanity is wise. Wisdom entails high consciousness that is self-aware. Wisdom means all people are born with reason and conscience, the ability to use logic and know the difference between truth and lies, good and evil.
Every human being knows that lies aren’t true and evil is not good. Every newborn child knows that much.
Everyone knows, including those who murder others, that murder is a sin, a crime and it’s wrong.
Our history of sin is coming to its end. That’s the real meaning of the Apocalypse (revelation of things as they are) and Armageddon (victory of good over evil, victory of truth and justice).
You’re hallucinating based on what your religious sect has brainwashed you with.
First of all, the meaning of the terminology, such as lies, good, sin, crime, wisdom, even murder, and the rest of the shit, is in the mind of the listener, as every critter can have their own definition – if not indoctrinated the same way you are.
Second, there is no apocalypse followed by some purge whereafter everything will be hunky fucking dory for ever and fucking ever. Even if such an event happened, people will fuck things up.
You can consider human propensity to fuck things up an axiom, as discussed under the transhumanist issue.
Lastly, it’s your absolute prerogative to be a sectarian and believe some shit from some book, but you need to keep that stuff to yourself and refrain from pestering the rest of the world therewith. I realize that doing so, the refraining, is inherently impossible in its entirety, but you gotta give it a shot.
I know of Jewish Poles were saved and sheltered by Gentile Poles, who gave them forged Papers.(“Let me see your Papers”) for Love (Christian Love) or money (currency and jewelry). And I am sure there are Gentile in Israeli who are being protected by Jewish Israelis.in the same way. These blessed people (both Gentile and Jewish, both Saviour and Victim, are the seed that will put out leaves in the Kingdom to nourish a new generation of the Just — whatever is left after the Unjust have gathered to guzzle up the blasted remnants of today’s pitiful harvest.
My mother survived the war like that, even though the other way around (Jewish/Gentile). She was sheltered throughout the war by good people who risked their lives to save hers.
Glad to hear of it.
“How far that little candle spreads its beams;
So shines a good deed in a naughty world” — Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.
The problems include
-Psycho parasites (as mentioned)
-Multi-level (contagious) parasitism and hoarding through propaganda
-Mass communication and organisation; beyond ordinary group sizes, even chimpanzees have been noted to expand territory and become brutal.
SitRep on the Special Military Operation (“It’s not a war”) as Europe (which includes) Russia prepares to celebrate 8th May VE Day (victory over the Nazis).
https://youtu.be/jH-U2avei1k?si=vqOWx_2IyJJUYf-G
Scott Ritter reveals everything you did not want to know about Ukraine, starting here: The merry men and women from Uncle $cam never thought Ukraine had a chance against Russia; they just wanted to piss off Putin by showening cookie$ and weapon$ onto the Zio-nazis and Ukie-cookie$ at Russia’s border.
Russia should realize WWII happened 75 years ago. Its over! Done. Get a life. It will be nothing compared to the new war we are going to today.
My ancient forfather also won a battle 300 years ago. Everybody can say that and make a party. March! https://youtu.be/_x9of5A2TEk
Fine sentiments but the unappeased ghost of WW1 demanded the blood of WW2; and the unappeased ghost of WW2 demands the blood you fear from WW3.
Unless the UN can get its act together, and invoke International Law to stop that little Genocide in Gaza, the unappeased ghost of WW2 will continue to call for WW3.
“Blood calls for blood” — Aeschyles, Agammemnon.
“It — “The Liquidation of Gaza,” or whatever you want to call it — doesn’t look like much of a “war” to me, but then, nothing really has for quite a while.”
I agree. It’s not a war, it’s a Genocide.
And shooting fish in a barrel is not a sport.
Yup. And for all those supporting it, they should get their ass over there, put on a uniform and pick up a weapon and take point. Justifying the slaughter of innocents while sitting on their asses at home just doesn’t cut it. Want to scream for war, then go fight it. Wanna talk about killing kids, get on over there and do it yourself.
This is the subtle deception folks. “There is no good and evil. Our enemy is not worse than us.”
WRONG.
As taught by Jeshua we fight back with love and truth. That does not make us insane monsters too.
That is exactly what is the purest form of insanity and evilness.
Telling people the truth, that they are ugly, stupid, cant read and has no value, and telling them this is a fight for love, are done only by monsters.
The author writes
” I described Israel as a typical mass-murdering nation-state, no different than the United States of America, Germany, France, Spain, Th Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the British empire, the Ottoman empire, the Holy Roman Empire, or any other mass-murdering nation-state or empire. My pro-Israeli readers didn’t like that.”
This is superficially accurate, but the description of Israel as being like “any other stater” does not stand up to scrutiny, as well as being particularly weak, cowardly and disingenuous.
Israel can be fairly compared with other settler colonialist states.
Valid comparisons are :the USA, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, ie. other settler colonial states. Israel is not like modern Germany and Spain or any other state not founded upon land theft.
I would have thought that was completely obvious.
The fact that the writer then seeks to characterise his cowardice and weakness as being offensive to his pro Israel readers is no more than hilarious self serving tosh designed to mask the immense cowardice the author has displayed.
I don’t respect that at all.
How very brave of you to call the author a coward; unless of course you are recovering from a recent mauling by the monster.
I am saying that the piece is cowardly, the work is cowardly. I do not know CJ so I could not call him anything. This however, is a cowardly and worthless piece of work. Utter drivel.
Your are on the right track. Check out CJ hissy fits on X. It is an amusing set of mental calisthenics to make pretzels look as straight as hot dog buns.
I’d hardly say he was “mauled by the monster” by being called to sit in front of one of Germany’s twenty-year-old soyboy judges for half an hour and then have the few petty charges that were laid against him promptly dropped.
I’m sure Hopkins himself would agree with your characterization, though. He obviously loves to think of himself as a lone titan suffering the slings and arrows launched at him from every side while he manfully pursues his vocation as a servant of Truths Known to Few.
I have to admit that I find vain, wishy-washy narcissistic clownery of this sort slightly less painful to read than the sort of bloodthirsty Stalinistic Jew-hatred that OffGuardian has mostly been giving a platform to lately. But neither are very edifying so I now look on the habit of browsing in here once a week or so as a bad one that I’m doing my best to break.
Go and do likewise.
I think the state is appealing the judge’s ruling, aren’t they?
It’s always far easier to disparage from the sidelines, isn’t it. We can all slide into smug, snide, judgemental dilettantism, but we have to catch ourselves. Ya know?
Before you sign off, would you mind giving a few examples of “the sort of bloodthirsty Stalinistic Jew-hatred that OffGuardian has mostly been giving a platform to lately.”
Considering that Israel’s Yahoo regime has mostly been giving a platform to the horrible crime of Genocide, criticism in a sane and humane Truther site like OffG is only to be expected.
True, it seems to me that occasional readers display anti-Jewish prejudice, but OffG policy unlike that of the Guardian is: “Speech is Free but Facts are Expensive”.
Pretty much all of the regular authors on OffGuardian who’ve come to the post-2020 “Truther” (to use your phrase) movement from a markedly “left” position have sullied the pages of this site over the past few months with what, yes, I think is quite fairly and justifiably described as “bloodthirsty Stalinistic Jew-hatred”. I’m thinking in particular of, say, Simon Elmer and Iain Davis, neither of whom I know personally but who I’d bet my bottom dollar were – back in the days when thinking of society in terms of “right-wing” and “left-wing” constituencies was still halfway plausible and feasible – were activists in the Corbynite wing of the Labour Party or the Socialist Workers Party or some milieu of that ilk.
Elmer and Davis – as I argued in some detail at the time – have printed on here the same downright lies about the situation in the Middle East that anyone who has followed politics for the past fifty years will have heard the Stalinist left – well, to split hairs about it, the Trotskyist left, if you will (the distinction doubtless matters the world to a lefty, it doesn’t matter a fart in a bucket to me) – repeat ad nauseam for decades:
“Hamas does not want to destroy Israel” (plainly disproven by every document that Hamas has ever promulgated) and the converse lie – also your own – that “Israel wants to destroy all Palestinians” (or as you put it: “Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinians”.
I really don’t have the energy or the desire any longer to try to reason with people who make these sorts of claims. If they (i.e. you) have any hope of coming to your senses at all I think the best hope of bringing you to them at this point is directing your attention to all the people – at this point pretty much the “normie” majorities of every one of our all but irremediably globalism-captured societies – who are making them along with you. Just LOOK at the people who are droning and spewing, every day and every night on university campuses and in the streets of London, Paris, New York, even Berlin, this facile rhetoric about “the charred bodies of Palestinian children” and “the genocidal slaughter perpetrated by the IDF” that people like Davis and Elmer have chosen to spew here: the pampered, endlessly indulged children of metropolitan prosperity decked out as uniformly in keffiyehs and COVID masks as the glinty-eyed murderous brats of the Cultural Revolution were decked out in Mao suits and Little Red Books.
And LOOK also at the way that these people are portrayed in the media. Certainly NOT, I assure you – despite the absurd attempts by seasoned liars like Owen Jones to push the absurd line that “the BBC and the Guardian are pro-Zionist and vilify all solidarity with Gaza” – the way anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine-mandate protestors were portrayed by the media in 2020 and 2021. No, open your Guardian or turn on your TV – any channel – and you’ll see the young, beautiful, sexy – and among people under 40 vastly majoritarian – callers for “ceasefire now!” and so on being given pretty much the Captain Tom and George Floyd treatment.
If this doesn’t bring you to your senses, I don’t know what will.
I strongly disagree with you, but what I want to know is what you are even trying to say with “Stalinistic” What on earth does Stalin have to do with any of it? Do you actually know who Stalin was or is that a catchphrase that you just learned and reused because it sounded good?
And could we please have an example of this “Stalinistic Jew hatred” that infests the pages of this site, cos I missed it and if it is prevalent as you attest, examples should be plentiful.
One or two would be most welcome as I genuinely have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Do you even read a thread before you leap in and start banging your “I Support the Latest Thing” virtue drum? The first person to respond to what I wrote threw down exactly the same “challenge” as you just have and I took it up quite explicitly and precisely and named Iain Davis and Simon Elmer – I could have named several others besides – as authors who have published “Stalinistic Jew-hatred” on this site.
As to your wild speculative stabs in the dark about my possibly using the term “Stalinist” without knowing what it means and “just because it sounds good”… well, I suppose you have to be forgiven for that. We are on the Internet and we mostly have absolutely no idea about the actual age, history, qualifications, knowledge or lived experience of the person we begin feverishly to sling dismissive insults at.
I did read the thread, dimmy. You provided no actual examples of the writing that was supposedly “Stalinistic” I know that you said that the work of Elmrer and Davis raised your ire, but I was asking for SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF STALINIUSM WITHIN THEIR WRITING- DUMMKOPF!
You failed to provide even a single sentence example of what you were talking about! And that is why I stated that you must be saying it because you think it sounds good. In reality it sounds moronic and delusional! .
All states are founded upon land theft. All states are born out of war.
A state is an organization that takes control of a territory, of a land and everything in it. A state invades the land and forces people and society to obey it with violence or threats of violence.
Who is the rightful owner of the land?
How can any individual say this piece of land is mine and no-one else can use it unless they pay me or work for me?
The idea of private property is the idea that parts of the Universe, like the Earth, can be privately owned. But the Earth doesn’t belong to those thieves. Nothing really belongs to a thief, except punishment.
It is pure nonsense to stae that all nations are founded upon the theft of land. Do you have evidence to support that claim? If so please provide it.
From whom did the Ethiopians steal Ethiopia?
It is absolutely gutless and disingenuous to compare nations that have had demographic stability for millennia with nations that are comprised entirely of people who arrived there as usurpers in the past several hundred years.
And for CJ to present the war as a generic context free spin off of human nature is absolutely despicable.
I have no idea what you were even trying to say with that gibberish at the end. Perhaps I missed something but that sounded like completely incoherent trash to me.
A state is not the same as a nation. A state is not a country. A state is not a people. A state is not society. A state is an organization of some people, usually a very small group, who form the government. A state has the monopoly of violence, and so states oppress, force, imprison, kill, murder and torture people in many ways. States make war. States force people to participate in their wars.
Here it is simple:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/State
Here’s more definite:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)#Definition
If one observes the author’s hissy fits on X, one easily arrives at the conclusion that student protests have accidently struck his Zionist bedrock.
I think too often we forget that humans were actually humans before us. In other words, same shit, different day. It’s getting worse because it’s bigger, more technology, more concentrated power at the top. More definition of the final goal(s). Because this is it, man. Over eight billion and we’ve reached capacity and it’s all connected. The fight against the “monsters” has been ongoing for a long time and has countless champions who have made a difference. But no one has actually been able to tame or eliminate the monsters, because they’re still here and they’re stronger and more vicious than ever. All this fucking with them is all well and good, but we’re going to have to up our game to finally take them down. If we were really serious, instead of just fucking with them, we would get together. I think the time will come, but probably not until there is no other choice. When it really becomes about freedom because there is no more, then we’ll fight back.
“we’re going to have to up our game to finally take them down.”
Either “we” (the goodies) take down the whole rotten decayed edifice of senile Plutocrats, their degenerate incompetent heirs and hangers on; or we resign ourselves to centuries of stagnation.
Do not despair. “Cometh the hour, cometh the man”. In the darkest years of the 20th century, the U$ saw the coming of FDR. It has taken 80 years for Capitalists and Corporate Fascists to dismantle his legacy, but I believe his spirit still lives somewhere in the States.
We need a fall guy, but no one wants it to be them.
What explodes here multiple times is not a Pershing 2 missile, but a so-called “electric car”. This life-threatening moving pyre on four wheels, which is supposedly good for the environment, has made Elon Musk the richest man in the world.
https://media.gettr.com/group8/getter/2024/04/17/13/da04eea9-a726-78c7-d208-c207fe054693/out.mp4
But the battery manufacturing process itself also involves considerable risks.
https://media.gettr.com/group7/getter/2024/04/07/16/d4f62f64-5e99-58e4-79b5-10681407a566/out.mp4
War IS insanity, no matter what reason is given for its justification; the worst possible ‘solution’ to a problem. It is a total waste of human life and resources, for the benefit of a few would be controllers/benefactors (invariably hidden), as the two fighting forces are ALWAYS brought to that point by a third party.
Fantastic 100-mile-high viewpoint. Let us all “fuck with the monster”!
Whom is the monster to the monster?
Brilliant article/speech.
It defines a worthy credo.
Monster fuckers.
Thank you C J. From one big fucking monster fucker to another, reality can change. It’s either control it to be what we want, or to let it haphazardly control us. We don’t have to have war, contrary to the horrible evidence that faces us. At one time we said we would never be able to fly. The idea was simply for the birds. But today we don’t have to wear out our shoes and bloody our feet to travel many thousands of miles to see a friend. We developed the technology. It’s way past time for the technologies in the humanities to catch up with the material technologies. But don’t entirely dismiss the idea that it IS possible. Here’s to fighting alongside anyone else who desires it.
War is simply State violence. The State has always had a monopoly on ‘legalized’ violence.
It has always struck me as crazy that there are rules in war. It is not a gentlemens boxing match using Marquess of Queensbury rules, is it?
Yet, it is ‘legal’ ( but is it lawful?) to kill other people in a certain way or with some weapons and not others. For example, bombing them to pieces but not killing them with chemicals.
According to the rules, civilian deaths should be avoided and CAN be considered a war crime but that depends who is judging and deciding.
Let’s face it, all war is a crime. The fact that we the people have allowed this State sponsored act to exist and even cheer it on, depending on which side we support or worse still actually partake in it, says something about the human condition. Ordinary people die or are maimed, not those in positions of power who declare war on another nation or group of people.
It is not simply a football match, where such tribialism usually only ends in one sides supporters celebrating a win, by getting pissed up down the pub. Meanwhile,the losing sides fans also get pissed up but their excuse is they are commiserating. No real harm done.
Though, I like to think most peoples consciences and moral compasses will prevent them from heinous crimes against others, I seriously wonder, if in a Mad Max scenario – where there is no sanction if caught – what (some) people would do to one another.
I am also reminded of the film series ‘The Purge’, where all crime including murder in USA was allowed for 24 hours, one day a year. It was used as an excuse to settle scores or injustices while others used it to commit random acts of bloodlust.
One could (theoretically) imagine a world without the Monster of Money (aka ‘Globocap’). Imagining a world without War seems more difficult.
War has been around since Cain slew Abel. One person’s lack of favouritism morphing into jealousy and onward to hate. Abolishing money doesn’t appear to remove that process.
In a sense, the modern money system is a direct offshoot *of* War:
Promissory notes were introduced in the Middle Ages. Both Knights Templar and Islam (under Saladin I think) laying claim to originating them. Or some kinda symbiosis? Either way, modern credit is a product of the Crusades. War breeding innovation. The origins of modern banking
‘Usury’, of course, would have been around prior to that, otherwise it wouldn’t have mentioned in the OT.
The Internet too grew out of a War – the Cold War. which is why you’re able to read this comment and those of others.
So, it’s sad to say, War breeds innovation that outlives that original war. And then we wrestle with the innovations themselves to ascertain their social value.
U.K people remember covid.
remember what they did.
dont be fooled into voting on May 2nd.
Sheeple will line up as usual
“In a war, there are no good guys and bad guys.”
Wouldn’t you like to add that from an absolute perspective “In a war, there are no good guys and bad guys”?
Some suggest we straddle many dimensions and, perhaps, simultaneously the absolute and the relative. They intersect. Good/Bad binaries pertain to the relative where indeed these poles can be chosen.
I haven’t been following closely the student protests in the US about the Gaza war so I just see the headlines. From what I gather students on many campuses were met with significant police action — violent reaction reminiscent of the Vietnam era protests. This is a bit of an escalation from the first days where the authorities’ reaction was to tar them all as ‘anti-semites’ and threaten darkly their future prospects ( blacklisting etc.).
A couple of thoughts spring to mind at this point. The first is that if these students were in Russia we’d be hearing all about the likely downfall of Putin, about police repression and all that good stuff about freedom and democracy that’s the boilerplate of modern reporting. The second is that the violence of the police reaction is likely to cause violent protests — what becomes an embarassing, noisy but generally harmless protest rapidly morphs into a riot. We went through the same sort of thing during the Vietnam era so its not as if we don’t have any experience to draw from. Back then we’d use terms like ‘silent majority’ to claim that the reality we were painting — again, spreading ‘freedom and democracy’ using modern weapons of war — was actually acceptable to people, and then as now, the deliberate killing and maiming of thousands (“we had to destroy the village to save it”) just got too much for many to stomach. Hypocrisy only goes so far.
.
I’m probably a bit of an outlier but I think of Gaza not as a bunch of terrorists turning on their benefactors but the occupants of a ghetto finally turning on their jailers. The Israeli version of a Final Solution has been on slow burn for 60 or more years, I’d guess the idea being that just keeping the lid on until enough ‘facts on the ground’ are established and generations turn so people forget (or, more accurately, a suitable version of history can take root) so eventually the unwanted population would melt away, open casinos or generally become just a quaint peasant background. Forcing matters like October 7th. may have been an act of desperation because of its terrible consequences but if it brings down the propaganda wall — or even just puts cracks in it — then maybe the sacrifice would be worth it. (I can’t say because I’m not involved but what’s been going on has been obvious for many decades, at least to anyone with eyes and a conscience.)
Martin Usher, One of your best posts. Thank You
‘Dark Money Nightmare’: How Qatar Bought the Ivy League: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20265/qatar-bought-ivy-league
Amazing art by serbiandude, and great speech by CJ Hopkins, who I once tried to meet in London.
For the last 4 years, I have also been a great fan of Dr. Mike Yeadon, who recently did a great speech, lasting about an hour in high audio quality, though he declined to show his face. Similar theme about Monsters in the UK Government, who he actually names, cos he used to work with them. His courage is amazing.
Maybe Off-G should consider interviewing him
https://rumble.com/v4kc73l-dr-mike-yeadon.html
He is a true hero, along with CJ.
The monsters wage War on Humanity. Westerners, meanwhile, stupefied in colonial settlerism, do nothing to stop the monsters many of them have authorized to act on their behalf.
Why is the video color so muted on posted pix? Cover, I understand, but posted pix, no. imho.
Off-G have been muting colour for many years. I never understood why.
It’s just our little passive aggressive aesthetic power trip ;))
Seriously though, the same style sheet applies to the whole page (ie. article and comments). I much prefer muted colours 99% of the time, it ties the page together which is tasteful, making it a less busy, more calm environment to digest some of the intellectually challenging articles and comments we regularly publish lol. However, non-muted does have its place occasionally. An editor can switch it off per pic, per post, I know that. There may well be a way to separate the comments from the article site-wide and have un-muted colours BTL always, but that’s beyond my ken. I’ll pass an inquiry up the ladder. Curious myself now.
Overall though, especially as someone with mild dyslexia, I think the benefits outweigh the occasional costs and I like the muted design. Plus you can always click on the image to see it unmuted. A2
All the world’s a stage! No better words describe the current moment. I was going to post more but I can’t be bothered. I still have my heroes, those who haven’t fallen for the divide and rule and C J Hopkins is one of them, also off guardian and a handful of others. Of course October 7th was a propaganda coup and look how successful it’s been.
It’s so good to know that nothing real ever happens. Everything is a psyop or a “propaganda coup.” Oh, it’s not that Palestinians are not being slaughtered en masse – it’s just that what happens to real people pales in comparison to the nefarious intent of those who set the stage and decorate it with corpses in order to turn us into binary swine.
We simply must keep our priorities straight, mustn’t we?
There was a time of peace, unearthed by archeologist Marija Gimbutas – The World of the Goddess
“An absorbing view of the culture, religious beliefs, symbolism and mythology of the prehistoric, pre-patriarchal cultures of Old Europe, who revered and celebrated the Great Goddess of Life, Death, and Regeneration in all her many forms, of plants, of stone, of animals and humans, by the scholar who has made the exploration of these cultures her life work.”
How well is this globalist agenda going, really?
End of the Globalists w/ Jay Dyer (Live)
They Break Every Family, Every Country
The Cabal eating our lunch. Literally.
“It was taken from us. That strength had to be broken, and the Fabians, the Huxleys and H.G. Wells, to use names that you’d recognize, invented the system of thought that propels the war on us. The thinking started pre-WW1, and flourished, bloomed and metastasized after WW2, when the optimism and creativity and power of the US flew its flag high. They, the Rockefellers, the Bilderbergs, Kissinger, the Black Nobility of Venice, Bank of International Settlements, the owners of the New York Fed, ancient European families who hold American debt, and a hundred others, determined to break US industrial society, to reduce it to its former peasantry, to immiserate its population in order to control it. If America had grown from the 50s, it would have broken their power and their wealth.
And most of all, they hated America’s optimism, its ‘can-do’ attitude, its brazen confidence that did not bow to any man.”
Hainault sword attack 36-year-old suspect during the 22 minute attack.
if you the type like (MSM MIC alt media) that believed the London bridge was empty during the day and Fishmongers’ Hall with a man waving and whales tusk (pre 2019 U.K selection period has happening) then the betaine sacrifice last night of man waving a sword is as believable again during the ”pre selection period” as an immaculate passport tower inferno during the selection period.
I see in today’s newspaper that a witness said it took “six or seven to get the man down” – almost as if the swordsman had been in the armed forces…
Have you seen the state of the “protectorate” forces these days? Maybe it was a “they” or “them” identifying as six or seven for all we know.
The wombles
Yeh but the policewoman with the Tazer showed great courage. Until now, I never even considered the possibility, that it may have been faked to terrorise us, as normal.
I thought the Hainault thing was probably real, and was extremely impressed with the quality of the video..which was a vast improvement on most of the fake ones, some of which were only partially faked, and some of which was real. These terrorists, have no problems in actually killing people – ask Craig Murray. Bernhard Hoftsman of Moon of Alabama has just announced he is recovering on “high intravenous doses of several antibiotics”
Yes, of course, apples and oranges can be juxtaposed. But it never turns out quite right.
Art and war cannot both be “made.” Oh, Hollywood slaps some shit together now and again and pays some critics to refer to its slap dash process as “making art.” But it ain’t art – because art, unlike war, cannot be “made.” An army of X-Men might take up arms and attack the “bad guys”; but they will never succeed in making a work of art.
Art can only enter the world the same way a child does – by being born. Created from the union of an idea and a process.
War, on the other hand, can never be “born.” It would always end up stillborn. It can only be “made” – slapped together the way Hollywood makes movies.
“We are, whether we like it or not, a violent species, human beings.”.?
Not true. Some are monsters, most are not. When we keep repeating that wrong mantra, we tolerate the wretched. Ninety procent of people are normal (non-violent) , five procent are saints and five procent er bad as hel.
Also “We” do (in fact) not exist. “I” and “you” exist.
Don’t bet against the apex predator attacking you (bitcoin fixes this)
Agreed. Judgement is suspended until the current politico/-economic system shifts. No evaluation of humanity’s innate “evil” character can be asserted under capitalism in all it’s life-crushing evolutionary forms.
Well said!
Tell that to the Overseer of comments on OG.
Wrong. Its opposite. 90% are violent. Only 5-10% are non-violent. Proof? See my grandpa?
More proof?
Final proof:
“Psychologist Stanley Milgram, Found that 80% of the population do not have the psychological or moral resources to defy an authority’s order, no matter
how illegitimate the order is.
Therefore, only 20% have critical thinking capacity. This explains quite a lot!“
23% of Americans want to vote for winners regardless of agenda, character or personality of candidates, That’s how polls predicting win of one or other candidate manipulate almost quarter of voters. The rest are simply lied to that they could “win” personal benefit or favor by voting certain way.
As Bob Dylan put it:
“You just want to be on the side that’s winning.” = most people.
At least they’ve got sensible shoes.
Absolutely. 90% of these shoes are heart warming normal 😅 .
Conformity isn’t violence. Nor war. Don’t conflate the two.
With regards to that picture, social pressure isn’t violence. That’s a doctored picture for all you know. The one with the folded arms. Suspicious, that he isn’t in uniform like the majority. And why are so many looking off to the side in the direction of the camera? Like they know they are being photographed? Why would they even be there unless they were willing Nazis?
Unpublished data from Stanley Milgram’s experiments CONTRADICT his claims about obedience. Nearly half the subjects knew the shocks weren’t real. And more than half refused to comply. Shows how much you know about psychology or violence. Nada. Zip. Zero.
Perhaps if you broaden the definition of “violence” to include eager spectator, you might be able to include most of the human species. By “eager spectator” I mean those who, watching an instance of violence being perpetrated, refuse to speak out against it.
Take Gaza, for instance. Seeing or even hearing about the genocide and saying absolutely nothing in protest is tantamount to participating in it. Same with the violent crackdown on US student protests: even those who accept the nonsense that anti-semitism drives these protests should be appalled by the crackdown.
To ignore violence is to be violent.
Great speech CJ!
I think its so important to remember the monster we fight outside is the same monster we fight inside. “As above. So below.” Only when we master our own monster can we hope to help the world around us. If we don’t master our own monsters we often end up causing damage and distress to the world around us.
Big love!
Really my response to any,all major world events e.g. Gaza boils down to 2 things
1 Whatever it is, it has (typically) been going on for many years with minor variation and running hot or cold. Many ethnic variants of such proverbs/ wise sayings.
2 COVID proved to all that the average person is all but entirely powerless with respect control over the most personal aspects of his life and therefore has no impact on world events.
The man who never submits to the divine is a fool, even the most intelligent man on earth.
The fool says in his heart, there is no God.
The wise man works out at some point that there is no way out of this mess through our own solutions, and those of other men. We need divine assistance. But children and fools rule over us, and their egos won’t let them submit to the higher authority.
Extremist beliefs like believing in religion are like an addiction to intoxicating drugs.
Hey dude, what’s wrong with intoxicating drugs??
Believing in a religion is a human constant since before the beginning of time.
Someone downvoted this? Get an education.
GODAMNIT!!!!
Fix the Fucking edit feature.
You too. You should have known half of this world belongs to the devil = 50% down votes..
I believe in the scientific connection between our brain waves, heart waves and the physical realm, each participating in the unfoldment of “reality”.
God says, “Look at these fools who think an eternal being gives a shit about a timeling”.
Great words. But no mention of God, or the force that opposes Him.
Man is forever pissing in the wind when he fails to turn to God. God is our only way out of Hell, in more ways than one.
Would this be the “God” who gave the Levant to the Israelis and therefore condones the slaughter of Palestinians in order to reclaim this “God given” piece of real estate?
Because that’s all the “Holy Land” is: a mere parcel of ground. Nothing sacred about it. My back porch, where I put out food for feral cats, is every bit as sacred as the Temple Mount.
You think Satan doesn’t use God’s word to deceive men into doing evil? That’s exactly what he does.
Misinterpretation of everything. One thing I dont understand:
The 10 Commandments was delivered personally by God to first Moses in granite, and then it destroyed the present gold calf. It says cut clearly.
“Thou shall not kill”. This is 3000 years ago. How can stupid humans then continue to blame God for their killings?
YOU have free will, YOU broke the law. YOU killed. YOU continued to make gold calves.
Are you guys seeking a scapegoat for your own weakness, God is guilty, your mom is guilty, your nanny government is guilty, m.m. for what you are doing?
How does your wrong choice and stupidity have anything to do with God?
Good Howard. He’s talking about the god that gave USAmericans Corvette Stingrays and Ginger Lynn. It was all fun for a while …
The Devil, your father, gave you Ginger Lynn. Fixed.
You don’t have to believe or disbelieve in the god they’ve given you. You can believe in the God you find in yourself, by yourself.
No, that’d be Jehova who did that, not God Almighty. Jehova is just the Jewish version of Molloch/Ba’al.
Yep, a tribal God.
There is a God, far beyond that.
I am always filled with admiration for CJ the way whenever he mentions
German tyranny he never ever ever mentions that people get locked up
over there for disagreeing with the government on certain historical
details.
This is the ethical approach to tyranny-only notice it when it is done to people you like and agree with!
When it happens to people you don’t like and disagree me, you never
mention it and that is a solid and principled position!. Well done CJ,
you really blaze a path don’t you!
IIRC, Hopkins’ wife is Jewish, so that’s probably the reason.
Yeah, you know, I’ve never understood the reasoning whereby no one is assumed to have any agency of their own as soon as there’s a Jewish person on the scene. Lmao.
I find it a bit fetishistic, ya know?
Its not that way. The question was about comparison with the nasi regime and CJ’s own relation as back-up in this connection in the Court case.
CJ cant say he is completely neutral there.
But today we see CJ also are able to go beyond this narrow theme nasi-doo.
Germans are like people most but was seduced in a period. We should be very precise not to insinuate racist terms into language when we balance around these themes.
As it is a matter of ideology and not race as seen latest in the Gaza case..
I think my point still stands.
It does. Just wanted to be a little more precise ;-D.