Ny Moral - [blog version]

The books, movies and music of 2011

2012-01-12T23:03:00.000+01:00

THIS POST IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION - Old school internet style.

I'd almost decided to skip this post, since I feel I have no clue anymore. However, I just found an album that kicked my ass all over the place, so my plan is to return to this post and add stuff whenever I feel like it. When the post is finalized, I'll let you know.

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MUSIC – The music section is complete. I'll go for the movies next.

40 Watt Sun
The Inside Room
Cyclone Empire

This is THE album of 2011 for me. Total bölfezt.
The lyrics are truly soul crushing and the music is overwhelming. I ain't got much more to say, but if you like this one you need to check out all releases by Warning as well. Pretty much the same band.

Restless, the opening song of The Inside Room, is available here (original version) and here (acoustic version). They are both equally amazing.

40 Watt Sun is playing the Roadburn festival in Tilburg this year. I'm gonna hide in the back and probably cry my eyes out.

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Counterblast

Nothingness
Alerta Antifascista

This is – by far – one of the very best bands ever. Inspired by Neurosis and Amebix, rising from the ashes of the unparalleled grindcore band G-Anx, these dudes and their music are unique in a world of conformity. All of their stuff is top notch, their old songs having more of a crust edge to them (listen to Prospects (1995)).

They're getting slower and more powerful for every album, and on Nothingness I can feel the vibes of the mighty Wovenhand and Morte Macabre, so you better start drooling. This is their most consistent release to date.

It's hard to describe their style, but apocalyptic beauty, darkness and melancholy might say something about the atmosphere. Just listen to The Truth Will Remain and bend over.

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In Solitude
The World. The Flesh. The Devil.
Metal Blade

I couldn't wrap my head around In Solitude's debut album. I wanted to worship, but I just couldn't do it. I really can't put my finger on what was keeping me away. It's far from bad, but I just didn't get it. Great lyrics, ok songs and such, but not as good as I wanted it to be.

Everything, and I mean everything, changed when I got a hold of this masterpiece. This is the essence of occult heavy metal darkness. It's like a sinister and dense version of the kings of the genre (Mercyful Fate), performed by highly dedicated freaks. And this time the songwriting is nothing but flawless, it's just fucking epic.

Their upcoming tour with Watain, The Devil's Blood and Behemoth should be killer.

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Looking For An Answer
Eterno Treblinka
Relapse Records

I can't even remember the last time I heard a seriously good grindcore record. As I write this I've just heard a couple of songs off the new albums by Napalm Death and Terrorizer – bands who once were gods of grindcore. That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, and now they aren't really that interesting. The new songs may be good, but they sound like shit. Modern day metal production was what made grindcore so terribly boring in the first place, and these guys haven't learned a thing since 1990 (Napalm Death) and 1989 (Terrorizer) respectively. In my mind, grindcore should sound like Napalm Death's Peel sessions, Arsedestroyer's Teen Ass Revolt, or when it gets technical and/or metallized, like Assück's masterpiece Misery Index (listen to the whole album here).

Lo and behold! In 2011 God gave us the new Looking For An Answer assault, and holy shit, this one is a killer! Hail to Spain! Mixing the finest bits of grindcore, crust punk and old school death metal, Eterno Treblinka rocks all the way through. Great hooks, quite memorable songs, awesome production (punkish, but yet with a thick wall of sound) and funky nods to what once was (Running Through The Blood is a Fear of God cover (the great band from Switzerland), and starts off just like the old Master song by Master – awesome! Original live version here and LFAA cover here). The vocals could use some variation in style, maybe, but what the heck... I like it raw and brutal, and I got all hyped up about this release, so if you once enjoyed old school crunchy grindcore back in the day, you might want to give this one a couple of spins.

I had the chance to check out LFFA on stage once, and they were awesome live as well.

If you've got Spotify you'll find it here.

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Rite
Lie In Wait For Blood
EEE Recordings

The best black metal release 2011 – alongside Burzum – was executed by two unknown personas hailing from Sweden. I posted an article about them here and wrote a piece for Sweden Rock Magazine #89 (the massive Ronnie James Dio tribute issue). Listen to the demo on the bandcamp site or log on to Spotify.

I'm listening to a new song right now, Juridical Doctrine, and it fucking slays! One riff running for 8 minutes. Sheer brilliance. If you've got the slightest interest in Deathspell Omega, Ofermod, Malign, Negative Plane, Mgła, Funeral Mist and the likes, you need to check out Rite. Now.

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Roffe Ruff
Barrabas
Download here

Two years ago I declared Roffe's debut Ormar i gräset the number one album of 2009. With Barrabas, his third and final statement, his career is over. At least for now. And by the way he's saying it in the last song, I think he really means it. Whatever happens, this album is as solid as it gets, and – to quote the UFC – as real as it gets. People cry when they listen to Fröken Anderberg, because this is stuff everyone can relate to. It's about life, and life pretty much sucks, so of course it's depressing. If you're not affected by this, your life is too good.
However, Mr. Rolf's got the humour and wits to back it all up and make this a true feast. Roffe's a truth-teller of epic proportions (L.I.M.B.O.).
Of all three albums, this one is easily the best, although all of them must be downloaded and worshipped. He's really that good, so do believe the hype. I'd say even if you don't understand Swedish, this gem is worth the download. The production is crisp as fuck, and I believe you can hear this dude's honesty just by listening to his voice.
R.I.P.

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Additional good stuff

Anima Morte – The Nightmare Becomes Reality
Arckanum – Helvítismyrkr
Autopsy – Macabre Eternal
Nicklas Barker – El Último Fin de Semana
Björk – Biophilia
Blodigt Allvar – Promo 2011
Bohren Und Der Club of Gore – Beileid
Bong – Beyond Ancient Space
Bonnie Prince Billy – Wolfroy Goes To Town
Brighter Death Now – Very Little Fun
Burzum – Fallen
Craft – Void
Deutsch Nepal – Amygdala
Erik Enocksson – Apan
The Giesagöebbels – Demo 2011
Gösta Berlings Saga – Glue Works
Hell – Human Remains
Hills – Master Sleeps
Invidious – In Death
Krux – He Who Sleeps Amongst The Stars
Macabre – Grim Scary Tales
J. Mascis – Several Shades of Why
Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Morbus Chron – Sleepers In The Rift
Necros Christos – Doom of The Occult
Opeth – Heritage
Pentagram – Last Rites
Plastikman – Arkives 1993 - 2010
Portrait – Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae
Primordial – Redemption At The Puritan's Hand
Primus – Green Naugahyde
Pyramido – Salt
Ravencult – Morbid Blood
Reveal – Nocturne of Eyes And Teeth
Swarm – 2011
Teitanblood – Purging Tounges
Terra Tenebrosa – The Tunnels
Today Is The Day – Pain Is A Warning
Tormented / Bombs of Hades – Split
Undergång – The Mother of Armageddon
US Christmas – The Valley Path
Usurpress – In Permanent Twilight
Vanhelgd – Church of Death
Victims – A Dissident
Year of The Goat – Lucem Ferre
Yob – Atma

The War is Over – Let It Begin

2012-01-10T22:50:00.000+01:00

We have hundreds of thousands coming back from these wars that were undeclared, they were unnecessary, they haven’t been won, they’re unwinnable, and we have hundreds of thousands looking for care. And we have an epidemic of suicide coming back. And so many have – I mean, if you add up all the contractors and all the wars going on, Afghanistan and in Iraq, we’ve lost 8,500 Americans, and severe injuries, over 40,000. And these are undeclared wars.
Ron Paul, 2012

Ron Paul's anti-interventionist foreign policy views are in a way supported by a majority of Americans, who don't think the Iraq war was worth the cost in lives and taxpayer dollars. 58% said no, 27% said yes and 15% did not have an opinion.

So, as the warmongering elite (neocons and Zionist scum, also known as chickenhawks (people who strongly support war and gladly send kids off to kill and be killed, but who actively avoided military service when of age)) are putting as much pressue on Iran as possible to make Iran strike first and simply goad Iran into war, making Obomba the war hero right before the election, the video below should be of great interest.

As for the war in Iraq... You think it's over? The title for this post is stolen from The War is Over; Let It Begin, where Ron Jacobs writes:

Meanwhile, in Iraq the number of bombings is increasing as various groups fight over turf and control while the democracy and freedom promised by George Bush and heralded by Barack Obama continues to be a figment of some DC speechwriter’s pen. The world’s largest CIA station outside of Langley, VA. operates at will from Baghdad, stirring up trouble in Iraq, Iran, Palestine and other nations in the region while the US client state in Tel Aviv continues to ramp up the war rhetoric against Iran while tightening its grip on the people of the West Bank and Gaza (and the political system of the United States). Let’s not forget Saudi Arabia, whose autocratic monarchy just purchased 84 F-15s at the cool price of approximately $25 billion. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the guerrilla war waged by the Taliban and other anti-occupation forces continues, as does the close-to-$200-million-per-day US effort to destroy that resistance. Over the Afghan mountains the people of Pakistan wonder if they will be the next targets of US ground troops while US-armed drones fly and kill almost daily into some areas of that country.

Mainstream news media is as always more interested in the presidential horse race than in the candidates positions on certain issues, so we have to rely on blogs and such for valuable information. You'll find some of them in the blog roll to the right.
Now, check the video:

RELATED POSTS
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Ahmadinejad and honesty
The demonized Ahmadinejad
Nuclear war games for real
Propaganda for war
Gilad Atzmon – Taking Elder Peres apart
The Israeli and the US warmongers
All articles about the Israel Lobby (see the "Selected articles" section to the right)
McCain or Obama - Does it really matter in the long run?
Obama + Clinton = Change?
Obama – Hope or hopelessness?

Finding meaning in the void

2012-01-03T23:48:00.000+01:00

Illustration: Costin Chioreanu

”The flames sawed in the wind and the embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerate upon the ground before them and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles. For each fire is all fires, the first fire and the last ever to be. By and by the judge rose and moved away on some obscure mission and after a while someone asked the expriest if it were true that at one time there had been two moons in the sky and the expriest eyed the false moon above them and said that it may well have been so. But certainly the wise high God in his dismay at the proliferation of lunacy on this earth must have wetted a thumb and leaned down out of the abyss and pinched it hissing into extinction. And could he find some alter means by which the birds could mend their paths in the darkness he might have done with this one too.”
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, 1985

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As a way of finding some meaning to the void, as a way of understanding the eternal quest for the answer to the unfathomable ”Why?” question, here are some quotes of true mindfulness. If read carefully, you will see that they range from the pessimistic and hopeless to the exact opposites (well...), only to return to and end in the abyss of the void.
Pain and pleasure – life and death – indivisible.

---

”Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow fall, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.”
Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's Worship, 1903

”A vast, sepulchral universe of unbroken midnight gloom and perpetual arctic frigidity, through which will roll dark, cold suns with their hordes of dead, frozen planets, on which will lie the dust of those unhappy mortals who will have perished as their dominant stars faded from their skies. Such is the depressing picture of a future too remote for calculation.”
H.P. Lovecraft, Clusters and Nebulae, 1915

”No one is accountable for existing at all, or for being constituted as he is, or for living in the circumstances and surroundings in which he lives. The fatality of his nature cannot be disentangled from the fatality of all that which has been and will be. He is not the result of a special design, a will, a purpose; he is not the subject of an attempt to attain an 'ideal of man' or an 'ideal of happiness' or an 'ideal of morality' – it is absurd to want to hand over his nature to some purpose or other. We invented the concept of 'purpose': in reality purpose is lacking.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1954

”By my thirteenth birthday I was thoroughly impressed with man's impermanence and insignificance, and by my seventeenth […] I had formed in all essential particulars my present pessimistic cosmic views. The futility of all existence began to impress and oppress me; and my references to human progress, formerly hopeful, began to decline in enthusiasm.”
H.P. Lovecraft, A Confession of Unfaith, 1906

”But nothing good can be said of that cancerous machine-culture itself. It is not a true civilisation, and has nothing in it to satisfy a mature and fully developed human mind. It is attuned to the mentality and imagination of the galley-slave and the moron, and crushes relentlessly with disapproval, ridicule, and economic annihilation any sign of actually independent thought and civilised feeling which chances to rise above its sodden level. It is a treadmill, squirrel-trap culture – drugged and frenzied with the hasheesh of industrial servitude and material luxury. It is wholly a material body-culture, and its symbol is the tiled bathroom and steam radiator rather than the Doric portico and the temple of philosophy. Its denizens do not live or know how to live.”
H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters 1925-1929, p. 304

”Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; but misfortune in general is the rule.”
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Sufferings of the World

”Pessimismen verkar skadebringande och förstörande endast när den stammar ur ett svagt, slappt gemyt. Det starka lifsföraktet har en tändande, eggande verkan. Igenom de högsta alstren af den isländska diktningen, i den fornskandinaviska lifskänslan öfverhufvud, sjunger en hvinande ton af hårdnackadt, desperat trots mot lifvets makt och lifvets meningslöshet – densamma tonen som en gång klang så gällt, och väl ännu är kvar, i Strindbergs verk. --- Endast vår feghet, vårt ringa sanningsbegär, vår dumma sentimentalitet är det, enligt honom, som förhindrar oss att inse att lifvet har sin källa i det onda, att det onda är lifvets herre. Hvad mängden kallar 'ödet', 'gud' o.s.v., det är mörkret, Ariman, fienden till allt framsteg, allt verkligt värde, all sann förtjenst. Ariman – det är dumheten och råheten, hvilka alltid ha högsätet i denna den bästa af alla världar. Och detta förhållande är konstant af evighet, den mänskliga karaktären skall aldrig ändras, lifvets princip är evigt en, det onda.”
Vilhelm Ekelund, Det ondas religion, 1923

”Tradition means nothing cosmically, but it means everything locally and pragmatically because we have nothing else to shield us from a devastating sense of 'lostness' in endless time and space.”
H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters 1925-1929, p. 356-357

”The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment. And only this condition of vicious insight allows us a full grasp of the world, all things considered, just as a frigid melancholy grants us full possession of ourselves. We may hide from horror only in the heart of horror.”
Thomas Ligotti, The Medusa, 1991

”That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.”
H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu, 1926

”I have tried to show that the Outsider is a man with an unusual and acute need for a sense of values. It has been objected that almost everybody asks himself at some time: What is life all about? And that therefore everybody is, in some degree, an Outsider. But this is only a failure to understand the spiritual condition of a man who feels a perpetual gnawing instinct for meaning, a hunger and thirst: a thirst that can be so acute that its frustration can lead to insanity. […] The Outsider has a feeling that there are certain things that are absolutely important, and that, quite literally, should occupy the mind all the time, and be perpetual standard of referens for all other feelings.
The only other man who shares this belief with him is the religious man. Religion makes precisely the same demands for meaning and purpose as the Outsider. The Outsider is therefore akin to the religious man.”
Colin Wilson, The Outsider, 1954

”Att vara outsider i ett sjukt samhälle måste vara något starkt och bra, eller hur?”
Bruno K. Öijer

”My assertion that today there is no political system, no formation, and no party whatsoever worth devoting oneself to, and that everything existing must be denied, has disconcerted many. However, this denial and non-commitment do not derive from a lack of principles, but from the possession of principles, which are precise, solid and not subject to compromise. [...] In the life of today it can be appropriate, for many, to withdraw in order to settle in a more interior line of trenches, so that that which we cannot do anything about cannot do anything against us.”
Julius Evola, 1964

”The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play.”
Oswald Spengler, 1918

”Tension without cosmic pulsation to animate it is the transition to nothingness.”
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. 2: Perspectives of World History, 1923

The human phenomenon is but the sum
Of densely coiled layers of illusion
Each of which winds itself on the supreme insanity
That there are persons of any kind
When all there can be is mindless mirrors
Laughing and screaming as they parade about
in an endless dream

Thomas Ligotti

Music that matters is solemn, sacred, severe...

2011-11-06T22:23:00.000+01:00

In a time and age when it's frowned upon when people take their arts seriously, when irony rules, when the norm is not to care and the attention span of the average fuck up is no longer than three seconds – it is the age of arts, morals and politics in decline - it's good to know there are still people who are the exact opposite. People who are dedicated, solemn, severe...

As for Oswald Spengler's analogy when dividing cultures into seasons, where spring is the birth of religion and where the basics of this culture is being formed, in June 2007 I wrote this about winter: ”Politics is motivated by money and moves through imperialism. Science no longer reaches certainties. There is much cultural confusion. The arts do not speak from or to the soul of the people, but rather follow materialistic fashions with lots of changes in styles, not asking much from neither the artist nor the people. After a moment of atheism the people will turn to a renewal of religion and spiritual faith, based on the religion developed in the spring of the culture.”
Full article here.

For me, music is a way to gain strenght. Not always, but most often.
Here are some songs that move me in different ways. It's songs that have a certain weight to them, and I guess what they have in common is the stunning dedication to the cause (be it just the music, something of spiritual importance, or whatever), and with that comes a very powerful performance. Many times the lyrics are as important as the music and the visuals. In fact, most of the times the lyrics are what really matters, and when there are no lyrics and the music still moves me, that's when it really hurts, and that's when it's for real. You don't hear that very often nowadays.

EDITED THIS POST BECAUSE ALL THE TUBES SLOWED DOWN WHOLE UNIVERSE...

Portishead - Roads
40 Watt Sun - Restless
Krister Linder - Vow
Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Seven Days of Falling / Elevation of Love
Low - Lullaby
Griftegård - Charles Taze Russell
Primordial - Empire Falls
Sigrblot -Endtime Communion (excerpt)
Watain - Waters of Ain
Funeral Mist - Jesus Saves

Sketch & Smoke ◄► Bomb & Burn

2011-10-17T20:24:00.000+02:00

Turn on, tune in, drop out of life with nyponsoppa in hand...

Sketch & Smoke
Bomb & Burn

174 minutes of funk.

The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood

2011-10-02T18:09:00.000+02:00

Prepare your feeble mind for some seriously genuine black metal where darkness, beauty, filth, hope and betrayal collide – as manifested in every damned religion. Rite is in a way reminiscent of Deathspell Omega, Negative Plane, MGLA, Ofermod and Glorior Belli, but really, Lie in wait for blood certainly holds its own ground. Containing great guitar work, perfect vocals, and a majestic wall of sound that manages to ooze of both darkness and beauty, not copying anybody's band – at least not intentionally – and leading the way for great things to come, this album is a must have if you're even remotely interested in any of the above mentioned bands.

Knowing that I'm old, grumpy, orthodox, narrow-minded and very picky about new black metal, I was truly surprised when Rite caught my attention with the very first seconds of sounds. Good thing is when I heard the music I knew absolutely nothing about the band, and I still don't, to be honest. I know some names, but names are irrelevant, as are labels and other words not put into context. The feeling evoked by the art is everything.

The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, but the mouth of the upright will deliver them.

Lie in wait for blood on Spotify
Rite on Bandcamp (all songs are available here)
EEE Recordings

The governments don't rule the world

2011-09-27T20:40:00.000+02:00

Markets are ruled right now by fear.
The stockmarket is finished.
The governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.
In less than twelve months the savings of millions of people is gonna vanish, and this is just the beginning.
The biggest risk people can take right now is not acting.

September 11, 2001–2011

2011-09-11T22:03:00.001+02:00

This is the best article I've found so far ("best" as in – in my opinion – being fair and balanced):
Imperial Delusions: Ignoring the Lessons of 9/11 by Robert Jensen, journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

[...]
If the new boss sounds a lot like the old boss, it's because the problem isn't just bad leaders but a bad system. That's why a critique of today's wars sounds a lot like critiques of wars past. Here's Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assessment of the imperial war of his time: "[N]o one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over."

Will our autopsy report read "global war on terror"?

That sounds harsh, and it's tempting to argue that we should refrain from political debate on the 9/11 anniversary to honor those who died and to respect those who lost loved ones. I would be willing to do that if the cheerleaders for the U.S. empire would refrain from using the day to justify the wars of aggression that followed 9/11. But given the events of the past decade, there is no way to take the politics out of the anniversary.

We should take time on 9/11 to remember the nearly 3,000 victims who died that day, but as responsible citizens, we also should face a harsh reality: While the terrorism of fanatical individuals and groups is a serious threat, much greater damage has been done by our nation-state caught up in its own fanatical notions of imperial greatness.

That's why I feel no satisfaction in being part of the anti-war/anti-empire movement. Being right means nothing if we failed to create a more just foreign policy conducted by a more humble nation.
[...]

Great movies of the 80's: The Plague Dogs

2011-09-10T22:10:00.001+02:00

The opening scene of The Plague Dogs (1982) really sets the tone.

A dog being subject to repeated drowning experiments. Outside the thunder roars, the rain comes down hard and a cold wind blows.
This is not Disney.

Two dogs escape from a British government animal testing lab – Animal Research (Scientific and Experimental), A.R.S.E. – and roam the grey and wintry Lake District in search of a new master, or rather, in search of a good human. The facility spreads the rumour that the animals are carrying bubonic plague, so being hated by humans and not knowing how to survive, they decide that they'll have to ”live by our teeth and kill”.

This is a highly impressive, very realistic movie. It's free from cool effects (even though the animation work is superb if you're into old school stuff), kind of slow at times, and most importantly: it's severely depressing, painful and sad.

Obviously, it still remains an underground movie since it actually has got something to say (something like this: The only way to free yourself from the cruelties of mankind is to die, so when the dogs swim out to sea in the end, they choose death instead of being killed by humans...). People with a short attention span probably won't like it, and some scenes are pretty rough. It got censored due to graphical content, and only 8,000 copies of the uncut film exists on tape. It's on YouTube, though.

Even though the dogs' constant self-pitiness might become tedious after a while, I think the overall darkness and sadness of it all makes up for that. True animal friends most likely will cry when watching. Hell, you don't even have to be a fanatic animal lover to be touched by this one. Anybody reaching the conclusion that mankind sucks ought to cry every once in a while.

The realism is a huge factor as well in making this a classic movie. Rowf's fear of water, the death scenes and the dialogue are just a few examples of that.

I come to think of Grave of the Fireflies (a superb movie that everyone should see at least once) when watching The Plague Dogs, not really because they're both animated films, but because of the depressing mood and the realism. Sometimes, stories like these are told more efficiently in comics and animated movies.

[Snitter, trapped in a garage, is hallucinating about his old home]
Rowf: Snitter! Can you hear me?
Snitter: I'm inside my head now. And it's where I should be.
Rowf: This is no time for one of your turns!
The Tod: Come on out, ya great fool! Sharp with ye, now, before we're all caught!
Snitter: I can't come out. If I do, I'll go mad again.

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OTHER GREAT MOVIES OF THE 80's:
Manhunter (1986)
A Short Film About Killing (1988)
Threads (1984)
The Quiet Earth (1985)
The Thing (1982)

Great movies of the 80's: The Thing

2011-08-29T22:24:00.012+02:00

A science outpost at the South Pole, winter 1982. Unexplainable madness. Burnt human remains and melted bodies. A heavy storm. Alien mutations taking over and imitating the human body, leaving the few inhabitants scrambling in a paranoid, claustrophobic frenzy as they try to determine who's infected and who's not. Darkness descends. Extreme tension. Pretty soon it's every man against every man – bellum omnium contra omnes – and within them: The ultimate in alien terror.

This masterpiece is like H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness (1936), Alien (1979), The Shining (1980) and Apocalypse Now (1979), all rolled into one.
Reservoir Dogs (1992) and The X-Files got some massive inspiration here as well.

The Thing (1982) has got that lovely, cheesy 80's feeling, like when the technical aspects of movie making just started to develop into more hi-tech areas, and when people not quite knew how to handle their new tools but used them anyway. The drug-induced social realism featured in many movies of the 70's is replaced by a bit plastic colours and feelings, quite noticeable stylistically, but also musicwise and how the camera works and moves. It's like people stopped thinking and let the machines do most of the work. In other words, the 80's cheese is a bit stiff, but that's the great charm about these fantastic movies.

None the less, The Thing is probably the most realistic among the ”mainstream” horror movies of the 80's, or, for that matter, amongst mainstream horror movies over all. There are a lot of eerie scenes. The one where they find the sarcophagus made of ice, for example, or when blood is drawn from each man to determine who is infected... Very creepy! The editing and sound is amazing in these scenes, and the music, the dark heartbeat-like rhythms made by Ennio Morricone, is crafted for worship. Here are the sounds of isolation, paranoia and darkness.

As for the alien, still to this day I think it's pretty cool. Not as professional as in Alien, but hey... Disfigured corpses melting into each other rule, and that's a fact.

It's not all gloom and doom, though. In the beginning, it's actually quite funny.
The mad Norwegian screaming: ”Se til helvete og kom dere vekk. Det er ikke en bikkje, det er en slags ting! Det imiterer en bikkje, det er ikke virkelig! KOM DERE VEKK IDIOTER!!” (”Get the hell outta there. That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing! It's imitating a dog, it isn't real! GET AWAY YOU IDIOTS!!”).
The black dude on roller skates: ”Maybe we're at war with the Norwegians?”
And MacReady, who simply cannot distinguish between Norway and Sweden, yelling ”Hey, Sweden!” as he enters the Norwegian outpost.
That's funny.

I believe this is the one movie that got me into horror and science fiction in the first place. I remember watching an old grimy VHS copy back in the 80's, and now some 25 years later, I've got this awesome Blu-Ray edition. Both versions are cool, but if I could I'd mix the dirty picture quality of the VHS and the sound quality of the Blu-Ray, making it the ultimate ultimate in alien terror!

John Carpenter's The Thing is a remake of Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World (1951). Sad to say, I still haven't seen the original, although I own it. I guess I'm pretty stupid.
And now I hear there's a prequel ready to launch in November 2011. We'll see how that goes...

Until then:
It's gonna get a hell of a lot worse before it gets any better.

----------

OTHER GREAT MOVIES OF THE 80's:
Manhunter (1986)
A Short Film About Killing (1988)
Threads (1984)
The Quiet Earth (1985)

The world without us

2011-08-21T15:58:00.002+02:00

Apocalypse come early.

The only way to fully understand the scale of our influence is to witness the world without us.
Enter a desolate world.

The inspirational radicalization of Breivik

2011-08-08T19:50:00.004+02:00

Impending doom. As for the riots in London, I refer to this article:
Chomsky on demoralized societies – October 9, 2008
As for the American chaos, you may want to read this one:
The Crash, The Israel Lobby and The Change of Attitude – November 25, 2010

---

Now, let's not forget about discussing who and what made Breivik a terrorist.
Here are two opposing views.

1. On the Radicalization of Anders Breivik by David Wood at Answering Muslims, who claims that ”none of the people being blasted by the media [Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders etc] had anything to do with Breivik's extremism” and singles out mainstream media as the beast to blame.

2. Who inspired Anders Breivik? by Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com, who in previous columns ”clearly assigned them [Spencer, Geller etc] their share of guilt” and now reexamines the issue ”in light of their vigorous denials”.

Watch and read them both.

The fact that David Wood is not even mentioning Fjordman (Peder Jensen) is very odd, since Fjordman's influence on Breivik's ideology is massive. Anyone who cares to read the manifesto (PDF) must see that, and anyone reading the manifesto should come to the conclusion that Breivik is an extreme narcissist with a Messiah complex. What he writes about himself and others has proven not to be trustworthy.
Hence, when David Wood speaks so eloquently about Breivik it's all based on Breivik's own words in the manifesto, which is also very odd. I'm not saying Breivik's a complete liar, just that he's lying. A lot.

The publishers of the Gates of Vienna blog (where Fjordman is a frequent contributor) encourage us to read their articles and check their links. Justin Raimondo did just that, and found some really sick stuff written by some freak named ”El Inglés”. Here are some quotes from an article entitled On Vigilantism – Part One, published on Gates of Vienna, April 5 2010. There are many more.

Altering the response of the apparatus of state to Muslim crime may well emerge as one of the most obvious motivations for vigilante activity. If one is concerned about Somali drug-dealing and the lack of effective response by the state, then executing a few Somali drug-dealers and then calling a national newspaper with a) the justification for the killing and b) the calibre of the handgun used in the executions (for purposes of establishing one’s identity) will be likely to focus a certain amount of attention on the problem. [...]

In contrast, any group of European vigilantes intent on taking the law into their own hands vis-à-vis Muslim crime would not suffer this restriction. Exceptional brutality will always have the potential to repel supporters and potential supporters, but it stands to reason that vigilantes in, say, Denmark, visiting impromptu justice on Arab street thugs in Copenhagen will have a much higher threshold of violence they have to cross before such revulsion starts to work against them. Indeed, everyday Danes tired of the Muslim crime now contaminating their country may well look to such people as their saviours, affording them support of various types. This will open up the potential for exceptional violence. [...]

The efficacy of non-lethal violence in persuading these people to behave themselves in a more civilized manner is likely to be close to be zero. This leaves vigilantes with only one obvious option, which is to kill off the people in question. This will have the twin effects of a) making it impossible for them to engage in further crime, and b) creating at least some possibility that others like them might decide on a change of career.

The first comment on this article is by Fjordman. He does not condemn the maiming, beating and killing, but rather:

A thought-provoking essay from Inglés, as usual. May I also suggest that we cultivate a form of pan-European ethnic solidarity when it comes to stopping and reversing Third World immigration and removing the Globalist traitor class. Perhaps we can call it “white Zionism.” Since European group solidarity appears to be what the powers-that-be fear the most, perhaps that’s what we should give them.

I'd like to see a video by David Wood where he discusses the influence of Fjordman and Gates of Vienna in relation to what Breivik actually did.

Sweden Democrats – All out rotting flesh

2011-08-04T12:29:00.004+02:00

In Sweden we have this blog named Politiskt Inkorrekt (Politically Incorrect), which is one of the most visited sites in our country. ”We tell it like it is, straight, without any kind of censorship.”

This blog is now being run by leading people of Sverigedemokraterna (SD, the Sweden Democrats), and it's filled to the brim with hatred and lies. Lately they've been running this ”terrorism against Israel is more justified than terrorism against Norway” crap, for example.

Today they published an article entitled Något är ruttet i Norge – elitens anti-semitism (”Something is rotten in Norway – the Anti-Semitism of the elite”). In short, they praise the freaks in a Canadian TV-show who blame the people of Norway for being anti-Semitic. In other words, they sympathize with what Anders Behring Breivik did, saying that the young people who participated in the AUF summer camp at Utøya had themselves to blame for taking a stand for the suppressed people in Palestine.

This is not the stance taken by extremist underground Muslim-hating websites only (like David Horowitz's Frontpage, to pick one of many examples). In many ways, this is the official Zionist stance. Jerusalem Post:
”The youth camp he attacked was engaged in what was essentially (though the campers didn’t see it that way, no doubt) a pro-terrorist program.”

It would be interesting to hear what the people who voted for and sympathize with Sverigedemokraterna think about this. Are you against your own people, all of a sudden? Are you against your fellow Norwegians? Because that's what SD is all about these days.

The attacks in Norway: Useful links

2011-07-25T19:59:00.014+02:00

Whoa, 500+ visitors on this blog yesterday, and all because of this one giant loser named Anders Behring Breivik. It's sad, really.

Indeed, he got the attention he wanted, but hopefully not the way he wanted it, because I've yet to find one person of true relevance who seriously takes this loser's side. That being said, Breivik is not stupid. He's crazy, but not stupid.

His actions must be taken seriously, of course, but I believe it's very important not to feed his ego. I've read a lot of comments saying he's ”academic” and such, but when studying the manifesto it's quite easy to distinguish his own personal writings from what is just plain copy/paste work (I'd say about 70%). He is nothing, yet thinks he is everything, therefore he must be ridiculed and exposed as a fraud. Also, he is everything but a deep thinker, and therefore the comparisons some people have made with Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, are just plain silly.

Two lessons to be learned so far:

The Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre, made an important point early on:
We’ve seen in Europe in recent years that politicians have been jumping to conclusions about suspects before investigations have been conducted, and we will not commit that error.

Unfortunately, a lot of people were not that bright.
Yes, I admit, my very first thought was ”Fuck, I hope it's not the Islamists!”... But I didn't cry it out loud, making a complete fool of myself. Hence, the second lesson: Terrorists come in all sizes, heritages, shapes and skin colors. Or as Counterblast put it some 16 years ago: Terror has no shape.
Most of us already knew that, but it still was an important reminder, since our minds are clogged up by the war on terror. Jan Guillou writes about that here (in Swedish).

Until further information has been revealed I thought I'd gather some articles and websites that have helped me when trying to understand what's going on. I hope you too find them helpful.

Document.no – A complete list of comments Behring Breivik has left at Document.no (in Norwegian). Rough translations in English here and here.

2083 – A European Declaration of Independence (PDF, 8.1 Mb, 1518 pages) – The infamous manifesto. Bear in mind that at least 70% (my guess, Breivik himself admits to about 50%) is copy/paste work from other people's writings. In my opinion, the most disturbing part is the diary, or Knights Templar Log as he prefers to call it (starting at p. 1413).
Fjordman (the old blog) – Most of the well written texts in the manifest are written by Fjordman (Wikipedia), at least 35 of them (most of them between paragraph 2.50 and 2.99 in the manifesto). Fjordman is an anonymous extreme Zionist blogger and has obviously been a huge influence on Breivik. Perhaps there are several people using the Fjordman monicker. There have been claims that Breivik himself is Fjordman, but in my opinion that is highly unlikely.
The Fjordman files – Everything written by this dude.
Gates of Vienna – Fjordman resides here for now, alongside some other Islam-critical writers. Read his Thoughts on the recent atrocities.

Norway, Islam and the threat of the West – Aljazeera is almost always on point.

The irrelevance of the Knights in a global society – What Breivik says about the Knights Templar is in my opinion the most irrelevant topic in the manifesto, but Juan Cole still writes excellent about it. Maybe that Christian fantasy stuff is more important in America?

Terrorn och den europeiska nyfascismen – A summary of Breivik's mishmash of ideologies. (in Swedish)
Åter till frågan om Europas två extremhögrar – Rasmus Fleischer's take on the two European extreme right-wing ideologies, as he sees it. (in Swedish)
EDIT
Konsten att läsa statistik om brottslighet – It's almost impossible to compare criminal statistics between countries, simply because what counts as a terrorist attack by ETA in Spain, for example, does not necessarily count as a terrorist attack in another country. It's a matter of definitions. That's why the link of statistics that's been spreading (and seems to do so everytime there's a terror attack) may be misleading. Read a discussion about that right here. (in Swedish)

Swedish site EXPO ("founded in 1995 with the aim of studying and mapping anti-democratic, right-wing extremist and racist tendencies in society") is as hypocritical as always. To my knowledge, still nothing about Breivik's own claim that ”the Jews/Israel” (p. 1373 in the manifesto) is his main ally, or his possible connections to and/or utmost inspiration from extreme Zionist websites. Absolutely nothing about Fjordman.

To be continued.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Do we wish our next ones disease and decay?
Do we want them to burn in toxic flames?
Shall we forget about the facts? The future is dark
Shall we continue ignore, while feeding the sharks?

In front of our eyes, the deceit of all time
Take a stand or be part of the ultimate crime
The dung at the top, can we see their devotion?
No, it's them against us, the end versus the solution

Scream -- while there is still air to breathe
End this global rape
Scream -- while there is still air to breathe
Terror has no shape

Wherever I walk I can hear the cries
Wherever I look, I can't believe my eyes
What I see is what they'll get
Can't wipe them out, visions of fear

Nothing's left of what used to be green
No life, no nature, just cold and empty streets
We're gonna blow, time will show
Nailed to my brain, visions of grief

The future ain't ours, the future ain't yours
Still we cut in the heart of the natural laws
Respect for the living, it's only empty words?
I'm waiting for the day when we'll act as once learned

In front of our eyes, the deceit of all time
Take a stand or be part of the ultimate crime
The dung at the top, can we see their devotion?
No, it's them against us, the end versus the solution

Some short notes about Norway and the manifesto

2011-07-24T02:36:00.019+02:00

First of all, let me express my deepest sympathy and condoleances to my neighbouring country Norway. The curse of humanity surely is eternal.
Reading this blog post (in Norwegian) written by one of the survivors was not easy.

---

Now, I've just skimmed through the manifesto (2083 – A European Declaration of Independence), and I must say this is huge, getting access to his inner rantings. Very unique.
Download the manifesto here. (PDF, 8.1 Mb, 1518 pages)

I would say it is a must-read to even try to begin to understand what this freak did, and what he believes will happen in the future. Writing him off as a nut case is easy, but due to this immense tragedy I think we owe it to ourselves to get more involved in order to reduce the risks of this happening all over again.
To speak frankly, I believe it will happen again, but the more people care and know about this, the more prepared we will be. So read it and enter the mind of a... well, what is he? A maniac? Yeah, that's for sure, but I believe it's much more complex than that.

Mainstream media are way behind as always, making people believe the guy is a Nazi, so just some short notes and random quotes to give you a taste of what's in there.
In many ways, he's the exact opposite of a Nazi. I'd say he's neoconservative with a strange masonic templar fetisch, almost with a Messiah complex, a pseudo-intellectual islamophobe, a narcissist who has twisted some of the basic ideas of his heroes into obscurity... Something like that.
In my opinion, from just having skimmed through the manifesto, this is what he continually returns to and stress as utmost important:

The three hate-ideologies must be destroyed
Islam, Communism/multiculturalism/Marxism and National Socialism, where fear of enslavement under Islam majority rule "in our own countries" is the key point to just about everything. Extreme islamophobia, so to speak.
Example:
"You cannot defeat Islamisation or halt/reverse the Islamic colonization of Western Europe without first removing the political doctrines manifested through multiculturalism/cultural Marxism." (p. 5)

The importance of Christianity (as a label?)
Example:
"If you want to fight for the cross and die under the “cross of the martyrs” it’s required that you are a practising Christian, a Christian agnostic or a Christian atheist (cultural Christian). The cultural factors are more important than your personal relationship with God, Jesus or the holy spirit." (p. 1360)

• Anti-Marxism
• Anti-globalism/internationalism
• Anti-multiculturalism
• Anti-Jihadism
• Anti-Islam(isation)
• Anti-imperialistic
• Anti-feminism
• Anti-pacifism
• Anti-EU(SSR)
• Anti-matriarchy
• Anti-racist
• Anti-fascist
• Anti-Nazi
• Anti-totalitarian

• Pro-Nationalism
• Pro-Pan-Nationalism (pro-Europeanism)
• Pro-National or Pan-European Crusaderism
• Pro-Christian identity
• Pro-cultural conservatism
• Pro-monoculturalism (pro cultural unity)
• Pro-patriarchy
• Pro-Israel

"Whenever someone asks if I am a national socialist I am deeply offended. If there is one historical figure and past Germanic leader I hate it is Adolf Hitler. If I could travel in a time-machine to Berlin in 1933, I would be the first person to go – with the purpose of killing him. Why? No person has ever committed a more horrible crime against his tribe than Hitler. Because of him, the Germanic tribes are dying and MAY be completely wiped out unless we manage to win within 20-70 years. Thanks to his insane campaign and the subsequent genocide of the 6 million Jews, multiculturalism, the anti-European hate ideology was created." (p. 1162)

"Q: Is it possible that cultural conservatives and National Socialists will cooperate in the future?
A: It will be extremely hard to cooperate with anyone who views our primary ally (the Jews/Israel) as their primary enemy." (p. 1373)

"I have written approximately half of the compendium myself. The rest is a compilation of works from several courageous individuals throughout the world." (p. 5)
By that, I'm not sure if he means that he's co-written stuff with others, or had people writing for him, or if he means the stuff that he's collected during all these years of planning (simple copy/paste from thousands of websites).
I guess time will tell if he's the lone genius/mad man who executed all this by himself, or if there are others just like him, like the PCCTS (Pauperes Commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici) and the Knights Templar, that he's talking about in the manifesto. (EDIT: PCCTS is according to the manifest a "hypothetical fictional group" (p. 766)). He's obviously pretty far from reality in his conclusions.

Regardless, this is probably the weirdest experience of my life, reading this unbelievable manifesto so close to what has just happened (and still is...).
I'm deeply disgusted, yet deeply fascinated.

To be continued.

---

Nikanor Teratologen:

"Det går inte att genom någon sorts överhetskampanjer eller mer omfattande kontroll-, övervaknings-, angivar- och stigmatiseringssystem heltäckande skydda skolor, arbetsplatser, offentliga platser överhuvudtaget mot enskildas planlagda och sedan lössläppta mordiska hämndraseri. Förändringarna måste inledas på individplanet, i människors beteende och attityder mot varandra. Man bör helt enkelt inte kränka och bete sig illa mot andra varelser på jorden. Allt är ett, sammanvävt, förgängligt."

"Den grandiost sadomasochistiska och Kristusyrande självbilden som tröstande och upplyftande suggererar existensen av en andligt besläktad krets att höra hemma i och betyda något avgörande för har, imaginärt, förintat den invalidiserande känslan av att inte duga, inte räknas, inte vara älskad och inte tillåtas hysa känslor, inte finnas till…"

R.I.P.
Dedicated to those who die everyday due to terrorism, war and the war on terror.

---

RELATED POSTS
Society's sickness
Zionism, Jews and conspiracy theories
Belief and Bloodshed: The Religion of Genocide
Mjuka tankar om terrorattentatet i Stockholm 2010 (Swedish)
DSO – Obedience to the point of death
...show me a man who is good...
Religion and its influence on society

Two Bathory interviews from Swedish radio (1987, 1988)

2011-07-22T17:22:00.004+02:00

HAIL THE HORDES!

We had all the momentum

2011-06-14T20:04:00.005+02:00

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seemed like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era - the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of 'history' it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights - or very early mornings - when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L.L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket... booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got through the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that...

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...

And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Contemplating decay

2011-05-19T10:59:00.012+02:00

The bombing of Dresden. February 15, 1945

The urge to destroy is –hopefully – also a creative urge. With Mikhail Bakunin's words echoing in the minds of the destroyers – us – it should be time to raise the flag of consciousness. But all I see is flags of ignorance. And where's the creativity?
Time is running out. Or, to be honest, time ran out many, many years ago.

Take a look at this webpage, Worldometers – live world statistics in real time on population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, water, energy and health. It's pretty scary.

Take a look at the nearest clock and understand that since this exact time yesterday, 13 million tons of toxic chemicals were released across the globe (probably more, in regards to what's happening in Japan right now), and 200 000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed. Every two seconds a human being starves to death. Every day 150-200 animal and plant species are driven extinct.

Take a look at this map – the true size of Africa.
(Ok, I know this is not the true true size of Africa because of distortions and such, but the point that Africa is much bigger than it looks on most maps is still valid, and no, the size of something is not really what matters here either...)

So, taking all this information into consideration: where will Earth be in 2045? Where will men, women and children be? Animals?
According to a recent U.N. report, the projected world population by 2050 will be 9.3 billion.
I wrote a bit about that here, more specifically in The Greatest Shortcoming of The Human Race post.

Technology most certainly will continue to develop at an exponential rate, as our development of sustainable agricultural and environmental issues lags behind. Some people claim that technology still lacks what separates tech from Man: a sense of morality, compassion, love, empathy... In my mind, I don't see how we make good use of that morality, compassion, love and empathy. In my mind, we've forgotten everything about the soul, the spirits, and our emotions. Superhuman intelligence is all about the brain, and nothing about the soul, hence I see no difference between Man and Machine.

Everybody knows that we're in deep need of new, sustainable systems to make this world a better place. Everybody knows that hunger is manmade. But these monumental problems are hardly being adressed at all. At least not by those in power, the responsible people who are able to make a difference. The power of the grassroot campaigns and small-scale activism is simply not enough, and we seem unable to grasp the magnitude of the challenges that face us.

We know we cannot rely on the State to help us out when everything comes crashing down. So is it everyone for himself? Survival of the fittest? Yes, very much so. That's the way it's always been, and there's no reason to believe things will change. Man will not live forever. Man will die off, it's just a question of when, and I say the sooner the better.

As for America, the Number One Country In The World...

Well, they have the most guns, the most crime among rich countries and the largest amount of debt in the world. While most rich countries are making large investments in education, science and infrastructure, America is cutting investments and subsidizing consumption; they are 27th in life expectancy, 18th in diabetes and first in obesity.

According to the Legatum Institute's index of prosperity (a measure of material wealth and quality of life (whatever that means) among 110 nations), Scandinavian countries rate the highest, and the U.S., having dropped from a first-place tie in 2007, now ranks 10th.

The main thing seems to be to maintain an unsustainable level of consumption, i.e. to continue to feel good. Obama used millions of dollars in campaign funds to appeal to this way of living, but it will prove to be the true beginning of the end.
This is more than just another financial crisis, this is a crisis of civilization.

The majority of Americans live in a non-reality-based belief system and cannot separate truth from lies, everyday being subject to skillfully manipulated images of information, based on childish, simplistic narratives and clichés. 42 million American adults cannot read, and another 50 million read at a fourth or fifth level grade. Eighty percent of the families in the United States did not buy a book in 2007. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate, and their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year.

So, when these illiterates care to vote, they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. They rely on images; a smile, a nice poster, one word saying ”HOPE”, three words saying ”YES WE CAN”, meaning absolutely nothing...

Political propaganda is mistaken for ideology, feelings are mistaken for knowledge (how many of you cried when Obama was elected?). Style rules over content. It feels good not to think, because that's what it's all about: feeling good, knowing everything is alright, not confronting reality. I mean, you claim to be blessed by God or whatever and that's the solution... An illusional blessing, if there ever was one.

None shall stand before the Lord of Death † A reach for purity – through decay

And so now maybe is the time for a renewal of the Patriot Act and pose the obvious question: Who will protect you from your government?

This experiment gone haywire is in for a lot of surprises. But degeneration began a long time ago, starting when the great empire of production became the great empire of consumption, the great empire of shame. And that was way back, long before the war on terror. People I rely on say it began by the end of the Vietnam war, when the great expenses of this war began to take its toll on the American population, which collided with the decline of domestic oil.

Chris Hedges of the Information Clearing House: ”All the traditional tools of democracies, including dispassionate scientific and historical truth, facts, news and rational debate, are useless instruments in a world that lacks the capacity to use them.”

So, this is America, the number one leading country in the world.
And the world follows the leader.

On a final note, let me quote George R.R. Martin's master novel A Game of Thrones here, in relation to the death of Bin Laden, and the very meaning of the word ”death”:

A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.

May 20, 2011

June 19, 2006

April 21, 2003

May 7, 1945

Utopia: A world run by artists

2011-05-19T07:57:00.004+02:00

Last night was free from nightmares.
I dreamt the world was run by artists.
Dedicated, devoted... to the death.

One Wall Part II - A collaboration with STHLMGRAFF

2011-04-25T16:54:00.011+02:00

All photos by STHLMGRAFF (except where noted)

sthlmgraff.blogspot.com

fotolog.com/sthlmgraff

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Photo: Mattias Indy Pettersson

Roadburn 2011

2011-04-10T16:18:00.021+02:00

The festival of all festivals – Roadburn – is only a few days away!
Until then, rest your eyes on some mighty fine art and worship the manifesto:

This is a gathering of like minded bands and fans from around the world, joined together by a love of music. This is a celebration of tube-driven distortion and crackling electric guitars, a raising of musical consciousness and brotherly and sisterly love, a communion with THEE MIGHTY RIFF, a time and place to get high en mass and bask in the heaviness.

This is what it's all about.

This place should not be disturbed

2011-03-14T21:45:00.000+01:00

This is not a place for you to live in.
You should stay away from this place, and then you will be safe.

No matter if you are for or against the use of nuclear power, with Japan in mind, this is a very interesting documentary film. The future will be far more turbulent than what we're experiencing right now.

As of today, I was supposed to be on my way to Tokyo and spend three weeks in what I believe is one of the most interesting countries in the world. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

I've been dreaming about visiting Japan for over 20 years. I was supposed to go last year, but ordinary life got in the way. When I finally got my shit together, the shit hit the fan... I will not give up on Japan, though. The sun will rise again, and I'll be back.
As for now, my heart and energy goes out to the people of this brave country. Hail to Japan!

Related posts:
Some reflections on the historical pessimism of Yukio Mishima

The world itself

2011-03-09T18:20:00.005+01:00

I dont regard my state of mind as some pessimistic view of the world.
I regard it as the world itself.
Evolution cannot avoid bringing intelligent life ultimately to an awareness of one thing above all else and that one thing is futility.

Cormac McCarthy's play (which some people believe reads more like a novel) has been called "a poem in celebration of death". I have yet to put my hands on anything by McCarthy that is nothing short of amazing, and The Sunset Limited is no exception.

However, I don't find this play to be such an awesome literary experience as compared to Blood Meridian, for example, and that's quite obvious since this is a play. Here is no Cormac painting pictures in your mind, here is none of that superb prose you're used to, but here are these two men talking about the meaning and the meaninglessness of life, death, God, faith and other fairly intangible ideas, and that's about it.

I didn't know about this play until I found out about the movie adaptation. Starring Tommy Lee Jones as White and Samuel L. Jackson as Black, this is one tough battle for the human soul. In a way, these two dudes represent two extremes, and also, to be honest, two stereotypes. At least that's what I make out of it. The black man being an ex-prisoner, a murderer, who found God in jail, and the white man being a professor and an atheist. That's pretty stereotype, isn't it? So, at times, the dialogue gets pathetic.

Black relies entirely on his faith in the Bible and White believes in Culture. Or believed, rather. Because apparently, White just tried to commit suicide. He has lost his faith in Culture and the human condition: "The things I believe in don't exist anymore". White has awoken to the real world around him, and the real world is evil. Interpreting the play in this way, I find it superb. It's pretty much what I've been trying to say all along. Thus, I can cope with some parts being rather simple-minded.

I yearn for the darkness. I pray for death. Real death. If I thought that in death I would meet the people I've known in life I don't know what I'd do. That would be the ultimate horror. The ultimate despair. If I had to meet my mother again and start all of that all over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to?
Well. That would be the final nightmare. Kafka on wheels.

This is Cormac McCarthy without the surrounding mythos and tension and atmosphere. Also, he has left the territories he knows best: man in nature, the nature of the beast, the nature of man. A lot of true critics say he's not working as well without the atmosphere and stuff, but I say fuck that shit... Sure, I'm a fanboy, and highly biased, but I think my mind is clear enough to say that this is some pretty good dope for the soul. The subjects he's dealing with are pretty much the same as always, although in a more accepted way, so to speak. I think this dialogue speaks to more people than Blood Meridian, for example. The Sunset Limited is straight to the point, while Blood Meridian is almost occult and obscure in perspective.

As for the movie VS the play, I'd say I enjoyed the movie more (despite the bad editing). Maybe because I'm not used to reading plays and all, and I really like the acting of Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel Jackson.
As always, you decide.

Show me a religion that prepares one for death. For nothingness.
There's a church I might enter.

My work is not yet done / Stand for Mr. H.P. Lovecraft

2011-03-06T16:13:00.000+01:00

I don't know why you keep returning to this blog since I rarely update anylonger, but about 150 unique visits a day must mean something. Are you morbid?
I will try to awaken this site for real, but the time is not yet right. Hopefully I'll be able to write at least a couple of articles every month if all goes as planned, but don't expect that to happen in a near future, though. Everyday life tends to get in the way of everyday hate...

On December 5 2006 I wrote this in my very first post:
”You may come to hate me for what I write because it may challenge your mind and what you believe is true”.
Sounds like something out of the X-Files, but truth is, I've received quite a lot of strange anonymous e-mails from hateful sionist weaklings over the years. None of them ever cared for an open debate. That's how they uphold their lies, by lurking in the shadows. Facts can never be anti-Semitic.

Anyway, just wanted to post this to let all you freaks who keep returning to this hollow shell know that my work here is not yet done.
I'm coming back. I will return. And I'll possess your body and I'll make you burn.
Now Lovecraft.

'Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world.'

Time and time again I praise this magnificent essay, Against the World, Against Life, written by Michel Houellebecq. However, it seems like it's hard to get a hold of the Swedish translation. The essay is too good not to be read, so in order for you to worship I'll at least give you the English copy in all its PDF glory. Enjoy!
Download here.

By the way, one possible anagram for ”The meaning of life” is ”The fine game of nil”.

Album of the year?

2011-03-05T11:18:00.000+01:00

Hollow victories in the cup of salvation

2011-01-19T03:00:00.001+01:00

You would give anything for the cup of salvation

You would trade every truth for hollow victories

Every empire will fall, every monument crumble
Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out

The best albums of 2010

2011-01-06T17:31:00.002+01:00

I'm getting old. It's either that, or music is getting boring. Just like last year I feel I haven't been catching up with what the hell is going on in this shithole filled with music. In my mind, the very best albums of 2010 were all black metal albums: Lawless Darkness, Paracletus, Stained Glass Revelations, Belus and Ominous Doctrines of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm.

Last year I was complaining about how shitty the rap scene really is. Same thing this year. Until yesterday I had only one rap record on the list, but then Master Skråd posted a video with one helluva good dude named Roc Marciano. I haven't even heard his name before, but Marcberg is insanely good! This is like the perfect blend of Raekwon, Mobb Deep and Madlib. I've only listened to the album six times (since yesterday…), but it feels like a true rap classic already. We'll see about that in a year or two.

Still, lots of really good releases, of course. Here's the stuff I've enjoyed during the year, stuff that's definitely worthy of your attention. Hopefully you'll discover something new.
Click on the band name for GaySpace.

Arckanum – Sviga Lae

Autopsy – The Tomb Within

Bloody Phoenix – Death To Everyone

Bombs of Hades – Chambers of Abominations

Bonnie Prince Billy – The Wonder Show of The World

Burzum – Belus

Celph Titled & Buckwild – Nineteen Ninety Now

Circle – Rautatie

Counterblast – Faceless

Deathspell Omega – Paracletus

Electric Wizard – Black Masses

Ghost – Opus Eponymous

Grand Magus – Hammer of The North

High On Fire – Snakes For The Divine

Hofmästarn med Roffe Ruff – Panterparken
FREE DOWNLOAD HERE!

Hour of 13 – The Ritualist

Inquisition – Ominous Doctrines of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm

Interment – Into The Crypts of Blasphemy

Iron Maiden – The Final Frontier

Massgrav / Blood I Bleed – SPLIT

Melvins – The Bride Screamed Murder

Modorra – The Putrid

Motorpsycho – Heavy Metal Fruit

Nominon – Monumentomb

Okkultokrati – No Light For Mass

PP7 Gaftzeb And The Tormentors of 1984 – Preaching The Gospel To The Non-Believers

Profanatica – Disgusting Blasphemies Against God

Pyramido / Suma – SPLIT

Ramesses – Take The Curse

Roc Marciano – Marcberg

Stench – In Putrescence

Suma – Ashes

Svarte Greiner – Penpals Forever (And Ever)

Swans – My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky

Tid – Giv Akt
FREE DOWNLOAD HERE!

Triptykon – Eparistera Daimones

Ufomammut – Eve

U.S. Christmas – Run Thick In The Night

Watain – Lawless Darkness

White Hills – White Hills

Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Rivers

Ättestupa – Begraven Mot Norr

2009
2008
2007
2006
Top 40 albums 1991 – 2008

A need to discover the dark

2010-12-27T22:29:00.001+01:00

The world of the occult and the obscure, the hidden and the haunted... It might just be a load of bollocks to most, but to me it represents the inner cravings of the human psyche. A need to discover the dark, as Jon Nödtveidt once put it.

The human mind and the core of humanity is reflected in the darkness of man, and this is what's of interest to those who seek beyond the everyday boredom of life. If you fear the unknown, you probably prefer television before the secrets of the black arts...
Or simply put: Fantasy is more interesting than reality.

But ok, most of the writings on the left hand path are a load of bollocks. It's pretty much new age crap. Lame as fuck. At least that's my opinion having read or skimmed through quite a bunch of books on the subject.

However, bollocks or not, some of the texts below makes my mind wander when all hope is gone – and that's all I crave. It's like reading a good book of fiction. That's how I look at most things I read. Reading academic stuff like an academic takes the fun out of reading. Most importantly, the mind must awaken and the soul must be touched, or else I could do with whatever shallow shit that's on TV at any given moment.

So here are a bunch of basic works that I've found interesting in many ways. If you're into the imagery and lyrics of the occult metal scene, you should definitely take notice.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead
The Psychedelic Experience – A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary
An essay about the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Annie Shapiro
The Kaballah Unveiled
Dhammapada
The Art and Meaning of Magic (contains the Iron Maiden quotes "I Am He! The Bornless One!")
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
The Magical Revival
The Lives of the Necromancers

For deeper dwelling I highly recommend The Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola. It just might deserve its own article... We'll see about that.

Related posts about religion:
The meaning of the curse
Belief and Bloodshed: The Religion of Genocide
The Louse of Holy Name
Jehova, Christ, Lucifer and Satan
Religion and its influence on society
DSO – Obedience to the point of death
Prayin' hard – Jim Goad
Show me a man who is good
Nietzsche - Revalutation of all values!

Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

2010-12-26T23:07:00.000+01:00

Italy, Rome & Florence, October 2010
Click to enlarge

A World of Confusion

2010-12-19T20:30:00.001+01:00

In April 2009 I wrote a short piece entitled Engaging the Muslim World which contained the famous Bin Laden quote ”If I hated the Western way of life I would have hit Sweden” (meaning Bin Laden did not detest the US way of life, but the US foreign policies regarding for example Iran, Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine). A few things have happened since then.

Sweden is now in charge of a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan and Sweden just faced the arrival of our first suicide bomber (no tie to al-Qaida yet, but definitely to fanatic, extremist muslim terrorism). Is there a connection? Well, to Taimour Abdulwahab, the terrorist, there sure was.

Most experts of today agree that the war in Afghanistan is a war that can't be won. So maybe we should adapt our policies?

But then again, in the mind of a terrorist, had we not been helping out in Afghanistan there might have been a bunch of other reasons to hit Sweden. Terrorism shouldn't be that rational. If it is, then it's not labelled terrorism, but... perhaps, US foreign policy? Hell, Hillary Clinton has labelled the force of WikiLeaks as terrorist, so...
Everything is upside down in this world full of hate and confusion.

As for WikiLeaks, I'm stunned how weak mainstream media (at least here in Sweden) is when it comes to exposing and dissecting the material. If a journalist's job is to investigate and challenge power, then the media is not doing its job. But that should come as no surprise, since mainstream media is a huge part of the power mongering elite itself. I wrote about that in the Fucked By The Mainstream articles.

Fucked By The Mainstream articles written in May 2008, Part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

One of the most amazing telegrams to come out of the WikiLeaks tank is the one talking about foreign contractors run by ex-Green Berets and war veterans who teamed up with Afghan policemen, took drugs and then hired and raped some Afghan ”dancing boys” (i.e. child prostitutes) in the ass. Something like that...
How come we don't get to see that stuff in the mainstream media?

Read the breaking story here.
The Guardian reported about it here.
And this is the cable leaked by WikiLeaks: Afghan government asks US to quash 'dancing boys' scandal.

Mjuka tankar om terrorattentatet i Stockholm 2010

2010-12-12T18:09:00.001+01:00

Den här gången orkar jag inte tänka på engelska. Det får bli en ström av tankar på svenska, skrivna i affekt efter att ha tagit del av en otrolig mängd skitsnack om muslimer på det världsomspännande fria nätet som världsmakten nu är så mån om att begränsa...

Måhända får jag omvärdera tankarna vid ett senare tillfälle, men terrorattentatet i Stockholm har enligt min uppfattning att göra med följande:

1. Sveriges samarbeten med USA och det sionistiska Israel, USA:s utrikespolitik i stort, samt det sionistiska Israels dominans och arrogans gentemot omvärlden. Och börja inte ytlighetsjiddra om antisemitism med mig, tack. Det här går mycket djupare än så.
Jag har tidigare skrivit (på engelska) om sionismens destruktivitet på flera ställen i den här bloggen. Klicka här för en del av artiklarna.

2. En totalt misslyckad integrationspolitik som bl.a. beror på att media och politiker lever i en skyddad verkstad där man konsekvent vägrar att tala om de faktiska problemen. Yttrandefrihet och åsiktsfrihet existerar inte på riktigt. Har du "fel" åsikter får du nämligen inte vara med. Det torde vara uppenbart att vi lever i en skendemokrati.

Ska vi då stoppa invandringen? Nej, absolut inte. Däremot måste den urskiljningslösa massinvandringen stoppas, eftersom vi uppenbarligen inte lyckas hantera den. Detta har varit solklart sedan dag ett.

3. Det är skrämmande att folk fortfarande inte har fattat att religiöst fanatiska människor av den här kalibern menar blodigt allvar när man konstant skändar deras profet och religion. Det här är ingen lek för dem, vilket givetvis är svårt att förstå för en sekulariserad svensk som inte bryr sig eller har kunskaper om något annat än Idol och som gärna drar alla miljarder muslimer över en kam för vad några relativt få extremister håller på med.
Människor tycks ha svårt att förstå att man också kan få ta konsekvenserna av sitt agerande emellanåt, särskilt om man vet om att fanatikerna faktiskt menar allvar. Därmed inte sagt att man ska låta terrorister diktera våra friheter.
Som en parentes: Den organiserade brottsligheten har dödat betydligt fler oskyldiga än vad terrorismen har lyckats med.

4. Gemene man är så otroligt dåligt påläst när det gäller omvärldsbevakning och kan i princip aldrig se de större sambanden. Man kan inte relatera, helt enkelt. Man kan inte förstå att detta kan hända i Sverige. Till och med chefsåklagare Thomas Lindstrand tycker att det känns som ”science fiction”. Vilken verklighet lever dessa människor i?
Man vill leva kvar i sin Astrid Lindgren-värld och slippa bry sig om hur det egentligen ser ut i världen, trots att det räcker med att läsa löpsedlarna för att förstå hur illa ställt det egentligen är. Inte ens WikiLeaks kan få Svensson att vakna, ty informationen går över dennes vattenskalle.

Om kunskapen om omvärlden är usel, så är kunskapen om islam ännu sämre. Det tjatas om muslimer när det borde pratas om fanatiska extremister. Man pratar om islam som en enda konsekvent religion, när verkligheten innebär att politisk islam omfattar hela det politiska spektrat från vänster till höger. Precis som det finns tusentals riktningar inom kristendomen finns det tusentals, troligtvis fler, riktningar inom islam. Islam har knappast en enda given mening.

Tyvärr är det oerhört få som orkar diskutera omvärlden efter att ha trampat runt i råtthjulet en hel arbetsdag. Då räcker hjärnkapaciteten endast till för att slappa framför TV:n.
Notera: Jag tillhör naturligtvis själv ”gemene man” och vill inte gärna ställa mig över andra, men det är ett faktum att majoriteten av människovarelserna inte är kapabla till annat än att dumarbeta ihjäl sig, supa sig ännu dummare och därefter slappa framför TV:n.

Att ett självmordsattentat skulle ske i Sverige var bara en tidsfråga. Jag är förvånad över att det inte skett tidigare, och att det inte sker mer frekvent, med tanke på det rådande världsläget (som i princip har sett lika miserabelt ut sedan människans begynnelse…).

Mänskligheten får alltid vad den förtjänar, vilket tyvärr i slutändan leder till terrorism och förtryck i alla dess former. Sådan är människan. Här finns ingen respekt, här finns ingen fred. Man får vara glad att just det här dådet inte orsakade ett blodbad och att han gjorde kaos med sig själv och inte vad som rimligtvis kunde ha blivit hundratals oskyldiga.
Detta är förvisso den första självmordsbombaren i Sverige, men däremot inte det första terrordådet på svensk mark. Folk glömmer så lätt...
Men jag tror ändå att det här bara är början. Något annat vore konstigt. Varför skulle saker och ting plötsligt bli bättre i världen? Jag ser ingenting som tyder på det.

Lars Vilks taffliga rondellhundar då? Ska han inte få kludda med dessa? Jo, självklart ska han få det. Yttrandefrihet, åsiktsfrihet, religionsfrihet osv är det viktigaste vi har. Man ska kunna skämta om allt. Samtidigt måste man inse att man även kan få ta konsekvenserna av sitt agerande. Man är liksom inte ensam här i världen.

Till syvende och sist handlar det om att respektera andras åsikter, hur konstiga de än må vara för en sekulariserad, priviligerad svensk som aldrig har varit i närheten av förtryck, krig, död, flykt och diktatur. Men det finns alltid en gräns för hur långt man kan gå i sitt syfte att provocera.

Personligen tycker jag givetvis att terrordåd som det här är fullkomligt sinnesförvridet, och att alla människor som brukar religionen enligt fanatismens oskrivna regler är körda i botten, men detta handlar inte så mycket om vad man som enskild person tycker, utan mer om hur man respekterar varandras åsikter i en globaliserad värld. Tyvärr har människan ingen känsla för något så enkelt som respekt utan tänker mestadels kortsiktigt på sig själv och har föga förståelse för omvärlden. Man håller sig inom tullarna, umgås alltid med likasinnade och tar sällan en diskussion.

Världshistorien bygger på våld och det finns ingenting som tyder på att det plötsligt kommer bli annorlunda och att våldet skulle trappas ner. Snarare tvärtom. Återigen: Mänskligheten får alltid vad den förtjänar. Västvärlden är inte navet i världsordningen, och om den vore det så borde den bete sig därefter. Om vi anser oss så mycket bättre än övriga folk så får vi visa det också, och inte bete oss lika korkat som den uppmärksamhetskåte Lars Vilks som ju är en nolla i sammanhanget. Jag blir nästan förbannad på mig själv som ens nämner honom här, även om jag fortfarande hyser stor respekt för hans tidigare konstverk.

Någon lösning på mänsklighetens idioti kan jag inte se, varken kortsiktigt eller långsiktigt. Människan är alltför korkad för att lyckas lösa ens de mest triviala vardagsproblemen, så varför skulle vi lyckas lösa det här?

Det bästa vore att börja om. Tillbaka till ingenting. Enter the void, into the wild, för att avsluta på engelska.

Enligt mig är ovanstående ett realistiskt sätt att se på saken.

One Wall - A collaboration with STHLMGRAFF

2010-12-07T19:30:00.002+01:00

All photos by STHLMGRAFF

sthlmgraff.blogspot.com

fotolog.com/sthlmgraff

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

R.I.P. ASOC

The Ultimate Death

2010-11-26T22:30:00.001+01:00

Darkness, i.e. the core of humanity as exposed by U.S. foreign policy and its abuse of power and religion throughout the years. This is what humanity ultimately comes down to, and we deserve nothing but the ultimate death. This is the rational humanist point of view, based on the misanthropy that springs from the well of reality.

WikiLeaks
AntiWar

CounterPunch

The Crash, The Israel Lobby and The Change of Attitude

2010-11-25T08:05:00.003+01:00

The United States are facing a lot of internal problems at the moment, and the economic crisis probably hits and hurts the most. Can America really afford the $5 billion-plus that it annually provides to Israel? Its foreign policies are intended to benefit Israel, and the United States of course, but many of them have damaged relations and interests for both countries. It's pretty obvious that the current level of U.S. support for Israel cannot be justified, especially not in times of despair.

43 million Americans live beneath the poverty level, including one in every five children. America’s richest one percent of the population own over 40 percent of America’s wealth. Hence, wealth is concentrated in too few hands, and the general public is burdened by too much debt to be able to buy goods produced by the corporations, where the wealthiest hold 81 percent of the stock... Of course there is a great CRASH because of this, and the end game of this massive wealth concentration is nothing but economic misery. You cannot tame the Wall Street greed machine.

Me, I'm not very good at economics, but the much spoken about Money as Debt film made me realize a few things. I highly recommend watching it, as well as its sequel Money as Debt II – Promises Unleashed.

--> Click here for Money as Debt with Swedish subtitles <--

However, going back to the Israel issue, American attitudes towards Israel are changing, pretty much with each Israeli outrage, such as the bombing of Lebanon and Beirut during the July 2006 war, and the civilian slaughter – more than one-third women and children – in Gaza 2008/2009. Americans are also becoming weary of Israel constantly moving the goal post in the ”peace negotiations”, and seem to realize how Israel always ridicule Obama whenever he tries to condemn Israeli settlements. Within days, Israel often announces more settlement construction. The Israel Lobby plays a big part here, and the fact that Obama is actually criticizing Israel will probably mean that his time as a President will be a one-term only. The Israel Lobby won't tolerate that kind of behaviour.

Just the other week, Obama criticized Israel for announcing the process of 1,300 housing units in Jerusalem. He warned: “This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations. I'm concerned that we're not seeing each side making the extra effort involved to get a breakthrough.”
Israel’s reaction: Knesset members as well as AIPAC staff attacked Obama, saying that he is ignoring the reality of Israel’s needs in Jerusalem.

At the same time, Zeinab Hajj, a 30 something Palestinian born, raised and still living in Shatila Camp and known for hosting many visiting thinking Americans in her family's already crowded rooms, explains her situation: ”We know the American people are fair minded but their government has been hijacked by Zionists as surely as our land has been stolen by Zionists. In one sense the American people and the Palestinian people share the same dilemma and we have the same need to liberate ourselves.”

The collapsing American economy is also a huge factor when it comes to the American public distancing itself from Israel. Many do no longer believe in the American dream. Apple and Coca-Cola, Google and Microsoft are putting their money in Asia, where labor is cheap and markets are growing, and very little in the United States. It is rumoured that the Tea Party will insist on terminating foreign aid of all kinds if the U.S. unemployment level rises above 4 per cent. The times they are a changing...

The ADL is not changing, though. They are terrified, and recently sounded the alarm at the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism, where fifty countries from six continents sent delegations to help combat what ADL’s Abe Foxman claims is ”a dangerous softening of US public opinion for Israel”. Apparently they were talking about ”cyber hate” and the usual bullcrap used in their campaigns of fear...

The Generous Gambler by Charles Baudelaire

2010-11-07T19:57:00.005+01:00

Yesterday, across the crowd of the boulevard, I found myself touched by a mysterious Being I had always desired to know, and whom I recognized immediately, in spite of the fact that I had never seen him. He had, I imagined, in himself, relatively as to me, a similar desire, for he gave me, in passing, so significant a sign in his eyes that I hastened to obey him. I followed him attentively, and soon I descended behind him into a subterranean dwelling, astonishing to me as a vision, where shone a luxury of which none of the actual houses in Paris could give me an approximate example. It seemed to me singular that I had passed so often that prodigious retreat without having discovered the entrance. There reigned an exquisite, an almost stifling atmosphere, which made one forget almost instantaneously all the fastidious horrors of life; there I breathed a somber sensuality, like that of opium smokers when, set on the shore of an enchanted island over which shone an eternal afternoon, they felt born in them, to the soothing sounds of melodious cascades, the desire of never again seeing their households, their women, their children, and of never again being tossed on the decks of ships by storms.

Jacopo Caraglio, Italy, probably between 1520 to 1539.

There were there strange faces of men and women, gifted with so fatal a beauty that I seemed to have seen them years ago and in countries which I failed to remember and which inspired in me that curious sympathy and that equally curious sense of fear that I usually discover in unknown aspects. If I wanted to define in some fashion or other the singular expression of their eyes, I would say that never had I seen such magic radiance more energetically expressing the horror of ennui and of desire—of the immortal desire of feeling themselves alive.

As for mine host and myself, we were already, as we sat down, as perfect friends as if we had always known each other. We drank immeasurably of all sorts of extraordinary wines, and—a thing not less bizarre—it seemed to me, after several hours, that I was no more intoxicated than he was.

However, gambling, this superhuman pleasure, had cut, at various intervals, our copious libations, and I ought to say that I had gained and lost my soul, as we were playing, with a heroic carelessness and lightheartedness. The soul is so invisible a thing, often useless and sometimes so troublesome, that I did not experience, as to this loss, more than that kind of emotion I might have, had I lost my visiting card in the street.

We spent hours in smoking cigars, whose incomparable savor and perfume give to the soul the nostalgia of unknown delights and sights, and, intoxicated by all these spiced sauces, I dared, in an access of familiarity which did not seem to displease him, to cry, as I lifted a glass filled to the brim with wine: "To your immortal health, old he-goat!"

We talked of the universe, of its creation and of its future destruction; of the leading ideas of the century—that is to say, of progress and perfectibility—and, in general, of all kinds of human infatuations. On this subject His Highness was inexhaustible in his irrefutable jests, and he expressed himself with a splendor of diction and with a magnificence in drollery such as I have never found in any of the most famous conversationalists of our age. He explained to me the absurdity of different philosophies that had so far taken possession of men's brains, and deigned even to take me in confidence in regard to certain fundamental principles, which I am not inclined to share with anyone.

He complained in no way of the evil reputation under which he lived, indeed, all over the world, and he assured me that he himself was of all living beings the most interested in the destruction of Superstition, and he avowed to me that he had been afraid, relatively as to his proper power, once only, and that was on the day when he had heard a preacher, more subtle than the rest of the human herd, cry in his pulpit: "My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!"

The memory of this famous orator brought us naturally on the subject of academies, and my strange host declared to me that he didn't disdain, in many cases, to inspire the pens, the words, and the consciences of pedagogues, and that he almost always assisted in person, in spite of being invisible, at all the scientific meetings.

Encouraged by so much kindness, I asked him if he had any news of God—who has not his hours of impiety?—especially as the old friend of the Devil. He said to me, with a shade of unconcern united with a deeper shade of sadness: "We salute each other when we meet." But, for the rest, he spoke in Hebrew.

It is uncertain if His Highness has ever given so long an audience to a simple mortal, and I feared to abuse it.

Finally, as the dark approached shivering, this famous personage, sung by so many poets and served by so many philosophers who work for his glory's sake without being aware of it, said to me: "I want you to remember me always, and to prove to you that I—of whom one says so much evil—am often enough bon diable, to make use of one of your vulgar locutions. So as to make up for the irremediable loss that you have made of your soul, I shall give you back the stake you ought to have gained, if your fate had been fortunate—that is to say, the possibility of solacing and of conquering, during your whole life, this bizarre affection of ennui, which is the source of all your maladies and of all your miseries. Never a desire shall be formed by you that I will not aid you to realize; you will reign over your vulgar equals; money and gold and diamonds, fairy palaces, shall come to seek you and shall ask you to accept them without your having made the least effort to obtain them; you can change your abode as often as you like; you shall have in your power all sensualities without lassitude, in lands where the climate is always hot and where the women are as scented as the flowers." With this he rose and said good-bye to me with a charming smile.

If it had not been for the shame of humiliating myself before so immense an assembly, I might have voluntarily fallen at the feet of this generous gambler, to thank him for his unheard of munificence. But little by little, after I had left him, an incurable defiance entered into me; I dared no longer believe in so prodigious a happiness, and as I went to bed, making over again my nightly prayer by means of all that remained in me in the matter of faith, I repeated in my slumber: "My God, my Lord, my God! Do let the Devil keep his word with me!"

THE END

You breed... Like rats!

2010-10-24T19:54:00.000+02:00

Overshoot

Overshoot #2: Death control for the hunters and gatherers?

The Clash of Civilizations - Part Three

Derrick Jensen: Endgame
–––

Roadburn – the best festival I've ever been to – just announced that Godflesh are set to perform the legendary Streetcleaner album in its entirety! That sure deserves a whole bunch of exclamation marks!
This is one of the heaviest, dirtiest albums ever to grace this wicked Earth, and to be able to witness this at Roadburn is nothing but amazing. Streetcleaner was released in 1989, but still crushes most of what you'd call heavy these days. In a way, these recordings preceded the whole drone/sludge genre, and did so 22 years ago. Exclamation mark!

If you find it strange having a band playing the record just as it is when you might as well sit at home listening, you probably won't ever understand the magick that occurs during a mighty fine concert – and Roadburn always delivers amazing gigs.
Compare listening to Through Silver In Blood at home with the onslaught that follows below:

Now worship Godflesh.

You breed - Like Rats
Breeding - Stylized - Deformity - Don't look back
Breeding - Fade out - Lies - Deformity
Breed - Like Rats
You were dead from the beginning

Bonus goodness:

Turn - Tune - Drop

2010-10-11T20:16:00.000+02:00

'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you — externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. 'Drop out' suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.'
Timothy Leary

The End of the Apocalypse

2010-10-03T23:23:00.000+02:00

What will it take for you to finally call these last days what they really are: The end of the apocalypse.
The extermination of six hundred species per day? The starvation of one billion people?
Do you really believe our culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane way of living?

The problem is that we who benefit from the industrial economy – the civilization that must be destroyed in order for things to be created – are the ones that are destroying the planet, and we won't accept having our benefits taken away from us. Our role as participants in the industrial economy is more important to us than being human, thus having our benefits taken away is like threatening our very existence. This is the downward spiral. This is why we're doomed.

Lewis Mumford defined civilization's main features as such: ”the centralization of political power, the separation of classes, the lifetime division of labor, the mechanization of production, the magnification of military power, the economic exploitation of the weak, and the universal introduction of slavery and forced labor for both industrial and military purposes.”
Most dictionaries define civilization as ”a high stage of social and cultural development, an advanced state of human society”.
Obviously, these two definitions don't synch, and the dictionary definition makes the common mistake in presupposing our present civilization is the best, and that there is only one way to live. Oswald Spengler had a few things to say about that...

Derrick Jensen puts it best in Endgame: ”Ultimately, then, the story of this civilization is the story of the reduction of the world's tapestry of stories to only one story, the best story, the real story, the most advanced story, the most developed story, the story of the power and the glory that is Western Civilization.”

On another note: ”The civilized notion of ownership is in truth based on force: the aquisition and maintenance of the property of the rich is the central motivating factor impelling nearly all state violence.”
Because when speaking of ownership in a ”civilized” society we mean we have the right to do whatever we want with what we own. We have the right to destroy it, if we please. However, as Spengler also put it, with ownership comes responsibility. If the farmer owns and nurtures his land it becomes his blood and flesh, and he is responsible for the continuation of that land and its health. And he will take that responsibility. We've forgotten all about that in this civilized capitalist part of the world, where industrial economy and technology rule.

In Man and Technics (1931), Spengler predicted that coloured people of the Earth will use the very technology of the West to destroy the West. We'll see how that goes...

Sewer election - This fear is only the beginning

2010-09-20T19:08:00.001+02:00

The car is on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel

And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides

And a dark wind blows

The government is corrupt

And we're on so many drugs

With the radio on and the curtains drawn

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine

And the machine is bleeding to death

The sun has fallen down

And the billboards are all leering

And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

It went like this:

The buildings tumbled in on themselves

Mothers clutching babies

Picked through the rubble

And pulled out their hair

The skyline was beautiful on fire

All twisted metal stretching upwards

Everything washed in a thin orange haze

I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -

These are truly the last days"

You grabbed my hand

And we fell into it

Like a daydream

Or a fever

We woke up one morning and fell a little further down

For sure it's the valley of death

I open up my wallet

And it's full of blood

This fear is only the beginning
...
There is a sorrow to be desired
To be sorrows desire

What they say is true
It is a dirty blue
This color around you
You're curled up warm
In your own little corners of Sodom
Did you agree to believe
This fall has no bottom
...
Fear not the faces of brothers

Votes before swine

2010-09-13T19:48:00.002+02:00

During the period when Liberalism ruled in the Western Civilization, and the State was reduced, theoretically, to the role of "night-watchman", the very word "politics" changed its fundamental meaning. From having described the power activities of the State, it now described the efforts of private individuals and their organizations to secure positions in the government as a means of livelihood, in other words politics came to mean party-politics. Readers in 2050 will have difficulty in understanding these relationships, for the age of parties will be as forgotten then as the Opium War is now.
All State organisms were distorted, sick, in crisis, and this introspection was one great symptom of it. Supposedly internal politics was primary.
[...]
The law of every organism allows only two alternatives: either the organism must be true to itself, or it goes down into sickness and death.
Francis Parker Yockey, Imperium - The Philosophy of History and Politics (1948)

Party-politics is a joke. We are voting for the worst people possible to rule our lives. We believe we have a say. Foreign liberal commentators frequently say their countries should ‘emulate Sweden’ in matters of welfare, democracy and freedom. The joke's always on us.

Still, I believe the alternative to party-politics ain't yet of real value, and as far as I believe that, I might as well cast my vote before the swine least awful in order to avoid the swine most awful. Sad but true.

More on Francis Parker Yockey.

Scalped

2010-08-31T23:46:00.002+02:00

The American Indian reservations are the last chance for the survival of ancient traditions and ways of life. Yet the states drive Indians off their land (most of the Western Shoshoni people's land, for example, was long ago confiscated for underground nuclear testing), claiming they can offer them a better life in the cities. However, the Indians will enter an American society where they will be cultureless people, bereft of just about everything.

The American Indians are forced to face a very old dilemma.

At the dawn of the fifteenth century, Spanish conquistadors and priests presented the Indians they encountered with a choice: either give up your religion, culture, land and independence, and swear allegiance to the Catholic Church, or suffer all the damage that the European invaders choose to inflict upon you.

To the conquering Spanish, the Indians were defined as natural slaves. Subhumans. That's how they wanted to use them. The British and the Americans had little use for the Indians as slaves, so to justify their particular genocide they appealed to Christian sources of wisdom: the Indians were Satan's helpers, they were murderous wild men of the forest, they were bears, wolves and vermin. They were beyond civil life. Hence, straightforward mass killing of the Indians was the only thing to do. They needed the land, not the humans.

Today is no different. The choice still stands: Surrender all hope of continued cultural integrity and effectively cease to exist as autonomous people and prepare yourself for even worse merciless inequality in our cities, or remain on the reservation and attempt to preserve your culture admist the wreckage of governmentally imposed poverty, hunger, ill health and the endless attempts of the state trying to rob you of your land.

The poverty rate on American Indian reservations in the United States is almost four times the national average. In Pine Ridge in South Dakota (where more than 60 percent of homes are without adequate plumbing, compared with barely 2 percent for the rest of the country) the poverty rate is nearly five times greater. The conditions on many reservations are no different from conditions that rule throughout the Third World.

The suicide rate for young Indian males and females aged 15 to 24 years is around 200 percent above the overall national rate for the same age group, while the rate for death caused by alcohol – another form of suicide – is more than 900 percent higher than the national figure!
American Holocaust.

This is the setting for Scalped, a grim graphic novel created by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guéra. As described on the back of the first volume, Indian Country: ”...a gripping mix of Sopranos-style organized-crime drama and current Native American culture”.

So, life and crime on ”The Rez”, then.

Dashiell Bad Horse ran away from poverty and despair on the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation (could very well be the above mentioned Pine Ridge) some fifteen years ago, and now he's back, only to find that nothing has changed, except for ”the glimmering new casino and a once-proud people overcome by drugs and organized crime”. It is the eve of the opening of the casino. Welcome to violence.

It turns out that Dash is an undercover FBI agent, and he ends up infiltrating this web of criminality spun by tribal leader Lincoln Red Crow, a former ”Red Power” activist now turned crime boss and the most hated man on the rez, who before he ventured into the heart of darkness was the compatriate of Dash's mother, Gina. How's that for a complex and totally unruly sentence? Well, that's how I felt about this multi-layered, uncomfortable and deeply gritty story in the first place. Unruly. At times I found it hard figuring out who was who, kind of like when I read Blood Meridian the first time. But it was worth the effort of hanging on.

Scalped has its fair share of people holding on to their many secrets, almost Twin Peaks-like, and as the back story is slowly being revealed I was deeply impressed. This is so much more than fights, trashy sex, Indian pride, split families, domestic abuse, mindless violence, scalpings, shootings, revenge, drugs, prostitution, racism, lies, sorrows, drinking and gambling. Much more. The hero and the villain are as crappy and dirty as the world they live in. Here is no peace. Only the lust for vengeance, flesh, profanity and power.

I cannot agree with the Sopranos comparison, though. Aaaron has stated he had The Wire in mind when creating Scalped, and that's more like it. Like a mixture of Oz and The Wire, maybe. Deadwood? I haven't even seen that series yet, so throw in some Frozen River and Gomorrah, and that should do it for most of you.

Life - A continuing story of survival horror

2010-08-30T08:49:00.000+02:00

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman is that famous graphic novel currently being adapted for the screen as a TV series produced by the same channel that gave us Mad Men and Breaking Bad. It's directed by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile), so I'm definitely psyched. The first shots look very promising.

But at first, I wasn't that impressed with the novel. It isn't original at all; it's that same old story of one dude waking up all alone in a hospital creeping with zombies, finding his way to a camp of survivors, etc, etc... Very standard. And man, I never thought I'd enjoy a soap opera! Because that's exactly what it is.

Kirkman states how he loves zombie movies, but hates their open endings. He always wanted to know where the characters went next, after the credits roll. That's why – at this point, at least – the series is ongoing, pretty much stumbling on without an end. You might think it'll get boring and repetitive, but having read the first four volumes (issue #1–48) I'm pretty impressed with the way things are going. In short, you're up for a pretty dazzling post-apocalyptic zombie ritual soap opera.

Essentially, it all boils down to our basic human needs; breathing, eating, sleeping, fucking, exploiting, creating and destroying. It's about our primal instincts and the reducing of humanity (yes, even among those that are alive – The walking dead are the survivors, in this sense). As the story unfolds and we get to know the characters, we're in for some hefty relationship drama. And this is were the focus lies; on the ongoing building and shattering of relationships in times of hardship. This is about the people, not the monsters.

As this is pretty far from deep and rather filled to the brim with the most obvious cliches, I still like it. If I wanted deeper stuff, I'd probably go for Y – The Last Man instead. This is Zombie Lit, and with that you also get the old fashioned sexist idiocy (which seems to be the very essence of the Lit genre...). Compared to the complexity of Watchmen, for example, this reads more like Tom and Jerry. But as long as you know what to expect, I think it's ok.

Art by Tony Moore

As for the art, we get some truly powerful, beautifully detailed illustrations of the most vicious gore. However, the art is far from consistent, which is a bit annoying. At times, it's just splendid, like the larger panorama-like strips. But every now and then, I get the feeling the artist has been in a hurry. Also, there's an artist change after the first six issues which makes it even more irritating. However, once you get past this moment of vexation, it's pretty well executed. I'd like more of the details, though, like Glenn wearing Swollen Members- and Hieroglyphics shirts. Tony Moore, who did the first six issues and the cover art up until issue #24, is more into details, while Charlie Adlard, Moore's successor, works in a more simplistic way. I like them both, though, even though I'd love to have every single strip as detailed as the cover below:

Cover art by Tony Moore

Cover art by Charlie Adlard

Yes, there's a huge difference between Moore and Adlard, but as the series went on I kind of got to like Adlard's stuff more and more. I find Adlard's art to be a lot darker and straight to the point, even though Moore pays more attention to details. Dark is good.

The meaning of the curse

2010-08-28T20:59:00.001+02:00

Cut off from the world, having broken with all his friends, he read me – with an almost indespensible Russian accent, given the situation – the beginning of the Book of Books. Reaching the moment where Adam gets himself expelled from paradise, he fell silent, dreamily staring into the distance while I thought to myself, more or less distinctly, that after millenia of false hopes, humanity, furious at having cheated, would finally receive the meaning of the curse and thereby make itself worthy of its first ancestor.

A flame traverses the blood.
To go over to the other side, circumventing death...

To withdraw indefinitely into oneself, like God after the six days.
Let us imitate Him, on this point at least.

Between Genesis and Apocalypse imposture reigns.
It is important to know this, for once assimilated, such dizzying evidence renders all formulas for wisdom superfluous.

Since our defects are not surface accidents but the very basis of our nature,
we cannot correct them without deforming that nature, without perverting it still more.

If the Hour of Disappointment were to sound for everyone at the same time,
we should see an entirely new version, either of paradise or of hell.

No fate to which I could have adjusted myself.
I was made to exist before my birth and after my death, not during my very existence.

I anticipated witnessing in my lifetime the disappearance of our species.
But the gods have been against me.

The Falsification of Man - To What End?

2010-08-06T23:53:00.003+02:00

Civilization is a conspiracy of noise, designed to cover up the uncomfortable silences.

John Zerzan

The ongoing process of the collapse of modern mass society must be welcomed, not resisted. The longer the process, the more we will suffer. Ultimately – and most desirable, in true, basic humanist fashion – the solution to all our problems would be the total extinction of the human race. Unfortunately, that kind of peace of mind will have to wait until one of our beloved leaders decides to push the button.

Until then, what's important is to rise above, ride the tiger and claim the individual will to power. Black Flag, Julius Evola and Friedrich Nietzsche all rolled into one. And no, the will to power is not the will to dominate. People who preach these misinterpretations are most often people who say Nietzsche was a Nazi, even though they haven't read one single text by the man. Ignore the ignorants.

We should acknowledge the laws of society and act as loyal citizens, to a certain extent, but since the real revolution starts within (Refused told me that sixteen years ago) we shall strike from the inside, like a samurai having taken advantage of the power of his enemy for so long, patiently awaiting the final blow to be executed with perfection and precision against the modern dying world. We shall rise from the abyss, out of the dark into the black light by means of occult warfare. Legions arise! To the death!

Well, maybe not that romantic and heroic, but one must be able to dream. Because, seriously, what kind of world awaits our children? They will inherit a culture of high anxiety, fear, stress and depression that constantly borders on a state of panic disorder. This is a world that offers no future, but fails to admit this fact. And all this chaos stems from civilization itself, a civilization that passively accepts its own decline. Hence, modern civilization is worth nothing but death.

Neurosis – To What End

'Progress' is not progress, it's everlasting destruction
Technology is backwards

Born of machine
Worship machine
Slave to machine
Become machine

Modern civilization, a contradiction in terms
In terms of survival

Are we alone?

Man is made to obey thee... Are we nothing but living...
MACHINE

A dead hand, it's work expresses death
No spirit in it's skeletal framework
The falsification of Man, to what end?
To what end?

Perverted ingenuity of Man
Fools, we've lost our earthly wisdom

Not the way of nature
In a man-made state of disarray

Dreaming in red - The art of Alex Varanese / Chong Weikk

2010-08-02T11:12:00.000+02:00

Alex Varanese

Click images to enlarge

Chong Weikk

Click images to enlarge

Outer Dark - Awake from this dream:

2010-07-30T08:24:00.002+02:00

There was a prophet standing in the square with arms upheld in exhortation to the beggared multitude gathered there. A delegation of human ruin who attended him with blind eyes upturned and puckered stumps and leprous sores. The sun hung on the cusp of eclipse and the prophet spoke to them. This hour the sun would darken and all these souls would be cured of their afflictions before it appeared again. And the dreamer himself was caught up among the supplicants and when they had been blessed and the sun began to blacken he did push forward and hold up his and and call out. Me, he cried. Can I be cured? The prophet looked down as if surprised to see him there amidst such pariahs. The sun paused. He said: Yes, I think perhaps you will be cured. Then the sun buckled and dark fell like a shout. The last wirethin rim was crept away. They waited. Nothing moved. They waited a long time and it grew chill. Above them hung the stars of another season. There began a restlessness and a muttering. The sun did not return. It grew cold and more black and silent and some began to cry out and some despaired but the sun did not return. Now the dreamer grew fearful. Voices were being raised against him. He was caught up in the crowd and the stink of their rags filled his nostrils. They grew seething and more mutinous and he tried to hide among them but they knew him even in that pit of hopeless dark and fell upon him with howls of outrage.

Yes, it's that Cormac McCarthy again. This time in the nightmarish Outer Dark, filled to the brim with scenes of horror, incest and murder, told with the biblical rhetoric I've come to love, telling tales of the depravity of human nature - the fundamental truth - like there is no tomorrow.

The above quote cites Culla Holme, one brother who shares an incestuous union with his sister. A baby is born out of this incest and Culla, claiming it is dead, brings the child to the woods and buries it alive. The woman soon discovers her brother's lie and sets forth alone in search of her baby. The brother follows, looking for her. And thus begins the tale of aimless wanderings from one unimaginable horror to another.
Of course, it is a must read. The setting at times reminiscent of the one in Child of God - another McCarthy masterpiece - but in a different part of the world, in another Hell.

Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea,
for the Devil sends the Beast with wrath,
because he knows the time is short...

Den Hvite Guden

2010-07-25T21:51:00.000+02:00

Belus – by far one of the very best albums of 2010.

Heavy Rain - The choices we make...

2010-07-18T11:23:00.000+02:00

Even though the gameplay is very basic and straight forward, and your only real gaming input is strictly limited, Heavy Rain is a fantastic experience.
Gameplay is all about choosing between different options and pressing the correct button in time. That's pretty much it. And there are some minor flaws: Some puzzles and ways of getting information are just plain stupid and tiresome (the Ann Sheppard scene, for example). Also, sometimes the choices you make really don't make a difference, which is quite annoying. As is the fact that all teeth look like rubbish, which is a mystery since the graphics overall are just stunning. People walk around looking like Method Man with braces. But then again, this is the American future. Too much Coke, I guess.

If you've seen a couple of American movies in your lifetime, you'll recognize the way this story moves. It plays just like a movie, and therefore it is – in many ways – more than a game. A lot of the scenes are very predictable (even though I have to admit that I didn't know who the killer was until the very end. One thing you'll always know with generic scripts is that whatever person they want you to recognize as the bad guy, it sure as hell never is him in the end), but since the atmosphere rule, you tend to forget that. Same thing with the simplicity of the gameplay.

Because what makes Heavy Rain such an awesome experience is the atmosphere. If this is your type of game, you'll be totally hooked. Because it's not how you do things, but what you do that really matters and makes this game stand out. It's all those tiny details, like changing a baby's diapers and then rocking her to sleep, brushing your teeth and making sure your boy gets his medicine in time; those are the moments that strenghtens the ties of blood, for they depict real life.

The choices we make shape our lives, and there are many choices to be made in Heavy Rain. For the first time in gaming history, here is a game that actually capitalize on the moral decision concept. This is way beyond choosing between a good or bad ending.
How far would you go to save someone you love?

At one point there are five different choices with various outcomes, depending on what you did earlier in the game, and I think there are at least seven different endings with 18 different epilogues. If one of your characters faces an early death, you'll miss out on a lot of chapters that would've appeared hadn't she died. When finishing the game for the first time you'll almost immediately need to replay some chapters to see how the story would unfold had you chosen another direction.

Adding to the atmosphere is of course the music. And it's out there! Not just the official soundtrack, but a lot of the cues and songs that didn't appear on the official release. I found this link:
http://www.zshare.net/download/784372202efa351f/
Sharing is caring.
And caring is pretty much what Heavy Rain is all about.

The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating -- Blood Meridian Pt. 3

2010-07-06T18:56:00.004+02:00

Blood Meridian is Cormac McCarthy's first historical novel, as well as his first ”western”, with its roots in the history of the West. Like Samuel Chamberlain's memoir, My Confession: Recollections of a Rouge – a mixture of fact and fiction which forms the basis of Blood Meridian – McCarthy's novel is peopled by both real and fictional characters. However, those memoirs are far from the only sources used by McCarthy to tell his tale of the macabre. Every page in this astonishing book is the result of intense studying of great historical works by novelists, dramatists, reporters, biblical scribes, scientists, historians... The list of works is virtually endless, which makes the novel even more fascinating.

I knew from reading McCarthy's novels that he pays great attention to geography, but I had no idea that Blood Meridian was based on such sickening historical analogues, such as the Yuma-ferry massacre, until I started doing a bit of research myself. Indeed, the Yuma-ferry massacre was very real. And Judge Holden – Satan – does exist:
Whatever his antecedents he was something wholly other than their sum, nor was there system by which to divide him back into his origins for he would not go.

However much historical research McCarthy did, there is still the fact that history is very much characterized by chance. Who was there and why? Whom to trust if only the winners get to write history? Facts really are ”facts”. If you study the Holocaust, this fact couldn't be more obvious.
It seems like McCarthy is well aware of this, thus blending fact with fiction in such a smooth way. The cruel thing is that what may come off as fiction because of its sheer brutality is often pure fact.

The first time that I read Blood Meridian I was captivated by the balance of beauty and violence, and the words that read like poetry. I had a hard time struggling with the language, though, so the second time I could concentrate more on the story, delving into the characters and experiencing the flow. After this session I began studies on the text and by the third time I knew a lot more about the building blocks, the background stories and stuff like that.

You may read Blood Meridian as a work of fiction, but knowing about the conditions of the time in which Judge Holden lived makes it even more amazing. For example, the conflicts existing in 1850 between Mexicans (both common people and military), US troops, Texans (both Ranger and civilian), Comanches, Apaches, gold-rush travellers... and the scalp hunters.

Getting an Indian's scalp was the most certain way to prevent the Indian's soul from reaching paradise. When the scalp is torn off, the body becomes useless, not even worthy of burial. Also, if the Indian is killed by strangulation, the soul can never escape but must always remain within the body, even after complete decomposition. Thus, to the Indians, to keep the scalp was more important than to keep the life, and so, when the scalphunters presented a scalp is was certain proof of the Indian's certain death.
(The head photo of this blog depicts an Indian burial ground)

There was good money in the scalphunting business, and the scalps were the recipes for these business men – a tradition that exists in modern day warfare as well (for example, troops in the Vietnam war had ears tied to the antenna of their vehicles as trophies of the body count).
The government of Chihuahua paid scalp bounties, which was not uncommon. Many American states, counties and cities did this, although the government of the United States never bought hair. The governmental payment for one single scalp exceeded the amount that a common day worker who became a gang member could earn in a year.

John Sepich writes in Notes on Blood Meridian:
”Pay in the United States Army at about that time ran between seven and fifteen dollars a month when bonuses were included. A group of fifty Indian hunters paid two hundred dollars a scalp would have to bring only four scalps a month into Chihuahua city in order to exceed the army's rate of pay, and for work not much more hazardous than the army's. Kirker's group was known to have killed as many as two hundred Indians on a single trip, bringing in one hundred and eighty two scalps. This approach yielded sixty times what the men would have earned in other employment. At one point, Chihuahua owned James Kirker $30,000.”

The government of Chihuahua was also willing to pay for the scalps of women and children. Also, the city was inhabited by mestizos, Latin American people whose hair was similar to the Indian's, resulting in the slaughter of many Mexican citizens. The moral problem of scalphunting was not even a problem, since the scalphunters were licenced to do a job for the benefit of the state.
The American Holocaust in full effect.

To be continued in Part Four.
Insights reached with the help of Notes on Blood Meridian by John Sepich.

---

blu - BIG BAG BIG BOOM

2010-07-06T08:12:00.001+02:00

When graffiti is not enough...

BIG BAG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Legacy of Letters

2010-07-05T20:45:00.002+02:00

Legacy of Letters from Luca Barcellona on Vimeo.

Sleepy city

2010-06-25T10:45:00.000+02:00

As above...

...so below.

Sleepy city

SRM Reviews (#72 June 2010) Watain - Lawless Darkness

2010-06-20T11:33:00.001+02:00

Published in Sweden Rock Magazine #72 June 2010.
Here's the unabridged version.

Watain
Lawless Darkness - 9/10
Season of Mist (Sound Pollution)

Det här är ett storslaget verk sprunget ur mörkermagiskt vansinne. Mäktigt och komplext, men ändå med ett helvetes driv. En episk tripp som går på djupet, men ändå bara skummar på ytan. Jag tror nämligen att Watain har ännu mer att ge, hur märkligt det än må låta.
Men jag var skeptisk. Hur kan man tio år efter den fullkomligt fanatiska debuten Rabid Death's Curse utveckla och förnya en hel genre – till det bättre? Vad kan man göra efter Casus Luciferi och Sworn to the Dark utan att totalt tappa fotfästet eller upprepa sig? Jag trodde inte att Watain hade så mycket mer att ge, men efter tjugo intensiva genomlyssningar är jag överbevisad och sitter här med kalsongerna på huvudet. Den entitet som är Watain tar nu black metal vidare på allvar.

Samtidigt är detta en återgång, flera steg tillbaka bortom det tidiga raseriet. En hyllning till de klassiska album som släpptes på åttiotalet där varje låt var något av det bästa som gjorts; mästerverken som för alltid kommer att finnas i våra själar. Känslan framträder tydligast i Kiss of Death, ett lapptäcke av tvära kast som bara växer och växer. Överlag dryper plattan av allsångsvänliga slagdängor (Quorthons ande är allestädes närvarande) som till en början må framstå som primitiva, men som är ruskigt effektiva. Du lär komma ihåg de här låtarna. Och här finns skivans styrka: det enkla vävs samman med det komplexa, och balansen däremellan är perfekt, vilket även kan sägas om produktionen. Tore Stjerna har överträffat sig själv i den anrika Necromorbus-studion. Skivan kunde inte ha låtit annorlunda.
Enkelheten återkommer även i texterna. Det är slagkraftig lyrik, men ganska långt ifrån de komplexa sjoken på de två första skivorna. Även här en återgång alltså, som egentligen började redan på Sworn to the Dark. Jag gissar på en vilja till makt, att hitta urkraftkällorna. Ibland slår det enkla hårdare än det svåra.

Att kalla detta ett mästerverk är dock omöjligt. Det återstår att se om tio år. Men ändå: Waters of Ain. Carl McCoy. Herrejävlar.
Fields of the Nephilim-sångaren medverkar blott med tjugosju ord i detta avslutande stycke, men stämningen – som redan är magisk – höjs ytterligare några snäpp när karln börjar mässa. Just Waters of Ain (jag antar att ordleken ”Wat” och ”Ain” är medveten) blir smältdegeln där allt som byggts upp under resans gång faller på plats. Epik i kubik, men enbart på ett självklart och upphöjande vis, aldrig patetiskt.
Varje spår är värt sin vikt i guld, men d-taktsröjet i Malfeitor och Total Funeral måste framhävas, liksom den mäktiga refrängen i Wolves Curse. Här finns så mycket att ta av att en viss yrsel infinner sig när reptilhjärnan försöker bearbeta materialet, och ändå är det så snyggt sammanhållet – och alltid omisskännligt Watain. Paketeringen, där den hittills relativt okände Zbigniew M. Bielak står för all konst, sluter cirkeln. Total perfektion.
Även om tio år lär jag bocka och buga inför Lawless Darkness. Kanske har jag även då kommit överens med albumtiteln...

Emot världen, emot livet

2010-06-14T22:18:00.000+02:00

Universum är bara en flyktig uppsättning elementarpartiklar. En övergångsform mot kaos. Som till sist kommer att segra. Det mänskliga släktet kommer att försvinna. Andra släkten kommer att uppstå, och försvinna i sin tur. Himlen kommer att vara iskall och tom, genomstrålad av det svaga ljuset från till hälften slocknade stjärnor. Som också de kommer att försvinna. Allt kommer att försvinna. Och mänskliga handlingar är lika fria och meningslösa som elementarpartiklarnas fria rörelser. Gott, ont, moral, känslor? Rena "viktorianska påfund". Endast egoismen finns. Kall, intakt och strålande.

Michel Houellebecq
H.P. Lovecraft – Emot världen, emot livet

The Letting of Blood – Blood Meridian Pt. 2

2010-05-30T18:24:00.003+02:00

In the days to come the frail black rebuses of blood in those sands would crack and break and drift away so that in the circuit of few suns all trace of the destruction of these people would be erased. The desert wind would salt their ruins and there would be nothing, nor ghost nor scribe, to tell to any pilgrim in his passing how it was that people had lived in this place and in this place died.

The nihilism in McCarthy's Blood Meridian is ever present, and it's not that shallow, quick nihilism you might be used to. This shit is deep. The above quote could be seen as a description of what became of the original owners of the American land. Total death. Read more about that here.

As the gang rides – like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but more of them – the world opens up showing its most grim and vile side. And in this world, the gang only live to kill, or rather: to kill before they are killed. McCarthy once said in an interview that he's not particularly interested in books that don't deal with issues of life and death. One commentary said: ”But his books are only about death, never about life”. I'd say it's quite the opposite. Or rather: life is death. As simple as that. And McCarthy is the master of storytelling it in a beautiful and haunting way.
His visions are morbid, yet so full of beauty. They tell us things of utmost importance, things about life and how we are. He encompasses the brutal and more base elements of human nature, skipping the newspaper politics altogether, and still manages to convey a message: There won't ever be a John Wayne type of character coming to the rescue. This is not the romantic West. This is the real deal, this is the brutal truth.

And the truth reads like the Old Testament, both in its biblical rhetoric and its doom-like message about the void, Satan (Judge Holden) and the slaughtering of innocence. This is pretty far from good versus evil – this is evil versus even more evil. And that's what the Old Testament and this world is all about, right? Right.

People speak of The Great American Novel. Well, thinking of how America is portayed in Blood Meridian, it sure is stunning and beautiful in its descriptions of the lawless West, but as for the people and the nihilism and misanthropy ruling the souls of the gang... Here is no peace. And in that sense, this is more like The Great Anti-American Novel.

That night they rode through a region electric and wild where strange shapes of soft blue fires ran over the metal of the horses’ trappings and the wagonwheels rolled in hoops of fire and little shapes of pale blue light came to perch in the ears of the horses and in the beards of the men. All night sheetlightning quaked sourceless to the west beyond the midnight thunderheads, making a bluish day of the distant desert, the mountains on the sudden skyline stark and black and livid like a land of some other order out there whose true geology was not stone but fear. The thunder moved up from the southwest and lightning lit the desert all about them, blue and barren, great clanging reaches ordered out of the absolute night like some demon kingdom summoned up or changeling land that come the day would leave them neither trace nor smoke nor ruin more than any troubling dream.

To be continued in part three...

The Evening Redness in the West - Blood Meridian Pt.1

2010-05-19T22:35:00.006+02:00

The Old West was scary as hell and Blood Meridian (1985) will break your spirit. Violence is just the beginning, and as Cormac McCarthy begins to paint these pictures with his words of death – a tree strewn with dead infants hung by their jaws – some people will probably stop reading. Too bad, because this is one of the best reads ever. 

The story is based on My Confession, the questionably authentic autobiography of Civil War Commander Samuel Chamberlain, which recounts his youth with the notorious Glanton Gang – a group of American mercenaries hired by the Mexican government to slaughter Native Americans.

And so it begins...

See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a last few wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. He lies in drink, he quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and watches him.  
Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The Dipper stove. The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off. The father never speaks her name, the child does not know it. He has a sister in this world that he will not see again. He watches, pale and unwashed. He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.

After finishing The Road back in 2006 (read my reflections here), I felt the need to read every word from this man's pen. Now, having read Blood Meridian twice, I must say it surpasses The Road on many levels, even though they are totally different. The main difference being the prose.  
The language in The Road is very sparse, almost stripped of everything, based on repetition, but still very powerful, perfectly reflecting the setting of the postapocalyptic world. It's a fairly easy read. Blood Meridian is dense as fuck, also based on repetition – the repeated violence – and is a much tougher read. There were some words in here that I couldn't even find in the dictionaries. Still, I enjoyed the prose immensely. Everything is this world is so ugly and brutal, but McCarthy describes this darkness in jaw-dropping fashion, so very beautiful. And in between all the emotionally disturbing violence is McCarthy's fantastic prose depicting the beauty of the desert landscape these killers travel in. The whole novel reads like one long descripive narrative, almost dreamlike.

They entered the city in a gauntlet of flung offal, driven like cattle through the cobbled streets with shouts going up behind for the soldiery who smiled as became them and nodded among the flowers and proffered cups, herding the tattered fortune-seekers through the plaza where the water splashed in a fountain and idlers reclined on carven seats of white porphyry and past the governor's palace and past the cathedral where vultures squatted along the dusty entablatures and among the niches in the carved facade hard by the figures of Christ and the apostles, the birds holding out their own dark vestments in postures of strange benevolence while about them flapped on the wind the dried scalps of slaughtered indians strung on cords, the long dull hair swinging like the filaments of certain seaforms and the dry hides clapping against the stones.

In this world where both life and objects are without value, where children, old ladies and dogs are slaughtered by Judge Holden and his gang, where Holden speaks in long rants about Indian vases and amazing discoveries, only to destroy them when finished – these passages of desert mystic calm are much welcomed. Because this is the end of mankind and this book answers the ultimate question: What is the meaning of life? To survive and to destroy those who don't want you to survive.

The judge smiled.

The characters in Blood Meridian represent true evil. The leader of the pack, Judge Holden, is a Kurtz-like philosopher who believes in war like others believe in God. His monologues are truth revealed.

The man who believes that the secrets of this world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate. [...]
It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be....
War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.

At one time in the book, one person chooses life over death. The kid gets a rare opportunity to kill the judge. The judge stands naked and unarmed in the desert before the kid, taunting the kid to take a shot. The kid is cheered by one of his companions: "You’ll get no second chance lad. Do it. He is naked. He is unarmed. God’s blood, do you think you’ll best him any other way? . . . Do it or I swear your life is forfeit."
This is when morality comes into play. The amoral core of Judge Holden's inhuman soul versus the human morality of the kid.

To be continued in part two...

I predict 2010 to be the year of the cowboys, the indians and the ceaseless violence.  
Red Dead Redemption!

RELATED POSTS

R.I.P. – Ronnie James Dio 1942-2010

2010-05-17T00:18:00.002+02:00

We'll know for the first time – if we're evil or divine
We're the last in line

Ronnie James Dio – the master voice and wonder of evil heavy metal – passed away on Sunday, May 16th, 2010.

I don't usually care that much when famous people pass away. Everybody dies. Ronnie was suffering from stomach cancer at the age of 67. It was just a question of time.
However, he was still the best heavy metal singer out there. His vocals were even better on stage than in the studio. To me, Dio is a true legend and his work has meant a lot to me. I believe the video for We Rock was the first song I ever heard from Dio (this very version), and that was back in 1984/85 on Swedish Television. I caught that on tape and it's by far the most watched video ever in my home. Thus, The Last In Line is my favourite album, and being the doom fan that I am, I believe that Egypt (The Chains Are On) was one of the first doom songs I ever encountered. The lyrics suit my mental state more now than ever, the atmosphere is pure magic and Dio's voice is – as always – superior.
Check out this amazing version where they incorporate Black Sabbath's Children of the Sea – another great doom masterpiece.

When the world was milk and honey
And the magic was strong and true
Then the strange ones came and the people knew

In the land of no tomorrow
Where you pray just to end each day
And your life just slowly melts away

Maybe one day you'll be just like me
And that's free
But still your chains are on

Look out! The sky is falling down!

The Israel Lobby: The Media

2010-05-01T17:07:00.001+02:00

There's this common old accusation that ”Jews control the media”. Not quite so. If they were, why would the Israel lobby work so hard to monitor and influence what the mainstream media says about Israel?  

However, by looking at mainstream media in the United States, it is clear that the lobby's perspective is widely reflected there since most American commentators who write about Israel are themselves pro-Israel. The U.S. mainstream media has no Robert Fisk, so to speak. Neither Time nor the Washington Post – arguably the two most influental daily newspapers in America – employs any full-time commentator who even remotely favors the Arab or Palestinian side, or is critical of Israel. As is written in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt: ”The point here is not that these individuals [Fisk et al] are always right and pro-Israel commentators are wrong; the point is that voices like theirs are almost entirely absent from major American newspapers.”

Fact is that whenever something is written about Israel that is not in favour of Israel (in the American mainstream, that is) the lobby organizes letter-writing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts against these news outlets. In 2006, CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in the Middle East Reporting in America), one of the lobby's most energetic media watchdog group, ran full-page advertisements in the New York Times and New York Sun criticizing Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. These ads included the publisher's phone number and encouraged readers to call and complain. Likewise, one CNN executive has said that he sometimes gets six thousand e-mail messages in a single day complaining that a story is anti-Israel. Many papers, such as the Chicago Tribune and the Miami Herald, have faced boycotts over their Middle East reporting. The former spokesman for the Israeli consulate in New York, Menachem Shalev, once put it, ”Of course, a lot of censorship goes on. Journalists, editors and politicians are going to think twice about criticizing Israel if they know they are going to get thousands of angry calls in a matter of hours. The Jewish lobby is good at orchestrating pressure.”  

Huge organizations keeping a watchful eye on anything anti-Israel, dominating the public discourse, is nothing new, and is naturally not only restricted to media. In the early 1980s, AIPAC recruited students to help identify professors and campus organizations that might be considered anti-Israel. The findings were published in 1984 in The AIPAC College Guide: Exposing the Anti-Israel Campaign on Campus. This is an ongoing project which still exists today. Campus Watch, a website which invites students to report anti-Israel behavior at U.S. colleges, is probably influenced by the AIPAC project. This site started off by publishing dossiers on suspect academics in an attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars. It's still up and running, loving the word ”conspiracy theory”...

Note that these aren't small organizations whose work go unnoticed. These are lobby groups with immense power. To be able to shut up the whole American mainstream media about controversial policies in Israel, you definitely need power. Management by fear.

RELATED POSTS

Great movies of the 80's: The Quiet Earth

2010-04-25T09:42:00.002+02:00

As for these "last man on Earth"-movies, The Quiet Earth (1985) must be one of the best yet. The first act, where scientist Zac Hobson wakes up in a world totally devoid of human life, is amazing. As Zac gradually finds out what's happened (the usual story of a science experiment gone wrong) we get to follow his transformation from man in a suite to man in a woman's dress... and beyond.
As he lets loose on a Kurtz-like journey in this empty world – trying to fill it with sense, but ends up with madness – we're reminded of the chains that hold us down in everyday life. Because what would you do if you were all alone in this world? Keep on enduring the daily grind or explore life further? The scene where Zac talks to God and fires a round of ammo into the face of Christ says it all.

The film sort of loses its magic midway through, but still keeps a very good 80's kind of pace until the end. If you're into 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Moon (2009), this is something in between. A must see.

Previous posts in the Great movies of the 80's series:
Threads
A Short Film About Killing
Manhunter

Genocide Awareness Pt.2

2010-04-10T19:13:00.001+02:00

We all know about ”the six million Jews” figure, we hear about that everyday (you hardly have to be a news junkie to catch that). The Holocaust certainly was unique. But so was the extermination of possibly as many as sixty million Africans during the African slave trade, and so was the near-total extermination of one hundred million American Indians. You don't hear about that quite as often.
As for American Indians, this was about the total extermination of entire cultural, social, religious, and ethnic groups. When speaking of the Holocaust, we make fine distinctions among the different populations of Europe, but lump ”Africans” and ”Indians” into one single category. Maybe this is one reason why these genocides – which are far worse in terms of sheer numbers of people killed – are being ignored? And of course, the uniqueness of the Jewish people (the People's Front of Judea!), Jews as the chosen people, makes the Holocaust so much more special and important. This is where the Holocaust religion comes marching in.

If you're interested in the boundary between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, Defamation ought to be a movie worthy of your interest. It is directed by Yoav Shamir, an Israeli Jew, who also made the amazing Checkpoint documentary.
Shamir is interested in non-violence based on game theory. In game theory [quoted from an IMDB review], "the 'Prisoner's Dilemma' states that the only concern of each individual player (or 'prisoner') is to try to maximize his own advantage, without any concern for the well-being of the other players. Both players will be tempted to harm the other player even though they would both ultimately benefit more by cooperation".
This pretty much describes the situation in Israel.

Related posts:
Genocide Awareness Pt.1
An introductory video (featuring additional links to previous posts of interest)
The Israel Lobby - What it is
The Cash
The Israel Lobby 2009
The Israel Lobby 2009 - Part Two

Watch the introduction of Defamation here.

Watch the introduction of Checkpoint here.

David Ellis & Blu: COMBO

2010-04-06T20:06:00.000+02:00

SRM Reviews (#70 April 2010)

2010-04-01T13:09:00.005+02:00

Published in Sweden Rock Magazine #70 April 2010.

1349
Demonoir – 5/10
Indie (Sound Pollution)

Knappt tio månader efter formexperimentet Revelations of the Black Flame (se recension i #62) är 1349 tillbaka med ett verk som blandar det experimentella med det traditionella. Vartannat stycke är mullrande oljudsmörker à la intro och vartannat pisksnabb black metal. Imponerande frenesi överlag, men knappast minnesvärt. Intron fyller sällan någon funktion och att här få sju sådana och sex vanliga låtar känns bara störande. Jag funderar även på om effekten av att lägga sången så frånskilt från övrigt material tillhör det experimentella. Det låter märkligt emellanåt.
Jämfört med debuten Liberation (2003) och sylvassa låtar som Manifest och Riders of the Apocalypse står detta sig jämmerligt slätt, vilket är synd på ett så kompetent band. Jag skulle uppskatta om de hittade tillbaka till de mästerliga styckena och det råa ljudet.

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Opeth
Blackwater Park – Legacy Edition – 9/10
Legacy/Sony

”Idiot. Sluta läsa omedelbart och spring iväg och tjacka vad som förmodligen redan nu är årets bästa album alla kategorier!” Så löd min fullständiga recension av Blackwater Park i Close-Up #44 för tio år sedan. Ett drygt decennium dessförinnan satt Mikael Åkerfeldt ute i Sörskogen och plinkade på det som sedermera skulle mynna ut i Opeth. 20 jävla år sedan...
Vi som avgudar bandet har våra favoritskivor. För mig är det Still Life (1999) som smäller högst, medan Ghost Reveries (2005) fortfarande är en besvikelse. Men betänk då att när Opeth är som sämst är de ändå bäst. Med Blackwater Park hittade gruppen hem på allvar. Ljudbilden klarnade, nyanserna fick större spelrum och gruppen kändes mer samspelt. Den inledande raden ”We entered winter once again” är för mig lika klassisk som när Churchill inleder Live After Death. Det säger en del om hur högt jag håller detta band.
Tio år senare kan jag ana en svacka i mitten av albumet, kring The Drapery Falls och Dirge for November, där arrangemangen inte är lika intrikata utan snarare mal på likt mörka mantran. Här känns opeth svagare och lätt apatiska.
Att många band har inspirerats av just Blackwater Park torde vara odiskutabelt. Lyssna exempelvis på Deathspell Omega och Hétoïmasia. Mästerverk inspirerar andra mästerverk. Så har det alltid varit inom konsten och Opeth är tveklöst konst för mig.
Den medföljande dvd:n är egentligen inte mycket att orda om. 35 minuters runkande i Studio Fredman, ungefär som en utdragen version av Harvest-videon. Ultratönten Steven Wilson kedjekäkar ostbågar och Moonchild-stölden avslöjas. Vi musikdokumentärnördar fröjdas ändå.
Att albumet denna gång även bjuder på en 5.1-mix bör få alla audiofiler att knäböja. Omslagsfetischisterna får sig ett nytt omslag. Själv lär jag aldrig sluta dyrka oavsett vilken mix eller vilket omslag som erbjuds.

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Triptykon
Eparistera Daimones – 8/10
Century Media (EMI)

Svanesången Monotheist (2006) var inget annat än monumental mysticism. Celtic Frost lämnade tveklöst scenen med flaggan i topp och de traditionalistiska skeptikerna med en kasse sura äpplen att bita i. Tom G. Warrior har dock mer att uträtta på denna gudsförgätna helvetesjord innan Satan sätter punkt. Efter att i årtionden ha stirrat djupt ner i avgrunden stirrar nu avgrunden tillbaka.
Triptykon och Eparistera Daimones är en så mörk och tung upplevelse att svart är en alldeles för blek färg att likna det hela vid. När inledande Goetia efter elva minuters briljans avslutas med ett mässande ”Lie upon lie/Mankind shall die” vet jag att detta är rätt. Efterföljande Abyss Within My Soul är krossande doomtyngd personifierad. In Shrouds Decayed lyser upp det kompakta mörkret för en stund. Men bara för en stund. Mörkret sluter sig.
Gitarrljudet är så tungt och förvridet att det emellanåt gränsar till rent oljudsmuller (lyssna på nittonminuterseposet The Prolonging). Men riffen finns där, om än djupt begravda i den gåtfulla myllan. Och det finns mycket mer att hämta. När halva skivan avverkats börjar man skönja spår av Tiamat, Fields of the Nephilim och kanske även Nine Inch Nails och Opeth. Det ålderdomligt ockulta blandas med det modernt metalliska och skivan växer för varje omgång.
Det är sannerligen ingen enkel platta att ta till sig. Även den intresserade uppmanas att lyssna extra noggrant, om och om igen. Till en början tyckte jag att helheten var aningen seg, men efter tredje varvet lossnade det. Nu dyrkas det här hemma i kistan.
Att H.R. Giger återvänder som omslagskonstnär – hans Satan I prydde Celtic Frosts To Mega Therion 1985 – får ses som en njutfull bonus. Vinylutgåvan är således ett absolut måste.
Triptykon lirar på årets Roadburnfestival om några veckor och jag ser verkligen fram emot en överdos av smutsig, svart monumentalism. UNH!

Earth Hour

2010-03-28T11:57:00.002+02:00

Earth Hour makes me sick. It's straight up hypocrisy, the masses being orchestrated by the media to turn out the lights for one hour once a year. Wow. Big deal. Everybody at the same time: We did it! We love life!
Earth Hour does practically nothing but speaks to our bad conscience.

Also, Earth Hour always starts at an hour where all big businesses are shut down. Instead of the big businesses taking responsibility for the destruction of the Earth and shutting down in the middle of the day, the joke's on us: Turn out the lights on your free time, please, and welcome back to work tomorrow. Work, eat, consume, sleep.

Usually, I'm all for small actions leading to big change, but this, as well as the International Women's Day and such manifestations, is like spitting in the face of real change. One hour, or one day, and then it's all back to normal, i.e. the mindless egotistic destruction we always occupy our time with.
Mankind will never learn.

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Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
But then how did that other “gloomy business,” the consciousness of guilt, the whole “bad conscience” come into the world?—And with this we turn back to our genealogists of morality. I’ll say it once more—or have I not said anything about it yet?—they are useless. With their own merely “modern” experience extending through only a brief period [fünf Spannen lange], with no knowledge of and no desire to know the past, even less a historical instinct, a “second sight”— something necessary at this very point—they nonetheless pursue the history of morality. That must justifiably produce results which have a less than tenuous relationship to the truth. Have these genealogists of morality up to now allowed themselves to dream, even remotely, that, for instance, that major moral principle “guilt” [Schuld] derived its origin from the very materialistic idea “debt” [Schulden]? Or that punishment developed as a repayment, completely without reference to any assumption about freedom or lack of freedom of the will?—and did so, by contrast, to the point where it always first required a high degree of human development so that the animal “man” began to make those much more primitive distinctions between “intentional,” “negligent,” “accidental,” “responsible,” and their opposites and bring them to bear when meting out punishment? That idea, nowadays so trite, apparently so natural, so unavoidable, which has even had to serve as the explanation how the feeling of justice in general came into existence on earth, “The criminal deserves punishment because he could have acted otherwise,” this idea is, in fact, an extremely late achievement, indeed, a sophisticated form of human judgment and decision making. Anyone who moves this idea back to the beginnings is sticking his coarse fingers inappropriately into the psychology of older humanity. For the most extensive period of human history, punishment was certainly not meted out because people held the instigator of evil responsible for his actions, and thus it was not assumed that only the guilty party should be punished:—it was much more as it still is now when parents punish their children out of anger over some harm they have suffered, anger vented on the perpetrator—but anger restrained and modified through the idea that every injury has some equivalent and that compensation for it could, in fact, be paid out, even if that is through the pain of the perpetrator. Where did this primitive, deeply rooted, and perhaps by now ineradicable idea derive its power, the idea of an equivalence between punishment and pain? I have already given away the answer: in the contractual relationship between creditor and debtor, which is, in general, as ancient as the idea of “legal subject” and which, for its part, refers back to the basic forms of buying, selling, bartering, trading, and exchanging goods.

The best albums of 2009

2010-03-24T16:56:00.006+01:00

Better late than never. Just when I was about to do this post my CP crashed and everything was lost – until now. Like I said earlier, I haven't been quite up to par with what's been happening musicwise in 2009, so most of this stuff is what I've encountered as a freelance writer for Sweden Rock Magazine.
Anyhow, hopefully you'll find some interesting music when browsing through the list. I'd say that's the sole purpose of all kinds of lists; to interact and discover stuff of personal value.

I haven't got the time to write about all albums, so I'll just write them down in no particular order. One of these albums caught my attention at a very late stage, though, and judging by how many times I've listened to it already, I'd say this is the album of 2009:
Ormar i gräset, Roffe Ruff. Usually, I hate Swedish hiphop, but this is no joke.

To me, hiphop died a long time ago. Last time I heard a solid rap album was back in 2001 (Smut Peddlers Porn Again and Cannibal Ox The Cold Vein. I might add The Ownerz by Gang Starr, but it's not rock solid). Swedish rap was dead before it was even born (some exceptions, like Looptroop, early Brigade, early Infinite Mass, MBMA, Chords, The Latin Kings, Mics of Fury...). That's why I'm so amazed by the grim flow, the beats, the lyrics, the artwork, the image, the secrecy, the humour, the depth, the seriousness and awareness of real hiphop and real issues on this album. Roffe Ruff is the shit. And his music is for free. The album is available here for your pleasure. A new one is about to be released two days from now. I'd be damned if it's as good as Ormar i gräset. Also, Raekwon released Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II, which was a total killer. Maybe hiphop is back on track?

With that said, let's get on with the program.
Click on the band name for MySpace links.

RAP

Roffe Ruff – Ormar i gräset [DOWNLOAD]
Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II
O.C. & A.G. – Oasis
Blaq Poet – Tha Blaqprint
DOOM – Born Like This

MISCELLANEOUS

Dinosaur Jr – Farm
Dragontears – Tambourine Freak Machine
First Band From Outer Space – The Guitar is Mightier Than the Gun
Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
Master Musicians of Bukkake – Totem One
Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Om – God is Good
Abramis Brama – Smakar söndag
Horisont – Två sidor av horisonten

METAL/PUNK

Funeral Mist – Maranatha
Griftegård – Solemn-Sacred-Severe
Teitanblood – Seven Chalices
Switch Opens – Switch Opens
Beherit – Engram
Portal – Swarth
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
Master’s Hammer – Mantras
Unanimated – In the Light of Darkness
Katharsis – Fourth Reich
Obliteration – Nekropsalms
Die Hard – Nihilistic Vision
Myrkr – Black Illumination
Slough Feg – Ape Uprising!
Switchblade – S/T
Kongh – Shadows of the Shapeless
Count Raven – Mammons War
Ocean Chief – Den förste
Archgoat – The Light Devouring Darkness
Ahab – The Divinity of Oceans
Cobalt – Gin
Bestial Holocaust – Temple of Damnation
Nefandus – Death Holy Death
Abandon – The Dead End
Arckanum – þþþþþþþþþþþ
Candlemass – Death Magic Doom
The Gates of Slumber – Hymns of Blood & Thunder
Necrophobic – Death to All
Tormented – Rotten Death
Nödvärn – Slutstationen
Anal Vomit – Gathering of the Putrid Demons
Tribulation – The Horror
Pyramido – Sand
Katatonia – Night is the New Day

People said 2009 was a bad year for good records. That's 48 albums right there.
What did I forget?

Tape art

2010-03-21T23:12:00.002+01:00

iri5 on Flickr

How can it feel this wrong?

2010-03-13T11:27:00.001+01:00

Till Maria

Oh, can't anybody see,
We've got a war to fight,
Never found our way,
Regardless of what they say.

How can it feel, this wrong,
From this moment,
How can it feel, this wrong.

Storm,
In the morning light,
I feel,
No more can I say,
Frozen to myself.

I got nobody on my side,
And surely that ain't right,
Surely that ain't right.

A Necrologue for the Elite

2010-03-08T21:33:00.002+01:00

Many are governed by few. People are born free but are everywhere in chains. The power of the sword is the founder of all governments. Governors rule by force, not opinion. Society must be protected from unwanted truths, since the common person follows not reason, but faith. It is a fundamental human need – and hence a fundamental human right – to inquire and create, free of external force.

As we have seen over the past couple of years, with the FRA, IPRED, HADOPI etc. gone haywire, control of thought is far more important in free countries than it is in military states. A military state can control and submit its domestic enemy by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs. The public must be reduced to observers, not participants.
One of the most important tasks for the elite in a democratic society, a free society, is to govern and manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses. Population control is necessary to keep the public marginalized in the public arena. After work (work is, for the most of us, where we are turned into instruments for other ends, rather than acting as human beings fulfilling our inner needs), each person should be alone in front of the TV watching soap operas and “reality” shows, in order not to be able to think about what they believe in, not to formulate their own concerns and programs and not act to realize them.
Eduardo Galeano writes that ”the majority must resign itself to the consumption of fantasy. Illusions of wealth are sold to the poor, illusions of freedom to the oppressed, dreams of victory to the defeated and of power to the weak.”
These are the central themes of modern political culture.

The condition of revolt exists in women towards men, in oppressed nations towards their oppressors, and above all in labour towards capital.
Bertrand Russell

Graffiti: Peeta - The 3D Master

2010-02-26T21:21:00.000+01:00

PEETA

Click images to enlarge

My soda is flat

2010-02-23T19:20:00.002+01:00

Professor Mugabe brought this one to the table.
Click image to enlarge.

The best albums of 2009 - A preview

2010-02-16T22:01:00.002+01:00

I've received a great deal of emails and comments asking about my favourite music in 2009. Truth is, I haven't been quite up to par with what's been happening. Life sort of got in the way and fucked things up. However, I'm working on a short list of stuff that I'll share with you soon, hopefully. Until then, here are my top ten metal albums as listed in Sweden Rock Magazine.

01. Funeral Mist - Maranatha
02. Griftegård - Solemn-Sacred-Severe
03. Teitanblood - Seven Chalices
04. Switch Opens - Switch Opens
05. Beherit - Engram
06. Portal - Swarth
07. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
08. Master’s Hammer - Mantras
09. Om - God is Good
10. Unanimated - In the Light of Darkness

The Clash of Civilizations - Part Three

2010-02-07T13:13:00.005+01:00

In the wake of the Overshoot and overpopulation posts, it's time to return to Samuel P. Huntington and The Clash of Civilizations and check out what he said and what is happening in the world.
Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Wow, I wrote that two years ago... Time flies like a m-f.

A brief summary of Part 1 and 2:

The conflicts of the post-Cold War era will arise not from ideological or economic differences but from cultural divisions (old battles rooted in old cultures). Huntington fears that the fading West will clash with the challenging Islam, but – as I see it – he fails to see the difference between Islam and radical Islam, and thus fears the conflict between Islam and the West (Christianity) for the very wrong reasons, since radical Islam does not represent the Islamic civilization.

During the 1970s and 1980s over thirty countries shifted from authoritarian to democratic political systems. In these countries, Christian and Western influences were very strong. Along with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States smelled victory and belief in that a global democratic revolution was underway, and that the Western form of political democracy would prevail, and that the United States thus could expand their trade and power. America needs that in the quest for oil. However, we all know that Western democracy differs quite a lot from, say, Islamic democracy. Read more about that here.
Hence almost all non-Western civilizations are resistant to this pressure from the West. Japan, for example, distanced itself from American human rights policies: ”We will not let 'abstract notions of human rights' affect our relations with China.”
The growing economic strenght of Asian countries makes them immune to this Western pressure. Richard Nixon observed in 1994: ”Today China's economic power makes U.S. lectures about human rights imprudent. Within a decade it will make them irrelevant. Within two decades it will make them laughable.” Just look at the China VS USA conflict going on at this very minute...
If democracy will come to these countries it is because the increasingly strong bourgeoisies and middle classes want it to come – not because the United States say so in the name of ”human rights imperialism”. It is clear that the United States' democratic processes in non-Western societies produce governments who are unfriendly to the West, and the world is now as Arab, Asian, and African, as it is Western.

If demography is destiny, population movements are the motor of history. [...] In some instances these movements were relatively peaceful, in others quite violent. Nineteenthcentury Europeans were, however, the master race at demographic invasion. Between 1821 and 1924, approximately 55 million Europeans migrated overseas, 34 million of them to the United States. Westerners conquered and at times obliterated people, explored and settled less densely populated lands. The export of people was perhaps the single most important dimension of the rise of the West between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.

However, migration is different today. Decolonization and the establishment of new states encouraged (or forced) people to move. Also, technological development and modernization, such as transportation improvements, has made migration cheaper, quicker and easier, as has improvements in communication. Back then, immigrants and refugees moved within non-Western societies. This balance has changed overtime, and now most of ”the new immigrants” come from non-Western societies and move into Western societies. This, of course, stirs up feelings of phobia, worries about national identity and thoughts of demographic decline. The European concern about immigration seems to be concern especially about Muslim immigration. Huntington writes: ”In Western Europe, anti-Semitism directed against Arabs has largely replaced anti-Semitism directed against Jews.”
Again, people concerned about Muslims cannot seem to fathom the enormous gap that exists between Islam and radical Islam. Read my article Juan Cole: Engaging the Muslim world for a brief discussion about this problem.

However, population growth rates in North African and Middle Eastern societies have already peaked and began to decline, so the threat to Europe of ”Islamization” is likely to decline as well. Instead, Huntington predicted ”Africanization” in Europe, lest not AIDS or other plagues wipes out the Africans first... People are dying off like flies and have been doing so since 1985, pretty much without the West lifting a finger.

Speaking of Africa, Nigeria is experiencing the clash of civilizations right now. The country is divided into the Islamic north and the Christian south, and almost nowhere else in the world does the rivalry between religions result in bloody conflict quite so often. Nigeria has a population of about 150 million, and its 400 ethnic groups speak more than 400 languages. Half the population prays to Allah, the other half prays to God. The clashes have claimed at least 10,000 dead.
When the would-be Detroit bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also known as the underwear bomber (!), was identified as a Nigerian Muslim, violence erupted again. Christians wrote on various Internet forums about the Hausa-Fulani, the country's largest Muslim ethnic group to which Abdulmutallab traces his origins: ”They are not part of us. They are bastards, mixed with Arab blood to terrorize the world. They do not like education. They hate civilization and I wonder why they still exist as part of the human race.”
Clashes in the city of Bauchi last Monday, instigated by an Islamic sect, claimed 38 lives.

Related posts:
Belief and bloodshed: The Religion of Genocide
Islam and conflicting ideas
Juan Cole: Engaging the Muslim world
The Clash of Civilizations - Part One
The Clash of Civilizations - Part Two
Overshoot and overpopulation

SRM Reviews (#68 January 2010)

2010-02-01T09:03:00.001+01:00

Published in Sweden Rock Magazine #68 January 2010.

Krallice

Dimensional Bleedthrough - 3/10
Profound Lore (Sound Pollution)

Resultatet av min högst subjektiva forskning i ämnet amerikansk black metal vittnar om att det sällan handlar om black metal annat än som etikett. Så även här.
De här grabbarna kan lira och vill visa det. Långa, nästintill instrumentala tremolosjok i intrikata arrangemang är vad som bjuds, och trots all aktivitet känns det sorgligt tomt och energifattigt. Något mörker finns inte alls. Snarare handlar det om ett segdraget postrocknötande som leder ut i intet, varför du som inte gillar black metal kanske gillar det här.
Men ska du prompt lyssna på avantgarde metal rekommenderas hellre skivbolagskamraterna Cobalt och förra årets intressanta skapelse Gin. Där finns helheten. Hos Krallice finns bara musikskoletomheten.

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Obliteration

Nekropsalms - 8/10

Fysisk Format (Sound Pollution)

Ugh! Det här är bra skit. Här ryms det mesta: riffglädje blandas med mörker, Autopsy-tyngd och träsk med zombierens. Materialet är genomarbetat till max och rymmer så mycket coola detaljer och vansinne att jag baxnar. Man kan lyssna så, eller bara ryckas med i norrmännens smått psykedeliska death metal och röja hjärnan ur skallen. Det fungerar minst lika bra.
Produktionen är ny och fräsch, men ändå organisk. En skitigare ljudbild - som jag vanligtvis föredrar - hade begravt det mystiska skimret. Obliteration tar det bästa från det gamla och gör något nytt inom dödsgenren - och det är svinbra! Jag tror knappt mina überkritiska öron.
Avslutande niominutersverket The Worm that Gnaws in the Night är framtiden. Döden.

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Valkyrja

Contamination - 6/10

Metal Blade (Border)

Med Contamination levererar stockholmska Valkyrja ett styrkebesked. Det som tidigare har befunnit sig i embryostadiet har nu börjat utvecklas till något större. Något att räkna med.
Utmärkande för albumet är ett drivande trumspel i kombination med en bred Necromorbusproduktion, samt förmågan att skapa atmosfär utan att det blir plastigt. Lägg därtill en skönt sliten röst som varken tar över eller försvinner i ljudbilden.
Här finns några få gemensamma ljud- och strukturmässiga nämnare med senare Watain, men när Watain håller samman sin skapelse med fanatisk viljekraft så framstår Valkyrjas material som mer svävande. Här finns inga tydliga markörer. Allt flyter samman. Och det kanske är där som bandet anser sig ha sin styrka? Att gruppen befinner sig på en hög nivå är det nämligen inget snack om.
Ändå saknar jag något definitivt att ta fasta på. Något man kan hänga sig till.