Tweets Graeme Wood, linking to his Atlantic article, "The Pinnacle of Looting Apologia/If the real, lasting change you wish to effect is burning society to cinders, then perhaps looting is the right tool."
From the article:
The destruction of businesses is an “experience of pleasure, joy, and freedom,” Osterweil writes. It is also a form of “queer birth.” “Riots are violent, extreme, and femme as fuck,” according to [the author Vicky] Osterweil. “They rip, tear, burn, and destroy to give birth to a new world.” She reserves her most pungent criticism for advocates of nonviolence, a “bankrupt concept” primarily valuable for enlisting “northern liberals.” Liberal is pejorative in this book....I don't agree that it's "easier to abide" violence aimed at a more specific group, but Wood is trying to reach Atlantic readers, and I think he's trying to shake them up with the warning that being a nice liberal is not going to save you from the form of violence that is bubbling up in America today.
Her conviction that her opponents deserve violence would be easier to abide if it were not obvious that nearly everyone counts as an opponent. Up against the wall are members of the media; “liberal commentators, de-escalators, nonprofiteers, right-wing trolls, vigilantes, and, of course, the police”; clergy who physically intercede between cops and protesters; and Nation of Islam members whose crime was to “broker a peace between gang leaders” and “chase looters” from neighborhood stores....
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168 comments:
Shades of Franz Fanon, author of what Alan Bloom, in a discussion's of Fanon's oeuvre and the thinking that produced it, characterized as "a barbarous rhetoric."
When these looters, rioters, what have you, start getting shot in large numbers, they're going to pretend that they don't know why.
They'll know why.
A stupid sociopath writes an apologia for nihilists with no purpose or productive goals.
This is the enemy. Take note, and prepare and act accordingly.
The Far Left is winning its war against The Left.
All that stuff sounds like the unwritten constitution of most of the banana republics of sub-Saharan Africa. Look how well it works out for them...
So, no issues if I download a .pdf of this book and distribute it widely... a reasonable profit for me? I mean, property is evil, right?
I think he's trying to shake them up with the warning that being a nice liberal is not going to save you from the form of violence that is bubbling up in America today
Atlantic readers will vote for it anyways!
Why are you posting all this parody as real? When someone advocates for violence or war, they imagine it only goes one way. They imagine they are the one's inflicting others who deserve it. People fight back.
I had assumed this book was available for free. She could really drive home her point that way. No such luck. 21 bucks on Amazon. Talk about looting
Those who claim defending property isn't justification for shooting someone are on the looters side
American conservativism is not inclusive of diversity dogma. Neither the national charter nor the organizational document tolerate, let alone normalize, racism, sexism, and other low-information, class-based taxonomies. The original compromise was tolerated for the sake of a community to remain viable in the course of present and progressive foreign, domestic, and indigenous threats.
Libertarian is self-organizing. Liberal is divergent. Progressive is monotonic. Conservative is moderating. Principles matter.
"being a nice liberal is not going to save you from the form of violence that is bubbling up in America today"
Right. The left hates nice liberals most.
But all of the pro-violence left misunderestimates the will and ability of the rest of us to fight back.
In particular, violent woke opponents of white supremacy don't fully grasp what an effort by whites, once stirred into action, to prevail over others would look like.
Good news for the Vikings, Vandals, Huns, Mongols, Goths, and all of history's other great plunderers and pillagers: it turns out that violence and pillaging are good and just because the whole concept of "property" is evil. So really when you destroy, rape, and burn the world what you're really doing good and pure.
These people need to empty their medicine cabinets........
"Vicky" Osterweil is yet another mentally ill, psychologically damaged transgender who combines not the best aspects of males and females, but the worst - unlimited aggressivenes + emotional fragility. These are not like the classic transsexuals we used to see in the medical world.
Vicky Osterweil needs some practical lessons in violence.
Lesson One: Vicky's face makes high-speed contact with 2x4, quotiens necesse.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/surprise-surprise-vicky-osterweil-author-of-in-defense-of-looting-used-to-be-willie-osterweil/
that "ripping, tearing, burning, and destroying to "give birth"?
...that "queer birth" = an abortion
sow to the wind, give 'queer birth' to the whirlwind
destruction of businesses is an “experience of pleasure, joy, and freedom
"The fleeting pleasures of Sin"
"The wages of Sin is Death"
A "read the whole thing" article that reminds me of the days when the Atlantic was such a terrific read month after month. Wood does a masterful job of calling the author to task.
I still miss that Atlantic. I miss my youth more. Both will never return.
I don’t think they understand what’s occurring in non liberal areas. I live in Racine county Wisconsin just north of Kenosha. We are armed heavily. There’s a huge subset of people convinced the left is fomenting a civil war. All the ammo on the shelves is gone. People are training and perfecting their shooting skills. We are all praying the violence ends but 50 percent of the population is ready for a fight. The people On the left will believe that violence is a good thing up until the moment it comes to them directly
"White supremacist cisheteropatriarchy"? I'm sure he left something out of there.
We have to stop this fawning over clearly sick people, people who have been damaged in their lives (often by the schools they pay $60k-$90k per year to attend).
We have raised Jacob Black and George Floyd to the status of saints or people to be praised. We have people actually discussing the important of intellectual sludge poured out by such Aristotelean thinkers as Robin DiAngelo and Vicky Osterweil. The Left- and you have to include the major media in this- is intellectually bankrupt. They are throwing shit up against a wall to see what sticks. The weird thing is that most of it does stick for those on the Left- Academia, Media, Democrats.
It's as if the pod people moved in and took over the minds and bodies of half the country. They are lost. Not sure if any of them are redeemable. What do we do with all of that sludge?
I'm giving the side-eye to cisheteropatriarchy. Mostly because I'm curious about the difference between patriarchy that is cishetero, and patriarchy that is not cishetero.
Sometimes authors vomit up words that a good Editor should purge, because they invite the thought I had, and that will certainly dull his (I'm assuming that's the right pronoun) argument. Is there a patriarchy worth talking about that is driven by Gays? By Trans?
For Marxists, Ann, the end has always justified the means.
Have you not been paying attention?
Surprise, Surprise! Vicky Osterweil, Author of In Defense of Looting, Used to be Willie Osterweil
It's little Willie time!
cisheteropatriarchy
Supercalifragilisticxbeallidoucious!! A few more syllables, and we'd have a Mary Poppin's,
At first glance the video below seems to be about a different subject, and it starts off that way, and then it drifts into the subject of violence, and there is a remarkable video collage buried in there of different people, including a number of Democratic politicians, arguing for violence.
Logan Couture apologizes after tweeting that he would vote Republican
Maybe the author would learn some life lessons if some up-close-and-personal looting was done of her/his stuff.
“cisheteropatriarchy” - please diagram that sentence
"We have raised Jacob Black and George Floyd to the status of saints or people to be praised."
No, they are simply recent illustrative victims of unchecked state power, something I thought you stalwart resenters of government opposed. Similar, less recent such victims of unchecked state power you might hold greater sympathies for are Randy Weaver and David Koresh.
The destruction of businesses is an “experience of pleasure, joy, and freedom,” Osterweil writes. It is also a form of “queer birth.”
Keep in mind that the authorette of this nonsense has a severe mental illness.
If Pelosi has her way, she will hog tie anyone attempting to fight these psychotic leftwing nazis.
Pelosi stands shoulder to shoulder with psychotic leftwing nazis.
Or you could have read these comments on Althouse.
A.
Decade.
Ago.
Conservatives have been warning the left that they are the first ones against the wall and that we will not go easily.
We warned you the Leftist Collectivists only care about power.
And a little murder to achieve that power is always excused by the Leftist Collectivists.
Maybe too late now.
Robert Cook said...
A stupid sociopath writes an apologia for nihilists with no purpose or productive goals.
I appreciate honest, old fashioned lefties who have not drunk from the cup of postmodernism.
The bartender should have cut off Ms. Osterweil quite a while back. Her brain is addled with nonsense that she believes to be astute observations.
LOL @ "violence is femme as fuck."
Timothy McVeigh (who was also "protesting" horrific law enforcement killings) was actually the ultimate women.
Richard Epstein says that structural racism charges are shit, as mildly as possible. The evidence is the opposite. Essay today.
Wood is no better in his own thinking: "Her conviction that her opponents deserve violence would be easier to abide if it were not obvious that nearly everyone counts as an opponent." In other words, he'd be fine with violence as long as it's limited to people whom *he* doesn't like. His problem with the book is simply that the target list also includes people whom he considers political allies.
Her conviction that her opponents deserve violence would be easier to abide if it were not obvious that nearly everyone counts as an opponent.
Translation: Her conviction that her opponents deserve violence would be easier to abide if it were not obvious that me and my friends count as opponents.
Biden is giving a presser as I post. Questions selected in advance from hand picked journalist.
This really seems an effort to garner 15 minutes of fame, rather than a coherent argument. I'd guess Osterweil has some personal issues to work out.
This is where I have to give Abbie Hoffman props.
I really like that give birth to a new world concept. I guess I could be considered an 'abortionist' in such a birth. They really won't like it when the right decides to adopt the left's rules, which is coming closer and closer. They are clueless of the dictum of 'beware the patient man' concept, it'll quickly move to Mencken and 'get it good and hard'. How long will a major city last with the highways closed by right leaning protestors? What if the truckers say suck it NYC, we're not delivering and nothing is open anyway. How hard to deal with train tracks, hint: just a spanner and removing a line of side plates. They literally are mentally immune to understanding what keeps their city's functional, and what comes next if they keep pushing and moving out of the city centers. I've heard from local folks, unsolicited, about how over the shoulder glancing they are getting, and what they're wives are fearing. We've 3 young families on our street, they are not complacent and have become non-compliant.
Are we allowed to loot this person's house?
"The concept of 'property' is illegitimate... Loot and take up arms to fix the problem."
It's wrong for somebody else to have stuff so you fix things by looting that stuff for your own?
I guess it makes sense if you're an idiot.
I don't agree that it's "easier to abide" violence aimed at a more specific group, but Wood is trying to reach Atlantic readers, and I think he's trying to shake them up with the warning that being a nice liberal is not going to save you from the form of violence that is bubbling up in America today. [emphasis added]
Wow. Things must be getting really edgy in Madison.
Dix asks:
I had assumed this book was available for free. She could really drive home her point that way. No such luck. 21 bucks on Amazon. Talk about looting
Cockburn Loots Book
I still miss that Atlantic. I miss my youth more. Both will never return.
Most of the more honorable and decent institutions of our youths have been irreparably deranged over the decades though years of systemic corruption. There's plenty of alternative outlets but there no longer is a single source that I would trust implicitly without corroboration. In the modern era you have to put in work to suss out the truth.
How is that nice boy Ben Winkler doing Ann?
Is he nicely supporting BLM and Antifa?
He is such a nice boy.
"We have raised Jacob Black"
His name is Jacob Blake, but don't worry the Kenosha paper put this line in one of their stories:
"Family members say black is paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the shooting."
Still not fixed. Hilarious.
Hum, so ownership is evil? Some "people" should liberate all the authors possessions then and distribute them to others that don't have property. Of course then they will have property that needs to be liberated.
Crazy as fucking loons.
Hey loons, come and loot my stuff.
I've got 40-caliber nuggets of truth that guarantee you won't find an "experience of pleasure, joy, and freedom..."
A little Brigham Young seems appropriate:
"I frequently think of the difference between the power of God and the power of the Devil. To illustrate, here is a structure in which we can be seated comfortably, protected from the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Now, it required labor, mechanical skill and ingenuity and faithfulness and diligence to erect this building, but any poor, miserable fool or devil can set fire to it and destroy it. That is just what the Devil can do, but he never can build anything. The difference between God and the Devil is that God creates and organizes, while the whole study of the Devil is to destroy."
And a few more:
"The Devil delights in the work of destruction -- to burn and lay waste and destroy the whole earth. He delights to convulse and throw into confusion the affairs of men, politically, religiously and morally, introducing war with its long train of dreadful consequences. It is evil which cause[s] all these miseries and all deformity to come upon the inhabitants of the earth. But that which is of God is pure, lovely, holy and full of all excellency and truth, no matter where it is found, in hell, in heaven, upon the earth, or in the planets. 11:240.
"The adversary presents his principles and arguments in the most approved style, and in the most winning tone, attended with the most graceful attitudes; and he is very careful to ingratiate himself into the favor of the powerful and influential of mankind, uniting himself with popular parties, floating into offices of trust and emolument by pandering to popular feeling, though it should seriously wrong and oppress the innocent. 11:238."
"Show me one principle that has originated by the power of the Devil. You cannot do it. I call evil inverted good, or a correct principle made an evil use of. 3:157."
To paraphrase... The Left works on a dial. The people they are antagonizing work on an On/Off switch.
Their response will come as a large surprise.
In the movie the gods must be crazy a coke bottle falls from the sky in the middle of the kalahari and is found by a Bushman. They found it very useful but there was only on so fights started. Rathere then trying to obtain more of the useful item in they end they threw it off the end of the earth. Looting is the same rather then allowing someone to have something useful the looter doesn't have they destroy it so no one can use it.
To paraphrase...the left works on a dial.
The people they are antagonizing work on an On/Off switch.
Their response is going to come as a big surprise.
So if you don't like the book, are you supposed to beat up the author?
Hmm
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/398213/#disqus_thread
Conquest.
The solution is conquest. In a few years maybe.
The US population is separating territorially (much accelerated recently) into the zones of the worthless and the mad, and the remainder.
What keeps you from simply expunging or disciplining this worthless population is a mixture of guilt, compassion and disgust. Other peoples are not so prone to these feelings.
I suggest the rest of you withraw your protection from the mad zones, and welcome invading armies to do with these places as they will. A Latin American invading army should have no difficulty taking NYC (a few thousand men sailing into New York harbor on some ro-ro ships perhaps) and the regions around it, setting up a junta, and very likely, if wisely led, inviting back much of the old commercial elite. New York might be able to rise again under new management. The key will be the treatment of the local population.
Play stupid revolution-cosplay games, win stupid revolution-cosplay prizes.
The destruction of -- fill in the blank -- is an “experience of pleasure, joy, and freedom,” Osterweil writes. It is also a form of “queer birth.” “Riots are violent, extreme, and femme as fuck,” according to [the author Vicky] Osterweil. “They rip, tear, burn, and destroy to give birth to a new world.”
A white hole... whore? n/t NAACP
"being a nice liberal is not going to save you from the form of violence that is bubbling up in America today."
When the crocodile is this hungry, it really doesn't matter who gets eaten last.
Looting as a political act is BS. Looters are not protesting the materiality of our culture or the unfairness of capitalism, especially when they turn around and sell those stolen goods.
IMO looters are the covert habitual shop lifters who have been given a free pass thanks to BLM to take without the usual constraints of store security. There's a sense of celebration and exultation in the looting. There's zero expression of protest for black lives or a protest against the system. The looters want the system to continue to provide goods for them. The looting is not a protest against property it's a celebration of owning property without having to pay.
"In particular, violent woke opponents of white supremacy don't fully grasp what an effort by whites, once stirred into action, to prevail over others would look like."
Kind of surprising, when you think about how many movies have been made about the Second World War.
Not only will the liberals like Wood get the bullet, too- they will get it first. People like me will not lift a finger to save them if they are unwilling to act to save themselves.
This is basically Kenosha written large- Evers and the mayor of the city did nothing for over two days. Finally, the citizens of Kenosha started to take up arms against the looting and the arson- only then did Evers act, and that act was only to ask Trump to save him. Ask yourself, why only then?
After Trump intervened on Ever's behalf to save what was left of Kenosha- only then did Punxatawney Phil Biden venture forth from his basement to "condemn" the rioting and looting. Ask yourself, why only then?
Stolen from another site: If there is another Civil War, It'll be Antifa, snowflakes anf BLM against ex military, country boys, hunters and bikers... that'll be an hour we'll never get back!
Be sure to steal copies of the Atlantic where this article appears,
Even more fun- the book has been pirated- and the pirates are asking for permission to distribute it freely! Perfect trolling.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/398213/#respond
Democrats venerate Jacob Blake.
They castigate Kyle Rittenhouse.
Jacob Blake is a rapist.
Kyle Rittenhouse is a lifeguard in the summer.
Democrats are trying to turn our country into Mexico.
Has this been posted yet here?
I agree with Althouse. This is a 'green shoot' on the left. Where a sensible person is trying to warn the other possibly sensible people on the left, that supporting riots or violence, even tacitly, is overall a dangerous strategy. I've said it before and I will say it again, Charles Krauthamer was right. Largely, when it comes to the zeitgeist of each group the Left thinks the right are evil, and the right thinks the left are stupid. This has largely benefited the left. The right assumes falsely that everyone will immediately see the folly in the left's ideas and plans so they are reticent to speak about it. And when things go bad the left is given the benefit of the doubt of just being stupid and not malicious. I could see this zeitgeist change. And if the right ever starts thinking of the Left as evil, Lord help them because no one else will.
Give the bitch what xe wants--good and hard!
Narr
And often
Pretty good evidence for the mental illness of transgender.
This is typical Marxist/Left wing ideology justifying violence. All that's being done is substituting "white" for " Bourgeoisie" and "People of color" for "workers". Marx claimed the oppression of the workers by Bourgeoisie justified violence to liberate the proletariat. Only by violence could capitalism be overthrown and socialism instituted.
All these race-baiters and NPR leftists are just Marxists/Communists pushing the same thing with new labels.
I often quote one of my favorite anti-statist thinkers and writers, the 19th Century French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who dismissed all schemes of coerced wealth redistribution as "legalized plunder." This would often arouse the ire of the advocates of legalized plunder, who want a more benevolent-sounding, goody-goody label for their activities and don't like the rotten basis of their "humanitarianism" exposed to broad daylight.
Ayn Rand would call the advocates of coerced wealth redistribution "thugs and looters," which would engender an innocent "Who, us?" response from the thugs and looters.
Nice to see that the mask has fallen and the Left is finally being honest about both their means and their ends.
Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig has a chapter "The Blessings of Violence" in From the Wrong Side: A Paradoxical Approach to Psychology, which is now reprinted. Even a Kindle edition. That's the chapter I bought the book for, in the 90s.
"The Myth and Reality of the Sexual Abuse of Children" turned out to be the most enlightening one, the previous chapter.
I recommend the book.
It turns out that the kind of violence that has blessings is one directed in the right place, so it wouldn't apply to attacks on a ghost like systemic racism.
and by the way it is beautiful.
Sure, violence is wonderful, until all those fascists who own the vast majority of the 300 million guns in country decide to pop a slug into you and yours. Then, not so pretty.
Her conviction that her opponents deserve violence would be easier to abide if it were not obvious that nearly everyone counts as an opponent.
You mean, everyone to the right of her counts as a "social fascist", and thus is worthy of "destruction as a class"? All of this is right out of a Marxist-Leninist playbook, and, unfortunately, has played out in history many times.
People like the author are best handled with many loaded guns pointed in their direction at all times. They will, if they ever get into power, kill the rest of us by the tens of millions.
Do Trans men to woman have mental issues? Or is their reality so different that I can't comprehend it. In either case the thought process seems out of the norm and not for norm consumption. Not of much use except to generate some sympathy or pity.
I know the trans suicide rate is very high. there is a lot of guilt and shame. It's a feeling of being out of place. and there seem to be some culture that know how to fit Trans people in.
Between things like this and other related "social justice" philosophies or the actual substance of academic feminism, that all effectively reject both rationality and empiricism, indeed everything at all other than their sense of victimization and their weird ideas of power, we are not really dealing with a political philosophy at all.
It is rather a way of life, directing all aspects of human existence, down to limiting contact between the believers and the rest of humanity.
What you have is a cult. Or rather, seeing as it is now the guiding influence of so many, a religion.
Its interesting to recall its origins. It comes from the collapse of Marxism and the "failure" of the working class to conform to the ideas of their would be leaders. The working class would rather live better than justify theories.
Since then the next generations of left intellectuals have tried to find a similarly manichaean theory of workers and capitalists, with women/men, blacks/whites, queer/straight, muslim/anyone and etc. ad infinitum replacing the old class business.
One interesting quirk seen only (so far) in the US and Britain is black/white as a result of decades of black failure to be raised up to the general worldwide expectation of human performance. This bitter frustration after so much having been invested for naught has created very strange fruit. Part of the rejection of rationality comes from this. It requires a closed system that rejects external connections, plus a circular argument that cannot be permitted to be externally threatened.
Read just the look inside Introduction to Craig. I'd predict a huge appeal to Althouse.
Her follow up book will be on the political efficacy of rape.
Temujin said...
"White supremacist cisheteropatriarchy"? I'm sure he left something out of there.
What do we do with all of that sludge?
China likes to recycle stuff for us. I would trade protestors and woke sad sacks with them on a 1:1 ratio. No I would trade 1:10 as long as they guaranteed we never heard of them again. And none of the harvested organs made their way back to us.
Ask of Democrats
Do you support the constitutional right to private property?
Is it the proper responsibility of government to protect private property?
Does a citizen have a constitutional right to defend private property?
Can we agree on the points, to start a dialogue?
The matrix of reality that these monsters use to make their decisions against is Mass Depopulation. Stealing everything is very easy if you first kill the population that owns it. Normally they will disarm the targeted people and then force them to march into a Mass Starvation situation. That does not take as much work or resources as executions of billions of non-people.
I've slowly watched Slate (under the rather 2nd/3rd rate legal mind of Dahlia LIthwick) go nutty Left.
NPR is finally reaping the more rotten fruit of the old drag-the-Leftist activist/bias-confirming-expert forward, and claiming to speak for all the public. Take your politics and personal lives and shove 'em.
Andrew Sullivan had more intellectual courage at the Atlantic (when he hasn't been crazy, uncourageous and projecting weird personal issues onto politics and everyone else) than does Jeffrey Goldberg regarding Woman-ism, Black-ism and Green-ism, and the new social justice orthodoxy.
David Remnick, Rik Hertzberg and crew at the New Yorker have gone further and further Left, into the postmodern meaning abyss, often ruining the quality of cartoons, avant-garde lit and long-form journalism with constant Leftist politics and ideology.
Some of us have had enough clarity, moral courage and ability to not follow that herd.
One way to do this is to simply be a rather conservative fixed point in a world turning into on this Leftist gyre.
A hearty f**k you to all of the above!
https://bongino.com/woman-who-may-be-portlands-next-mayor-says-i-am-antifa/
In case you're still having trouble understanding the connection between Antifa and their elected enablers, Portland's next mayor makes it easy for you: 'I am Antifa'....
Bilwick said...
I often quote one of my favorite anti-statist thinkers and writers, the 19th Century French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who dismissed all schemes of coerced wealth redistribution as "legalized plunder." This would often arouse the ire of the advocates of legalized plunder, who want a more benevolent-sounding, goody-goody label for their activities and don't like the rotten basis of their "humanitarianism" exposed to broad daylight.
Ayn Rand would call the advocates of coerced wealth redistribution "thugs and looters," which would engender an innocent "Who, us?" response from the thugs and looters.
Nice to see that the mask has fallen and the Left is finally being honest about both their means and their ends.
---------------=================
has the mask fallen or still hanging from one ear? at least till election day.
- asking for Joe Biden and his supporters.
Not so very far from anarchist Johann Most's 19th century love affair with dynamite.
"Dynamite! Of all the good stuff, that is the stuff! Stuff several pounds of this sublime stuff into an inch pipe (gas or water pipe), plug up both ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place this in the immediate vicinity of a lot of rich loafers who live by the sweat of other people’s brows, and light the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying result will follow. In giving dynamite! To the downtrodden millions of the globe science has done its best work. The dear stuff can be carried in the pocket without danger, while it is a formidable weapon against any force of militia, police, or detectives that may want to stifle the cry for justice that goes forth from the plundered slaves. It is something not very ornamental, but exceedingly useful. It can be used against persons and things. It is better to use it against the former than against bricks and masonry. It is a genuine boon for the disinherited, while it brings terror and fear to the robbers. A pound of this good stuff beats a bushel of ballots all hollow - and don’t you forget it! Our lawmakers might as well try to sit down on the crater of a volcano or on the point of a bayonet as to endeavor to stop the manufacture and use of dynamite. It takes more justice and right than is contained in laws to quiet the spirit of unrest."
Ultimately the SA proved to be unpopular with the Wehrmacht and they had to go. Wait until the BLM-Antifa crowd becomes more of a hindrance than a help with the #Resistance. It will be the Night of the Long Knives all over again.
Vicki/Willie Osterweil is a very confused person who is confused about so many things that she/he really is, or should be, a mental patient. The truly strange thing is that this sad, hopeless person is being given platforms for her/his looney ideas by people who really should know better. There is nothing "freeing" about destroying someone else's business. It is pure wanton cruelty and thievery.
Vicki/ Willie should go build a business, and the I'll come destroy it. How will that feel, kiddo? But that is silly, because Vicki/Willie could never build a business.
This nutcase is advocating the morality and practices of savages and vandals--but conveniently omitting the patriarchal origin and nature of history's looters and destroyers. That should tell us quite a bit. Fortunately, Cockburn at the Spectator USA has pirated a copy of the book and is suggesting that he should make it available online and down-loadable for free. He is awaiting a response to his proposal from the publisher. That copyright shouldn't mean a thing, right?
Osterweil's girlfriend/parter is Sophie Lewis, who wants to abolish the family and have every mother be a surrogate mother and get paid for "her" Labor.
BTW, do you think a transwoman really knows if riots are like birth, or is she guessing?
AA has a string of posts today about various manifestations of Lefty-Loony-Land syndrome, and it sounds like she is out of patience with all of it (as she says specifically at the end of the post about the very tiresome memes in NYT op-eds trying to sell Trump Bad, Biden Good). I especially liked the thimble-symbol one, riffing off the Cancel Washington (and Jefferson, Franklin ...) monuments and statutes now bubbling up in the DC municipal gov't. In the competition for craziest lefty-loony gov't of all, the DC municipal gov't is hard to top, but Madison seems to be giving it a real run for its money, according to AA's post about the mandated racial discrimination now regnant there.
By why should the wokie-doke Dems settle for half-measures? By all means, Dems should embrace their inner Cancel America Entirely shtick, and while they're at it, push to change the name of the country and the continent to BLM-Forever-Land! From now on, everyone will be required to raise a fist in support of the BLM program, silence being violence (at least selectively) and the First Amendment having been re-read in its Living Constitution version to ban all Bad-Think. And, of course, straight white men will henceforth be banned from entry entirely.
Robert Cook said...
A stupid sociopath writes an apologia for nihilists with no purpose or productive goals.
Is this a different Robert Cook?
Because I agree entirely with what I quoted above
Evidently "Vicky" and the rest of his fellow leftist hooligans believe (perhaps hooligans doesn't need a qualifier; are there any rightist hooligans?) a post-Constitutional American society will be much more than simply tolerant of queers, dykes, and assorted changelings and poseurs. However, history teaches that homosexuality and transgenderism are the conceits and affectations of wealth and indolence. (Douglas Adams' Let's Have Lunch level) Push such a society to its foundational absolutes (the How Can We Eat? level) by demolishing its safeguards the result isn't faggot's paradise, it's a hyper-masculine warrior society with little tolerance of non-conformity and no time for turbulent women.
Vicky's looking for the rule of Cathys and Karens. What he'll get is Conans.
The current Democrat-Marxist chant seems to be "Look at all this rioting you made us do because you elected Donald Trump!"
Kind of like the wife beater who says, after beating his wife into unconsciousness, "You bitch, look what you made me do!".
And there are plenty in America who will believe it.
The bartender should have cut off Ms. Osterweil quite a while back. Her brain is addled with nonsense that she believes to be astute observations.
Estrogen megadoses will do that.
SCMODS
State county local municpial datsa systems.
Scmods.
Bulees Brothers.
They know.
They know.
They been knowing more than you honkies since 'bout forever, in Chicago. BHO knew.
Robert Cook said...
"We have raised Jacob Black and George Floyd to the status of saints or people to be praised."
No, they are simply recent illustrative victims of unchecked state power, something I thought you stalwart resenters of government opposed. Similar, less recent such victims of unchecked state power you might hold greater sympathies for are Randy Weaver and David Koresh
Close, but wrong.
You can not have law enforcement by police if people are allowed to resist arrest. Black would have been dealt with that way by any system that allows the State any power to police crime.
Floyd was clearly abused by a thuggish cop. Instead of continuing to pin him, they should have pulled him up and tossed him in the back seat of the car, and taking him to jail.
But if you are going to have a system of laws and police, people who try to resist arrest must be beaten on until they surrender, are incapacitated, or die.
IIRC Randy Weaver and David Koresh are more like Breana Taylor, in that the cops did not simply try to arrest them, but attacked them. Unlike poor Taylor, they were able to fight back.
"No knock: raids should never be allowed. If that means the "War on Drugs" loses, I don't care. No knock raids are an abomination.
The same is true for all other sorts of commando attack raids by military wanabe "cops". You walk up to the door, know, and announce that you're the police, serving a warrant. If you get violent resistance, you can respond appropriately. But not until then.
That is not what happened with Koreesh, and IIRC that's not what happened with Weaver. Feel free to prove me wrong.
But until you do, that while I have little sympathy for Flyod, NO sympathy for Black, and a great deal of sympathy for Taylor, Weaver, and Koresh
No, they are simply recent illustrative victims of unchecked state power
I wonder if there is another reasonable explanation? In both cases the "victims" were failing to comply with lawful police commands who were responding to 911 calls. Neither was the victim of "unchecked state power". Floyd was the victim of a sadistic cop acting under color of authority. It's yet unknown whether Blake was a victim of anything other than his own criminal conduct. At the worst, he was the victim of a police mistake, during a high octane encounter, made in a split second sequence of events.
The Breonna Taylor case is the only case I am aware of that could be reasonably described as "unchecked state power". But not the policemen themselves but the entire mechanism of the state. It was a clusterf*k of first level proportions that cannot be reasonably explained.
I'm finding that the lefties are far less willing to seek reasonable alternative explanations if, instead, they can demagogue the police who will, on occasion, make bad mistakes under difficult circumstance. All this has nothing to do with race. That's just the vehicle to transport them to other objectives.
- Krumhorn
Gordon Pasha:
Unfortunately, the Night of the Long Knives only came after law and order in Germany had been completely obliterated and the entire population had been completely enslaved by the State.
The revolution never eats its own until that happens.
Be sure to steal copies of the Atlantic where this article appears
Reading is hard.
We are worrying about a bit of writing, when the droogs who didn't read it, but are described therein, are already smashing and burning their way around their riot sites.
Federalize the NatGuard, send them in to arrest all rioters under federal charges. Don't release any of them until their sentences are served in full. Shoot them if they resist arrest.
Is it in bookstores yet? I was thinking of dropping by to steal a copy, and then burn the remaining copies. I assume that would be cool with the author?
Doc G. at 12:25 says our "peaceful protesters" sarc don't understand what's happening in non liberal areas. That is true, and some of those areas are preparing against the need to receive groups of "mostly peaceful protesters". And the mostly peaceful protesters will wonder why they got such a "hot" reception.
I'm reminded of the question put to a ragged Confederate private by a Yankee officer."This is a rich man's war for slave owners. Why are you fighting us?" The private answered, "Because you are here." The protesters will find out that "here" is where they are not welcome.
n.n said...
.... Neither the national charter nor the organizational document tolerate, let alone normalize, racism, sexism, and other low-information, class-based taxonomies. The original compromise was tolerated for the sake of a community to remain viable in the course of present and progressive foreign, domestic, and indigenous threats.
------------=============
should the union have been dissolved after peace treaty with Britain (1812?) and / or
ultimatum to slave states to abolish their peculiar fetishit?
Historically, aren't most wars fought over land and property? Sure, some are ideology driven but usually involve the taking of stuff in addition to subjugation of the people.
Willie Osterweil and his Erstwhile Willie
"Sisheterro" -- maybe we need a hyphen, eh?
...is he getting injections of "Lootin'-izing hormones" ??
Dear Buwaya,
You know I love you, man.
But:
A Latin American invading army should have no difficulty taking NYC
Fuck you, and fuck your mother.
FYI there are eight million stories in the Naked City. A couple million of us are true blue Americans and many of the rest are simply confused. De Blasio was elected by fewer than 750,000 votes.
Yes, it's true, it could come to civil war. So you think that's your big chance?
Well there are certain sections of New York, mijo, ese, hombre, vato, barata, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.
The combined legal and illegal armed forces of every nation on earth south of the Rio Grande, both hemispheres, can't take a drink out of the Hudson River without our leave. Aside from the armed forces of the United States, NYPD is around 40,000 men.
And the eight million?
Don't believe everything you read about gun control. Sheeit, the kids at Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech and Stuyvesant High will compete with each other to invent the best thermobarics for your pals' (I trust you won't be joining them) delectation.
You're a fine fellow but tread lightly, foreigner.
of course biden, goes full on the thousand currents wave length
To Althouse's last point: it is interesting that, if her speculation is correct, Wood expects to increase his credibility with a very liberal audience by explicitly condoning violence against some groups, just not the ones he lists as being erroneously included.
I have to think that the author and his editor at The Atlantic know their audience.
If this is true, and I just said that I think it is, liberalism as we have understood it is dead, the postmodernists have won, and it is all about power. J.S. Mill is history, we are now in Foucault's world.
And in that case, Lincoln's words at Gettysburg are very apt: "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation... may live."
And all those conservatives who think it is important to play fair, that if only we play fair the liberals will respect us for it, need to grow up and getreal, or get out of the way.
Tump has more flaws than I have fingers to count them--but he knows which side he is on and he knows how the other side fights. No other national Republican has shown that level of spirit and understanding, though a small handful seem to be working on it. Cotton; Hawley; maybe Rubio has seen the light since 2016, maybe not; Nunes; give me an hour or two and I might come up with another.
Ray Bradbury explained this all in his first six words:
It was a pleasure to burn.
Similar, less recent such victims of unchecked state power you might hold greater sympathies for are Randy Weaver and David Koresh.
I have a lot of sympathy for Weaver but that was your team. The jury in Northern Idaho is still looking for Lon Horiuchi.
The difference is that you communists use state power and then pretend your opponents do the same. It's a lie.
The Far Left is winning its war against The Left.
This is what I've been saying. You can hate Trump all you want - but if you vote for Biden, who has said that if Trump is reelected there will be more violence, you are voting for violence to be the decider in any question of policy. There are only two ways I see to interpret Biden's statement:
Case 1. The Democrats can turn the violence on and off at will - therefore if Trump is reelected, they will not turn it off, and the statement is a threat. Or...
Case 2. The Democrats cannot control the violence but they understand that Trump's reelection is something the violent actors want to prevent and will rebel against - so the statement is just an observation.
In either case, voting Democrat this year means voting for violent actors to have the final say over what we do as a society. The looters will know, for good and for all, that they have hit upon a tactic that works, and they'll use it either against anyone on the Right (if Case 1 above is true) or whenever the hell they want (if Case 2 above is true). Or, if Case 1 is true, once they've received their reward, whatever it might be, for stopping when the Democrats say to stop, they might just stroke their chins and muse, "Hmm. That was pretty easy..." and next time the Democrats try to flip that switch it won't work.
And if Case 2 is true, those intending to vote Democrat might want to consider that they're throwing in with looters and arsonists, against a man who, time and again, fails to live up to the heights of dictatorship, racism, sexism, even narcissism, predicted for him since before his election. Ask yourselves - if your choice in the cafeteria is to sit beside the loud obnoxious guy who eats well-done steak with ketchup but does not actually have horns and a pitchfork as you were told, or to sit with the nagging scolds, the obscenity-yellers, the creeps who spit in people's food when they're not looking, and the bullies who pick up random trays on their way past and dump them on people's heads... maybe you ought to consider the obnoxious guy the freaking lesser evil.
But you can't push Willy 'round
Willy won't go,
Try tellin' everybody but, oh no
Vicky Osterweil keeps on giving
What pretentious, yet dangerous, nonsense. What's wanting to be born through this is not something new, it's the old, old, very old Warre Of All Against All.
"I don't agree that it's "easier to abide" violence aimed at a more specific group ..."
Oh, I don't know. I find it pretty easy to abide the video of Kyle Rittenhouse shooting those two rioters.
Sure, violence is wonderful, until all those fascists who own the vast majority of the 300 million guns in country decide to pop a slug into you and yours.
This attitude, or sentiment, or something close to it, is all too commonly expressed. The belief on the part of my fellow conservatives that we martially superior to the left is widespread -- accepted among conservatives as a given.
That being the case, I say to you: Beware! You are underestimating the enemy, committing the gravest of strategic errors.
Militant leftists are in fact quite well-armed and repeatedly demonstrated that they are not in the least reluctant to use weapons. In fact they have shown to be more willing in this regard than those who oppose them. And I have not yet seen any meaningful and sustained pushback in kind by our side. What I have seen is armed militant leftists running rampant and unchecked through the streets of our cities. So far, it appears to me that they are dominating the ground game.
Wait until the BLM-Antifa crowd becomes more of a hindrance than a help with the #Resistance. It will be the Night of the Long Knives all over again.
Or ... they are the bolsheviks who, despite their limited numbers, will seize power and destroy their opponents.
woman-who-may-be-portlands-next-mayor-says-i-am-antifa
Completing the circle of fascism. A karmic comedy.
The matrix of reality that these monsters use to make their decisions against is Mass Depopulation.
Yes, Planned Population (PP) is a popular Choice of leftist/minority regimes who favor wicked solutions, to albeit hard problems.
The urge to be violent in a stable middle class society when the lowest of the class live like kings compared to 100 years ago? It's a mental illness. A person unable to see their own worth as an individual. A community never lets that person rule. Instead intervention takes place. All the meth these violent people are fueling themselves with will be a problem and a danger to any children around them.
Roughcoat said...
Beware! You are underestimating the enemy, committing the gravest of strategic errors.
This is true. Trump is not a shoe in to win. The soy boy epithet is weak. A guy in portland could easily kill you and run away and be camouflaged by his family, compatriots, and CNN, and Biden. The conservative counterpart will be left for the system to work itself out.
I'm surprised there aren't more prominent Dems coming out in support of Trump. Get their law and order back. Then try again in 2024. There is a cost to pay by their descendants for their silence.
Roughcoat said...
Militant leftists are in fact quite well-armed and repeatedly demonstrated that they are not in the least reluctant to use weapons.
Yes, but they suck at it.
They're ok at getting to close range and shooting at people who can't shoot back, and don't know there's a fight starting.
Against Lyle Rittenhouse, OTOH, they went 0 - 3.
Yes, I am very disappointed that conservatives aren't simply taking sniper position and shooting everyone in a black bloc uniform.
But when it comes to that, and it will, I expect the Right to be much better, and more disciplined, shots
"white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy"
Seriously? This movement has jumped the shark.
via instapundit:
quoting - even some Atlantic people are upset:
" My job sometimes entails traveling to countries recently or currently destroyed by civil unrest, and that experience has made me appreciate the fragility of peace, and has not made me eager to conduct a similar experiment in my own city.
I am also from recent-immigrant stock. Osterweil euphemizes looting as “proletarian shopping,” and no one from a place that has recently experienced this phenomenon can take seriously her assurance that it can happen justly and bloodlessly. When I think of riots and smashed storefronts, I think of Kristallnacht. I think of American businesses built by penniless immigrants who preferred to forfeit their vacations and weekends for 30 years rather than see their children suffer as they did; I think of these businesses ransacked in 30 minutes and left in ruins. Osterweil at least has the psychology right when she says that looting can be “joyous and liberatory.” I have never seen a sullen looter, but I have seen plenty of shop owners crying next to the smoking remains of their children’s future."
Work hard for your kids? bah - not If Pelosi can help it. Destroying YOUR business is "for the children" she proclaimed... from her San Francisco ivory tower.
SCMODS
State county local municpial datsa systems.
Scmods.
Bulees Brothers.
They know.
They know.
They been knowing more than you honkies since 'bout forever, in Chicago. BHO knew.
Proudhon said 'Property is theft' An old story and boring. Indeed, the commies tried it - for me to you, to you to me - and very rich pickings they were. Proudhon once wrote a tome and the only reason it has any resonance is because Marx wrote a tome back - The philosophy of Poverty and Marx (not Groucho) The poverty of philosophy - they were called the Young Hegelians and weren't they 'young' and 'gay'! Nothing is new under the son, saith the preacher.
Someone needs to quickly come out with a "Defense and history of SHOOTING looters" book.
1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. 2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. 3 His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east. 4 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. 5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. 7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. 8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? 10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
Looters blah blah blah blah blah...should be shot. Period. The end.
In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
The Lament of Job
1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
2 And Job spake, and said,
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born,
and the night in which it was said,
There is a man child conceived.
4 Let that day be darkness;
let not God regard it from above,
neither let the light shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it;
let a cloud dwell upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it;
let it not be joined unto the days of the year,
let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Lo, let that night be solitary,
let no joyful voice come therein.
8 Let them curse it that curse the day,
who are ready to raise up their mourning.
9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark;
let it look for light, but have none;
neither let it see the dawning of the day:
10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb,
nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
“ Yes, I am very disappointed that conservatives aren't simply taking sniper position and shooting everyone in a black bloc uniform.”
But who is going to process your paper work at the permits dept next week?
"But who is going to process your paper work at the permits dept next week?"
I'm sure they'll have no difficulty hiring someone new
And, who knows, they might not be able to train her to screw everything up as much as the current employees do
CHAPTER 40
1 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
2 Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.
3 Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
4 Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
5 Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no further.
6 Then answered the LORD unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
7 Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
8 Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?
9 Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?
10 Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.
11 Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.
12 Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
13 Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.
14 Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.
15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
I don't want to bring anyone 'low', God.
Quaestor said...
Evidently "Vicky" and the rest of his fellow leftist hooligans believe (perhaps hooligans doesn't need a qualifier; are there any rightist hooligans?) a post-Constitutional American society will be much more than simply tolerant of queers, dykes, and assorted changelings and poseurs
The surprise will be on Them! (AND! on a LOT of y'all)
If there is this Civil War that everyone seems to be chomping at the bit for...
The winner is going to be SO restrictive, and SO authoritarian; that we might as well call it ISLAM
'cause THAT'S what it's going to BE.
when the ro-ro ships unload in New York harbor; the (remaining) NYPD, and the (remaining) 8 million are going to welcome them with open arms...Because they will bring ORDER.
Am i Rooting for Islam to take over? Oh, HELL to the NO! But that don't mean they won't.
Much of America will NEVER come back to Christianity; 'cause they were told it was BAD!
Much of America will EMBRACE Islam; 'cause they want ORDER
“Floyd was clearly abused by a thuggish cop. Instead of continuing to pin him, they should have pulled him up and tossed him in the back seat of the car, and taking him to jail.”
No. That is the typical leftist myth that you have bought into. When the police originally confronted him, he was probably already a dead man walking, primarily from a fentanyl OD, possibly made worse by a recent case of COVID-19 and Sickle Cell Disease. The cops arrested him for the counterfeit money, put him in a car for transport to jail, but then, based on his complaints about not being able to breathe, took him out of the car, put him on the ground as he requested, turned him on his side and held him there with the knee to his neck, to prevent possible aspiration of vomit from his OD, called for paramedics and an ambulance, and waited for them to arrive. Floyd went into cardiac arrest when they were a block or two away. One of the officers started CPR, and continued in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
"Hold still while I hit you" is a critical component of a toxic ideology where people who have accomplished nothing attack those who created the most prosperous, fairest and most inclusive society in human history.
Bruce Hayden: You're not correct either, at least as I interpret the videos. It doesn't appear that the police were ever able to get Floyd into the backseat. His upper body was in, and then he forced his way back out, and the police allowed him to go to the ground.
You're correct that he wanted to lay down -- but the police wanted him in the backseat of the cruiser and only relented when it was clear they were not going to be able to do that safely.
Thanks, Anne, for allowing my post - it means a lot to me. I'll try to moderate myself but it's difficult. I'm just grateful you allow me to speak. Thankyou.
him on his side and held him there with the knee to his neck, to prevent possible aspiration of vomit from his OD,
I believe my understanding broadly accords with yours, but being placed on one's side is known as the recovery position. I thought it was recorded that one officer said to Chauvin, the senior, "Should we put him in the recovery position?" and the latter said no.
If I recall correctly, maybe I don't, Chauvin had Floyd in a prone position. Which might serve the same purpose as being on the side, i.e. avoid aspirating vomit, but is more controllable.
Decisions Of A Life.
.I.
She headed to the door
Of some burnt out world
Lost to the dried flare
Of Apocalypse. With words
Telling of that special place
Her mind halved its voices
Where one would call “Where?”
To the others reassurance of
“One foot more, one age less.”
And held by the endless tide
Of works companions
Some sense of proportion was lost.
At home a dear friend
Had uttered the martyred cliché of
“Be yourself!” A thousand victims -
Were there more?
.II.
Down the battle broken world
Where the shadows left around:
Corpses, corpses flew
To glare their unholy cries.
.III.
And among the luggage of travel
A niche was found:
Here a shadow shared a bottle
With a friend or two,
Words scattered among the unintended,
Formed their partial puzzles.
.V.
One friendly companion,
Whose ever forming grin disturbed,
Pronounced, heartily,
Some ending term,
Some clause of binding.
Sealed by the wax of finality
She considered her attention weak:
It had stopped at the cover,
Started at the completion of smiles,
Had broken at the ribboned bow.
Twisted in a distracting knot
These decisions had been made.
Lewis said...
Thanks, Anne, for allowing my post - it means a lot to me. I'll try to moderate myself but it's difficult. I'm just grateful you allow me to speak. Thankyou
Lewis, clearly you realize that you are not being normal. Do you know why you are not being normal? Is this just you? Are you mourning the death of a loved one? Are you drunk all the time? Schizophrenic? She allows it and I suppose there's no great harm, but what in fact is the cause of this verbal diarrhea of yours?
Indulging you is hopefully not as foolish/wicked as indulging the BLMs and Antifas and other leftists like the "n----rhead" bunch, but in both cases it would probably be better for y'all to snap out of it.
After Hours
.I.
Those noises in the blank hour
Between twelve and one,
The ingenuous girl singing a song
Perhaps borne from the late closed pub,
The car alarm that mischievously sputters
Its unfrightening sound off and on,
Drinkers warming themselves
Over the hollow sound
Of their chanted slogans
Ready to beat, in the unifying desire
Of oblivion, any fellow man;
And, in between, quiet and quiet,
This slow, singing, melancholy hour.
And, to distract, the thought of you asleep
Comes and goes like that crying alarm:
Dog barking desires of my frightful cellar.
.II.
If, in this sphere of solitude,
Egocentric and sentimental,
You could somehow intrude,
Could arrive with bags and face turned
To that obscure, private life we somehow share
What, in the broken paces of private habit,
What movement outside it and therefore hope,
Could bloom, stare its tired stare,
Bare from beaten limb (yes, that fellow)
The one, doubled, solitary flower?
.III.
Among the insomniac cars
My shattered face stares whitely
At the moon. The blown flowers
Of our common school die quietly
Aged gestures of a beaten face.
Conversation, left
In my struggling, conceiving days,
Bouncing back from that rough, gauged place,
Poses the question of our death.
Am I then, in this absurd posture,
Abstracted by the flying blue lights
Making those correct, forewarned waves?
Death is a sordid thing
Done by sordid men
Use to a sordid world:
This our modern way
We love but cannot have
The once promised life?
.IV.
My mind has not the peace that’s promised
But a rage, a rage at a limb and joints
Incomplete, broken desire,
The unforewarned abstraction of our death.
And yet if you were here like the nurse
You would find only words of blood
And the absurd indignity of this mans fall.
Death crying (sentimental) among
The blotted whiteness of a ward,
Silhouettes of urgent shadow
And the dark faces beaten beyond
First Love.
A naked figurine in a green shrub
Or adorning the neglected lawn
The one comical illusion of one mind - mine.
And the great barn hall, stacked with dust,
Echoing the straw
Upon which we might have lain.
And, as your fingers curled the keys,
I was there in courtly guise,
Attendant, dancing upon your cast tunes,
Counterfeit of your desires.
Did you see?
London.
.I.
It was a comic sight:
His earnest face forward
In the fury of impotence,
Awkward and shyly expressed,
And she agile in her agreements
Reassurance with a “Yes, yes, yes.”
Had muddy eloquence enchained her
Or the force of that will
Desperation implies
Perhaps afraid of turning keys
Of murderous desire:
Who knows the end of these things?
.II.
In the street and in the rain
He let her dwindle like his voice
That, lost and inept,
Had weakly made a pledge
Diverted by the beer
She ordered at the bar:
Words stopped in a shock stare,
He and she were released
From the embarrassment of proposal:
“You must avoid awkward promise of intent
Striving for a perfect civic form
Impossible and blind.”
.III.
That was the last time he saw her:
The idea afloat for a while
Till stress and ulcer and the starving age
Each had slashed its way
Through to his cognisance.
All the point was gone:
What had been a mirage
Of tempting possibility
Was a joke a city smiled at
In its busy search for gold.
Sorry - I probably wanted a reaction. I'm not mad but, usually, when I post, I'm drunk - yes, on grief. I respect you a lot and it's only when I'm pissed I can countermand that respect. Sorry. I'll, in future, try to accord to my true respect.
Nichevo, your right
Hey Lewis...look, it neither picks my pocket not breaks my leg for you to do it. So if it eases and cools you to do so, why not, I guess.
But examine yourself. If in any way Internet strangers can help, we will, I'm sure. At the very least, we, at the utterleast, I, mean you no harm.
Can you state in clear simple prose what's eating you? Or are we supposed to suss it out from your verse?
Also, in a friendly way, ought you perhaps to forgo the drink, or to lessen your acquaintance with the bottom of a glass?
Nichevo, not to make this a one to one selfhelp session but I couldn't be more explicit than my poems - after all, poetry is not unexplainable? Despair is a condition that is both 'global' and individual - you don't 'have' despair, you live it. One is 'thrown', as Heidegaar wrote, into this. I don't like the idea of myself being reactive but I suppose I am. Always - towards a kind of 'nihilism' I couldn't handle from my mum and I now I can't handle from the 'world'..After all, how many times did I post messages on this blog before February this year? Practically none - then I panicked and it helped, for a while, 'talking' to Anne because she seemed, in my seccluded world, the only sensible female thing on the planet - I abused my 'privileges' - can you blame me? Perhaps you can but, then, you'd have to know my context, why I am personally in despair.
"Neither picks my pockets nor breaks my legs for you to do it" - I love your language. Write poetry! Our language is beautiful - let us be involved with it!
"I don't really care!" I often say. What I mean is I don't care about how people think about me or what they might once they've processed those stupid thoughts - I care about people, I despair about them. If they are 'happy' I'm happy. I just read how pregnant women are being 'dealt' with in this Lockdown - it ain't pretty - think about it! - we are devils!
"Chose Me" is my favourite film. Why? Not because because any of the characters are 'good' but because I love the happenstance as one of them says "You came for eve?" "No, Eve just happened to be here."
Just wanted to get in touch to follow up on the piece in today’s Lockdown Sceptics regarding fathers’ attendance at antenatal scans. I’m afraid it’s not just scans that fathers are banned from – it gets worse. I’m currently pregnant with our second child, so I’m living under these rules at the moment. They differ up and down the country, but are broadly similar. A handful of trusts have lifted some of these restrictions. The rest (including my own) seem happy to stick with their ‘new normal’. Here is a summary of what pregnant women and their families are experiencing in my area and beyond.
Reduction in face to face appointments. I’ve already had two phone appointments so far during my pregnancy. I was surprised and slightly horrified to find that one of my future appointments during late pregnancy, a whole month after a face-to-face appointment, will also be held over the phone/video call. At every normal, routine midwife appointment, they do vital checks such as checking blood pressure, taking a urine sample and measuring the size of your bump. These checks can pick up serious issues for both mother and baby, such as pre-eclampsia, and fetal growth issues. Surely there is a high risk to pregnant women and unborn babies by holding a phone appointment, where you cannot do these vital physical checks? Even if you feel well in yourself, this doesn’t mean all is well with your baby, so how is a phone appointment adequate? Phone appointments have been continuing, even as lockdown has started to lift, and when cases in my area have been very low for some time. Hugely worrying- how many complications will be missed/have already been missed as a result?
etc etc
You don't know what love is, Nichevo, a commitment, an act of faith.
All I think about is our children - we are parasites on them - just to make them happy, can we do that?
https://biblescripture.net/Job.html
I 'm not a good person but I believe in death, which is more than you do - watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c5yPIQ3LQI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRHetRTOD1Q
This means so much to me - the pain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWmrfgj0MZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-E7_VHLvkE
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