more recent of

 

A more recent, or in fact the current state of something I think I previously posted.

The Left’s Love of Criminals

I think most people probably have very little idea of how extreme and strange hardcore leftist ideology is, lulled perhaps into imagining, insofar as the process is noticed at all, that the ideology’s insertion into the mainstream contemporary West legitimizes it, implies that it conforms to some way reasonable and good limits. I suppose the subconscious sense is that if a wild beast has got into your house, that must imply it is not wild at all, but domesticated. Reality acts as a soporific, however crass and bizarre its manifestations. 

So below, from Sergei Nechaev, influential 19th century Russian revolutionary, murderer and author of Cathecism of a Revolutionary:

“We are guided by hatred for everything not of the people, having no moral obligation or honor with regard to the world that we hate and from which we expect nothing but evil.”

He called on the ‘merciless destruction’ of the existing order, and the only morality was what furthered this cause of reducing society to chaos. Nechaev’s program of actions included intentionally betraying his own seemingly like-minded colleagues to the authorities, so that their ensuing imprisonment would further radicalize them, while murdering one now dissenting student, Ivan Ivanov, with the main intent apparently being to, through this act, psychically deepen the bonds of the rest of the revolutionary group together. This was a key inspiration for the character Pyotr Verkhovensky in the 1872 novel Demons by Dostoevsky, in which Verkhovensky exhorts his co-conspirators:

“Your whole step is towards getting everything destroyed: both the state and its morality. We alone will remain, having destined ourselves beforehand to assume power: we shall rally the smart ones to ourselves, and ride on the backs of the fools. This generation must be re-educated to make it worthy of freedom.”

‘Pronouns’, transgender Last Supper mockeries at the Olympics, and on on are exactly such societal destruction/re-education processes that the ideology calls on. So the principal job for the revolutionaries is destructive, not constructive. The entire social-political order is to be destroyed, it being All Bad and in total opposition to All Good of future utopia promised by the totalitarian cult. The existing state is the enemy with which it is at war.

So everything is good that erodes or damages the existent society, and again this is where people might have trouble seeing the dark logic of the progressive cause at work. Within the ideology every act or thought which damages the existent order is good, and thus one ends up then with every criminal act legitimised, through the ideological lens, ‘an act of protest.’ This following isn’t an unfair caricature, a libel on the ideology, but is the cult in its destructive aspects in full flow. 

Rape gangs erode the fabric of society. Therefore rape gangs are good.

It really is this extreme and deranged, And this is where one can pretty clearly glimpse or get an idea of the kind of dark spiritual energy that its adherents have opened themselves up to. And to add, in terms of extending the revolutionary logic at play, sanity is itself the target for destruction before the inner ‘utopia’ will rise from its ashes.

And so right now in the US for instance, basically activist judges are seeking to prevent the ridding of the country of illegally present members of very dangerous gangs such as MS13. Apart from the practicalities of being able to contract such people to carry out at a safe distance certain acts, this is simply the ideology at work. The criminal is by definition more true and good than the solid, law-abiding citizen, since the criminal by his acts undermines the social-order, whose existence is opposed to the progress cult. 

Of course, the defence of criminals by the ideologues will make a pretence to goodness and legitimacy, but the truth is regarding the actual ideology crime is good since it undermines the order sought to be destroyed. Whether this is all implemeted consciously or more subconsciously doesn’t matter too much - and anyone in sync with the cult is in large part no longer really an autonomous person anyway. The mind has become the host for the computer program, as it were, which is acting in the person’s place. 

These kind of manifestations are of course happening everywhere in the West, but just to give one recent and for me local example, RTE, the Irish national broadcaster, reports on a Guyanese man who viciously raped an 18 year old, two days after being allowed into the country as a migrant, despite the fact that he had just been expelled from the UK due to his offences as a convicted rapist. But the Irish authorities, supposedly serving the interests of their citizens, allowed this known rapist in, though they had no obligation whatsoever towards him. What is more odd here actually is the state media outlet actually reported on this case at all, since of course it itself is very much a re-educating servant of the cause:

Clutter

Where there’s clutter there’s shadows, and things can be hidden in the shadows.

Visages?

 

Game

“Would you like to play a game I came up with?”

“What kind of game?”

“Well, you begin somewhere, you head off, and then after a while, you try to find your way back to where you began from. And anyone who finds their way back to the beginning wins.”

“Why not just stay where you were to begin with?”

“Where would the fun be in that?”

characters

 

Ink 2004

Something extremely quick in its initial haphazard creation, but slow and difficult then to try to iron out a bit afterwards.

Bach - Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott from St Matthew Passion

 

Perhaps the greatest work of art in any medium by anyone ever - well you could certainly argue its case. This recording was apparently for French tv, and the uploader has edited a few pieces together including the audio obtained separately to avoid things like a voiceover, and thus possibly the somewhat irritating opening of the video with the odd slow-motion stuff. I’ve chosen this version though, having just seen it, partly at least for the especially beautiful vocal performance, though the strings could maybe sound a bit richer. Not that I’d have a clue.

Here with a much slower tempo, accompanied by stills from films by Andrei Tarkovsky, who used Bach quite a bit in several of his films.

The Unwise

 Do not willingly test your mind with wanton thoughts that tempt you when you think you will not be overcome by them. For the wise have darkened and become foolish in this way.

St Isaac the Syrian

in town

 

Ink 1104

 

Coluors

Something from some quick messing about - not that messing about can’t be productive.

 

If you

“If you had no thoughts in your head, what would you do?”

“I suppose I’d have to go and get some.”

Fr Sergiy Baranov

 

I thought this was very impressive.

tumult detail

 

Tumult 2

 

Some refining done to this work from a few posts ago. 

Single Out

 “Barracks” Obama has a new single coming out: Just the Thought of Myself Is Enough to Get Me High. The song is said to be funky but also cerebral.

There is also a b side: I Am All the Love I Will Ever Need.

The Minimum

“Wouldn’t you like to order me to stay out on the porch, sir . . .  so as not to overhear something somehow, by chance . . .  because the rooms are tiny.”

“That’s a good idea; stay out on the porch. Take the umbrella.”

“Your umbrella . . . am I worth it, sir?” the captain oversweetened.

“Every man is worth an umbrella.”

“At one stroke you define the minimum of human rights . . .”

From Demons by Dostoevsky.

Figured

“You know what I figured out?”

“What?”

“Just because something is respectable doesn’t mean it’s decent.”

“I thought they always went together.”

“No. Not necessarily.”

Tumult

 A very quick ink piece from last night.

sir Was

 

The Academic Respectability of the Totalitarian Left

 Years back I studied history at university in Cork, and I remember being surprised in first year of that three year degree course of a couple of modules on the course, these being, however they were precisely titled, History through the Lens of Marxism, or Marxist History. The USSR was no more and the obvious connection of totalitarian communism  with Marxism was something I don’t think anyone was in doubt about, and the toxic nature of that regime and ideology was a given in the world I had grown up in. But now no one seemed to be batting an eyelid with Marxism playing quite a significant part in the collegiate studying and understanding of history. All of a sudden I was within an environment where Marxism was all very respectable. There were no enforced modules, for example, teaching history through an intellectual lens of Christianity! And just to add, Marxist ideology has a supposed perfect rational understanding of both the logic of past history, but also of future history, where it is progressing. And this includes of course a value judgement on this progress. It is the academics’ role to facilitate its progress. And it is all in short, an intellectual cult in which the intellectuals, through the means of takeover of the State take complete control of society. So it’s not hard to see the ideology’s appeal for thus inclined intellectuals!

Just one other snippet from that time: I remember someone I was friendly with, who was certainly bright and very pleasant to ever deal with, and who was studying Philosophy along with, I think, English. I remember being surprised not long after college when he had seemingly become an ardent convert to socialist ideology - he himself very much middle-class in his background. But he - and was espousing standard doctrine - was hoping the working-classes lives would become much worse, because until then there was no hope of the Revolution coming which would open up the glorious future, i.e. the triumph of the intellectual Marxist cult of which he was now one of the guardians. This can be achieved through the existing political system or, more excitingly, violently. (Then of course, of course, the plight of the working-classes, though it had seemed to be the entire point of the Left, was simply abandoned as an unproductive cause, and focus shifted entirely to issues like gender and racism as more useful to the cause.)

So that was always the essence of any cause in the hands of the Left, once we are in the Marxist realms. The superficial cause, such as the proletariat, is the weight used by the cult and its elites to gain power. I remember being amazed that this pleasant, well-meaning guy was hoping less well-off people’s lives would get worse! The stupid naivety from an intelligent person in this already exposed toxic belief system was almost incomprehensible to me. And one other thing I remember being aware of here: maybe that same night when he talked of his leanings, he and another friend had been watching some inane Hollywood comedy such as I at this stage in my life wouldn’t even think of sitting down to. But here, simultaneous to his utopian Marxist hopes, he’s intentionally dwelling within this inane level of consciousness, and one which of course was coming from the corporate entertainment world that is surely inimical to any grand hopes for humanity!

“A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8).

Expensive Bottle

A man was given as a birthday gift a beautiful and very expensive bottle of wine, of which he was very pleased, grateful and proud. And he had every right to be. Anyway, it was later produced and poured out, and drunk appreciatively. But then, naturally, after the bottle was emptied and the wine drunk only the bottle remained. But he was still proud of his bottle, it wasn’t the kind of wine he’d be getting every day, or to be honest any day, most likely, and so - and who will blame him - he took to buying his regular and lesser wines and pouring their contents into its bottle, it made him feel good I suppose, the illusion, this I suppose it was implied was his level. And if guests were ever present, at least the right kind of guests, the bottle would be produced, and all would be pleased to partake in its glory, so to speak. And if there were any doubts as to the quality of the wine matching its exalted label, well, understandably, those doubts remained silent. Who would gain by mentioning them? They would all lose.

So I suppose things will go on like this as long as no one is so clumsy as to knock over and smash the lovely bottle. And maybe also as long as no one is uncouth enough to come along and express doubts as to quality and exaltation of the wine. Though I’m sure, however much discomfort they might momentarily produce, they could always be ignored, forgotten about and maybe not invited again. 

FemininE

 Something I’m trying to sort out - though easier said than done.

horse 2

 

This was posted recently, and has been changed a little bit since.

changed

 Something I previously posted after being worked on and changed a bit, though not significantly. This is one that I mostly do like.

PM 3

 Further updates from UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s obstacle strewn attempts to launch a music career, where the matter was felt to be of such importance for not just Starmer but the Labour Party as a whole, that an extraordinary general meeting of the party was held today somewhere in the bowels of London to debate the matter. To explain, the issue at hand was not seemingly whether it is correct for a prime minister to attempt to become a pop star, but the appropriateness of the song itself, or rather specifically the song title: Can’t Stop Dreaming of Gulags and Rape Gangs (Not Necessarily in that Order).

After several hours of heated and intense debate, it was decided by a reasonably significant Party majority that the song would be more appropriately titled simply Gulags and Rape Gangs. 

“That the prime minister should not be able to stop dreaming of any matter, no matter how exalted, speaks perhaps a little too much of a primacy of personal concerns, rather than a rational devotion to the subjects of the day and their service to the Cause,” explained a Labour Party spokesperson. “We have no need for dreaming. What is needed is cold clear action and remorseless discipline. And so we think it is more desirable in its service as propaganda for the Cause - which is the only justification for any public action -  that the song - a thing of rare beauty, I might add - be released with the more down-to-earth title: Gulags and Rape Gangs. And this is now the prime minister’s conviction also.”

The Conservative Party has since applauded the decision.

USSR

 

I spotted this in my town a couple of days ago. Thought it was brilliant! Even has the hammer and sickle symbol in there.

Ave Generosa

 

By Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th century German Benedictine abbess, polymath and visionary. And below, O Ignis Spiritus, also by her.

PM Two

Unexpected developments from the music world where it seems the release of UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s upcoming and debut single Can’t Get Enough of Those Funky Groovy Rape Gangs may not be going as smoothly as expected. It seems significant figures within the industry have suggested the song may struggle to receive significant airplay in its current form. 

“Sadly, in this corrupted world it seems even the prime minister is forced at times to bow to the demands of the far-right mob,” declared a Downing Street spokesperson.

Mr Starmer was immediately rushed this afternoon to the Abbey Road studios, where a now altered version of the song was recorded. Thankfully, the infectious beat and soaring melodies remain as was, with only the lyrics and song title altered. 

The modified song is now called: Can’t Stop Dreaming of Gulags and Rape Gangs (Not Necessarily in that Order).

Tony Blair is again on rhythm guitar.

Understandably everyone involved is now a little bit nervous of how this altered version will be received.

PM

Perhaps with one eye already on a post-political career, Keir Starmer has just recorded a song which is set for release over the coming weekend. The public, curious no doubt, as to what the prime minister’s song will offer them, are apparently in store for an unpretentious tune, driven by an infectious beat and soaring melodies. 

The song is called Can’t Get Enough of Those Funky Groovy Rape Gangs. Tony Blair is on rhythm guitar.

Dostoevsky on MAGA

Re-reading Dostoevsky’s novel 1872 novel Demons at the moment, this brought to mind the Make America Great Again movement, where the socially awkward but deeply sincere character Shatov who has renounced revolutionary, leftist ideology, talks of the attitude of this milieu towards its own nation and people. In an earlier chapter he retorts to the self-indulgent but relatively benign liberal figure Stepan Verkhovensky:

“These men of yours never loved the people, never suffered for them or sacrificed anything for them, no matter what they themselves imagined for their own good pleasure !”  he growled gloomily, looking down and turning impatiently on his chair. “One cannot love what one does no know, and they understood nothing about the Russian people! Not only have you overlooked the people - you have treated them with loathsome contempt.”

The bit though about the attitude to nation and its successes or failures belo:

“They’re paper people; it all comes from lackeyishness of thinking. And there’s hatred there too,” he said after a moment’s silence. “They’d be the first to be terribly unhappy if Russia somehow suddenly got reconstructed, even if it was in their own way, and somehow became boundlessly rich and happy. They’d have no one to hate then, no one to spit on, nothing to jeer at! All that’s there is an endless animal hatred of Russia that has eaten into their organism . . . And there are no tears invisible to the world under the visible laughter.”

Newer version

 A newer version of something shown previously, though I think it’s been changed a bit again since this photo was taken.

Makes Me Proud

 I don’t exactly keep abreast of these things but anyway . . . 

“You know what makes me proud as a British citizen?”

“What?”

“The way our prime minister -“

“Starmer?”

“Yeah of course. But the way he is willing to step in to keep the Ukrainian War going.”

“He’s the guy who was at the heart of that regime that was allowing those rape gangs to keep going raping women and children in England?”

“I suppose so, yeah; though I don’t know why you should want to bring that up.”

“So a rape gangs enabler wants to keep a war going - I’m not quite sure I see where the pride comes in. You’ll have to explain it to me. Are the two issues connected - the rape gangs and the war?”

“It would be more polite and proper to call them grooming gangs.”

“I’m not really interested in being more polite and proper.”

The Blue House in the Potholder District

 

By Ernst Kirchner, circa 1908.