adittyofdittos

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The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

- Confucius, in The Analects

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"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, Republican

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does anyone have that quote that goes something like 'white germans under the nazis lived just fine as long as they were loyal to the state, gave their children to the army, and paid their taxes, and in this sense many americans would be comfortable living under fascism' trying to find who said it but google is giving me jack shit

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I tell law students: if you're not used to fighting losing battles, don't become a lawyer. Our job is to stand up for people who can't do it themselves. Our job is to be the champion of lost causes.

- Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor

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The process of democracy is one of change. Our laws are not frozen into immutable form, they are constantly in the process of revision in response to the needs of a changing society.

- Supreme Court Justice Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall

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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

- Mark Twain

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Weary of our dreary world and bored with life, our fancies call us To imaginary realms. 'Tis then we turn to you for solace, You, who with artful skill construct us alien worlds in distant spaces, Transporting us by space ships and by rockets to weird, wondrous places. New concepts, customs and traditions styled for life on other spheres Make us question those that we have followed blindly through the years. Your skillful pens paint future scenes, or glimpses of a bygone age. Cold words are changed to living entities across a printed page. What mighty citadels you build with pen and ink your only tools, Creating havens for the dreamers, making refuges for fools. Atomic power, robots, rockets, futuristic innovations, All these fabulous ideas evolved from your imaginations May be ridiculed and mocked and deemed impossible by some, And yet they may be fact, not fiction, in progressive years to come.

- Tigrina, "On Science Fiction Writers," 1946.

A friend just sent me this from the Sci-Fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-nation show closing.

I definitely kinda love it.

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People don't want to be informed. They want to feel informed.

- Roger Ailes

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There must be enough chaos in one's life to give birth to dancing stars.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I've been given a book of daily meditations. Give Birth to Dancing Stars is the first.

I find I am reminded in the extended commentary, (possibly because I am thinking about Tarot at the moment as well) of the concept of the Ace and the 10. That Ace to 10 represents a cycle of life with bookends of fecundity. The Ace is the great potential of that fecundity that could go... anywhere. The 10 is that fecundity matured, tamed, and ordered but it is also the birthplace, the metaphorical Garden of Eden for the Ace. Remember: cycle, not line.

There are no totally good tarot or oracle cards. Neither are there any totally bad cards. They are meant, even at the most orderly and concrete, to still be full of those chaotic energies that can both slay and birth stars.

The three cards I see feared the most when I read for others is the Death card, 13, the Devil card, 15, and the Tower card 16. Everybody loves Temperance, 14, that sounds nice.

While Death CAN mean literal death, it is better thought of as the moment at the heart of change. One way of existence dies and a new one is born. That might be a way without you. But if you're the one changing, it is merely without so much of the old you.

Temperance comes after death. It is a generally positive card. But it is also a warning and a directive. Don't throw away everything that was. There are still gifts to be poured between the life you had and the life you have. They inform one another. And it is the hand of restraint for your rebirth. There is nothing like the zeal of the converted. And there is no one more prone to mistakes and hurts than the newborn. It is some of the most alive and pure you will ever be AND it is the point where pain is the most likely, both for you and those you go zeal to. Go slow in your joy and savor it.

But then comes the Devil. One of the things I actively look for in a deck is their depiction of the Devil. Because the Devil is all tied up (pun absolutely intended) in power and control. It is much less that the Devil has YOU tied up and under his control and much more that the Devil makes you WANT to feel tied up and trapped. It is the contrast of Temperance, it's about not going too slow and too sure and getting trapped in your own devices. So I tend to prefer Devil cards where the Lovers, 6, LOOK like they are prisoners but are clearly in a position where they could escape their bondage. It is a card of illusion and delusion. But that doesn't mean that the trap isn't real, that it doesn't hold real power. In some ways it is even more powerful because the outward bindings are merely a symbol of the internal hold the Devil has over you.

How the hell is that positive? How could it be positive?

Remember, the imprisoned are the lovers.

One of the great theological disagreements is around NECESSARY evil.

The Devil may or may not be identical to the snake. The desire for the apple may or may not be identical to the bondage of desire that has illusory hold of the fallen in the later card. But the lovers, in this moment, are even more blind than those under the Devil's control. Before they eat the apple, they can't tell the difference between the two cards. The two experiences are identical for those who have no knowledge of good and evil. All is the same to them.

And so the Devil holds its own opposite. The Devil is marked with the pentacle, which, even upside down, is a symbol of protection and Earth. He offers earthly delights. He lets you see the worst of yourself and of others. He is lord of illusions and father of lies. Containing his own opposite, he enables you to see truly and experience what really is, with all the sanitization ripped away. The lie is that that is all that there is. But it is equally a lie that it does not exist. When wielded with Temperance, the devil is as much your ally as your false master because he reveals what is hidden to the lovers, he shows good and evil to its full extent and bids you look. Look hard. The seeds of his undoing are in his power and his show. He is a liar who shows you the truth. He is a jailkeeper that gives you the key. He is a torturer that relies on seduction and pleasure. He is part of us. He is of the world. He grants fecundity, possibility, and yes, at first, chaos. But he can only hold you if you let him. You can take his gifts and leave him behind.

And even if you can't. Heaven still has gifts he cannot counter.

The tower, the edifice of what is, the structure that defends you but also keeps you locked in place, is undone by a bolt from heaven. The original tower for most people who will read me is the Tower of Babel, the great work of pride that made people think they were God's equal. They were not the true King and He reminds them by striking down their project of vanity, throwing them to the ground below, and scattering them in ignorance, separate from each other. It is the ultimate dissolution of the lovers. They no longer even CAN be together. All the structure they have built has been undone in a single moment, in a single act of divine power.

Remember what just came before. The Devil. The feeling of being trapped. The feeling that you are bound when you are not. This is the reminder. The tower is the construct of a stable system. It is you in place and safe and sure. It is the absence of chaos when the devil's treats of wild Friday nights have become stale and all you have left is the bitter hangovers and self disgust of Monday mornings. The tower, as positive, is the gift of the Death card. It is the change you can't make on your own and need a helping hand to break free. As much as it is judgement, it is the sudden, abrupt, terrifying release into the world. All bonds shattered. You are free. And it is scary out there.

You went into the tower willingly.

It was exactly what you thought you wanted. Your perfect pine wood ever after until death came to whisper in your ear. And it looked SO much better than what was outside. It's terrifying and miserable when you're alone out there.

Like I said, The Devil makes you WANT to stay. He is seductive. There are always fantastic reasons to stay. "Necessary" reasons to go back even if you manage to escape for a little while.

The entire Anonymous approach to drug addiction is based on the idea embodied in the Tower card. You can't do it yourself. But nothing under heaven is immune to its power. With divine help, no fortress can hold you, no chains can bind you, and what you cannot do for yourself can brush aside everything that keeps you there more easily than you can knock over a pile of children toys.

Chaos, the horror of the real tearing your protection away from you, becomes the gift of the real. It does not care for kings, crowns, or reasons. The same flicker-flash of divine power that can tear your comfortable pillow fort asunder can annihilate your prison. Both acts cast you free into the unknown. But like the Devil, that's seeing things as they really are. That all good is as much a lie as all bad. Chaos and order, death and fecundity, change and freedom are all merely different faces of the same coinage, carrying their reversals inside them if you care to look for them.

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The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. And if all others accepted the lie, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.

- George Orwell, 1984

Musk responded to criticism of his salute:

And supporters chimed in with things such as Musk is autistic and just got over excited. Or that he was actually doing the Roman salute, imitating Mussolini (who Hitler stole the gesture from) and not actually Hitler or early cinema’s depiction of Imperial Rome (who Mussolini stole the gesture from because everyone thinks it’s real and not made up for the movies). Or even, like Musk, that it’s just not a big deal.

But, I’ll give Musk and his defenders this, in spite of the visual similarities:

I don’t actually think Musk’s intent was to say he’s really Hitler and to just sneak that by us.

Sure, I think would love to have the dictatorial power and authority that would come from being the leader of the 4th Reich but I still don’t think that was the purpose of this gesture in this moment.

I think what Musk really, strongly wanted to communicate to those who would understand it is that he is one of them.

It’s not, “I’m Hitler,” it’s “I, like you, am a White (Christian) Power Fascist.” Hitler merely happens to be the old and internationally recognized face of that belief. He could take or leave Hitler. Hitler isn’t the important part. The important part is being one of them.

The important part is the belief system.

The important part is for “YOU” to see and understand and be inspired to put on that shirt and those jackboots. Raise the flag. Salute AND love the ideal nation made of (and ONLY of) the ideal people. March out into the streets. And do what must be done.

At which point, yeah, “He’s Hitler,” is tired. It is boring. Because it’s meaningless. A debate about who he is emulating or what he was thinking or how he meant it IS a distraction.

The evidence of your eyes is right fucking there.

The meaning of what you saw is crystal fucking clear.

And the “YOU” he was talking to aren’t giving one single fuck trying to interpret it or parse it. They know what they saw just fine and are going to act accordingly.

He’s Musk. He’s one of them. What he hates they will hate. He will point. He will denounce. They will suit up. They will march out. And they will commit his violence for him. He is a commander. His job is to point out the targets. Their job is to destroy the targets. His job is to justify. Their job is to love the show.

Arguing semantics. Getting caught up in logic. Debating the real meanings and motives. That’s doing his job for him. It’s helping him put on the show. It’s giving him a platform for all the justifications. And it’s devoting energy to a useless mess instead of devoting that energy to actually doing something about his commands and the violence that WILL inevitably follow. Regardless of how stupid, ridiculous, and/or academic it may all seem at first.

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Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

- Jean-Paul Sartre

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If you saw the new Nimona movie and loved her like I did then you might like this shark design I made!

She's up here on Teepublic, Threadless, and Redbubble and sales go to support a queer art student!