#radical change

[greenhorizonblog]

Ownership of the necessities for life

I'm sorry but we are never going to talk or negotiate our way to societal change. There I said it. The government and big business don't give a fuck, they only pretend to sometimes in order to pacify you. If pleading and asking nicely, or even protesting and demanding worked, it would have worked by now.

Change is a very real tangible thing. It's about who owns the land, who builds and owns the houses, who grows the food, who controls the water and electricity. The real tangible physical basic need necessities to sustain a human life. If we don't own these ourselves, we will always be at the mercy of authorities. And it's a situation that makes abuse very tempting for said authorities. GH seeks to decentralise power and give it back to communities/tribes. Land and the necessities for life should be communally owned and managed.

This is a main part of our mission. We will seek to raise funds to buy land and then start pilot project eco villages as soon as possible. They will be open to applicants, who will live there free of charge and according to GH principles

GreenHorizon

Hope is the seed of progress

[thehydromancer]

Fables Press Release

Subject: Fables Enters the Public Domain

15 September 2023

By Bill Willingham

For Immediate Release

The Lede

As of now, 15 September 2023, the comic book property called Fables, including all related Fables spin-offs and characters, is now in the public domain. What was once wholly owned by Bill Willingham is now owned by everyone, for all time. It’s done, and as most experts will tell you, once done it cannot be undone. Take-backs are neither contemplated nor possible.

Q: Why Did You Do This?

A number of reasons. I’ve thought this over for some time. In no particular order they are:

1) Practicality: When I first signed my creator-owned publishing contract with DC Comics, the company was run by honest men and women of integrity, who (for the most part) interpreted the details of that agreement fairly and above-board. When problems inevitably came up we worked it out, like reasonable men and women. Since then, over the span of twenty years or so, those people have left or been fired, to be replaced by a revolving door of strangers, of no measurable integrity, who now choose to interpret every facet of our contract in ways that only benefit DC Comics and its owner companies. At one time the Fables properties were in good hands, and now, by virtue of attrition and employee replacement, the Fables properties have fallen into bad hands.

            Since I can’t afford to sue DC, to force them to live up to the letter and the spirit of our long-time agreements; since even winning such a suit would take ridiculous amounts of money out of my pocket and years out of my life (I’m 67 years old, and don’t have the years to spare), I’ve decided to take a different approach, and fight them in a different arena, inspired by the principles of asymmetric warfare. The one thing in our contract the DC lawyers can’t contest, or reinterpret to their own benefit, is that I am the sole owner of the intellectual property. I can sell it or give it away to whomever I want.

            I chose to give it away to everyone. If I couldn’t prevent Fables from falling into bad hands, at least this is a way I can arrange that it also falls into many good hands. Since I truly believe there are still more good people in the world than bad ones, I count it as a form of victory.

2) Philosophy: In the past decade or so, my thoughts on how to reform the trademark and copyright laws in this country (and others, I suppose) have undergone something of a radical transformation. The current laws are a mishmash of unethical backroom deals to keep trademarks and copyrights in the hands of large corporations, who can largely afford to buy the outcomes they want.

In my template for radical reform of those laws I would like it if any IP is owned by its original creator for up to twenty years from the point of first publication, and then goes into the public domain for any and all to use. However, at any time before that twenty year span bleeds out, you the IP owner can sell it to another person or corporate entity, who can have exclusive use of it for up to a maximum of ten years. That’s it. Then it cannot be resold. It goes into the public domain. So then, at the most, any intellectual property can be kept for exclusive use for up to about thirty years, and no longer, without exception.

Of course, if I’m going to believe such radical ideas, what kind of hypocrite would I be if I didn’t practice them? Fables has been my baby for about twenty years now. It’s time to let it go. This is my first test of this process. If it works, and I see no legal reason why it won’t, look for other properties to follow in the future. Since DC, or any other corporate entity, doesn’t actually own the property, they don’t get a say in this decision.

Q: What Exactly Has DC Comics Done to Provoke This?

Too many things to list exhaustively, but here are some highlights: Throughout the years of my business relationship with DC, with Fables and with other intellectual properties, DC has always been in violation of their agreements with me. Usually it’s in smaller matters, like forgetting to seek my opinion on artists for new stories, or for covers, or formats of new collections and such. In those times, when called on it, they automatically said, “Sorry, we overlooked you again. It just fell through the cracks.” They use the “fell through the cracks” line so often, and so reflexively, that I eventually had to bar them from using it ever again. They are often late reporting royalties, and often under-report said royalties, forcing me to go after them to pay the rest of what’s owed.

            Lately though their practices have grown beyond these mere annoyances, prompting some sort of showdown. First they tried to strong arm the ownership of Fables from me. When Mark Doyle and Dan Didio first approached me with the idea of bringing Fables back for its 20th anniversary (both gentlemen since fired from DC), during the contract negotiations for the new issues, their legal negotiators tried to make it a condition of the deal that the work be done as work for hire, effectively throwing the property irrevocably into the hands of DC. When that didn’t work their excuse was, “Sorry, we didn’t read your contract going into these negotiations. We thought we owned it.”

            More recently, during talks to try to work out our many differences, DC officers admitted that their interpretation of our publishing agreement, and the following media rights agreement, is that they could do whatever they wanted with the property. They could change stories or characters in any way they wanted. They had no obligation whatsoever to protect the integrity and value of the IP, either from themselves, or from third parties (Telltale Games, for instance) who want to radically alter the characters, settings, history and premises of the story (I’ve seen the script they tried to hide from me for a couple of years). Nor did they owe me any money for licensing the Fables rights to third parties, since such a license wasn’t anticipated in our original publishing agreement.

            When they capitulated on some of the points in a later conference call, promising on the phone to pay me back monies owed for licensing Fables to Telltale Games, for example, in the execution of the new agreement, they reneged on their word and offered the promised amount instead as a “consulting fee,” which avoided the precedent of admitting this was money owed, and included a non-disclosure agreement that would prevent me from saying anything but nice things about Telltale or the license.

            And so on. There’s so much more, but these, as I said, are some of the highlights. At that point, since I disagreed on all of their new interpretations of our longstanding agreements, we were in conflict. They practically dared me to sue them to enforce my rights, knowing it would be a long and debilitating process. Instead I began to consider other ways to go.

Q: Are You Concerned at What DC Will Do Now?

No. I gave them years to do the right thing. I tried to reason with them, but you can’t reason with the unreasonable. They used these years to make soothing promises, tell lies about how dedicated they were towards working this out, and keep dragging things out as long as possible. I gave them an opportunity to renegotiate the contracts from the ground up, putting everything in unambiguous language, and they ignored that offer. I gave them the opportunity, twice, to simply tear up our contracts, and we each go our separate ways, and they ignored those offers. I tried to go over their heads, to deal directly with their new corporate masters, and maybe find someone willing to deal in good faith, and they blocked all attempts to do so. (Try getting any officer of DC Comics to identify who they report to up the company ladder. I dare you.) In any case, without giving them details, I warned them months in advance that this moment was coming. I told them what I was about to do would be “both legal and ethical.” Now it’s happened.

            Note that my contracts with DC Comics are still in force. I did nothing to break them, and cannot unilaterally end them. I still can’t publish Fables comics through anyone but them. I still can’t authorize a Fables movie through anyone but them. Nor can I license Fables toys nor lunchboxes, nor anything else. And they still have to pay me for the books they publish. And I’m not giving up on the other money they owe. One way or another, I intend to get my 50% of the money they’ve owed me for years for the Telltale Game and other things.

However, you, the new 100% owner of Fables never signed such agreements. For better or worse, DC and I are still locked together in this unhappy marriage, perhaps for all time.

But you aren’t.

If I understand the law correctly (and be advised that copyright law is a mess; purposely vague and murky, and no two lawyers – not even those specializing in copyright and trademark law – agree on anything), you have the rights to make your Fables movies, and cartoons, and publish your Fables books, and manufacture your Fables toys, and do anything you want with your property, because it’s your property.

Mark Buckingham is free to do his version of Fables (and I dearly hope he does). Steve Leialoha is free to do his version of Fables (which I’d love to see). And so on. You don’t have to get my permission (but you might get my blessing, depending on your plans). You don’t have to get DC’s permission, or the permission of anyone else. You never signed the same agreements I did with DC Comics.

It was my absolute joy and pleasure to bring you Fables stories for the past twenty years. I look forward to seeing what you do with it.

For questions and further information you can contact Bill Willingham at:

william.thomas.willingham@gmail.com  Please include “Fables Public Domain” in the subject line, so I don’t assume you’re another Netflix promotion.

[rottingangelic]

helpful links🖤

[taratarotgreene]

2024 World Predictions

I’m going to drip feed these this year as I have been feeling under the weather so please bear with me. The 2024 New Years Astrology chart set for January 1,2024 at midnight EST for Washington DC predicts the year ahead. A year of radical change, and protests, as the Aquarian Age begins with Pluto settling into Aquarius for the next 20 years. NEW YEAR 2024 ASTROLOGY CHART PREDICTIONS The Moon…

[gaydiation-poisoning]

I've seen people be like "But how much violence and destruction is REALLY justified in protecting the environment??"

The answer is however much it takes you fucking clown act, you're not living in a god damned Care Bears special, you're living in the real world with real evil and greedy malicious parasitic bastards who only understand destruction, and have molded that precious political space of yours around their interests.

The life of every innocent person and creature on this planet is infinitely more important than your fucking feelings being hurt because someone blows up a pipeline that would poison people's drinking water or throws a ceaselessly greedy oil baron off a building or whatever.

[nevillegoddardsonofabdullah]

How 'Feeling is the Secret' Can Radically Alter Your Reality — Do You Da...

[elizabro]

please consider how you engage with aaron bushnell's death. you may react to it as you will, but it's crucial to remember that his death was specifically a call to action. it was not meant solely to shock but to draw attention to a vast moral hypocrisy: that to many, a soldier dying in a campaign backed by the U.S. government is noble, even if the soldier kills innocents to do so, even if the cause is morally bankrupt--but this? this is insanity. a man taking his own life, on his own terms, in an attempt to help others while hurting nobody else, is somehow less rational and more horrifying than the mass killing of civilians.

of course aaron's death was horrific. but as he said beforehand, it is realistically no more horrific than what's happening in gaza. if we can't stomach this, then why can we stomach children being bombed? thousands being starved? for all that self immolation is, it brings death in a matter of minutes. it is a fraction of the amount of pain, fear, and grief that people in gaza are experiencing. it's just that we are able to quantify it. and this tiny, quantifiable sliver of horror is still so unbelievably awful. how can anyone bear to think about anything else when this horror is happening a millionfold in palestine? this is the question aaron bushnell was asking. and he wanted you to face it, head-on, watching him burn to death.

I've been seeing people make fanart. minimalist graphics to sell on t-shirts. to commodify his death, to mythologize it not a day afterwards, is not only in poor taste but a hindrance to his message. the answer is not commodification, nor is it defeatism, nor is it rejoicing in his death. if you want to honor aaron's legacy, take action. channel your horror and your outrage into making a material change. this wasn't about him. this was about palestine. remember that it was always about palestine.

[thoughtportal]

DR ADAM LEVY ClimateAdam ROSEMARY MOSCO

[logorrhea5mip]

Sorry for the bad photo quality, Tumblr doesn't like posts this long.

[tenth-sentence]

We are fully aware of the staggering difficulties involved in such a radical change in the social and economic structure of our nation.

"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists – Appendix B: The 'Franck Report'" - Robert Jungk, translated by James Cleugh

[juliaridulaina]

Morir en vida//Dying alive//Morir en vida

Morir en vida, espiritualment parlant és, no aferrar-se a cap pertinença física, creença o estatus. Quan un mor, res existeix per aquell. Quan un mor en vida tota pertinença deixa de ser pròpia fins i tot el propi cos. Aquesta és una expressió contundent vista superficialment. Però si aprofundim una mica més, si oblidem la part física que implica la paraula «mort», n’extraurem un significat molt…

[soracities]

we NEED more cleaners and bricklayers and scaffolders and delivery drivers in MFA poetry programs. like. immediately.

[imkeepinit]

[athlast]

there's something about butches reclaiming protectiveness and chivalry from an imposed "caring, nurturing" character associated and often forced upon women. something about how while straight men often try to present as careless as possible, masculinity and care are not only not conflicting in the butch identity, but inherent to it. there's something there.

[prettybutter-flyy]

so, i've really been struggling these past few months. i was going through some financial and professional struggles and personal struggles with my roommate. it all really became a lot for me. i holed myself in my room for a couple months, only exiting for food, and work, when i finally got a job.

i'm not diagnosed with any mental illnesses but i do know that i've struggled with obsessive thoughts for as long as i can remember. and during this period of my life, my thoughts were so so dark. it kept circulating in my head, "i should move out of america, that's not actually going to change anything i can't escape capitalism or the need to socialize, there's no where on this planet that i would feel comfortable, how do i leave this planet? there's only one way. but then what's after" (i am terrified of whatever comes after) "i hope there is nothing after life, then i could finally get the peace i dream of." and i'd been contemplating and encouraging that in my head.

i sort of asked for help. i should have, but i didn't. i would hide it in the gauze of, "let's have a philosophical debate." (it really is interesting to hear people who don't give a fuck about the world, talk about the world- and i don't mean that to spite them. they GENUINELY do not think about what's going on in the world and they just live their lives, their small insignificant lives. and that makes them happy and i envy them for that. my brain thinks on wide scale, big picture, always on, impossible to turn off)

but the responses when i try to talk about my unending thoughts on the massive subject that is life itself and it's meaninglessness and the universe and what is beyond it, are typically met with such simple responses like, "just think positively!" swiftly followed by, "if you ever need to talk about something, let me know!" i did! i tried! you didn't get it. and that's okay. i often walked away from those conversations feeling unheard, unseen, even less understood than before. i sort of bared my soul and was just being met with simple proverbs that people have been repeating since before i was born. i had irreversibly discovered the knowledge that nothing i did mattered because i was going to be stuck in this rat race for the rest of my life, and even if i get all the money in the world, the most beautiful partner, my dream job i will still be miserable in this body, in this brain, in my skin, on this planet. that knowledge won't just disappear from my brain if i "think positively." that will always be with me.

that's gut wrenching to read back to myself considering the only thing that pulled me out of the pit of despair that was my depression... don't laugh.

...

okay, i lost the nerve to just say it. let me explain myself.

i'm not going to say i'm not depressed anymore (i was never diagnosed in the first place) but i have been able to pull myself out of that line of thinking quicker than ever. "nothing matters" "so why am i stressing about things that dont matter? will this be important in 5 minutes? 5 years?"

does that make sense? like i remember thinking, "and it's not fair that i am just miserable. i got this apartment so i wouldnt be miserable in my family home. i shouldnt be upset in this apartment i pay for. my bedroom shouldn't be a prison." then it occured to me... i can get up right now and stand in my living room.

so i did.

i could go to like the library of something. i could do a fucking jumping jack.

i did do all of those things. it kind of occured to me that i can do things that i think will make me happy and stop doing the things that don't. why did i think i couldn't? "you look stupid trying new things. and youre annoying to your friends and why don't you go back to bed?"

why do i have to go back to bed? i don't. but why did i think i should?

it's nuetral thinking, yes. observing my thoughts and not being scared by them, but approaching them, dissecting them. listening to them. really listening to what they say to me about me. i am longing for peace. everything is always chaotic to me, interacting with others, sometimes even just being myself, the shit i watch on tiktok, the doomscrolling on twitter. i just want peace.

"why should i strive for peace when not everyone on this earth will experience peace. what if i expereince true peace and in exchange, someone across the world can NEVER experience true peace because of some unfortunate string of events that resulted in my peace?" what i heard was i want everyone to have peace, not just me. its not that i don't deserve it. i just havent been accepting it. torturing myself.

so i put the phone down. i closed the laptop. i went outside and stretched. and it felt good. quiet. it made me want to work out.

and then it got to the point where, when i woke up in the morning, i asked myself what i wanted to do that day. i encouraged myself to do stuff.

i may have seen my friends like 3 or 4 times during that period of my life, compared to the grand total of zero times i'd seen them in the months prior. i went to a coffee/book shop that i had driven by maybe 10 times! i had always been curious about it, it looked very aesthetic on the outside. i probrably won't be going again. turns out it was a *christian* book/coffee shop (i felt BETRAYED), but i stayed there for maybe 15 minutes, because of an unfinished game of chess on one of the tables. i love chess! i just sat there and played tan to brown, tan to brown. i wondered what the people before me had going on that they couldn't finish the game. and i admired the actual peices themselves, they looked hand carved into the light and dark brown woods, and like someone put a lot of love into the designed. "how can someone put so much love into something like that? don't they realize nothing matters?"

but by then, i was enamored with the pieces (i wanted to steal them. high key might go back to steal them). the depression voice was promptly ignored. i mean, i acknowleged it, becasue that was what was making brain feel better. i acknowleged it and then moved on to just admiring this art, and this game that i love and get to play by myself inside this admittedly christian coffee shop. and i realized i was at peace for just a moment. who cares what is going on outside of this christian coffee shop at this moment, where i just lost at chess to myself, but i also just won against myself?

i tend to make everything such a big fucking deal, even the revelation that nothing has to be such a big fucking deal.

i bought a plant. i let him name himself (Malcolm- yes, after Malcolm X- yes, my Coleus is a black man) i've been speaking positively to him. i think that's helped a bit. i like to think of him as an extension of me. (also, if anyone knows how to take care of a coelus, hmu, i'm not A HUNDRED% sure i know what i'm doing, and i'm afraid i'm killing him.)

well, that's just my experience though. lmk yours. these are just some of my thought processes from the last couple of months, and some things that helped me escape them. particularly getting off the internet more often, for longer times. honestly, i've relapsed a little bit and been on tiktok endlessly, and i've just spiraled all over again. why is it so easy to do what hurts us?

[lokabrenna13]

Good morning, friends! This week's rune is Hagalaz.

Hagalaz. Another rune of change. Hagalaz has a reputation for surfacing in a reading to fortell catastrophe. And at times, Hagalaz does mean just that. Catastrophe. More specifically, Hagalaz indicates forces or situations beyond our control, usually resulting in some kind of setback. With that in mind, expect this week to be a bit more hectic. If you have major plans, prepare early. Some of you may see doors of opportunity closing, making room for greater opportunities in the near future. Hagalaz is also associated with the subconscious, so your dreams may bring important insight this week.

#runepull #runeart #runes #runedivination #divination #northerntraditionpagan #pagan #northerntradition #hagalaz #disruption #catastrophe #change #destructiveforces #hail #runeoftheweek #norsepagan #futhark #elderfuthark #runevideo