Pinned
Reblogged muffediller
Reblogged
Genuine question - did the KKK flaming cross thing come from the crois tàra of Gaelic tradition via on of those British Israelite congregations in Ireland that thought the Arc of the Covenant was kept in Tara and so on?
Short answer, no, very much not, it was a deeply, vehemently Protestant movement from the word go and even the suggestion that its symbols had even collateral relations to Ireland would have gone down *very badly.*
Longer answer is that this is mostly speculation on my part as a US Southernor, rather than a specific citation, so for all I know there *could* be something there, but I regard it very, VERY skeptically. What you *might* be seeing, possibly, is parallel evolution of symbols. Maaaybe. In terms of symbolic origins I'd look more towards the masonic-milieu - not in the tired, stupid form of "every bad thing is secretly freemasons!!!!" you sometimes see trundling around the conspiracy realm, but in the more down to earth form that freemasonry formed the seedbed of fraternal organizations in the United States, and fraternal organizations used to be *every fucking where* over here; there was a period, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where some western states' legal codes just kind of assumed *everyone* was in SOME kind of fraternal organization. So if there's any vector of transmission, I'd start my investigation there.
Anglo-Irish British Israelism was an institution of the most extreme wing of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, decidedöy NOT Catholic. The weirder wing of Church of Ireland evangelicals. They had strong attachments to the symbols of Gaelic Ireland, especially Tara, partially due to MacPhersons Ossian and partially due to an indigenising process in Ireland - including, at least I reckon potentially - the Crois tàra, the flaming cross burned on hilltops as a summons to war.
And British Israelism in America evolved into Christian Identity, that Nazi heresy, by preachers associated with the second Klan and the British Israelite movement, which combined both. The flaming cross is not documented during the first Klan, only developikg during the second on. I at least think there is some connective tissue there.
Reblogged
It is becoming more and more up for question, though, whether Reform are replacing the Tories at all, or merely reinventing them under a new name. There are two elements to this. First, as Reform realises it might have to govern soon, it is walking back some of the more batshit elements of its programme (though many remain!), and at least attempting to talk the talk of administrative competence. It is moving closer in several respects, that is, to a more conventional Tory position, even as the Tories lurch to the right. Second, recall that one of Reform’s major structural problems is a lack of would-be MPs and ministers who are in any way competent. The people who have been elected as local councillors have made them a continual laughing-stock. To some extent this hole is being plugged by constant defections of former Tory ministers (no, I’m not claiming these people are competent! But they are trumpeted, at least, as showing the party has experience and gravitas). But every former Tory minister who joins (today it was Nadeem Zahawi, tomorrow who knows?) raises the question of whether Reform are killing the Tories, or saving them by giving them a new flag to wrap themselves in. Would a Reform government be, in personnel and to some degree in platform, that distinguishable from the kind of Tory government Truss might have led if she hadn’t gone down in flames so quickly?
Having the same problem in the UK as in America
Source: crookedtimber.org
Once again listebing to the Know your Enemy episode. Have to say that - purely instinctually - when I hear accounts of the riot on January 6th, I can't help but side against theå police. I know that their enemies are fascists in this case, and many of them more immediately a threat to people like me than the DC police force (note the 'like me' - white anti-fascists). But I hate the police more. I cannot work myself to care that much about the sacred institutions of American democracy and their upholders in the police, even when their enemies are fash.
Let wolf tear at wolf, and the lambs of God find relief.
Reblogged mhythic
Walmsted farm , Uppsala - Carin Ax , n/d.
Swedish, 1915-2006
Colour lithograph , 30 x 46 cm. Ed. 16/150
Reblogged monk-core
In times of rising fascism, I take comfort in the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who resisted the Nazis and was martyred for it.
This poem was written in December 1944 as a letter to his fiancée while he was imprisoned by the Gestapo and is the last theological text he wrote before being executed in April 1945.
His life was a model of Christian sacrifice and devotion to justice. He chose to stand up to fascists, unlike many so-called Christians then and now, and is considered a Saint by some denominations.
By gentle Powers faithfully surrounded,
Protected wondrously, consoled by grace,
That’s how I long to live these days together,
Close by your side, to start the coming year;
Our hearts are tortured even now by evil days,
The burdens of the past are hard to bear,
Oh Lord, grant our scared souls the salvation,
Therefore You have created us and saved.
And if You pass the heavy cup of suffering,
The bitter chalice, filled to the highest brim,
Then we will take it, grateful without trembling
Out of Your good and so beloved hand.
But if You will grant us once more the joy to see
This world, the splendor of its beaming sun,
Then we will surely all the past remember
And our whole lives will be Yours alone.
Let warm and bright the candles’ flames light up today,
Which You have brought in our gloomy times,
Lead us together back again if that can be!
We know for sure, Your light shines through the night.
When now the silence spreads around, help us to hear
And listen to the full embracing sound
Of this world, which unseen around is widening
To all Your children’s highest hymns of praise.
By gentle Powers wonderfully sheltered,
Awaiting fearlessly what there will be.
God, He is near at dusk and in the morning
And with us certainly on each new day.
English Translation by Eckhard and Sabine Becker, 2024.
Reblogged vedurnan
the inserts and bottle design for the gollum fragrance i created as a christmas present to my book club, complete with a little gold ring lurking in the bottom of the bottle
Finally reading Gods of the Blood and learning lots of interestkng bits, like that Jack Warner of the New Christian Crusade Church (the group that competed with ghe Covenant the Sword and the Arm of the Lord for the status of second most important Christian Identity group after the Aryan Nations, and which had strong contacts with the Nazi movement in south Africa) was an Odinist before he became a Christian heretic.
Reblogged librarynpc
my synagogue was set on fire last night during Shabbat at 3:00 AM in an arsonist attack.
no one was injured, which i am extremely grateful for. they have several security cameras, so there is a suspect in custody. the details and motivation haven't been shared, but it can be reasonably assumed to be a hate crime.
this was the first synagogue established in the state, the only one that's not hours away, and certainly the largest in the area. two Torah scrolls are destroyed beyond repair, 5 are damaged. the library where children have religious school and morning Shabbat service is held has been completely burnt down, much of that section of the building that's left is covered in soot and ash. the administrative offices were also lost.
our Tree of Life, which was for important life events like bar/bat/b'nei mitzvahs, was destroyed. i was just looking at it this past Tuesday while waiting for a meeting with my rabbi. it was dozens of bronze plaques in the shape of leaves with commemorations on them placed above a trunk. there is a photo of the wreckage that makes me cry every time i look at it.
we have a rescued scroll from Nazi-era Czechoslovakia (it is thankfully unharmed). we have a Holocaust memorial garden. we have names of dead loved ones displayed. memories in and on the walls. there are so many deeply meaningful and largely irreplaceable things here.
my rabbi was out of state for the last several days. i cannot imagine how he's feeling.
im fucking pissed at the police department. they said that they would patrol the grounds more often in light of the worldwide rise in antisemitism. I have not personally seen them once. they let the only area for our community to gather be set on fire.
i am exhausted. i am angry. i am thankful it is not any worse, because it easily could have been, but tonight i am grieving that little library full of vintage Jewish books.
The same Synogogue was also bombed in 1967. This is the best article I could find so far this soon after the fire.
yes, this is my synagogue. Beth Israel Congregation was firebombed by the KKK in 1967 along with the rabbi's house because he was an outspoken supporter of civil rights for Black Americans.
here are some photos of the aftermath of the most recent fire:
I have been asked about fundraising, so I will be providing a link to donations.
Please help us rebuild if you can.
Reblogged
need the @collapsedsquid take on the Tooze special forces piece
(includes aside that the US special forces are larger than the British Army, but more generally do we even have the concept of an army that isn't special forces, now?)
First thing I thought of was comparing this to the role that the US marines played in the early 20th century, the "banana wars," when US marines would occupy foreign customs houses and extract taxes. Could say this is merely the US returning to the way it's military was structured in an earlier.
But yeah there is also a way this is a world-wide phenomenon, I think you get sorts of waves of general levels of mobilization, based on the politics and technology of the era, it doesn't seem like it's just the US or even major powers that have decided to basically make the entire military the special forces, can see things like the way the regular Iraqi army just melted away in the face of the islamic state and how they had to respond to that with the PMFs.
Ukraine sits as the weird counterexample though, I think people thought that war would be fought entirely with special forces but that is not what is happening.
Well, ukraine is the only current example of what is basicslly industrial war between two parts who are at least vaguely in the same ballpark (in other words, what we'd consider 'actual war'). This is war as politics by other means, war as Clausewitz described it. The rest bears more similarity to a police action strucurally: it isn't that strange to use special forces like troops for a police action. I suspect that as we move fron a War on Terror model to a war between the great powers the special forces will once again return to play a bit-part in the armed forces.
Reblogged headspace-hotel
Beautiful track. I'm not gay or addicted to heroin but I empathise all the same. Life is fucking melancholy sometimes.