Thule Thinks

Pulling yourself into a new existence.

2012-01-30T12:52:00.015+01:00

Thanks to a friend of mine, who dragged me into this with enthusiasm and conviction, and the wonderful people at Wings of Desire. I had a new experience yesterday, and I can't quite use my academic training to quantify it. This is nothing new, it happens to a lot of people, and I dare say more and more people consciously seek it out.

Have you ever taken a look at commercials from way back? I mean a real look and not just looked at the way women are portrayed as servants, but how so many of them were about selling modernity as well as a specific product. Sleek modernist design, machinery, science and urbanity were selling points in the year after the second world war. There was an air of progress, safety and techno optimism after the dark irrational forces of fascism had been vanquished. Take a look at the beatiful schematics of the washing machine here for instance. Nothing mystical about it. Nowhere, no how.

Compare this to how we sell shampoo today. It's all about emotions, and ethereal unquantifiable orgasmic experiences. Interesting huh?

Unless you're blind and stupid you've probably noticed a few social trends that fit in this very context: getting married is back, the catholic church is growing in protestant countries, along with new age, occultism, buddhism, hinduism and islam, and television shows are increasingly concerned with mystic experience, parapsychology and alternative religions - in a positive way.

Yesterday I was suspended by two hooks lodged in my back. I'm not a member of some Amazonian tribe where things like this is done to prove manhood, nor am I particularly masochistic - and yet I chose voluntarily to have my skin stretched and chance all my weight on two steel hooks and a small patch of skin.

Though I like to see myself as an individualist and not some follower of trends it would be naive not to notice a pattern here. Especially considering my other interests: ritualism, occultism, buddhism, symbology, mythology and so forth ad nauseam.

Traditionally something like this would have been a rite of passage, in the Arnold Van Gennep school of thought, and he makes some very interesting points. Rites de passages is highly readable today and perhaps one of the few books on ritualism that has really stood the test of time. His theory of course concerns moving from one type of existence into a new one - or crossing of thresholds.

This is not necessarily evident though, and I actually think modern ritualism (in this particular context) is both a result of and a continuation of a fragmentation of traditional ritualism. By result I mean antithesis: modernity has rationalized society to the point where people lack content for their lives. We are born, we live, we die, we rot and if there's anything in between that puzzles us we turn to psychiatrists with chemical explanations - and for some reason we don't feel fulfilled by this. Like there is something missing. For this reason many of us crave entry into a world of irrational thought. Perhaps even initiatory experiences (though I feel a need to point out that this initiatory experience and use of traditional ritualism should not be likened to the rather outdated "sect" called traditionalism).

Personally I am an academic, scientifically minded person who prefers Houdini's open minded debunking to Blavatsky's fraudulent bullshit when mysticism is involved, and still I find a great deal of meaning in this kind of ritualism.

And ritualism it certainly is. Structurally it even parallels the classical outline of Golden Dawn rituals. You start with a cleansing, followed by an invocation of inner strength, you perform the act, and end it with a new cleansing. (While many occultists are moving away from this somewhat rigid pattern I personally prefer it, and it works well.)

There's a reason why rituals are constructed this way - and you'll notice the very same structure even in a boring protestant church - by singing songs and playing the pipe organ. The first ritual sets the stage and clears it for the content of the main ceremony. This is done by creating a barrier between the profane and the profound. (In Jewish temples this is physically underlined by the famous veil, which separates the two spheres.) By doing this we signal that we are in a deeper and more spiritual mode, and receptive. After the main body of the ritual we need to return to the profane world, and we use more rituals to signal that we're no longer talking to the gods and our souls, and that we're once again primarily concerned with the material world. It would be anticlimactic and maybe even exhausting not to be allowed to come down after the spiritual journey you've been on.

So this is how we frame the ritual, but what do rituals contain? The answer is of course pure myth. These rituals, while being traditional types of rituals, they have been appropriated, recontextualized and cleansed of content - to the point where you can fill them with personal experience (which is why I say it's a continuation of the modernist experience). Where they were primarily initiatory experiences pre-modernity they have now become primarily personal experiences. Of course, the initiatory aspect is still present: by doing this you pass a threshold into a new understanding of yourself. You're building personal myth so to speak. It's an experience you'll always remember, and the growth you experience is something you carry with you. (Additionally there is of course the subcultural element and the obvious initiatory aspects of that, but I'll leave that alone. This is a fairly superficial blog after all...)

I feel personally enriched by the experience, in a very different way than from my earlier experiences in the field of body modification. I have a tattoo, it was great fun, doing it again. I have a scarification, even more fun, not doing it again though. I've pierced myself a jillion times, great fun, got bored, took them all out after walking around with a mask for 15 years. But this was a different camel altogether. It was the proverbial leap of faith actually.

I hoisted myself up, and the moment I let my feet off the ground was like stepping out of a reality and into a new one. The resolve I needed to muster came from somewhere very deep. While there was hardly any pain involved the mind just doesn't want to trust that this is in fact safe. Despite having seen other people do it. After that it was all about flying.

It's a completely irrational experience, and I loved it. Doing it again. Definitely doing it again. Thank you Anette. :)

Read more here:
wings of desire

Fire and the myth of the New Flesh!

2012-01-27T09:30:00.009+01:00

One of the most central myths in human history, told by what is probably every single culture to ever have existed is the myth of fire. The most well known is of course the myth of Promethevs who stole the fire from the gods. You've all heard it.

There are several reasons why these myths are so powerful, depending on the myth itself of course, but also inherent in the common theme. Obtaining fire is about freedom to decide one's own fate, civilization, mastery of nature, predictability and about connection to the profound. Most significantly, fire was a step on the tool making evolutionary ladder which allowed humans to control a force of nature and thereby paved the way for technological innovations that came later. It's up there with the first knife, the wheel and the jar and other significant early achievements.

Mythically speaking the most significant trait of these stories would be man's ability to rise into the sphere otherwise occupied by the gods (the Sun most prominently of course). By mastering the art of fire man was no longer a slave to the gods, but master of his own destiny. Even, by mastering the gift from the gods we are able to construct a new religion and approach divinity in a new way. The innovation of fire supposedly coincided with the approach of sun worship and patriarchy, at least on some level.

The various fire myths around the world are complex, and despite following some common structure they also differ vastly. Claude Levi Straus goes into some of these in great detail, but I'm going to leave that be for now. My understanding of the symbolic meaning of many of the details, and my knowledge of mythical structures is nowhere near as impressive as his. One common theme for fire myths is that after initially obtaining fire the gift is lost, or stolen from man, and a hero must regain it for the good of his people, by going on a quest of some sort.

The movie La guerre du feu (English Title: The quest for fire) from 1981, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud concerns this exact portion of the fire myth, and it's one hell of a story, with briliant production values and direction! (Also, it's the first feature film appearance of Ron Perlman, whom some of you probably know better as Hellboy or from that horribly overrated film by Caro and Jeunet).

I first saw this film when I was about seven or so, and it made a lasting impression. The film starts out with a small tribe of stone age people who have fire, but don't know how to make it. The entire structure of the tribe is therefore geared towards caring for and guarding the kindle they carry with them, and guard with their lives. Consequently when this kindle is accidentally lost after a fierce battle with a competing tribe life takes a turn for the worse. (The competing tribe fills the role of what Lévi-Strauss called the Trickster, somewhat simplified.) It's decided that three of the tribe's members will go out and search for a new source of fire, while the rest of the tribe try to survive without it.

Wile I am certain things like this happened in real life it is evident that this is no historical drama, but a compression of cultural and technological evolution into a myth complex for retold in the language of "modernity". The stone age tribe coexists with tribes that are significantly more advanced technologically, juxtaposing the "primitive" tribe on the first step of the evolutionary ladder with the more civilized tribe - capable of creating fire, as well as other technological gizmos. Also, the cult venerated by the more advanced tribe is seemingly more complex than the fire-seeking tribe, though this is not a significant theme in the tale.

This film is of course a redux of the so called "cave man" genre, which was immensly popular back in the fifties and sixties, before nearly dying out. (The most long lived memory of that genre would probably be the Flintstones though.) Despite the name the cave man films were mostly about hot cave WOMEN, as you can witness in films like "The Wild Women of Wongo" (1958), or even better, you can drool over "the first bikini in pre-history" worn by Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. (1966). The latter is a masterpiece in its own right, produced by Hammer Films and completely historically accurate. ;)

Structurally and thematically La guerre du feu has interesting similarities to the Welch film. Both films are of course laden with sexual imagery, and both films portray someone going on a quest and returning to their tribe after encountering a woman from a more advanced tribe, and in turn also bringing new technology to their own. (Classical Campbellian monomyth.) Also, in both of these films the advancement of technology and civilization is portrayed as relatively unproblematic, naturally, seen with our mythical hind sight. The dissemination of fire (and such) was a prerequisite for the rise of modern man, and it's hard to see how anyone could really resist such progress or feel fear in it's face.

Compare this to another and vividly different piece of modern mythology: the New Flesh as portrayed by David Cronenberg in Videodrome (1983). Videodrome is similar to La guerre du feu in that it concerns the adoption of new technology and civilization on a significant threshold (also they were released almost at the same time). They are different in that Videodrome portrays this as something we fear, while La guerre du feu sees only positive progress. Fire is something we crave, while television is a more dubious matter alltogether - somewhere between a malign tumor and The New Flesh. The New Flesh is a term Cronenberg uses to describe technology that is so intimately woven into our everyday lives that it becomes almost organic to us. Such as fire has been for millenia, and television has been since the sixties. And as we all know, and smart phones, iPads, apps and stuff like that proves: there are early adopters, late adopters and resisters.

I have no idea how humans several thousands of years ago approached fire, but the repercussions to society must have been a great deal more tumultous than the introduction of televised mass media, cable TV, video and violent pornography as in Videodrome, and I can easily see how some people must have been sceptical and even afraid of this innovation.

The interesting bit is of course how our mythic structures change over the years. Films are still portraying electronics with some level of fear, while emphasizing how intimate we are with these dodats. Think of Japanese horror films such as Ringu and One Missed Call. In fifty years time this will seem as quaint as the mechano-horror of the luddites is to most people today. Even further into the future imagining resistance against mobile phones will be as difficult to portray as resistance to fire, the wheel, iron, steel, pottery, granaries and democracy is today.

As load bearing structures of meaning myths say a great deal of the changes a society is going through, and also what's consistent, and what's important in our common psyche. I really wish there were more films out there concerning classical myth material in a "realistic" context. La guerre du deu is as good as it gets, and worth seeing. Even if you're only interested in brawny cavemen battling fierce beasts and making the beast with two backs with painted women. Atleast it's far superior to that Darryl Hannah flick...

To preserve the temple, it must be burned!

2011-08-09T21:58:00.008+02:00

I'm currently reading Spring Snow by Mishima Yukio - one of my favorite authors. And one who deserves more attention at that.

I first read about Mishima in an article about eating disorders and distorted body images in body building when I was in high school, and I was instantly fascinated. The article focused on Mishima as a model and his morbid fascination for St. Sebastian. To mishima death was very important. He even describes how he had his first orgasm while looking at a black and white depiction of a painting of St. Sebastian's martyrdom. It became a theme in Mishima's life, and an image he gladly reproduced. Tied to a tree, pierced by arrows and radiating of masculine beauty with his well toned muscles. I'm not (very) gay, but I can certainly see the beauty in his body.

There is irony in this image, just as there is irony and ambiguity in his literature. Mishima is of course understood mainly as a Japanese author and the theme of his literature was certainly that of Japanese traditional society - just as the man tied to the tree is certainly Japanese. On the other hand his writing style is mainly inspired by western novels - and the image he copies is that of a christian saint. This kind of ambiguity was a theme in Mishima's life - on many levels. A subject of particular interest to many is his sexuality. Mishima is usually seen as a homosexual, and his semi autobiographical Confessions of a Mask certainly support that image. On the other hand Mishima was married and fathered children. His family maintains that he was not in fact a homosexual, but enjoyed the image it created. I personally find that hard to believe, and if I have to speculate it's quite evident to me that Mishima was either gay or bisexual. It is of little consequence however.

The other ambiguity is that of militant nationalism, and evading the draft by citing poor health in the last days of World War II. Mishima was obsessed with traditional Japanese values, such as bushido, shintoism and the emperor's stature, and it seems he felt more than a little guilt due to not having fought in the war. After the war he became a successful novelist and playwright but also a militia leader operating on the far right of Japanese politics. Calling him a fascist is tempting, though certainly inaccurate. (But that's a discussion I'll leave for another time.)

Mishima's novels are a reflection of an individual with deep traumas, intense anger and also intense compassion. He is able to describe the most sublime beauty while juxtaposing it with nearly grotesque nihilism. It's all very subtle however, to the point of being inhibited. The first novel I read by Mishima was the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, a book that describes a young man's deep emotional turmoil while he trains to become a priest, in the eponymous temple. Much of the book is made up of conversations between the main character and his physically deformed nihilist friend, in something of a doppelganger motif, and the entire novel is a discussion of beauty and the ephemeral nature of such - especially on a religious level. I was intensely smitten with how Mishima spoke to me in his descriptions and subdued anger.

Mishima finally managed to subdue himself in the ultimate way. In 1970 he led some of his loyal followers in a coup of sorts. Mishima, in uniform, announced to an army camp that he had restored power to the emperor and consequently withdrew to perform seppuku. The samurai's honorable way out. The coup was hardly designed to be anything but an opportunity for death and Mishima acheived his martyrdom. Typical for his erotic attraction to death and destruction he had rehearsed the ritual on film, and the event itself was also preserved for posterity. Mishima was obsessed with the beauty of decay, and this was his ultimate chance at transcendence.

Unfortunately Mishima has descended into relative obscurity in the west, probably due to the way he chose to end his life and his extreme politics. Hopefully this blog will reach atleast two or three individuals who will pick up one of his books and be as blown away by his raw talent as I was. Mishima was so much more than the stories that surround him. Mishima is dead, but the beauty he produced lives on.

Rasisme

2011-08-08T21:46:00.002+02:00

Rasisme er nok et ord som slenges rundt uten at alle egentlig vet hva det handler om. Spesielt er det naturlig nok rasister selv som ikke skjønner hva dette ordet betyr.

I det store og hele vil jeg oppfordre folk til å være litt forsiktig med å bruke dette kraftige krydderet på maten sin. Det som ofte skjer når rasisme-ordet slenges ut er at alle debattanter lukker ørene, og åpner munnen. Tenk deg om før du bruker det, men når du bruker det, bruk det med selvsikkerhet og bevissthet.

Hva er så rasisme?
Rasisme er å ta en stor gruppe mennesker med lett gjenkjennelige identitetsmarkører og essensialisere deres oppførsel basert på fordommer. Dette kan være på bakgrunn av etnisitet, men like gjerne også kultur. Det er i det hele tatt veldig vanskelig å skille mellom etnisitet og kultur i praksis, og rasister har gjerne et uklart bilde av forskjellen på de to, hvilke begreper de bruker for å beskrive folk og hva som er grunnen til at de misliker noen.

Mange rasister tar anstøt av å bli kalt rasister fordi de ikke er opptatt av rase, og dermed i sine øyne ikke kan være rasister. De forfekter det man gjerne kaller en klassisk rasismedefinisjon hvor etnisitet er det bærende kriteriet.
Denne formen for rasismen, hvor rase/etnisitet/blod definerer gruppen er eksepsjonelt sjelden, og noen vil si at den kanskje aldri har eksistert i sin rene form. Selv for de klassiske rasistene i gode gamle dager var det et stort innslag av kultur i rasismen. Man så kanskje ned på "negre, hottentotter og villmenn", men ikke fordi de hadde en underlig farge på huden, men fordi de var barbarer og hedninger med grusomme skikker.
Etterhvert som tiden gikk ble man mer klar over at det var kulturen som var roten til fordommene og man begynte å snakke om kulturell rasisme, eller for den saks skyld nyrasisme. Nyrasismen er den samme rasismen som alltid har vært der, men den er litt mer tilbakeholden i sin språkbruk. Det er ikke lenger "stygge arabere og utspjåkede apekatter", som Max Manus skriver om som er "de andre", det er muslimer, fattige analfabeter fra slummen og kvinneundertrykkende fanatikere. I praksis er det de samme folkene man snakker om, og bare språkbruken har endret seg.

Dette er greit å få med seg: rasisme er rasisme uansett om man snakker om rase eller kultur. Begge deler er en unnskyldning for å hate og skyve fra seg mennesker som er annerledes og ingen av delene kan rettferdiggjøres. Rasisme er å miste syne av individet og skjære en stor gruppe mennesker over en kam basert på deres bakgrunn og tilhørighet.

Da er vi inne på det andre elementet som forvirrer og kompliserer: hat.

Mange rasister sier at de ikke synes at noen folk er bedre enn andre, de vil bare ikke at kulturer skal blandes. Dette er det vi kaller for differensiell rasisme, eller differensialisme. Det skiller seg fra hierarkisk rasisme som er den mer gjenkjennelige "jøder og negre er fæle folk og vi er bedre enn dem"-rasismen.

Men det er sludder. Differansialismen er gjerne maskert hierarkisk rasisme. Om ingen kulturer er bedre enn andre, er det egentlig så farlig at man kan blande seg? Denne formen for rasisme er på moten, og svært utbredt og langt på vei godtatt i Norge i dag. Blant annet kommer den sterkt til uttrykk i Fremskrittspartiets partiprogram, men også de andre partiene støtter den i noen grad. Det er dette synet som ligger til grunn for alle disse vage uttalelsene om integrering. (Integrering er at annet begrep noen burde blogge om, for dét blir misbrukt det.)
Implisitt ligger det en tanke om at en kultur har en egenverdi som blir truet av andre kulturer, og man er redd for at en kultur vil bli utslettet. Newsflash: kulturer er i evig forandring, og de har aldri vært isolerte. Da ville de stagnert. Det er også en implisitt idé om at våre verdier er bedre enn de andres verdier - og dermed kan vi ikke blande oss for da overtar vi deres barbariske verdier.

Det er kanskje ikke eksplisitt hat som ligger til grunn, men det er definitivt å skyve folk fra seg og utelukke og diskrimere dem på kulturell bakgrunn. Tenk på apartheidstyret i Syd-Afrika, eller segregeringen i USA. Intensjonen var visstnok bare å holde folk separert fordi man ikke skal blande seg, men ingen kan tvile på at det var ren og skjær rasisme og en hel del hierarki inne i bildet.

Total suppe!

2011-08-06T15:05:00.004+02:00

I dag skal jeg ta for meg noen andre begreper som brukes mye i politikkens verden: "autoritær", "totalitær" og "fundamentalistisk". Disse begrepene brukes mye feil. Ja, feil. I motsetning til gårsdagens forklaring av "høyre" og "venstre" er ikke dette ord med en spesielt uklar betydning.

Jeg starter med det siste, fordi det er så viktig for norsk kultur. Fundamentalist. Som regel brukes dette ordet ganske så synonymt med "ytterliggående", eller "ekstremistisk", og det er en grunn til det - men det er feil. Fundamentalister er riktignok ofte ganske usmakelige folk med ekstreme synspunkt, men de trenger ikke være det - og her kommer det lille sjokket for noen av dere: Den Norske Kirke er fundamentalister, men ikke spesielt ekstreme. Ja, de er det. Fundamentalisme betyr at man bygger sin ideologi eller religion på kilden(e) istedetfor tolkning. I realiteten er det naturligvis naivt og umulig, men det er ihvertfall det man forsøker på. I sammenheng med Den Norske Kirke henger det sammen med Martin Luther. Da han protesterte mot katolisismen var et hans primære ankepunkt at paven hadde for mye makt, og han ville returnere til skriften som fundament for troen. Martin Luther var altså fundamentalist, og retningen oppkalt etter ham er en fundamentalistisk retning.
Når det gjelder Usama bin Laden som ofte kalles fundamentalist er tilfellet omvendt, noe som også gjelder Anders Behring Breivik. Disse to var/er ekstremister, men retningene de forfektet har ingenting med fundamentalisme å gjøre. Viktig å få dette med seg.

Det neste begrepet er totalitær, og det henger sammen med autoritær. Begrepene "totalitarisme" og "totalitær" skriver seg fra Benito Mussolini og Partito Nazionale Fascista. Mussolini hadde en idé om å skape en ideologi som gjennomsyret samtlige aspekter av Italias liv: religion, politikk, kunst etc etc. Fascismen skulle være en totalitet som det italienske samfunnslivet hvilte på. (Et av de mest minneverdige utslagene av totalitarismen i Italia var F.T. Marinettis forslag om å forby pasta, fordi han mente at folk ble dårlige fascister av det. Det ble ikke gjennomført.) Prosjektet feilet, men begrepet ble stående, og blir gjerne også brukt om andre retninger med tilsvarende ideer: stalinisme, nasjonalsosialisme, islamisme og maosisme, osv. Kjennetegnet er altså at én ideologi eller tankegang skal gjennomsyre absolutt ALT, og ingen alternativer aksepteres overhodet. Det er en fullstendighet og monomani over det.
Totalitarisme har avstedkommet teorier og bøker og drøftinger så lange som syv vonde år, og dette begrepet kan diskuteres til kuene kommer hjem, men i all hovedsak er man enige om det jeg har skrevet her. Så kan man diskutere om totalitarisme er en egen ideologi, eller en måte å være ideologisk på. [Jeg mener det siste, om noen lurer, men den første ideen later til å være den dominerende i Norge, for øyeblikket.]

Som regel når folk sier "totalitært" mener de "autoritært", og totalitære regimer er tilsynelatende alltid svært autoritære - men de to begrepene er IKKE synonyme. Autoritære regimer er villige til å sette makt bak tankene sine for å opprettholde lov og orden, men de er ikke nødvendigvis totalitære. Iran er et totalitært regime hvor alt hviler på én tolkning av Islam. For å håndheve denne tolkningen bruker de autoritære virkemidler. Zimbabwe er et autoritært regime, men ikke på noen måte totalitært, akkurat som Thatcher var autoritær men ikke spesielt totalitær. (Hun var snarere ganske pragmatisk i mange henseende.)

Så husk:
Fundamentalister bygger på et fundament slik et hus står på en grunnmur.
Totalitære folk gjennomsyres av en total idé, og ingenting annet er lov.
Autoriteter slår deg med kølle for å få deg til å gjøre som de sier, men de kan gjerne skifte mening ganske fort.

Høyre, venstre - en, to - en støvel og en sko!

2011-08-05T13:23:00.004+02:00

Norge har blitt utsatt for noe mange, inkludert meg, omtaler som høyreekstrem terror. Dette begrepet får mange til å reagere fordi de ikke kjenner igjen høyresidens tradisjonelle verdier i det man gjerne kaller høyreekstremisme. Ofte ser de faktisk det de oppfatter som venstreverdier i det man gjerne kaller høyreekstreme, og når noen høyreekstremister kaller seg nasjonalsosialister, da er forvirringen total.

La oss prøve å rydde litt, og med trykk på litt - for dette er et stort tema. Men la meg først skyte inn at noe av det jeg skriver her kan andre være uenige i, og noe av det kan være banalt og ikke minst svært forenklet. Men men, kjør på!

For å forstå begrepene høyre og venstre må vi ty til historien. Vi kan ikke definere begrepene uten å se på hvordan de oppstod. For det som etterhvert begynner å bli noen hundre år siden var det revolusjon i et land som kalles Frankrike, og under denne revolusjonen ble det laget et parlament. På den venstre siden av parlamentet satt republikanerne, og på den høyre satt monarkistene. Her dukker altså høyre- og venstresidene opp, og for siste gang i historien er de nogenlunde enkle å forholde seg til. Dette var ikke partier som bestemte seg for hvor de skulle sitte, men enkeltstående representanter. Ryktene vil ha det til at de konservative kongetro satte seg på høyresiden fordi de radikale som ville avskaffe monarkiet bråkte så fælt og oppførte seg generelt dårlig.

Etter som tiden gikk ble mye av ideologien i Europa organisert etter disse linjene: høyresiden ble et begrep som beskrev generell konservatisme, mens venstresiden ble et begrep som beskrev de som ønsket forandring. I Norge oppstod derfor partiene Venstre og Høyre med innførselen av parlamentarismen. Høyre var kongetro, tro mot unionen og tilhengere av dansk skriftspråk og embedsstyre og sånne ting. De var konservative. Partiet Venstre var litt mer sammensatt, fordi de favnet om "resten". I stor grad var det liberalistiske ideer som dominerte, sammen med nasjonalisme og ønsket om republikk, men partiet tiltrakk seg også marxister, anarkister og andre personer som ikke hørte hjemme på "høyresiden". Og nå begynner det å gå galt.

Da arbeiderklassen fikk stemmerett oppstod det en opposisjon som ikke hørte hjemme i noen av de to partiene, mens om tiltrakk seg mange av de tradisjonelle velgerne til venstrepartiene. Dette var altså velgere og politikere som beveget seg bort fra høyre, og dermed må man si, mot venstre. De tok med seg ordet både i Norge og resten av Europa og plutselig betydde ikke lenger "venstre" liberalisme, nasjonalisme og republikk, men marxisme og internasjonalisme. Partiet Venstre forble der det var, og derfor har vi altså i dag i Norge et parti som heter Venstre som er på høyresiden av sentrum. Det er mange som finner det forvirrende, og jeg har truffet oppegående voksne mennesker som sier at Venstre er et sosialistparti mellom SV og Arbeiderpartiet. "Javel", tenker jeg da, og forsøker å forklare. Tyngdepunktet i politikken skiftet og venstresiden ble sosialistene (Arbeiderpartiet), sentrum ble liberalistene (Venstre) og høyresiden ble de konservative (Høyre).

Da vet vi hvorfor venstre betyr sosialist, mens venstreradikale er kommunister - snarere enn voldelige republikanere. Men hva skjedde med høyresiden?

Verdiene som venstresiden tildligere forfektet flyttet litt på seg, men ikke fullstendig. I Norge var unionen var oppløst, så Høyre omfavnet nasjonalismen og unionstankegang var ut, mens Venstre ikke lenger var så opptatt av dette, og det reflekterer den endringen som fant sted i Europa. Nasjonalismens romantiske ideer ble i økende grad de konservatives ideologi. I mellomkrigstiden ble også høyresiden i Europa radikalisert pga revolusjonsfrykt og frykt for at de tradisjonelle verdiene i samfunnet skulle forvitre. I tillegg hadde mye av arbeiderklassen, som tradisjonelt sett tilhørte den marxistiske venstresiden blitt påvirket i nasjonalistisk retning av første verdenskrig, og nå blir forvirringen total. (For å bidra enda mer til forvirring: Venstre var en stund delt i partiene Frisinnede Venstre, som var et høyreorientert nasjonalistparti, og Venstre, som var et mer liberalt parti. Frisinnede Venstre samarbeidet med Nasjonal Samling og Fedrelandslaget - og var ikke på noen måte et venstreparti i betydningen sosialister.)

Venstresiden var erklært internasjonalistisk, så de nasjonalistiske sosialistene skallet av og dannet en opposisjon som ikke enkelt lar seg plassere på en venstre- høyreskala. Mussolini er det klassiske eksempelet. Han var republikaner, antikatolsk, antikapitalist - men militaristisk, nasjonalistisk og pro-tradisjoner. Ikke minst ble han etterhvert også antimarxistisk. Venstresiden ville ikke ha noe med ham å gjøre, og han og hans likesinnede måtte danne allianser med folk fra høyresiden, som tenkte at disse folkene kunne brukes for å hindre en marxistisk revolusjon. Dermed tiltrakk de seg også en hel del folk som tilhørte den tradisjonelle høyresiden: konservative, monarkister, katolikker og nødvendigvis også nasjonalister og antimarxister av alle typer. Man begynte å betrakte disse som å tilhøre høyresiden, og etterhvert ble det vanskelig å få øye på republikanske og antikatolske ideer i denne nye fascismen - og høyreekstremismen ble født. Det samme skjedde i Tyskland, hvor man tok navnet nasjonalsosialisme heller enn fascisme. Ikke fordi man var marxister, men fordi man anså seg selv for å en ny form for sosialisme som la vekt på nasjonen og tradisjoner, heller enn klassekamp. Likhetene mellom nasjonalsosialisme og tradisjonell sosialisme var altså ikke spesielt sterk. (Man har kompliserende faktorer som nasjonalbolsjevismen og nasjonalsyndikalisme men det kommer jeg ikke inn på her.)

Høyreekstremismen var altså ikke tradisjonelle høyrefolk som ble radikalisert, men en blanding av ideer som ikke hadde mer med høyresiden å gjøre enn Stalin hadde med partiet Venstre å gjøre. Men i motsetning til den tradisjonelle venstresiden sluttet ikke høyresiden å betrakte seg selv som høyresiden. Dette har nok noe med at mens marxismen vokste seg mye større enn den liberale venstresiden, ble fascismen diskreditert etter andre verdenskrig og de konservative forble altså synonymt med "høyre".

Men til høyresidens store irritasjon forsvant ikke høyreekstremismen. Den utviklet seg og forandret seg, tok opp i seg nye ideer og blandet seg med den tradisjonelle høyresiden og i noen tilfeller også den radikale venstresiden. Det ble ikke bedre av at noen konservative mer enn gjerne allierte seg med høyreekstreme diktaturer eller bevegelser fordi de var redde for sovietunionens innflytelse gjennom internasjonale marxister. Derfor støttet Thatcher Pinochet og Apartheidstyret i Syd-Afrika, ikke fordi de var så enige, men fordi alternativet i hennes øyne var kommunisme.

Det er viktig å ta lærdom av dette: Thatchers syn på venstresiden var dominert av utdaterte ideer om at alle på venstresiden var sovietkommunister og bolsjeviker akkurat slik mange på den ytterliggående venstresiden i dag tror at Hitlers ideer var en radikal avart av partiet Høyre. Sånn er det ikke, og mange som omtales som sosialdemokrater i dag vil nok slite med å vedkjenne seg sine partiers marxistiske fortid, akkurat som den konservative Franz von Papen ikke skal blandes sammen med Hitler. Både venstre- og høyresiden har utviklet seg, blitt påvirket av hverandre og tilpasset seg historiens gang, og i stor grad har man beveget seg mot et slags sentrum. Dette betyr at begrepene høyre og venstre i stor grad har mistet sin betydning, og mange i dag oppfatter ikke lenger Arbeiderpartiet som å høre hjemme på venstresiden, mens man krangler om hvor Senterpartiet og KrF egentlig hører hjemme. Senterpartiet vokste jo i noen grad ut av høyresiden i Venstre, men har alliert seg med Arbeiderpartiet og SV i regjering - noe som ville fått tidligere partimedlem Quisling til å rotere i graven (om han ikke hadde blitt kremert).

I samtidig politikk har høyre-venstre-skalaen blitt problematisert av en rekke faktorer. Først og fremst det at partiene i stor grad har blitt enige om en felles modell for demokratisk blandingsøkonomi og sterk velferdsstat. Dette har gjort at partiene ikke lenger er bundet av de tradisjonelle ideologiene, men av interesser og enkeltsaker. Fremskrittspartiet er partiet for dem som vil ha færre utlendinger til Norge, billigere rusmidler og bensin. Arbeiderpartiet et blitt partiet for dem som vil beholde ting omtrent som de er. Kristelig Folkeparti er partiet for de kristne. Venstre er partiet for akademikere og eier av små bedrifter, mens SV er partiet for akademikere som er opptatt av barnehageplasser. Senterpartiet er partiet for bønder og folk som bor på små steder. Høye er partiet for de som har mye penger, og gjerne vil beholde dem. Det er naturligvis forenklet, men det er vanskelig å få øye på høyre-venstre-dimensjonene i mange praktiske saker.

I det store og hele vil jeg påstå at høyre og venstre har blitt ganske meningsløse begreper i dagens politikk, men det nytter ikke sutre over det. Begrepene brukes, og det som er viktig er å forstå at folk bruker dem subjektivt, i forhold til forskjellige segmenter og avskygninger og med forskjellige historisk bakgrunn. Det er også viktig å forstå at skalaen ikke betegner en glidning fra bolsjevik på en ene siden til nazist på den andre siden, men at det er snakk om en rekke forskjellige tanker med komplekse blandinger av ideer som gjerne har blitt hentet fra begge sider av "nullpunktet".

Så om noen spør "hva er egentlig en høyreekstrem, og hvorfor kaller vi ham det?" Så er svaret: "fordi vi har pleid å kalle dem det, det er ikke noe dypere grunn enn det".

A little piece of whaaat?

2011-03-23T21:25:00.009+01:00

Here in Norway we have a chocolate called Freia Melkesjokolade (milk chocolate), and to me - as a person interested in national myths, this sweet delight is very interesting. Let me tell you why, and also tell you a little bit about Norwegian nationalism while I'm at it. So here we go!

Earlier today I was riding the subway here in Oslo, and I noticed that Freia has a new ad campaign up. Probably their most mythisizing one ever. (Is that even a word? It is now, and I coined it, and you get to pay me royalties.) Now, their slogan is "et lite stykke Norge" or a little piece of Norway to my international readers, and their latest campaign takes this quite literally. The boards show a small secluded plot of land, with a text explaining why this particular plot was chosen by a named individual. This is good advertising for two reasons, and they both relate to mythic aspects. What Freia does is that they're creating an emotional truth. First because it relates to their slogan, but more importantly because it gives access to someone's personal emotional experience (by proxy) and links it to the tangible and universal experience of eating chocolate. When you eat that chocolate you're eating someones affection for Geirangerfjorden. If you think I'm overdoing it, believe my, I'm not. I've worked with measuring the effect of ad campaigns, and that's the way ad people think. Evidently it works really well too, and the creation of myths and historical patina is probably the most used and successfull form of advertising today. Just look at what Coca Cola is doing with doc Pemberton, or Levi's move away from pure sex, to showing how their clothes were originally worn by miners. Never thought about that now, did you?

Anyway, back to Freia. In addition to building a myth of personal experience linked to a very concrete place Freia is coupling this to their tried and tested ties to national romanticism. Freia is of course the norse goddess of fertility, and the entire image of the chocolate is geared to further a romantic image.

The posters don't depict an urban scene, it's as rural as rural gets - despite the fact that only 2.1% of the Norwegian population are employed in any form of agriculture. You won't see many people with brownish skin either. The Norway we see on those posters is not relevant to most Norwegians except as fables or dreams. We might have seen it passing by in airplanes or trains, and we might even vacation there, but very few of us ever spend much time there. It's Disneyland baby.

This is a significant cultural trope, and a very potent one. One of the most important and renowned poets in Norway, Henrik Wergeland, formulated a theory that highlights the process we are witness to. Of course, Norway was under foreign rule from just after the black plague and up to 1905. Most of the time we were under Danish rule. Wergeland, and others with him, claimed that the original population in Norway and their culture had been partially suplanted by less pure danish counterparts. In particular the language and national virtues such as hospitality, democracy and courage. A typical golden age myth, which is common for most nationalisms, maybe even all. (I've written about that before. Read it.) Wergeland however took this trope further and spoke of what he called "den uægte lodning" ("the untrue solder" in English). Norway's past and future were two halves of gold ring, but the ring had been broken and soldered together with lead. This lead soldering had to be removed, and a national culture had to be reconstructed. The basis for this culture was to be found in rural areas, where Danish culture had failed to penetrate. This theory of course provided the foundation for the creation for what later became "nynorsk" - a constructed national language with radical nationalist content. Nynorsk never really took though - though it's still out there.

What does this purported age of gold have to do with Freia you say? Well, there's the obvious element in that Freia sees the rural areas as more genuinely Norwegian than the multicultural Tøyen. But there's also another fascinating aspect I've never given any thought before. Freia Melkesjokolade comes in a yellow / gold-colored wrapping. Untill a few years ago it was even wrapped in yellow paper, with gold wrapping inside. It's too good to be true.

Finally, it has to be said. Just like all the nationalists that drove our original romantic urge to become Norwegians were educated in Denmark, so is Freia Melkesjokolade's backing to be found abroad. Freia was founded and fully owned by Norwegians in the past, but by now it's long since been sold to ... AMERICANS! The irony is so thick you can walk on it... Like I said: It's Disneyland baby!

For the ad-campaign go here (I wasn't able to find any pictures of the boards):
http://www.freiamelkesjokolade.no/

About the Department of Justice and users of twitter.

2010-12-12T12:55:00.007+01:00

This is my mail to the US department of Justice, concerning their recent attempts to extract profile information about users of Twitter.
You can send mail here:
http://www.justice.gov/opcl/contact-us.htm

Hello.
I am a Norwegian citizen living in Norway, and as such I have no rights as a judicial subject in your country.
However, recent developments have made me, and many others subjects of your legislation none the less. It has been brought to public attention that the department of justice seeks private information about twitter users who voice their support for WikiLeaks.
While I don't mind you knowing my full name and oppinions it disturbs me a great deal that you feel a need to covertly gather intelligence about political activists using their democratic right to free speech via the internet.

For this reason I feel the need to write to you, and tell you who I am and what I stand for.
My full name is [removed for reasons of google and spam and so forth, disclosed in the mail though], I am a librarian working at the largest public college in Norway where I'm a liason librarian for the department of education (serving 3.500 students and 300 teachers).
I also have a master's degree in contemporary history.

With regards to WikiLeaks I have advocated both on twitter and elsewhere that all citizens have a natural right to know everything their elected officials and their policy making employees are doing on their behalf. It is in fact the foundational principle of republicanism (res publica). Anyone who seeks to stand in the way of this right is an enemy of democracy.
I have participated in a public debate in librarian media in Norway, and supported the Norwegian Library Association in their condemnation of the move by the Library of Congress to block WikiLeaks. You can read summary of my position here: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bokogbibliotek.no%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D1466%3Ademokrati-bibliotek-og-wikeleaks%26catid%3D1%3Aaktuelt(translated from Norwegian by google translate.)
I have also on numerous occassions tweeted my views on WikiLeaks (as well as several other issues of potential interest to you). My tweets can be read at http://twitter.com/gird_09

It frightens me that someone like me, with my belief in freedom of information, right to privacy and free speech can be such a threat to your system that you feel the need to persecute, slander and prosecute us to the full extent of your ability. They only way I, and my brethren pose a threat to your way of life is if you insist on keeping secrets from the public and pursuing policies that are detrimental to your own people's interests. Your nation was after all founded on the principles of democracy, openness and human rights. A far cry from how you are perceived in the world today. Did you ever stop to consider why?

Bookcrossing

2010-09-05T13:55:00.006+02:00

I found a book the other day. On the street that is.
It wasn't a book for me, so I left it for someone else, after taking a picture of it.

I had nearly forgotten about the phenomenon of bookcrossing, or liberating books, but as a librarian I am naturally very positive to the idea. You take a book you liked, and slap a sticker on, and place it somewhere in public. Someone takes it home, reads it, and leaves it for the next person. I've never done it myself, but after being reminded I will. Not sure which book yet though.

It's a good practise for many reasons. First of all you get to do something nice for someone you don't know, which is always good. Secondly it's about books and books you love, not about peddling goods for cash. I've done that for a living and I can tell you that selling books is rarely about loving books. Giving them away, or lending them out, is much better.

Read more here:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/
And, readers in Oslo, here are the books that have been liberated in our fair village:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/hunt/17/100/31053

Nyt Norge threatens legal action against blogger

2010-09-01T15:38:00.008+02:00

The Norwegian blogger Christoffer Biong is being threatened with a lawsuit by the government financed initiative Nyt Norge (enjoy Norway). The case is a result of Biong's use of Nyt Norge's logo for his adbusting campaign against what he rightfully sees as a distorted campaign.
Using a corporate logo in this fashion is a well established means of political expression, and should be protected by free speech. If you can't use a corporate logo to protest their actions your means of expression are seriously hampered. This is especially true if the corporation is run by the government - and in turn our money.

We should make sure that these pictures recieve the attention they deserve, and that this turns into a public relations blunder for Nyt Norge. I would've never heard of these pictures if they didn't threaten legal action. Smart huh?

So here are the pictures they've got their panties in a bundle over:

Axis and Allies 1940

2010-09-01T14:27:00.006+02:00

Finally! It's out, and I own it. The newest Axis and Allies that is, Europe 1940. Axis and Allies Pacific 1940, and Europe 1940 can be combined into a single huge game, that devastates any previous version.

You may not know, but I'm a big fan of strategic boardgames, and I've been following axis and allies since 1992 or thereabouts. (I guess it's hardly a shock considering my preternatural interest in WWII.) I've played every single version since the "classic" - except from D-day and Guadalcanal, and I've mostly loved them. I don't have any idea how many hours I've spent rolling dice and picking off plastic enemies. The only one I didn't care too much for was Battle of the Bulge, and figured that these limited campaigns aren't really my thing. Which is also the problem I had with the previous incarnation of Europe and Pacific. While I did use the rules for combining the game that were floating around the internet I wasn't really pleased with it. I want true global warfare, not theatres.

So, after I bought Pacific 1940 a great deal of my time has been spent checking for updates on Europe 1940. Waiting impatiently and speculating about it. No more! I've played it now. That is, I skipped Europe, and went straight for the global rules.

And I am very pleased. The game feels like "classic" AnA, but bigger and better. The boards and rules fit together like they were designed to be used together, unlike the last version. And I love the italians and french, and the new way the chinese work. Even more so I love the rules for neutrality, and the way the axis can more or less bide their time with the Soviet Union and the United States.

There are a few things missing, or that would have been better in a different way.
The soviet troops are too similar to the italians, in color. I don't see why they stuck to the brownish soviets, when they could've easily made them the red color of the japanese in AnA Pacific. Red soviets I would've loved.
(I see that a lot of peope were annoyed that the french and the soviets share design on several units. Personally I don't care. As long as I can tell them apart they could've used whatever design they wanted to for the french. It's not like they're going to be a huge factor at any point anyway.)
I also miss money. I hear that most players don't use the money, and prefer to write the numbers down instead. I however prefer to use the little paper pieces. Not a big deal though. You can cannibalize an earlier game, or print your own.
I also think the new battle board is horrendous. We made our own, that you can flip over, so that each player has a board with defender on one side and attacker on the other. The gameboard is so massive it's more practical to have a battle board each.

I've only played the game once, with three players, and I can't wait to play it again. It's by far the best version yet.

(Yes, I should've had more pictures, but I was too busy playing to really bother with a camera.)

For my sake, please!

2010-08-19T21:37:00.003+02:00

Open Letter to Reporters without Borders

2010-08-13T12:27:00.004+02:00

The reputable press organization Reporters without Borders (reporters sans frontières) have issued an open letter to wikileaks citing them for what the see as reckless behaviour in releasing 77,000 confidential documents. You can read it here: http://en.rsf.org/united-states-open-letter-to-wikileaks-founder-12-08-2010,38130.html. Naturally, I disagree with them, and I sent them an e-mail about it, as should you rsf@rsf.org. I decided to also publish my views here, as I believe it is an important issue. So here goes:

I have just finished reading your "attack" on wikileaks, and I must say I am a bit disappointed.
While I realize that a great deal of the difference between your organization and wikileaks is a result of differing values, with regards to the legitimacy of the state itself and its methodology, I do find your approach a bit lacking in focus.
I am of course fundamentally respectful of your work to further press freedom and end censorship and alike, but when you claim that wikileaks' release of documents gives the various authorities around the world legitimate reasons to monitor the internet and keep internet activists under surveillance it smacks quite a bit of backwards logic. That would be like saying that the government can legitimately keep journalists under surveillance because some of them publish confidential materials. There is no legitimacy in such a policy and there never will be. It seems to me that you as an organization should rather focus on that instead of running errands for the Obama administration in taking down Wikileaks.
Also, this issue touches on fundamental issues in state theory, and the philosophical reasoning for a democratic system. The question remains whether a state should be allowed to keep secrets from their own people, while resting on the "legitimacy" the same people provides? Or rather, should a government answer to its people, and be ready to defend its policies without secrecy and threats of legal action? Democracy is founded on the right to overthrow the government should it lose legitimacy, by peaceful means or otherwise. With the excesses we see today, with more than a million dead in two wars, mostly civilians, we as citizens are in our rights to expose and criticize government policies. We have a fundamental right, and even obligation to protest against heavy handed and illegitimate state behaviour, by any means we have at our disposal.

Additionally your arguments seem a bit willy nilly considering that you untill recently praised wikileaks for leaking documents pertaining to Guantanamo and the incident known as "collateral muder". There is no fundamental difference between this most recent release of documents, and these earlier instances. The only difference is in the respose from Obama and his cronies.

Organizations such as your own will continue to reap the benefits of wikileaks' work in the future, as well as suffer the collective punishment of the authorities. The question you should ask yourself is simply, whose side are you on? I'm not implying that you should stand by wikileaks regardless, or that this issue only has two sides, but if you are in favor of press freedom, you cannot turn your back on wikileaks in this matter, and claim that they are the reason why the government is cracking down on freedoms. The government is cracking down on freedoms, because they are protecting their own power, despite lacking legitimacy and a system of principles to back them. All they have is force, and the people's fear of force - in whatever form it takes. Place the blame where the blame is due.

Privatized Propaganda

2010-08-01T18:24:00.007+02:00

My political view are well known to anyone who's frequented this blog, or otherwise been subjected to my opinions. They're not really the subject of this blog however, I just wanted to tone an ever so little black flag before I get started on my subject: privatized propaganda warfare.

Over the last year or so wikileaks has become the most publicized actor in an ongoing information war between peace activists and various governments of the world. Wikileaks ofcourse has been responsible for leaking a great deal of classified material pertaining to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and this upsets the people responsible for sending troops to this wars.
Wikileaks however is not the only opposing actor in this war against government information monopolization and spin doctoring, and the war is not new.

I have previously posted the cultural terrorist manifesto, as well as a video by Emergency Broadcast Network - and both of these posts concern the same ongoing information war. What EBN, the Grey Wolves and Wikileaks have in common is that they represent a phenomema or ideology often dubbed infoanarchism. An ideology they also share with the swedish Pirate Party and several other groups and individuals - including yours truly. The main motto for this loose movement of people is "information wants to be free". If you're into revolutionary romanticism we can call this an "information guerilla". It's a quite accurate description.

In other words it as an ongoing insurrectionist campaign being waged between state forces and comercial media with huge budgets and established channels of communication and technology on one hand, and volunteers with highl improvised means of communication and distribution on the other. In many ways this is an example of assymetric warfare, or fourth generation warfare, but on the information front rather than on the classic battlefield.

Assymetric warfare is seen by many as the most important tendency in modern conflict and it is usually typified by regular military units with training and technology going against a guerilla with little or no training and little common ground with their enemy. Usually wars are fought over territory or ideology, or both, whereas an information war is waged in the field of public image and credibility and over a strictly ideological goal.

The interesting thing is however what history teaches us about what happens when a large military system takes on a guerilla. Quite often the "weaker" party succedes, and the government must accede to loss. Whether we are talking about conflict of force, in the cases of the american revolution, the vietnam war or Gandhi's campaing to oust the brits from India - or we are talking about popular protest movements such as the civil rights movement in the sixties. To retain some shred of legitimacy a government cannot trample the rights of its citizens lest it become a dictatorship. So this wikileaks bout is something of a pickle for the authorities. They must attack the activists while trying to come out as the party that takes care of the public interest. Wikileaks must be made out to look like they are thugs, criminals, sociopaths and evildoers, rather than concerned citizens. Once people start questioning why the government so often feels the need to take on their own citizens, whose will they supposedly draw their legitimacy from, the authorities are quite simply fucked...

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions, maybe while you check out this wonderful little rap about wikileaks.

Wikileaks, the falcon and the snowman.

2010-07-28T12:30:00.011+02:00

This week Wikileaks has released approximately 90,000 classified documents garnered from sources within the massive US defence. Pentagon and the White House are consequently angered to the point of bursting like lemmings, and have naturally initiated a search for the "traitor" in their midst. However, it seems that several thousand employees had access to these particular documents, and the search for the culprit may not be as easy as it is to find the un-american in "24". It is going to take time, and it's going to involve quite a few people.

This of course leads my mind to american intelligence in general. Of course the expression itself became an oxymoron with the invasion of Iraq because of their quite laughable work, but organizations like CIA, NSA, SS (secret service in case you didn't know) and the FBI have a long history of fuck ups. During the cold war their ranks were so littered with sleepers and walk ins that it's not much of an oversight to say that they lost the intelligence war against the Soviet Union. This history of incompetence goes back even further, to the days of OSS (office of strategic services), who were so easily spotted while under cover that the joke was that OSS was an acronym for Oh, So Social. Despite their efforts to make you think otherwise, the american intelligence agencies really are laughable compared to their counterparts in other countries.

This history of incompetence makes me think of one of Sean Penn's early films, the Falcon and the Snowman. Usually on film the CIA and similar organizations are portrayed as labyrinthine conspiratorial agencies full of hardcore toughies with the latest in technology, death squads and intelligence gathering gadgets. Whether they are up against innocent civilians in the ridiculous Enemy of the State or even the slightly more realistic Three Days for Condor Condor, or they are defending freedom against horrible soviets in ... Errr... I don't think I've ever seen a film where the CIA are the good guys except for comedies or James Bond. Even good ol' boys in the US prefer to see their very own CIA as the enemy. And it's no wonder. You don't want these people on your side. Just look at their work in Chile back in 1973. In the real world espionage isn't quite so sci fi-ish or fancy, and their agents are hardly as kewl as in the movies. (True, the do have technological monsters like Echelon in their service, but the CIA still can't catch Bin Laden. Not that it would matter much if they did. People are pissed off at the US for a reason. Bin Laden isn't Cobra Commander you know...)

The Falcon and the Snowman is a film about a pair of walk in spies (played by Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton) and their follies as they hand over documents to the KGB in exchange for monetary attention. While most films involving espionage of some sort feel the urge to include gun fights and explosions, and the occasional cleavage, this film is quite realistic. Intelligence work is mostly analysis and catalogueing documents. Very few of the people involved with intelligence work go to embassies and sleep with beautiful russian women to whom they reveal their secrets. (Though the latest espionage debacle between the US and Russia may have you think otherwise...) It's a good film, despite David Suchett's appearance as the russian spy master. You really get a feeling for how difficult it is to discover a leak, catch the perpetrator or get the needed evidence to prosecute. The two spies live the good life for quite a while there, despite being flamboyant and complete amateurs.

The Falcon and the Snowman is based on the real life story of Christopher Boyce, a former student turned spy. As I said the various intelligence agencies were riddled with operatives handing over information to the Soviets. Some of them were never caught, but some were. In the end Boyce is found out and has to go to jail for what he's done, and I am quite certain Pentagon will go to great lengths to have their man in the Wikileaks case as well. How many people's feet they will step on during the investigation is a matter of some concern. We also know that they won't exactly shy away from disregarding the persons rights once he has been arrested, as they have done with Bradley Manning, supposedly responsible for blowing the whistle on the Collateral Murder episode. But chances are it's going to take quite some time, and it's going to be very embarrassing to the investigators. As if the leak itself wasn't enough.

There is one fatal difference between Boyce and the sources in this case though: that of motivation. Boyce was supposedly motivated by greed the wikileaks sources are motivated by their justified outrage over US behaviour in Afghanistan and Iraq. I say fatal bacause it's a hard blow to the legitimacy of american war efforts. It's not OK for the US defence to keep their oversights secret, and it's not OK to portray the whistleblowers as traitors. The US was once founded by people who wouldn't stand for unjust treatment of civilians by imperialists, and those values seem to have been forgotten since.

The US authorities claim that Wikileaks is a threat to national security, but we all know what they're really threatening: national secrecy. If the government is really founded on the people its legitmacy wouldn't suffer from openness around the methods they use in war, or the consequences thereof. It is founded on military might, threats and violence however, Obamas response is all the more logical. The campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq was never justified, nor were the methods employed and the continued secrecy surrounding these issues add insult to injury. Obama should worry more about the casualties his soldiers are piling up, and less about saving face over leaks of documents pertaining to his predecessor.

If you want to donate money to wikileaks follow this link:
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Support

I have my eyes on you, you pervert!

2010-07-20T14:42:00.004+02:00

I use a tool that allows me to see what keywords people search for when they end up here at Thulethinks. I write blogs about strange subjects, and accordingly I get a bit of traffic from various strange google searches. Nothing like the kinky zanyness that turns up in Batcheeba's analysis, but still.
- man pubic hair torture
- hot stories first time handjobs
- erected boys
- snuff tortureporn
- torture mutilation rape snuff young girl story
... and so forth. Things you don't want people to know you play with your genitals to.

Very funny. What's even more funny, and quite frightening too, is that the tool that allows me to see these keywords also allows me to see the poor people's IP-addresses and locations, as well as OS and browser and so forth.
Imagine what a person with some real computer knowledge to do to harvest information. Imagine what corporations can do, or the authorities. I mean, I'm a total n00b when it comes to the information superhighway, and I can access this information with a click...

It's time to be paranoid.

KALIGLIMMER

2010-07-09T10:52:00.006+02:00

In case you are one of the few people who hasn't noticed, me and Batcheeba are currently involved in a new blog venture called Kaliglimmer. It's a blog where we review underground music and art in a variety of genres (and other material should we feel that it fits the bill). You might find it interesting.

The adress is http://www.kaliglimmer.blogspot.com.

Incidentally, for those who care about these things, Kaliglimmer is a mineral otherwise known as muscovite. A nearly translucent, mostly black and very fragile mineral - and very beautiful. In Norway it is known as kråkesølv (crow's silver). Kali is of course the hindu god of time and death (as well as a whole bunch of other things), and I suppose Kaliglimmer means that it shines like Kali's aura or something like that. As per our obsession with crows, Kali and shiny things - as well as beauty where others see worthless junk, the name fits the blog.

Be sure to contact us if you have material you want reviewed.

Space Battleship Yamato and the golden age of the Emperor.

2010-06-26T01:50:00.011+02:00

If you're lucky, or a complete nerd you've seen the early anime series from 1973 called Space battleship Yamato, or Starblazers. It's a real classic, and paved the way for many later shows. In particular Macross (westernized as part 1 of Robotech), which was indeed in many ways a parody of Space Battleship Yamato, stylistically, thematically, and story wise - even down to the level of color schemes for heros and villains. I first saw Space Battleship Yamato when I was about six years old, and later when I was 11 - and then again as an adult. While the show certainly stands well on its own two feet, and is surprisingly little outdated, there are a few elements that fascinate me today, as a historian, that I didn't notice as a kid.

Like many science fiction and fantasy narratives there is an underlying element of romanticism in this show, but in this one the symbolism is even more potent and obvious than usual. Firstly, consider the name and theme of the series. Yamato, the legendary battleship from WWII rises out of the mud to defend Earth from invaders. Yamato is of course not just a ship, it is a term refering to ancient Japan, and the ship was given this name to symbolize the return to ancient values and traditions in a modern age.

With this in mind the scene where the Yamato rises out of the mud, guns first, it's easy to see this as a potent image of the old martial traditions of Japan being resurrected from the dirt, to provide the last ditch defense the ship also attempted in real life. The historic battleship Yamato was famously sent on a suicide mission in april 1945, but was sunk just south of Kyushu. During her four years of service she only fired her main guns once, in 1944. In the show the rebuilt Yamato rises into the air, and blows an enemy carrier into dust. The symbolic vindication of WWII Japan could hardly be more obvious. The show is in fact, rare as it might be, a resurrection of a resurrection myth. It makes the historian in me salivate. Seriously, it does.

But let's start at the beginning. The very first scene of the series depicts a battle near Pluto. Alien intruders enter our solar system, and a fleet attempts to repel them. They fail, and we are shown how the commanders of the fleet are torn between fighting on honorably, or returning to earth to defend the planet. One commander makes a futile suicide run against the enemy in true kamikaze fashion, refusing to face dishonor over losing the battle, while the admiral of the fleet turns around - wiser but perhaps not as honorable. After the battle has been lost we are shown how Earth is bombarded with meteor bombs, strikingly similar to the atomic blasts over Nagasaki and Hiroshima during WWII. We are told that the radiation levels are so high that life on earth will be extinct within a year, unless the invaders are countered and humanity finds the planet Iscander. Cue Yamato, commanded by the aforementioned admiral. Cue vindication. Cue revenge. After fighting off the attacking carrier the admiral declares "This is the Yamato we've been waiting for so long." We are then shown a fictionalised (but mostly accurate) account of the sinking of "the ship of japanese men", as witnessed by the admiral. Indeed.

So where am I going with this? Am I going to claim that Space Battleship Yamato is some sort of secret vindicationist nationalist plot to sully the minds of japanese youth by way of anime? Hardly. Quite the opposite in fact. While certainly militaristic and resurrectionist the series is also humanistic and positive in its outlook. The admiral points out that the tragedy of Yamato was that she was a ship born to fight, but that now her mission is changed. She is no longer a vessel of destruction, but on a mission to save and defend all humanity. Not just Japan.

Let's look at the psychology of this. In the early seventies the young adult generation had been born just after or just before the nuclear attack and the fall of the empire. Their parents had perhaps fought in the war, and lost. The ideology of imperial Japan had been discredited, and the country humiliated by occupation. People were faced on one side by the shame of defeat, and on the other by the shame of knowing that the Japanese emperor and his government had caused anguish to so many people, in the name of old fashioned imperialism. Space Battleship Yamato addresses both these issues. The ship repels the attackers and gives hope of victory, without bringing death and suffering to humanity. Additionally it allows the crew of the ship to resurrect a part of the humilitad Japan, and bushido, while using it for good. The survival of humanity rests on a Japanese warship. The admiral who returned to earth and faced defeat, rather than die fighting, gets to save mankind. The kamikaze mentality of his colleague is honored, but with an emphasis on the futility of his attack. Had he retreated his efforts could have proven a great deal more meaningful - and been a celebration of life rather than death. It's all very beautiful. In fact someone should write a book about the symbolism in this series. It would be voluminous, and I certainly can't cover it all here.

This sounds like a recipe for success in post war Japan, but in fact the show failed miserably in terms of popularity. First the format was cut down, then it was cancelled outright. It wasn't until the huge success of Star Wars that the show met with success, first as Starblazers and with american voices, and then as new episodes in Japanese. After that again is cast for a multitude of other shows, featuring ships flying in space, strange aliens attacking earth and so forth. Without Space Battleship Yamato, we would never have seen the legendary Voltron, G-force (american version of Gatchaman), Macross/Robotech and other lesser known series.

It's a very good show, and it deserves its legendary status, and that's my final thought on this subject. I'm not so much into anime or manga in fact, despite my nerdyness, but this series will stay with me for quite some time. I leave you with a link for part one of episode one courtesy of youtube. Enjoy. (Unfortunately embedding has been disabled.)

Symbols of Oslo pt. 2: Hermes

2010-06-25T15:45:00.001+02:00

Time for part two of my exploration of obscure symbols on Oslo's buildings. One might expect to find the previously covered symbol, the Swastika, it has atleast a tenuous link to Norwegian culture and history - in addition to its universal appeal and geometrical structure. If I were to say that one of the most absolutely most common ornamentations in Oslo depicts the greek god of communication, magic, economy and theft, you might be puzzled. However it is true. Hermes and his caduceus staff can be seen on so many buildings in Oslo it would be an impossible task to cover them all in this blog.

As mentioned, Hermes was the god of communication, theft, magic and commerce, of which the latter is the most important reason we find his countenance on buildings all over the world. As a god of commerce he is an excellent symbol for the stock exchange, and he is indeed placed on a pidestal outside Oslo Stock Exchange, pointing upwards for eternal growth. It's very common depiction of Hermes. Why he is firmly placed on a breath of air emerging from someone's decapitated head is beyond me. Admittedly I'm not as well versed in Greek myth as I'd like to be. If anyone has a clue, let me know. There is another Hermes on the other side of the building, and it's also worth a mention, though I couldn't be bothered including a picture of it here.

As a god of commerce he also adorns Christiania Glasmagasin, one of the most well know and early department stores in Norway. Christiania Glasmagasin, despite its name and upper class appeal is a shopping mall, and I doubt many of the people who do their shopping there notice Hermes above the door main entrance where he looks absentmindedly across the street where Christian IV points decisively at the ground. If I had to rest above the entrance to a shopping mall I'd probably want to avert my gaze from the vulgarians below me too. It's a really beautiful bust though. (There is such as thing as an unattractive bust dear reader...)

OK, so shopping malls I can understand. In the provincial village Trondheim there is even a mall named after him: Mercursenteret. Mercury of course being the roman name for Hermes. The next one is a mystery though. Smuget is a restaurant/bar/stage in Oslo well known for its stand up shows and various events, and for some reason they have a huge full statue of Hermes resting above the main gate, next to Poseidon. I have no idea what they're doing there, and it's not like they're subtle in any way. I can only guess whatever institution was there before Smuget had some link to commerce and shipping, but I don't know. Not gonna be bothered trying to find out either. It certainly is one of my favorite depictions of him however.

This leads to the next one, which is just a block or two away from the stock exchange. It's a more subtle ornament than the former three, and I have no idea what it's doing on that particular building - which houses a military academy. Hermes was a god of many things, but invasion, murder and anguish were not among his attributes. The building is located in an area of the with quite a bit of history, and it's not unlikely that there was some kind of trade house or something there at some point. After Oslo burned in 1624 the town was moved here by the danish king and renamed Christiania in honor of himself (this is also the reason for the aforementioned statuary pointing to the ground). In every other respect it's a rather unassuming building, but any building with a Hermes on it is close to my heart.

Not far from this one there is another one, in Fred Olsens gate. It's a more modern depiction, but I don't know how new, could look like the twenties or thirties judging by style. I would guess Art Noveau anyway, I'm not an expert. This one was brought to my attention by a friend of mine who also has interests in the world of occultism. I don't have much to say about this one,except that it's really nice, and that it's just one of many really cool ornaments on this particular building. Some of them even look overtly occult. Such as the child holding a winged globe just to the left of the Hermes. Incidentally the bulding also houses an outlet of the scammers in UFF, where you should never spend money if have any form of conscience whatsoever. And, yes, the sun was out the day I took the picture, and my camera isn't exactly state of the art. That shadow annoyed the hell out of me.

Now for the caduceus, the snake staff Hermes often carries. For some reason it has become a symbol of pharmacies and medicine, and can often be seen on medical buildings, such as hospitals and drug stores. Most likely this is due to a misinterpretation of the symbol as a variation of the other snake staff, the rod of Asclepius, which is actually relevant to the medical profession as opposed to the caduceus. I'm not going to say much about this quite common symbol, because a list of pharmacies would be tedious - and would further this rather strange misapproproation. The Caduceus is not just a symbol for Hermes of course, but it's probably been more associated with him than the other greek gods over the years, and I don't think it's an oversight to say that in most cases (except of course in the medical ones) it's safe to assume that the staff represents Hermes. This first one is located just across the street, more or less, from the military academy and housese Datatilsynet, a public institution responsible for monitoring the use of surveillance and data storage and so forth. So the Hermes reference is certainly apt, though I do suspect that this building is much older than the institution it houses.

A case where the caduceus is clearly linked to Hermes is on the aforementioned Christiania Glasmagasin, where there are in fact several of them. They're not very big, but you can clearly make them out near the western entrance. Neither is it as conspicuous, but there is certainly no doubt as to what it is.

So anyway, that's it for Hermes. I'm sure you should be able to spot a few of these on your own, and I haven't covered all the ones in Oslo either. They are quite numerous, and if you live in a city of reasonable size, and with a little history I'll bet money there's atleast one Hermes there. Keep your eyes peeled and your camera charged.

The Swastika

2010-06-06T12:01:00.014+02:00

Considering that I have recently posted two blogs about the swastika, more or less directly, I think it would be appropriate to post something about the symbol itself. Origins, meanings and so forth. As a symbol nerd, I have something of an obsession with this dangerous and alluring piece of graphic.

As mentioned in the blog about Thule the national socialists operated on the assumption of cultural dissemination. That is to say, in this context, the swastika had a singular origin, and was spread to the rest of the world via contact or colonisation. They saw this is parallelling the spread of architectural features like pyramids.

And, yes, you can find pyramids (or similar shapes) as well as swastikas around the world, but the assumption that this a result of contact is ungrounded. You can find pyramid, or similar, shapes in cultures as distinct as the Aztec, Greek, ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and even during the Japanese Kofun period. The fact is you can find burial mounds in every part of the world, and the evolution of smaller mounds into larger more elaborate mounds is well documented. This form of burial is also linked to cultures with a high level of centralized religion and strong state authority. So the pyramids don't tell us about ancient contact, but about social structures.

Likewise with the swastika. If you study the graphics of the swastika with an evolutionary mind you can see that it's a very simple symbol. Imagine yourself in the bronze age - with a creative mind and no written language to express yourself with. You need to develop a set of pictograms detailing the world around you. There is a natural progression of expression. The simplest form of graphic is a dot. The next level would be a line. In order to progress from there, and make the line more complex, you can either bend it into an angle, or make two of them. If you really want to get advanced you can combine them into a cross shape.

The swastika is a natural progression from there, and you can choose to intpret it as either four angles put together, or a cross with angles on it. You could even say it's a prototype for the more advanced cross enlosed by a circle. Either way it's a very natural early pictogram. It is both remarkably complex and incredibly simple. But still not simple enough that low brow skinheads manage to get it right all the time. How many times have I seen a swastika sprayed on a wall, where one of the angles point the wrong way or with similarily inane failures? Too many to count... And you wonder why neo nazism seems to attrack drop outs?

If you would want to play the devil's advocate for the idea that these cultures must've been in contact with each other you would say something like "Yeah, sure, simple, but all the cultures used the swastika as a symbol of the sun. How can that be?" And yes, this might be true. We can only make guesses about the meaning of early symbols, but let us work under the assumption that they are all in fact sun symbols (while sometimes this meaning has certainly been further evolved into different levels). This certainly seems to be the general consensus.

It is generally assumed that language evolved beyond the level of grunts and ughs as humans gained access to abundant sources of food. The reasoning is that when humans had time to relax and think about other things than running around trying to stab animals to death or wonder where there was some good fruit, they started thinking about abstract things. What are the stars and the moon, and the sun? How are the heavenly bodies linked to my life? What is the meaning of all this? And so forth. This led to cave paintings and early symbols as a form of cultic expression. Later when the agricultural revolution paved the way for urbanization and more complex socities with organized religion and trade the need for more complex pictograms also arose. And in fact the oldest occurences of swastikas we know of were found in the Mohenjo Daro region, where the oldest city culture also arose.

While spoken language is about direct communication written language is in fact primarily a storage medium. Even long before the portable USB stick humans found that they needed to convey and store communication across distance and time. Numerous theories highlight the link between trade and math or the alphabet, but this is supposed to be about the swastika and the sun. The agricultural revolution brought about two very important changes that are relevant to this topic: sun worship and pictographic writing. It is easy to surmise that one of the earliest symbols one would need to express would be the sun itself. And in all the various early cultures we see the sun symbolised by very "primitive" symbols. The swastika, a cross in a circle, a circle with a dot in the center, and so forth. Written language was created to convey abstract ideas rather than everyday gossip, and the most important abstract ideas around would be numbers (lines and dots) and the sun (evidently one step higher in terms of complexity). The fact that the swastikas arms seem to depict a form of motion could also be seen as symbolizing the sun's link to the four seasons of the year.

So at the same time people around the world started to get the idea that there was a link between the sun and the growth cycles of their crops, they also started developing pictograms. This does not mean that they were in touch with each other from the get go, even though cities also came with trade routes and cultural contact. Still, at times you do come across theories of dissemination in modern publications and with differing levels of credibility or evidence. I have heard that some archaelogists claim that early northern religion was inspired by phoenician traders, based on the fact that the earliest stone carvings in sweden depict a type of ship that was common in the mediterranean, but has never existed in Scandinavia, and the motif of twin gods - also common in that particular area. On the othern end of the scale you have Thor Heyerdahl with his ideas that polynesia was settled from south america - based on similar observations. He has of course been proven wrong by genetics, but maintained his ideas as long as he lived. If you go even further out you find Von Dänicken and his chariots of the gods. Wildly ammusing to read, and so very very preposterous. Still, modern theories of contact have long since abandoned the idea that culture arose in a single area, and the spread. For some reason however many linguists seem to be lagging behind and are still working under outdated assumptions about a first language, on which all later languages are based.

With time the swastika became a common symbol in some parts of the world, primarily asia, while it was replaced by other symbols in other parts of the world. Specifically the christian cross became the primary symbol of divinity in the western hemisphere, and the swastika disappeared from use (even though a tenuous link exists in the so called celtic cross or sun cross, whish is also a pre christian solar symbol similar to the swastika in many ways, with the angles replaced by a circle). When the swastika resurfaced centuries later, it was under the sanskrit name and in some cases links to european paganism and a strong political content. In other cases it was used simply because of its qualities as a good luck charm in asia or in architecture, and as such it was quite popular until this meaning was overtaken by the more well known polical use.

And we all know the end of the story, in the western hemisphere. The swastika has been so strongly linked to genocide that it is nearly impossible to use it in any other context. Despite groups like "reclaim the swastika" and numerous organizations using it because of its pre-christian meaning. Even non western religious groups find that symbol's controversial links are hard to swallow for Europeans. You can imagine what happened when the Raëlians tried to establish themselves in Israel. Their logo is none other than a star of david intertwined with a swastika - as pictured. Things are slowly improving however, and once again it is becoming possible to have an interest in pagan symbolism and myth, without being accused of nazi sympathies. This is a development I personally welcome. I do however disagree with the rhetorics that claim that the Swastika was stolen by Hitler. You can't steal a symbol, it's there for everyone, and we all have equal rights to use them. No single entity can claim ownership of the swastika, not nazis, not paganists, and not hindus - not even Coca Cola. Use it to your own advantage, and as you see fit. It's not a corporate logo, and it's not copyrighted. With this in mind I leave you with this picture I took at bronseplassen in Lillesand, Norway a couple of years ago. They seem to have the idea.

Symbols of Oslo pt. 1: Fascism

2010-06-05T15:14:00.000+02:00

Of the many ornaments one can see on buildings in Oslo there are several with a more obscure meaning than one would perhaps expect to see, and there are some with meanings that have been somewhat altered since the buildings were erected. People usually don't notice these symbols, but if they would, they might be surprised to find what looks like nazi and fascist symbols.

Perhaps the most well known, and debated ornament is Sommerrogaten 1, just by the national library. The building was built in 1931 as the corporate hq of Oslo Lysverker, now known as Hafslund. An electrical company. While Hitler and the NSDAP had adopted the symbol several years earlier in 1920 the symbol was still widely used by a flurry of other people around the world, as any google search for "Coca Cola + Swastika" will tell you. The reason the swastika was used on this gate is probably due to the symbolic link to prechristian religion in Norway. The swastika was supposedly a symbol for the god Thor, a thunder god. A thunder god is an apt symbol for an electrical company, especially during the twenties and thirties when viking and nordic symbols were still popular in Norway. Naturally many of these, such as the swastika, were discredited during the occupation of the fourties.

However the swastika can be found on other buildings in Oslo, as well as in the rest of Norway, such is this one - which is indeed on Karl Johansgate, just by the central train station. While Sommerrogaten is located a bit away from the city center, this building is right smack in the middle of everything. The busiest shopping street in Norway, not far from the largest train station in Norway, on the same street as the parliament and even the royal palace. Still, nobody seems to notice. Next time you're down there, just look above the 7/11 signs, and be baffled. I don't really know anything about this building, but I would guess it's a simple use of geometrical ornamentation without much consideration put into it. Notice that this one is sinistroverse, while the one on the gate and the one used by the NSDAP was rectoverse.

A more direct link to fascism can be found at the norwegian supreme court a few blocks away. One of the entrances is adorned with a pair of fasces, a lesser known fascist symbol, but the one the movement got its name from. The fasces is in use around the world by police (such as in norway), the US congress and courts, and it's not really strange. This form of the fasces is otherwise known as a lictores rod and was a symbol of authority in the roman empire, as it was carried (almost like a badge, but much more concretely) by a group known as the lictores. The lictores were a form of special judges, who were allowed to apprehend, trial and execute suspects, much like Judge Dredd. Their historic and symbolic link to modern police and courts is evident. Mussolini and his boys however adopted the symbol for two reasons. The first being the physical construction of the rod: sticks tied together for strength were seen as symbolic of how the early fascists saw themselves - as groups of individuals banded together. And that is how they got their names Fasci de Combattimento: combat groups in more plain language. Secondly the fasci was a symbol of the roman empire, which the fascist yearned to ressurect.

There are other symbols too to be found, that are certainly not directly linked to fascism, but have been so indirectly through their connection to facist regimes. Specifically the Iron Cross and the Eagle. These symbols too can be found on buildings in Oslo. These eagles look especially totalitarian - and considering that they look like they're perched on a pair of death runes (another symbol avidly used by the national socialists) I feel they belong in this blog. The picture is a bit small here, but right click on it and select "view image" for a better look. I have no idea what this building houses, but it is located a few blocks from the norwegian parliament (the Storting) and looks incredibly ominous. I think this fine little neoclassical doorway might just be my new favorite doorway in all of Oslo.

I'm certain there are many other examples of fasces and swastikas in Oslo (and so forth), and that these are just a few. The park area Vigelandsparken along with Gustav Vigeland's museum just by it is even worthy of a blog post all to itself, with its numerous swastikas or swastikalike symbols, alongside neoclassical statues and pan germanic romanticism. Given time I might return to this subject at some point. Incidentally one of the few grand projects shared by nazis and social democrats in Norway. The planning of the park was started before the war, while the german occupational government broke the ground, and the post war government finished it. Other similar projects were discarded after the war, and some cases buildings and statues erected during the war were destroyed. The supreme irony of this "cooperation" is of course that the swastikas a the museum are mixed with atleast one Star of David. Only goes to show that a symbol, just like history, might be more than meets the eye.

The Golden Age of King David and the First Temple

2010-06-04T10:56:00.015+02:00

The recent action against an unarmed civilian flotilla heading for Gaza with humanitarian aid has appalled a world, and divided oppinions as to the conflict in Israel/Palestine once again. It's not the first time, and certainly not the last. We're talking about a conflict so old and documented it's second to none. Just look at how a term like philistine (palestinian) has entered the english language as an insult implying someone uncouth and uncultured.

To an atheist like myself it is hard to see what these people are fighting over. They have different names and languages, and so what? What is the reason these two peoples can't "just get along"?

The answer lies in the ever elusive concept of myth. More specifically national restoration myths.

Nationalism is a rather complex phenomenon, and I'm not going to go into depth on it. However, myth is a central concept in nationalism, while not necessarily the reasoning behind the ideology. All nations have stories that they feel is central to their understanding of their own identity and are vital for national cohesion. One example is how americans identify with the pioneers and pilgrims who shaped their nation. It is a myth cycle upheld and reinforced through rituals, such as thanksgiving. The myth of the revolutionary war is reinforced through indepence day. These myths also come with a set of perceived values, that are central to the idea of the nation itself: independence, hospitality and family. These values are central to the american idea of life.

This is mostly unproblematic, and only when the myths and values are teamed up with a program for social change or national irredentism something negative and potentially deadly starts to happen.

The most recently well known example of deadly irredentism occured in World War two, when Germany attacked its neighbours with the pretense of wanting to unite germans that had been divided after World War one. This war of national restoration was paired with internal restoration of perceived germanic values. The result was genocidal mania and a war that cost over 50 million lives over six years. More recently we witnessed how Kosovos position on national myth cycles turned ethnic conflicts in Serbia into a potential for ethnic cleansing and civil war.

In the case of Israel we have a strong national myth cycle, reinforced through countless years of existence as diaspora around the world, and persecution, pogroms and discrimination in various shapes and forms. While jewish culture enriched the various contries it existed in, through literature, music and philosophy the diaspora was always self aware of its removal from the holy land. When the Balfour congress, in 1917, decided to create a homeland for jews it was against this background. This was at a time in history when nationalism was seen as a potential way to solve problematic conflicts, and states like Yugoslavia, Poland, Checkoslovakia, Finland, Hungary and Austria were formed to be homelands for various oppressed nations in Europe. Israel had to wait however, because no obvious location for such a nation could be found. While it was decided that Israel would be located in Palestine, it was allready full of people, and other locations (Madagascar, Brazil...) were equally problematic - and unwanted by the Zionist Federation. Eventually it was decided that Israel would in fact be located in Palestine, which is after all the promised land of jewish national myth - Canaan. And in 1948, after quite a bit of trouble and terrorism and fighting, Israel came into existence as a modern state. That's when the real trouble started...

This was for purposes the equivalent of opening up a box of wasps and sticking your penis in there while shaking the box. Palestine had been occupied for quite some time by palestinians, and they had their own perception of the matter. Not only was there a great deal of land to argue over, there was also myth. Particularily myths associated with Jerusalem/Al Quds. Jewish myth focuses on the restoration of the temple on temple mount, only problem is that the Al Aqsa mosque lies there, and that mosque is equally important to palestinian national identity. This is a point of contention so strong that archaelogists are literally trying to prove which culture was there first, by excavating the mount. Israeli extremists want to tear down the mosque, while many palestinians fear that the excavations are actually undermining the mosque in order for demolition. Until the temple of Solomon is rebuilt, the Messiah cannot come, and you really do want him to come.

This is where we enter the land of national restoration myths, or golde age myths. The general idea, that you can find in any and all nationalist political movements around the world is that "once we were glorious, but someone or something took it away from us, and now we need to restore those days". The golden age we are speaking of is the time when the tribes were united under king David. The tribes fell and were spread as diaspora around the world, and now it is up to us to rebuild the past. Quite physically rebuild in this case actually, the symbolism could not be any clearer. The ahistoric ideas of something original and unblemished is central to this kind of thinking. It was even a major part of american electoral campaigns this recent fall. Obama and McCain both spoke about taking america back from Wall Street, and even "back to main street USA". The America they wanted to return has of course never existed, except in blockbuster films and romantic literature about Davy Crocket, or the suburbs before the blacks moved there. It was quite comical to hear these visions, but restoration myths can be quite scary when paired with the notion of an enemy of restoration - such as the jews were to the nazis, the kulaks to the communists, the palestinians to the zionists or communists to McCarthy, or zionists to islamists. It's a really explosive combination.

Most Israelis and Palestinians would be perfectly happy to live next door to each other, send their kids off to the same school and go to see the same lame american romantic comedies, but there are those who are too enthralled with myth to see realities in front of their nose.

To complicate matters further jewish national myth is intertwined with evangelical christian myths, concerning the second coming of christ. Christian extremists around the world support the israeli cause in because Christ cannot return untill the jews have returned to Canaan. I'm not a theologian, but the scriptural basis for these assumptions sound wafer thin to me. I even hear a norwegian pastor speak of secret bases in the desert with a pre-assembled temple waiting to be brought in and rebuildt on the temple mount by way of helicopters. At an unspecified time a signal to demolish the temple would be given, and the palestinians would be exterminated by force. God only knows how this person can continue to recieve tax money to support his cult. Thankfully he is not representative of most christians, though many enough follow his logic.

I can see no end to this conflict. Three out of the five major world religions have their various myths tangled up in a few square miles of estate in Israel and the west bank, and they're not about to agree. "OK, we can sacrifice this symbol in exchange for that one." That's not how it works. People tend to get irrational over myths, and sometimes they even kill for them.

However, for the sake of all the people who have to live in the vicinity of this specific hot piece of real estate, let's hope that these religious dimwits die out as soon as humanly possible. It is a sad affair, and I really hope palestinians and israelis can find a way to live together in peace in times to come. How, I don't know.

Torture porn wasn't always comedy hour.

2010-05-22T00:02:00.008+02:00

So called torture porn films, such as Hostel (2005) and the neverending series of Saw films are very popular these days. Basically these films are all about showing an astonishing number of ways to dismember and murder humans, usually with a healthy helping of puritan moralism and poetic justice. In many ways they even have common ground with the right wing vigilante films of the eighties, and would make Ronald Reagen proud, if somewhat sick to the gut. However things weren't always so. There used to be a time when if you said torture and porn in the same sentence, people thought you were talking about something very underground and very nasty. I am talking of the elusive phenomenon of snuff films.

I was first made aware of snuff when I saw the film Hardcore (1979) in my youth. The film is about a father, portrayed by the class a actor George C. Scott who searces for his run away daughter. She's fallen prey to the vile and seeding underground of pornography, and his conservative christian morality can't really cope with that. As he goes undercover and infiltrates the darker side of porn he stumbles across snuff: women being raped and murdered on camera for the sexual pleasures of the audience. And all the torture and abuse is authentic. The film told the story about snuff from a perspective that makes it seem like a real and credible phenomenon. Quite uncomfortable to think of. But snuff was not something the director had come up with on his own. He was in fact drawing on a long tradition of movie making, even without taking on screen death into consideration.

Rumors of snuff films had allready been around for quite a few years, starting around the days of the Manson-trials, in the very late sixties. However the film that brought snuff rumors to main stream attention was the aptly titled Snuff (1976), which claims that the end of the film is exactly that - snuff. The viewer bears witness to rape and onscreen mutilation and finally murder, all done in guerilla style and made to look real. And people believed it. This scene was appended to a less than mediocre proto slasher film, trying to exploit the enduring moral panic generated by the Manson murders. Supposedly the last scene demonstrates how the fictional murders were carried out in real life. It was a very effective marketing ploy, and a grade c pile of crap was suddenly the talk of the country, and made millions. To the more trained eye however the acting and scenes of mutilation look about as real as Michael Jackson's nose, but certainly completely devoid of morality. Snuff was exploitation in every meaning of the word. And that we can like!

An exploitation genre was born. The year after saw the release of several films with this theme, among them one of my favorites. A strange and nightmarish, yet arty, film called Last House on Dead end Street (1977), about a gang of miscreants whose forrays into underground SM porn turns into snuff. Another near legendary exploitation film that claims to show onscreen death is Joe D'Amatos Emanuelle in America (1977), which shows Laura Gemser investigating a supposed film showing soldiers raping and murdering civilians. The film in the film is depicted in a quite realistic and credible way, and shows some nasty footage, of scenes that could place in any war near you. It's not real though, and the most shocking moment in the film is the scene where a woman administers a hand job to a horse. I shit you not. It's completely out of place, and probably quite illegal. D'Amato was never one to shy away from a bit of controversy.
Soon after persistent rumors claimed Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was depicting real human death. In fact actors had to go on a witness stand to prove that they were still alive, and some of the effects were required to be demonstrated in front of a judge. Gruesome as the film is, the director did not have people killed to make it.

Rumors about the existence of the real deal were persistent, as they still are. Investigations into the matter by british and american police unearthed nothing however. Still, umpteenth generation vhs copies of Gini Piggu 2: Chiniku no Hana (Guinea pig 2: flowers of flesh and blood, 1985) was to up the ante another notch. The films director, Hidesho Hino, was something of a prankster and a media critic as well as extreme film affecionado. His first Gini Piggu film, aptly titled "the devil's experiment" and the sequel both depict, supposedly real, extreme torture of a girl, captured on film - and it's certainly the most realistic looking torture and dismemberment I have ever seen as such. The sequel however was the most effective of the two because of its conscious use of the percieved snuff formula. A young girl is kidnapped, tortured, dismembered and killed by what is evidently a complete nut job in a samurai helmet. The torture even quotes some elements from the earlier film Snuff, in a fitting visual tribute. The underground nature of the film meant that it was distributed by copying, and when one such low grade copy was seen by Charlie Sheen a moral media panic ensued. The FBI investigated, and aquitted the film. While the effects look impressively real they don't hold up to professional scrutiny - and of course it did help that Hidesho Hino could verify the film as fake. A few years later he released the making of Gini Piggu on dvd.

A fascinating side note about Gini Piggu needs to be mentioned. The film shows terrible scenes of bodily harm and death, such as a man plucking out the girls eye ball before licking on it, etc - and despite this there is not a single nipple portrayed in the film. The girl is covered by a blanket at all times, and we can surmise that Hidesho Hino does this to lampoon the double standards of comercial film: violence is OK, sex is not. He steps over the line of course, by portraying a level of violence that is rarely seen as ok on film, or in any other medium, but he still keeps it clean. No nipples, no sex and no pubic hair. Seeing how modern torture porn does the same thing without the same level of tongue in cheek self awareness is quite hilarious after watching Hidesho Hino's masterpiece.

Still to this day, not a single real snuff film has surfaced. That is, not a single film that depicts the deliberate death of a person, made for profit and sexual pleasure. There are numerous on screen deaths out there, but these are all captured for the personal pleasure of the perpetrator, by accident by news teams or by terrorists. As such they don't qualify as snuff. Still, the trope is incredibly poweful, thankfully, and until the first real snuff film emerges us eurotrash folks can enjoy our exploitation films drawing its energy from the supposed seedy phenomenon. Some of these films are quite excellent too. Occasionally there have been more comercial attempts at cashing in on snuff myths, such as the aforementioned Hardcore, as well as 8mm (1999) wich casts Nicholas Cage in a role not too dissimilar from Scott's in Hardcore. There is also the mediocre bordering on good film Tesis (1996). Tesis is a spanish flick portraying a female film student who stumbles upon an underground group producing snuff films. All these three are worth a watch, even if you're not into trash. In fact there are so many films that cash in on snuff, that it would be hopeless to list them all. One film however that is probably worth a mention is the recent snuff movie (2005), which blends modern torture porn with a story concerning snuff. Despite the initial fears that snuff movie is a snuff version of scary movie the film is not a silly comedy best left to rot and fester in a ditch somewhere... Atleast not for that reason.

It's been a long time.

2010-05-19T00:47:00.004+02:00

Ian Curtis died thirty years ago today, may 18th 1980. He left behind a family, friends and music that's touched the hearts of generations.
I was two years old when he died, and naturally I only discovered his music long after he was dead. But when I did, it touched me in a way little music ever has.

I feel like telling a little anecdote. The last time I went to meet my mentor at the university I was wearing a Joy Division T-shirt, with the closer cover on it. I entered the door and my mentor, a really cool guy, said "I bought that when it came out." He was of course referring to the album. I had known him for three years, and I naturally knew that we had some common interests, but I had never taken him for a joy Division fan. But in fact he had a really big collection of rarities and everything.

So we sat there and talked about Joy Division, and Ian Curtis and J.G. Ballard (also sadly dead now) and other such stuff. He told me that he had in fact seen New Order live, on one of their first concerts after Curtis' death, and that it was one of the most chilling experiences of his life. I can imagine.

Ian Curtis lyrics, and his way of portraying the world was unique. So heartfelt and profound. I will never be able to understand how a man as young as was could write those lyrics. It was like he had lived a thousand lifetimes allready.

Rest in peace Ian. Your lyrics have made our lives richer.

Good enough to eat, Italian films for the true gourmet!

2010-05-15T12:34:00.011+02:00

One of the many tasteless subjects I found fascinating as a child in the eighties was cannibalism. I can remember very vividly tales of cannibalism in books by Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert Louis Stevenson, or recounted by the adults around me. When I was probably 10 years old I remember reading about a pirate somewhere in Malaysia who had a penchant for eating his victims ears after roasting them over an open fire. Don't know if it was something he actually did, or just image branding. Regardless, I was enthralled. And it seems I was not the only one.

From the mid seventies to the late eighties Italy was a cinematic super power, atleast if you enjoy slightly offensive dehumanizing exploitation films with hardly any logic consistency scriptwise, and even more films that objectify women. And I do. I certainly do. In fact, I love it! Italians produced a wide range of exploitation films, starting with the so called mono genre, and developing into nunsploitation, nazisploitation, sexploitation, slasher films, giallo, zombie films and the subject for today's blog: cannibal films.

The genre grew out of the aforementioned mondo genre, which also originated in Italy before becoming international. Mondo is italian for world, and the mondo films were a sort of low brow sensationalist anthropological exploitation cinema - in the borderland between fiction and documentary. The films showcased a variety of perceived primitive practises from around the world, with a fair dosage of schock value. Shockumentary was another term used for these films. The genre devolved into death fetishism with the american Faces of Death and died out soon thereafter. Not really a great loss.

The Cannibal films can be seen as a direct off shot of this genre, both stylistically and with regards to the subject matter. Cannibal films transported the viewer to remote locations and let them witness a wide range of primitive (mostly fictional) customs - including cannibalism. The films also cashed in on the death fetishism of the mondo genre by including footage of animal death. Either stock footage of animals eating each other, or filmed sequences of natives slaughtering animals for food. These scenes are usually the most repulsive, especially considering that I'm personally a vegetarian. In addition these scenes usually had little to do with the "natural" behaviour of the supposed tribes who performed them. But they are what they are, and thankfully the climate for portraying animal cruelty in film has changed considerably since then. Let's not forget vicious treatment of animals was common in main stream films just 40 years ago.

An even more notorious example of linking to the mondo genre can be found in the most famous of all the cannibal films, IE Cannibal Holocaust (1980) by Ruggero Deodati. This film is about a mondo film crew who provokes a tribal war in the amazon, before being molested and devoured. The film attempted, quite successfully, to emulate a real documentary in certain segments and the premise is that a great deal of the footage is real. This led to rumors that the film did in fact contain the real on screen death of the actors involved. (And in fact there is a real life execution scene in the film, but through stock footage. None of the actors are in fact killed, or eaten, or any other such stuff.) Cannibal Holocaust is easily the most artistically well made film of the genre, and its reputation is well deserved. Ruggero Deodati even had to convice a court that the deaths were special effects, and spent some time in jail for the animal cruelty portrayed in the film. Don't see it if you can't stomach it.

The cannibal films are mostly trash, and I mean that in the most explicit sense. The editing is poor, the acting is terrible and the scripts are wafer thin. In addition the films are inherently racist and often come off as a remnant from earlier colonial times. The various exotic locations and tribes are always treated as savage, merciless and hellish and the death of a native is hardly worth a comment, while a scene depicting a white woman being molested can be lavishly detailed. In addition the supposed anthropolical aspects of the films are usually erroneous down to the very last detail. Prime examples are the portrayals of the amazonian Yanomamo as cannibals or the use of philipinos to portray Asaro mudmen from Papua - who also don't really eat people very often. (I have in fact met a couple of Yanomamo in real life, and they didn't try to eat me, or any other people.) But as it was with the mondo films, the value of these films is hardly in correct portrayal, but in shock and disgust.

In spite of this overdose of subconscious racism the films often have a anti-imperialist message. The filmmakers in Cannibal Holocaust clearly represent european interests with little respect for their film's subjects and end up being eviscerated and digested. Ursula Andress, of Dr. No fame plays a cynical capitalist searching for uranium in Papua has to witness the death of her brother (and eat his heart) and other horrors before escaping. While certainly not all the films have this premise it is certainly present in several of them.

Another aspect that can hardly be ignored is the direct sexuality these films have. I have allready mentioned the former Playboy model Ursula Andress, who displays most of her body in Mountain of the Cannibal God - where she is oiled and rubbed by a pair of native women. She is not the only one. In Emanuelle and the last cannibals (1977) the beautiful Laura Gemser once again undresses in front of the camera as Emanuelle (not to be confused with the more famous Emmanuelle), the world's sluttiest reporter. (One of the least interesting Emanuelle Nera films, go watch Emanuelle in America instead. Now that's offensive cinema for you!) Also any cannibal film that doesn't contain a healthy helping of naked savage women is not really a cannibal film. The same goes for rape, and to some degree explicit images of castration. It's all very delightful.

So now you know how to spend your weekend. Never mind clubbing or whatever, fire up Pirate bay, and get yourself some cannibal action! Once you've learned the joy of the dangers all natives present to white people trekking through a green hell, your world will never be the same again. I know I'm gonna get the last hufu out of the fridge and fire up Jungle Holocaust later today.

THULE

2010-05-14T17:41:00.013+02:00

When I check the keywords people have used to end up on my blog one of the most common ones is "thule". Hardly strange considering that I use the word as my name - and in fact it nearly is my name. I've just left out a letter. As a kid I was even told that Thule was an older form of my surname. Don't know if that's true, but still it sounds cool that way. Sort of black metal industrial something-ish. And indeed Thule has been used in various conjunctions in different band names. It's a magical word I guess, and one with exciting connotations.

(Ultima) Thule is an ancient greek word, with a slightly mysterious origin and meaning. Literally it means "the farthest north", and was used as a geographical term to describe some northern region. Exactly which one is debatable. Some claim Norway, others Iceland and others Greenland - as evidenced by the Thule military base on the latter. Of course I am a historian, and this fact combined with the possible connection with my family name should tickle my curiousity and in a way it has. However, my interest for antique history is passing at best, so I don't really know so much about greek texts and trade routes or whatever. I do know a great deal about another subject with more ominous links to Thule though: national socialism. Nazism in more coloquial terms. And as you can see from the picture above, this is the connection I am going to explore in this post.

The most obvious link between National Socialsm and Thule lies in the Thule Gesellschaft (1918-1920), with its organizational, economic and ideological ties to Hitler's party NSDAP. While this society was a latecomer on the mystic nationalist scene, and far from the largest or even very long lasting, it certainly secured its place as more than a footnote in history thanks to these ties. In fact even the Swastika was adopted by the NSDAP as a sort of inheritance from the Thule Gesellschaft. This secret society is well known because of this link, and many have seen them as evidence that Hitler was an occultist and so forth. Perhaps even in touch with (possibly) green people from outer space. While the Thule Gesellschaft was quite evidently an occult group, inspired by rosicrucianism and theosophy - and even cabbala, their exploits have been widely exaggerated by rumors, just like the connotations of the NSDAP and Hitler's link to this group. Just to set things straight immediatly, and probably lose half of the readers at this point: Hitler was not the least bit concerned with the occult. Many high ranking nazis were (most notably Himmler), but not Hitler. Nor was he ever in touch with Crowley.

So why did the Thule Gesellschaft pick this name for themselves? An obscure referance from old greek texts describing a mythical and strange land to the north should be of little interest to modern educated germans? To find the answer we have to look briefly at a rather strange russian woman named Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891). She is famous for quite a few things, such as founding the Theosophical Society, inspiring Rudolph Steiner and Jiddu Krishnamurti among others, and making preposterous claims about lemurians living in California and Tibet and other such things. She was a nuclear reactor of occult power, in terms of creating and popularizing theories, and one of these was the theory of root races. In her view humanity had (d)evolved through a series of cataclysmic events, such as the sinking of Atlantis in ancient times. We were descendants of earlier more spiritually apt beings, and after these events we mated with various forms of apes to become the humans we are today. One of these root races was named "the aryans", whose symbol was the swastika...

Let's leave Blavatsky as she travels through India and other places looking for evidence of the secret masters and Lemuria, and travel to München in Germany in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Germany had recently been united into a single political unity (excluding Austria and Switzerland though) and national pride was at its apex, as was the interest in mysticism and theosophy. Thousands of germans were involved in what has been called the Völkisch movement, and many of these were members of secret societies dedicated to unveiling the german people's secret past. This is the historical context we have to see this interest in Thule in. Mystics searching for a proud past for germany, by way of root races and lost continents, and this is where it starts to get real hairy.

The Thule Gesellschaft, and several similar groups, was founded on the idea that a grand aryan civilization had once existed in the north, probably in the regions around the baltic sea or Iceland. They had ruled over a large area and their culture was in fact the cradle of civilizations all around the world. They saw evidence of this in Vedic scriptures, where a nation of white people called aryans invaded India from the north, bringing culture and technology with them, and establishing themselves as rulers. They saw evidence in the depictions of ancient egyptians as mainly white people, and furthermore they saw evidence of this in the repetition of certain architectural forms in different cultures spread around the globe: pyramids and of course the proliferation of the swastika around the world. But their culture waned for some obscure reason, and their civilization fell. The aryans were left copulating with animals of various sorts and lost their spiritual and cultural powers over time. Their heirs in various parts of the world were left in different states of purity, with tibetans and germanic/nordic peoples being the purest. According to Guido von List survivors of the cataclysmic events had settled Iceland as refugees - which was the historical Ultima Thule of the Greek texts. These survivors' descendants had in turn spread to northern europe at some point.

To more modern minds this all sounds intensely outdated and quite simply wrong, and it is. However, in the latter half of the nineteenth century this was a rather common idea, known as a theory of cultural dissemination. The idea was that civilization had originated in a single area, and been disseminated, spread, to the rest of the world. This kind of thinking has been thoroughly discredited since, and only the most reactionary laymen still profess to this form of theory. Such as our very own Thor Heyerdahl here in Norway.

Anyway, back to Germanic occult nationalism. Thule and the civilization it represented was the aryan Atlantis, and their society was a golden age of magic and racial superiority. In other words the various Völkisch groups coupled their romantic mysticism with racist ideas, and antisemitism and nationalism, but it took someone else to propel these ideas into the rabidly frothing genocidal mania of the SS and Heinrich Himmler.

When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in Landsberg prison several of these mystic historical ideas found their way into his book. Despite the fact that he personally ridiculed Himmler's obsession with a germanic past he divides the various peoples of the world into three categories based on their ability to create culture. On top were the germans, which he claims founded all the high cultures of the world, while the jews were on the bottom. The jews had no ability to create nor sustain, they could only steal and destroy, and were in fact responsible for the loss of the aryan magical abilities. They were in the way of a new aryan world empire. We all know the outcome of that line of thought, but not all people are aware of the fact that Himmler's SS funded a great deal of historical research via the SS Ahnenerbe institute meant to provide a scientific basis for these ideas. The institute sent expeditions around the world to search for evidence of the lost Thule and the aryan tribes. While some of this research was legitimate, a great deal of it was also pseudo science and even genocidal.

But as we all know, Hitler shot himself and Himmler swallowed a capsule of cyanide after being arrested by the americans. Himmler's obsession seemed lost as his organization was dismantled, his ritual room in Wewelsburg castle (pictured above) was closed and his allies executed or sentenced to long prison terms. But not entirely. The National socialists were masters of branding, and the swastika, the aryans, the runic logo of the SS and other such originally mystic symbols would be connected with genocide and evil for generations to come. Still, the deeper meaning of these symbols would surface from time to time, and a new form of mysticism would arise. Just as Himmler lay rotting beneath the Lüneburger Heide the texts he had studied were exhumed - metaphorically speaking. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, Guido von List, Karl Maria Wiligut and finally Rudolf von Seebottendorf and Walter Nauhaus - founders of the Thule Gesellschaft had found a new underground and vey eclectic audience. Some of their ideas are even strangely widespread today, such as the notion that the runes had some sort of magical deeper meaning, and could be used for scrying.

While the Thule Gesellschaft and its likes have been gone for nearly a century now their ideas have entered pop culture via the tyrants it inspired. Thule is perhaps not as linked to evil as the Swastika, but it certainly does have an ominous ring to it, and some of the modern ideas this society has fostered are certainly entertaining: vril power used as fuel for secret nazi UFOs, currently being used as material in a film depicting nazis on the moon in 2018. And that's just the tip of the ice berg...

boobies and agricultural revolution and stuff

2010-05-14T10:48:00.008+02:00

The other day I was watching the news. It's been a couple of months actually, so you can imagine the pace my brain works at. Anyway, I was watching the news and there were these feminists, and they were swimming around in a public swimming pool with their boobs hanging out. I like boobs. I like them alot. But you know that when feminists are eager to show you theirs they have some sort of twisted and ridiculous agenda. And as always they did. They wanted to desexualize breasts. Titties are just meat, nothing sexual about that, or so these particular women would claim. The whole thing was laughable. While nobody really knows why men get aroused by looking at supple well formed mounds of pink flesh, with erect nipples surrounded by a perfect areola, it is hardly a logical phallacy to assume that topless women is hardly the way to reverse this reaction. Like I said, I like boobs - and I'm not the only one.

Anyway, while I was actively face palming I started thinking about this strangely irrational phenomenon, and where it came from, and as with everything else that is mind numbingly illogical in western society I ended up with the Bible.

Back in the days, the Bible teaches us, we were without sin and careless and free, and living in the garden. But then Eve, that terrible slag, had to go and eat the fruit of the tree of life, and present it to Adam just after having digested her helping. And God was severly pissed off by this, as he had clearly instructed them not to do so. They blamed the snake, but still got the boot and were cast out, and the garden was guarded by angels on steroids and a burning sword and stuff. You know the story. They sinned.

A common interpretation is that this is a parable for discovering sexuality, and a quite obvious one at that. Eve talks to the snake, and eats the fruit, then Adam eats the fruit and not long after they have children. Interestingly enough, this fall is also marked by the sudden need to hide their nakedness. Before Eve discovered the alluring snake and put stuff in her mouth she had no concept of nudity. And please do note how Rubens made Eve direct her gaze directly at Adam's serpent, while touching her mouth. No fellatio implied? (Though I suspect it was of a rather unimpressive girth and length, considering how little foliage it takes to hide it. Luckily for Adam he didn't have any competition around.)

The interesting bit is that this naive perception of covering up as a sign of sexuality is carried over by a bunch of highly educated atheist marxist inspired women in the present secularized society. Probably by way of Rosseau, and his noble savage. For some reason western culture and thought has obsesssed over the appearantly dichotomous "barbarian, natural, savage, primitive" on one hand and "culture, civilization, unnatural" on the other hand. Western culture is of course very much into dualism, and the duality of nature vs culture corresponds very well with religious concepts of body vs spirit, or even our mythic structures concerning the rise of civilization from a foraging nomadic existence via the agricultural revolution and into modern society.

Now this is where it gets all feministy and exciting. If we accept a pair of quite common notions atleast. Pre-agricultural society is generally held to have been a matriarchy where the gods were mostly feminine and the waxing and waning moon was a symbol of feminity and the feminine attributes of making babies and all that. As a contrast to this the agricultural revolution came bundled with patriarchy, male gods, sun worship and belief in sperm as the true origin of children (the homonculus theory). Just think of the potent freudian symbology contained in the image of a young strong muscular man driving his plow through the fertile fields of mother earth, and planting his seed in the hole. (When did this blog turn into pornography anyway?) Historically it's a massive over simplification, but as a mythic superstructure it is valid.

Okay, I've strayed pretty far from feminists swimming around with their mammaries exposed, but hang on just a bit further. Both the Bible and modern feminist theories tell us that there was once a pure and better way of life, and then there was a cataclysmic event (in spiritual and cultural terms) and we lost our innocence. It's easy to see how natural and unclothed becomes innocent and free in this sort of logic, and while I share some of these notions it's also an example of intellectual irredentism, for lack of a better term. Naive by any terms. What we also see is that some feminists also manage the logical leap it is to mix this all up with some culturally subconscious notions of sin. Having sexual thoughts about naked women is evidently a sin, and that is certainly not a marxist atheist educated way of thinking. While marxists certainly have their share of strange ideas, this is not one of them. Quite the opposite. The idea of sin linked with sexuality is a christian invention. Pluck out your right eye and cast it off! The difference between the feminists and puritanical christians lies in their proposed sollution to the "problem". The puritans covered their loins and petitioned the lord with prayer, as they say, while the feminists want to teach us men that their boobs are just udders and about as exciting as watching the laundry dry. Yet for some reason they don't like it when you as a man look at pictures of naked women. One should think that the more you look at them, the less exciting it gets. Atleast that's the exposure-thesis they seem to operate on when they burn their bras and swim around topless.

I don't get it. But I know one thing. I like boobs, and I can't complain about women who want to show them to me. Even if their reasons are distorted, incomprehensible and naive. Tittie power! Or something...

My head is spinning

2010-04-26T00:59:00.006+02:00

I've spent the last week really intensely involved with kabbalah and Goetia research. No, I'm not talking about Madonna-kabbalah bullshit. I mean the real thing.
You know what I mean, tree of life, tarot, elements, merkavah, qlippoth, sefer yetzira, gematria and shit like that - not hoaxy water. And then there's goetia with the demons and the seals and the general zaniness.

Incidentally I might be the only person I know who thinks Madonna's music was as worthless in the eighties as it is now. I liked the ray of Light album, but apart from that I think it's utterly derivative crap. But enough of that.

This stuff really does something to me head. I actually dream of the attributations to the various Sephiroth. I have very vivid dreams in general, and I very often have lucid moments, but this is just freaky. It feels like I'm awake all night, just coincidentally witnessing weird shit in my mind. Figuring I'm gonna take some vitamin b6 to boost the experience too.

There is a reason for this of course. More so than my general interest in the occult and everything that's off the regular paths. I'm preparing for testing my game. Yes, I have created a game. A nerdy role playing game even, so hang me. I'm a huge geek.
But this is not dungeons and dragons. This is the game the christians warned you about in the eighties. This game actually wants you to engage in occultism and masturbation and other EEEEVIL stuff. It's called Sigil, and is based on the occult methods of Crowley, Spare and Genesis P-orridge. We're talking sigilizations basically, with a ritualistic frame to go. And in one month it will finally be tested. (Yes, and it does encourage masturbation as a part of the character creation process). So I'm getting ready for that. And it really makes my head spin. Love it.

The other day I dreamt of a tree of life, where all the stations were manifested in the form of Homer Simpson. I shit you not. Every different Sephiroth was symbolized by a different image of Homer in the appropriate mood. (I'm not certain what the images of Da'ath, Binah or Kether would've been like though...) Just look at this picture, and tell me you've seen better cartoony representations of Gevurah!

So I'm listening to Psychick Warriors ov Gaia and current 93, reading Alan Moore, Crowley and the Lesser Key of Solomon, and my head feels like it's a focal point of thousands of years of confusion and codes - and it's all basically about fucking. Yup. It's all about fucking. All the symbols and all the practices and mysteries, they're all based on various interpretations and permutations of what happens when someone sticks his dick in someones cunt. It's marvellous really. That's the kind of religion I can go for. Christian Death's Valor says "I don't want your fucking God, I don't need your fucking God, he just wants to fuck me, just like you fucked me." I know, I know. He was referring to the age old practice of catholic priests and child molestation and all that. But seriously, child molestation and filthy priests aside, that's exactly the god I want. A fucking-god. Yeah. In fact that's the god I want to be. (But I don't want to be Brian Warner...)

Enough of this nonsensical near hallucinatory rambling! Just wanted to share. You can go back to ignoring me now. I'm gonna do my asana, and go to sleep. Another night of thrills I bet!

Twenty ten is upon us

2009-12-31T18:13:00.002+01:00

In a mere few hours we'll be living in the wonderful future year 2010.

It creeps me out. Ever since 1999 I've felt like I'm living in some strangely disappointing alternate future. If we look back to when I was a kid this is certainly nothing like the future I was expecting. No space colonies, no flying cars, no nuclear holocaust, no artificial intelligence, no super advanced robots (nearly though), no VR cybersex and so forth and so forth.

In a few hours we'll be in the year where HAL9000 is reactivated and jupiter explodes and becomes a new sun, and we're not even close to an AI. Despite having microprocessors, something Clarke never dreamed of.

Anyway. Happy new year, may the future bring excitement and wonders to all of us!

Police violence from Denmark

2009-12-15T22:39:00.003+01:00

The most brutal acts of violence I have seen by any cop since Rodney King. Probably even worse... This is the same police that now claim that yesterday's actions against Christiania (IE invasion) were just to stop a party from getting out of controll.
The same police that peppersprayed detainees while sitting in cages.

Who do you trust?

Victory is ours

2009-12-14T19:01:00.006+01:00

We will be the victors in the end. And I'll tell you how I know that.

They have their police with riot helmets, tactical vests, guns, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, LRADs, fire trucks, hand cuffs, batons, strips, cages, armoured cars. They take away our cameras, they bludgeon us, they gas us, they arrest us, they threaten us, the smear us in their own media and they attack us every time we speak our minds.

We have nothing. Nothing besides our lack of fear, of what they do to us.

That's right.

They are the ones with all the weapons, the uniforms and protection. They are the violent and aggressive ones, and they are afraid of us. Why else would they use violence?

In Denmark, december 2009, they arrested nearly a thousand peaceful protesters, in clear violation of the universal declaration of human rights, and all standards of democracy. Didn't scare anyone. The next day the protests were back on. Again the police attacked the protesters, again for no reason. Day three now, and protests are still going on, and they are still peacefull.

That's why we will win. We are not afraid of them, and once more and more people realize that the authorities live in fear of the common man, they will join us. And the police will be helpless. With all their weapons and armor, the only thing can do is scare us or kill us. And unless you kill us, we won't go away, cos you can't scare us anymore. All we need is patience. I just hope we have time.

Today [heavy on sarcastic parody]

2009-12-11T22:51:00.006+01:00

There are a million blogs out there where people write about nothing, that is what the do what they wear. I'm gonna give it a go. Just for the hell of it. They do have thousands of readers, and I have like... four? Or something...

As always I am wearing black BDU pant's. They're very practical, and helped me transport my sick leave note from the doctor's office all the way home. These specific pants were bought at H&M's here in Oslo, and they are really comfortable. (For instance they come with button down fly, instead of a zipper.) My feet were of course enclosed in black vegan boots with steel toes, while making this journey. It aint shoes, if it can't crush a skull. That's what I always say. I got them from veganessentials.com. A very good website for people with a conscience.
I am also very pleased with the black hoodie I bought on e-bay the other day. It has a nice Laibach logo and everything. Goes well with my shaved head and face. The logo is printed on in some plastic material, in silver and white, and appears sturdy. The hoodie itself is very comfortable, and fits like a glove. (A roomy glove that is, it is XL). And it makes me look very manly, or so I hear.

My outfit is not only perfectly color coordinated, but a fashion statement that says something very real about the modern day urban anarchist. It's militant, it's warm and very comfy.

Did I mention I quit my job today?

So come on, lay me down with a million readers. Make me Perez Hilton!

I was right, and you were wrong.

2009-12-11T15:28:00.006+01:00

I have been known to be critical of the decision to award Obama with the peace prize, but this is not about that. This is about all of the people that elected him, and the people all over the world who supported him, and how naive they were.

For a long time it has been known among my friends, that I prefer the republicans over the democrats any day. Just like I rooted for McCain (not Palin though) in this last election. People have a hard time understanding this given my political stance. I am hardly a republican, to say the least.

However, I don't trust the democrats, and I certainly don't see them as furthering my world. I don't see the real difference between the two parties in any other way than that I know where I have the republicans, and I know that people aren't fooled by them. People are certainly fooled by the democrats though.

Obama spent most of his campaign talking about change, and how he was gonna end the wars and shut down Guantanamo. And I said: "No he's not." I expected him to do just what all other democrats had done before him. Fight wars, take less international responsibility and increase military engagement abroad. And he did.

I may be a cynic, but I was correct.

Obama has not been able to shut down Guantanamo.
Obama has increased the number of troops engaged in combat to a level far above anything Bush ever did.
Obama has not set a date for withdrawal, or even clear goals for the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Obama has filled his cabinet with people from the Clinton administration, just like I said he would.
Obama has made no serious efforts at real diplomacy or consolidation. He has proven (with regards to Iran in particular) that diplomacy is synonymous with threats to americans. "You do as we want, or we punish you."

Like I said: I may be a cynic, but I was correct. And I want to state once and for all. You cannot trust democrats. Traditionally they have been more aggressive, less willing to take responsibility for their actions and just as arrogant as the republicans. Kennedy invaded Cuba, increased military presence in Vietnam, Clinton involved the US in more conflicts than one can count. Some of the more well known actions were: bombing Iraq every day for eight years, bombing Sudan, bombing Serbia and firing rockets into Afghanistan. (Much good that did.) The only president that has ever used nuclear weapons in a conflict was a democrat. The list goes on. And still people say that the democrats are so fantastic and humane. I don't get it.

I know, I am anarchist, and to many of you that means I should just shut up about this stuff. I will never be pleased with any president anyway. Granted, this is true. But I still predicted Obamas foreign policy better than any of you. You all believed him when he said he would shut down guantanamo or bring the troops home.

Well. He's sent more troops, and 2009 has seen more dead US troops than any year under Bush. As well as more drone attacks and further escalation of the conflict into pakistan.

I was right. You should admit it. And I get to say:

I TOLD YOU SO!

Coca Cola utilizing B-52's to distribute "wealth"?

2009-12-08T14:24:00.002+01:00

Coca Cola has a new christmas commercial out. You know what they're like. Holidays are coming and smiling faces and lights and shit. And that terrible truck with all the bulbs. It uses more electricity than a medium sized african country, very american. Anyways. At the very end of the commercial, there's this plane flying over an unidentified part of the world, chucking packages out of the door. Down on the ground we see a pattern of lights form the words "IT'S X-MAS".

You can watch it for yourself.

Now, I can't be the only one who spots the irony of this. American people drop stuff from planes, and the ground lights up. That looks oddly familiar somehow...

I knew I had seen something like that before...

Alexandros Grigoropoulos

2009-12-07T00:54:00.004+01:00

One year ago today Alexandros Grigoropoulos was murdered by greek Police. May he rest in peace, and may his death serve to remind us that there is no justice in this world, except the one we create for our selves.

The media may call it riots, even protests if they're trying to be objective. I call it well grounded outrage. The authorities and their hooligans can do what they want, and get away with it. And should you even try to demand some form of justice, they'll knock you over the head with a baton, shoot you with rubber bullets or tear gas, chase you like a rabid dog and terrorize you - and then they'll have the nerve to call you a menace to society.

But we know who the killers are in this case.

Hm. Didn't see that coming. Never.

2009-12-06T19:45:00.006+01:00

M.A.R.K. 13

2009-11-24T19:10:00.011+01:00

One of my favorite films, of all time, regardless of genre and content, is a little beauty we call Hardware. The film was directed by Richard Stanley way back in 1989, and tells the story of a robot and a handful of humans. The robot tries to kill the humans, and vice versa. It sounds familiar, but this is not Terminator. While I love Terminator (the first one, and none of the sequels) Hardware is darker, dirtier, more violent, more aesthetically filmed and twice as arty. Not to mention filled with goth and industrial subculture references.

The film is based on, or atleast inspired by, a short story printed in the british comic book 2000 AD. The story titled Shok! is a spin off from Judge Dredd and concerns a combat robot that runs amock in an urban appartment. This particular robot is a souvenir from a combat between Dredd (with allies) and a large group of combat robots from World War III featured in the storyline the Cursed Earth. Dredd won of course. Like many other stories in 2000 AD. this one is very sketchy and focuses more on morbid humor, with a touch of social critique, than on artistic skills.

The film opens up with a full close up of a womans face, and flashing lights, before we see a bleak desert landscape, filmen with red filter, and even more bleak music by Simon Boswell. A lone figure, clad in post apocalyptic cowboy gear and gasmask uncovers the remains of a robot under the sand. This character, the Zone Tripper, is incidentally played by Carl McCoy from Fields of the Nephilim, one of that bands Richard Stanley had worked with during his carreer making music videos. The Zone Tripper brings the robot parts back to civilization, and sells them to a soldier named Mo. Mo in turn gives them as a christmas present to his girlfriend, the artist Jill (whose face opened the film). She uses the robots head (now painted to resemble an american flag) as the center piece in one of her artworks, and unwittingly allows it to rebuild itself. The rest of the film is mainly artsy mayhem and slaughter with a great deal of hinduistic and christian subtext. Specifically the name of the robot (M.A.R.K. 13) and images of the hindu goddess Kali, whose visage incidentally is reminiscent of the robot itself.

It sounds simple, but in fact the story is suprisingly complex. Especially considering the low budget it was made on, and the rather limited technical possibilities at the time. It's expertly filmed, and the set dressing is impressive. The television screen plays a significant role in the film, displaying scenes of torture, executions and so forth (the footage was supplied by Genesis P-Orridge by the way.) Everything is very ugly, and all the machines look broken down and used. The dressing and design really creates a world you don't want to live in. But one of the elements that really makes the film what it is, is the music. Ministry, Iggy Pop, Public Image Limited, Mötorhead, a piece by Rossini and Boswells aforementioned fantastic score. The way Boswell manages to utilize synthesizer, strings and steel guitar is truly unique. It's violent, cynical and very gritty.

Sadly the film was unavailable for quite a few years and it's only recently been released on DVD. It was worth the waith though. The DVD release also includes the original comic and a few extra scenes. Not to mention the audio commentary.

The film ends on a very pessimistic note. Jill manages to kill the robot, but Mo is killed, along with several other characters. In the very end we find out that mass production of the killer robot is about to be implemented. The robot was just a prototype, and production was halted because of problems with insulation system. However, the radio announces, problems have been sorted out. However, the fact that the robot is unable to tell the difference between enemies and friends seems less interesting. No Flesh Shall be Spared, indeed.

One interesting detail from the film that I have to mention, because it sets it apart from other cyberpunkish apocalypses is the way the robot is killed. In Terminator the robot is stopped by smashing it with a gigantic compacter. Technology to defeat technology. In this film Jill kills the robot by showering it with water, and then beating it to smitherines with a wooden baseball bat. She defeats the machine using very basic, primitive tools - and indeed nature itself. Cool huh?

All in all, it's a magnificent film, and if you haven't seen it yet it's about time. Open your eyes and your ears, and allow the film to seep into every corner of your mind.

The Norwegian Nobel Comitee

2009-10-10T11:22:00.010+02:00

This year's nobel peace prize went to Barack Obama, as you all know by now. I personally find this odd, mildly put. But this continues a tradition of, what I and others see as using the peace prize as a foreign policy tool on behalf of Norway. Increasingly this also extends to attempts at influencing US policies in several different fields.

In a way this started just after George W. Bush was elected, when former president Jimmy Carter was awarded the prize in 2002. At the time many observers were critical and saw the prize as a comment on the militaristic policies of the Bush administration. (In extension you can also see it as a criticism of american politics in the entire Reagen-era, which extends into the first and second Bush administrations.)
Then of course there was Al Gore, in 2007. Gore of course ran against Bush in 2000, and lost (despite getting more votes). It doesn't take a genius to see that this could be interpreted as a direct criticism of Bush. Especially his environmental polices.
Yesterday it was announced that Bush's succesor Barack Obama is this years winner. Apparantly he was nominated after 11 days in office, which indicates to me that his main award winning effort was winning the presidency.

I find this pattern striking, and very slanted towards a certain political party in the states, whose popularity in Norway is marked by massive support every four years when there is an election over there. Hardly any norwegian politican would even consider throwing his support for the republican candidate. Norwegians even seem to suffer from the misguided notion that the democrats are some sort of social democratic party. Considering that the democrats are to the right of the norwegian conservative party on most issues, this notion is simply amusing.

Anway, let's take a look at the people awarding the prize, and the picture will become even clearer. (Do also remember that the member's are chosen by the norwegian parliament itself.)
The leader of the commitee is a Thorbjørn Jagland, a former politican for the norwegian labour party. In fact, he is a former prime minister, former leader of Labour, former minister of foreign affairs and so forth. Today, the day after voting on the nobel peace prize he is also set to take the chair as secretary general of the Council of Europe. Hardly a neutral observer.
The next member of the commitee is Kaci K. Five. She is the former leader of the consercative party in Norway. Another former politican, who served several terms in the norwegian parliament, where she was a member of the committee on foreign affairs.
Then there is Sissel Rønbeck. Another former politican, and this one also a labour politician, with three terms in the norwegian parliament and two years as leader of the Labour party's youth movement.
The fourth member is the least conspicous one, having only served a single term in the parliament, for the ultra right wing progressive party. Still, another politican.
The fifth, and last member more than compensates however. Ågot Valle having served three terms for the socialist left party, as a member of the foreign affairs committee for two of these.
Among the three stand in members of the committee, we find a former minister of foreign affairs (who also served as ambassador to the United states for six years), and two former parliamentary politicans.

With such close ties to official norwegian political life I guess it would be safe to say that the prize is not beyond criticism. In fact I would go as far as saying that it seriously detracts from the prize's legitimacy and credibility. This year's award of course marking the apex in a string of obviously political awards. It is saddening to see how Alfred Nobel's original intention has been hijacked by state interests.

And now I'm not even touching the important subject of whether this year's laureate actually deserves the prize. That is a whole other blog, and a rather lengthy one at that. But shortly put: when your police uses rubber bullets against peaceful protesters, you don't deserve an award, you deserve to be deposed.

Another rave oriented blog...

2009-10-05T10:26:00.013+02:00

You know your mind is screwed up when you wake up from dreaming about your blog. Especially when you spend as little time on it as I do. The post I dreamt about was about hardcore techno, and I figure that's a good reason to write a blog about just that. So put on your headset and fire up soulseek/last.fm/spotify or whatever, and get ready.

Way back in 1992 I was first subjected to the roots of hardcore techno. We are of course talking about Human Resource and the track Dominator. You've probably heard it. It's a really cool track, with nifty vocals and a really fantastic synthesizer track. Their album Dominating the world was very much an example of what was going on in the techno scene at the time, but with one very important innovation that was to crystalize the early hardcore style: the hoover. No, not the thing you use to suck up dust from your filthy floor, but a synthesizer sound. Put on nearly any hardcore track, and you'll hear it. It sounds like something halfway between a lazergun from the fifties, an angry wasp and a vacume cleaner (hoover for the brits).

Soon after hardcore techno proper was born, and a flurry of styles (all sounding more or less the same) was fronted by artists with such fascinatingly mature names as DJ Fistfuck, the Speedfreak, the Nightraver and so forth and so forth. Cities like Frankfurt, Berlin and perhaps most of all Rotterdam became synonymous with a very loud four on the floor beat and scratchy hoover-synths. The louder and faster the better. The various styles were represented mostly by a number of different compilation series: Thunderdome, Razorshock, Terrordrome, the Best of Rotterdam Records, Nightmare in Rotterdam (and similar) and others whose names elude me at the moment. The hardest was ofcourse the various compilations from Rotterdam Records, whose style was also the most eclectic. The wonderfully humorous poing from Rotterdam Termination Source was one end of the scale, while extremely angry and noisy techno was on the other end.

Every other month or so the various forms of hardcore picked up another five bpms to their average speed, and got more and more crystalized in terms of genre. Suddenly you had gabba (gabber to the brits, utlizing the hoover sound), Happy Hardcore (mostly fronted by Technohead and Scooter) and whatnot. Hardcore was really happening at the time, and more and more acts appeared on the scene. The Thunderdome compilations went completely overboard and released new comps in tempo you can't imagine. And the music tended more and more towards happy hardcore and simplistic childish hooks.

I kind of lost interest, especially since I absolutely abhorred happy hardcore. The kid who used to run around town spray painting "hardcore will never die" on various walls in his little shithole town got off the hardcore bus.

That is untill a few years later, when a chance visit to my favorite record shop in Oslo had me laughing with disbelief for days. I was under the impression that hardcore was very dead, and that noone over 18 would ever listen to that stuff, except for as nostalgia, when I heard 180bpms worth of "boomboomboomboom!! I'M GONNA FUCK YOUR MOTHER!!! Boomboomboomboomboom!!" Out of the speakers at this aforementioned record store. I had been subjected to power noise for the first time, in the year of our lord 1999. While power noise can be alot of things a great deal of it quite simply a less childish variation of old skool hardcore techno. Quite hysterical to think of actually. These two styles had existed side by side throughout the nineties, but while hardcore attracted ravers with umpteen colored baby suckers in the gabs, power noise attracted goths and "rivetheads". I never did find out what that track was, but I ended up byuing a few records by other power noise acts. They range from the really good stuff (Imminent [pictured], Noisex, Converter, NKVD) to absolute crap (Terrorfakt, Iszoloscope). Power noise is of course fronted by the flagship event Maschinenfest every year.

But hardcore wasn't entirely dead in its own right either. There were these little cells operating out of backwater towns practising a style known as break core. The local act Sunjammer is particularly worth checking out. To me it sounded like hardcore with slightly better production values and sometimes more interesting beats, and also something called speed core, apparantly a grandchild of nordcore. (All these cores are making my head spin. Which is kind of cool.) M1dy, the albino from Tokyo (pictured), is a prime example of doing the right thing at 350bpms. Many of the people who paved the way for hardcore in the early days are still active. Rob Gee, Human Resource, DJ Paul Elstak, and whole lot of other guys. Even Rotterdam Records.

And, people over 18 can certainly listen to hardcore, and not be embarassed. The crappy happy hardcore days are over, and with it most of the short lived acts that were in it for the rage of it. Hardcore has matured in a way, and has found its own little niche.

I like it.

Sixty years is more than enough.

2009-10-01T20:25:00.003+02:00

October first 2009. It's been sixty years since Mao came to power today. The chinese people has my sympathies, as well as all others living under the yoke of dictatorships. Chinese or otherwise.

May the next sixty years bring you closer to freedom, rather than the oppression you have faced so far.

Pittsburgh 2009

2009-09-27T14:12:00.003+02:00

I am wondering. These two specific politicans were voted into office on policies guaranteeing better conditions for human rights, more democracy and so forth and so forth. In direct opposition of what the world saw as evil regimes in fact.

And here they are, standing next to each other at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, USA. A shining beacon of democracy, and the streets are filled with thousands of police in darth-vader-gear. Rubber bullets are flying through the air, tear gas slowly drifting down the streets, protesters arrested and put in unmarked cars by people in military uniforms, students being beaten and street dances broken up. Kinda looks a bit like China all of the sudden, doesn't it? In all this I can't help thinking of the lyrics for the Who's Won't get fooled again. "Meet the new boss, same as the old one".

Boy, you sure got fooled again didn't you?
And it won't be the last time.

The police and politicans are here to protect and serve the rich, not you.

Killing the man will not kill his crimes.

2009-09-17T21:02:00.009+02:00

The United States of America, supposedly built by the poeple and for the people, practises a most foul, unfair, barbaric and abominable tradition of murdering its poor and undesirable. I am talking of course about death penalty, capital punishment for those of who are unwilling to face the facts of the more proper term. Death penalty. State sanctioned sterilized killing, in the name of justice.

It's despicable, and it's a complete failure in every way but the meat processesing.

As crime prevention it is not just a failure statistically, but because it extende the very crime it purports to hinder: the murder of human beings. There are no statistics that can show that death penalty reduces the prevalence of violent crime - or any other crime for that matter. Absolutely none.

Morally it is a bankrupt practice based on misguided interpretations of ancient religious texts demanding an eye for an eye. Not only does this form of moral logic end up demanding the death of the executioner as well, but it reduces the sanctity of life to mere math. The Bible, that these reactionary retards hold so dear also teaches forgiveness. They would do well to focus a bit more on the "let he who is without sin..." part of this archaic text and less on the killing and maiming. Though the killing and maiming is the more entertaining part of the Bible, it is also the less productive.

Judicially death penalty is also problematic in the sense that it makes reform entirely impossible. Both socially and individually. It is revenge, and has nothing to do with fairness, rationality or societal needs. Rather it is cruel and arbitrary. As supreme court justice Thurgood Marshall so eloquently put it in 1990: "When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue."

Killing is killing. Calling it punishment makes it no different from the act of murder. The result is the same: a life is cut short, and will never reach its full potential.

Thinking the convicted Romell Broom in his cell on death row, allready having suffered the anguish of the executioner's intent to murder him once, I can only find solace in the fact that his maltreatment serves the higher purpose of shedding light on this disgusting affair. I am personally very powerless to do anything but talk, or write, but we know that things can change when people write, and maybe one day Ohio will take its rightfull place among civilized parts of the world. I am also reminded of the story of another man who was murdered by the state, for the crime of murder. His name lives on with us still, and monuments have been built and songs been written in his name. His ashes have been spread around the world, and his name will forever mean "framed and murdered by the government". I am talking of course about Joe Hill. Take a few minutes to read the lyrics to the song Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson wrote about him, or better yet, listen to it. Murdering Hill did not kill him, and murdering Broom will not kill violent crimes. Only reform can do that.

(Lyrics below the video.)

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

"The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe" says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man"
Says Joe "I didn't die"
Says Joe "I didn't die"

"In Salt Lake City, Joe," says I,
Him standing by my bed,
"They framed you on a murder charge,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,"
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe "What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize"

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
Where working men defend their rights,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill!

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he,
"I never died" said he.

Election time.

2009-09-14T22:28:00.001+02:00

Oral Constitution

2009-09-08T00:41:00.005+02:00

Despite my ovious interests in both politics and history this is not going to be a blog about the oral constitution of the Irriquois, even if it sounds very exciting. No, this is about a band I had forgotten.

Oral Constitution was a sort of industrial/goth/neo folk band from Haugesund, on the west coast of Norway. They existed from 1992-1997 and managed to put out several albums and an E.P., as well as being remixed by Genesis P-Orridge. Their apex, atleast in terms of attention came with the album Høgdapreik ("talking about Høgda" in English), which took a great deal of inspiration by the infamous norwegien telephone terrorist Svend Høgda. Høgda became a national celebrity for a flurry of telephone activities in the nineties. He called in false alarms to the police, ordered caskets for various people and other such things. He ended up in jail for it, and Oral Constitution managed to stirr some controversy by dedicating an album to his activities.

Their music has been compared to Current 93, Diamanda Galás and Death in June. Personally I see the Current 93 and Diamanda Galás comparisons as especially relevant. Early Current 93 in particular. It is dark, experimental, playfull, psychedelic and strange. Their first EP Bibelpreik ("bible talk") is certainly their finest work, showing musical affinities and a level of concentration I can't hear in the rest of their work. Granted I have not heard everything, but while this first E.P. is restrained and consistent in mood the other tracks I have heard certainly fall more in the psychotic maniacs-category than mood music. I would recommend bibelpreik to anyone who appreciates Current 93. But it's not a simple copy, there are elements of old school goth in there as well. There are other elements in there as well, even ambient, but there are certainly enough musical similarities to grant a comparison. Except that it's actually darker than Current 93, and more primitive.

Luckily for you I have even managed to track down a copy of this E.P. Floating around in cyberspace, courtesy of this blog. Note that I did not upload this .zip or chose the medium for upload so I take no responsibility for it whatsoever. But judging from experience it should be entirely safe. Click this link to go to the .zip.

Certainly there are good tracks on their other releases, but the production is somewhat inconsistent. Tracks like Für Åse is great, while Galloping Negroes is just silly, with the Stomach Composer somewhere in between. In general the folkish and goth tracks are good, while the more industrial inspired tracks are not so well executed. If you stumble upon something out there, you should certainly give it a chance however. Chances are you haven't heard many bands like them before. However I feel an obligation to point out that the female singer (as opposed to the male singer) has an accent from the other side of the moon or something. And neither the male or the female singer can actually sing, nor is the guitar playing exactly excellent in any way - but I guess that's quite common in this kind of music. It might be an aquired taste...

Seizing the means of Perception

2009-09-07T02:12:00.012+02:00

I just finished watching a documentary about rave, and rave culture. Pretty much of it was mediocre, and served only to trigger my nostalgia about the early nineties, but there bits of it that were very interesting. Mostly those bits containing Genesis P-Orridge. The film is called Better Living Through Circuitry, and you should be able to dig it up somewhere, download and watch.

One of the things GPO said, was that while the punk movement had been about seizing the means of production, techno was about the means of perception as well. It was a really good way of drawing out the essence of, atleast part of, the techno movement as I had known. It also got me thinking of something Pascal from Resistance D said in an interview (atleast my mind remembers it this way, but I could be wrong). He claimed that techno was about taking all those sounds you hear around you every day, such as the hum of the refrigerator, the cars, street lights and what have you, taking control of them and using them to cope with reality. Sampling enables someone to appropriate a part of reality one is usually a passive recipient of, and turn it into creativity. A truly reality altering practise.

When I read this, so many years ago back in 1993, in fact just before christmas, it really got me thinking. I had discovered techno not long before, and I didn't understand just why the crude electronic sounds and thudding beats made me feel alive in a way current pop music (including the pre-digested grunge and metal) could. But this statement was as good an explanation as any. I clearly felt frustrated by the way school and society wanted me to be passive and live my life the way they expected, and I often said that techno makes me feel good, because society wants me to be a machine. But in fact techno was making me feel like the opposite of a machine.

And this is what GPO is talking about. Music as a magickal means of controling your reality and environment. He is ofcourse not just inspired by deconstructionist thinking on this subject, but also by Aleister Crowley himself. GPO and TOPY/TOPI is all about magick, as we know, and seeing reality as in a flux. By altering the way you see reality and respond to reality you gain power over it on some level. In the film he also states that taking over various corporate logos and placing them in a different context "emasculates their power over you", and this statement could be carried over to anything mostly, as I see it.

The music industry is out to control you. Not in the brain washing way, but in the "buy our records, listen to them passively, buy more records" (or files as it's starting to be). The record industry doesn't like it when you start making your own shit and giving it away for free, because it takes away their power over you. The goverment is out to control you too, and they're more than happy to share that control with the record companies. The key element is that you remain passive, go to work, generate economic growth and consume. If people stop doing that reality would collapse. Reality meaning our current mode of capitalist, statist, collectivist, hive society. By grabbing the means of perception for your own pleasure, and sharing in with your friends you create a new reality, and one that suits you more than the one you are being fed.

Unfortunately most people are not very conscious when they create music. They see instruments as instruments, and tracks as tracks, and records as a product. The fail to see music as magick. And all music is magick, whether you are aware of it or not. Music, not just techno, but all music, is an emotional highway of subconscious communication. What you put out in your music, you put into someone (most of all yourself).

As I was into techno, and the whole DIY spirit that came with it, many years ago, I am now also painfully aware of how the superficial trade marks of that movement has become fashion and mass culture (passive). More than anything this so called new rave fashion has highlighted this change. It's quite strange to me, cos I see the smiley t-shirts, and I think "yeah, fucking acid house man" and these kids just wear them cos everyone else is wearing them. Getting old is painful. :)

But there's hope. What techno was about back then is now bigger than ever. People have the means of production so firmly in their hands, and the next step is for them to realize that they hold reality between their fingers. Don't just recieve, transmit! And it's actually happening, with blogs, mp3, p2p, vsti, podcasts, webradio, webtv and so forth and so forth. It's not just for people who get an erection from TB-303 bleeps anymore (or the hippies, punks and beatniks before them).

Get conscious, get powerfull. I guess that's the bottom line.

copyright is theft

2009-08-29T11:36:00.005+02:00

The troll you see on the picture is Anne B. Ragde, norwegian hack writer, and media personality. Why is she there, you say? I'll tell you why.

A new ad hoc movement of culture peddlers is festering in the norwegian public these days. A petition with 1600 signatures demands that norwegian politicians do more to stop illegal distribution of intellectual property. Ragde is one of them, and one of their most visible contributors as such. They were on the boobtube yesterday, and when I woke up today the troll was rearing its fuzzy head in the various newspapers too.

Their argument ofcourse is entirely economic. Understandably so. These people have long since stopped producing for the pure passion of it, and "are only in it for the money" as Zappa put it, ever so honestly. They have especially selected the norwegian liberal party as their opponent, as well as the Socialist Left and Red, while citing that only the conservative party has been clear in the defence of traditional copyright laws. It's quite ironic that these people, whom by norwegian standards can probably be considered intellectuals should wheigh their support in favor of their traditional oppononents. Norwegian intellectuals and culture workers are traditionally quite left leaning. But lately we have seen that the classic division between left and right is becoming blurred, especially with regards to this subject, and integration/immigration. (Amusing really. It is becoming increasingly evident that whether statism is left wing or right wing, doesn't really matter that much. The real issue at hand is fear of the individual's opportunities, and rights, to self expression. But that is a different blog waiting to happen.)

Anyway, copyright. My sympathy for these people, and their self rightous indignancy is next to none. I personally chose to give away all the music I make, and anything else I should happen to create. It enriches culture because it provides a low threshold access point to expressions, and contributes to a dynamic cultural development. If you like what I do, you can use and spread it, and even create your own works with basis in mine. But these statist/capitalist propertarians don't really care about that. It's jost a job to them. Their hours are capital, in the marxist sense, not a way of furthering human development, be it social or otherwise. I chose to work full time in order to maintain an income, and produce music in my spare time. These retards are unable to do that, or atleast unwilling. Of course I cannot demand, or expect, that all people should view all their actions in a larger ideological perspective, but I can certainly look down on them for their lack of long term perspectives and insights.

I can see their argument, in the sense that they want some sort of compensation for their efforts. But it falls short of any real logic, besides an exclusively materialistic one. Their compensation should be access to a rich and free culture. But I guess money is more important to them than any sort of cultural experience. But what can you really expect from hack writers and musicians whose highest aspirations are to be picked up by a Coca Cola comercial?

Property is theft, and that goes for intellectual property as well.

I'll finish this blog with a quote, taken from a truly GRATE band. ;)

She wants money.
What she wants?
She wants money.
What she wants?
She wants money.

I have been struck down...

2009-08-28T11:42:00.003+02:00

I have the strain of influenza commonly known as swine flu.
Came down today, after my girlfriend caught it a few days ago.

And people, I'm not going to die. Well, not today anyway, and not from this.
Nor am I a victim of evil illuminati, or similar organizations.
I am not being sacrifized to prepare the general populace for mass deaths.
I am not being used as milking cattle by the pharmaceutical companies.

I just happen to have caught a fairly mild virus. It's similiar to virus infections I happen to catch about every other year, except that this is even less lethal.

Despite this people seem to have gone stark raving mad with conspiracy theories and media panic, and other such nonsense.

Anyway, seven days sick leave. Could be worse.

Piledriver

2009-08-26T23:51:00.005+02:00

Piledriver is not just a fun social activity, if your girlfriend is feeling acrobatic, or a machine that punches columns into the ground. Nor is it just a way to hurt your wrestling partner. It's so much more than that.

Many years ago, by mere chance, I discovered a band from Oslo named Piledriver. (Not to be confused with the rather infantile canadian metal band by the same name btw.) At the time I was 15 years, and Piledriver was some of the heaviest music I had ever heard, and in addition it had the digital edgy drum beats I so craved at the time. Piledriver managed to combine naive synthesizer melodies, dry unemotional drum beats and punk guitars in a most abbrasive way. The uniquely hard core aggression of Are Kleivans vocals completed the package. I remember all too well when they played in Arendal, in 1996. I have never since taken out so much energy in one evening, and I certainly had the black and blue marks on my body to prove it. Thinking back now, as an over the hill guy with a growing belly and gray streaks, I wonder how I survived. Absolutely one of my best musical memories.

Their name was an obvious reference to the way their drums sounded more or less like the industrial machine by the same name. Piledriver started out sometime in the first half of the nineties and released a very dark 7", before finding their unique style and releasing three full length albums and participating on several compilations. They also collaborated with Egil Hegerberg on his anti tagging song, and toured with the most superfluous hip hop act of all time. Sindre Goksøyr also played in the seminal norwegian "dønk rock" band Gluecifer for a while, before they turned into a pop group. They dubbed their way of playing "dunder disco" (thunder disco) and mixed equal doses of anger, humor and great music.

When I first started making music on my own several of the tracks contained obvious references to Piledrivers way of arranging music. I used high pitched repetitive melodies over industrial drums, but without the guitar and vocals. Unfortunately (or perhaps not) all these tracks have been lost by now. But still, Piledriver was one of the first underground acts I heard, and I still love their music.

If you like industrial metal or hardcore Piledriver is worth checking out. Probably not too easy to find though. Piledriver remains one the least known treasures of the norwegian hardcore underground, and as industrial metal goes I don't think most people in the scene have discovered them at all. Hopefully, this will be rectified at some point. Sadly however, they disbanded in 2002 and there isn't much hope for a reunion.

Sleepchamber Tribute and animal rights

2009-08-16T12:28:00.005+02:00

It's not often I would call upon you to purchase music for money - even though there is nothing wrong about doing just that, but this time I have a real treat for you.
It's part one of a Sleepchamber tribute, where all the proceeds, and I mean all, go to freethebears.org. 8$ (pluss shipping) is not much, and you're helping an endangered (and fantastic) species by spending it. In return you get a cd packed with wonderful cover versions of sleepchamber material, titled That's Romance.
I have allready heard the material and it's certainly worth the money. (Especially the tracks by Batcheeba and Grammal Seizure.)

You can purchase it here: Kunaki.com
Or read more about it over at Brad Millers place

Number two should be out shortly.

Exciting guitar textures

2009-08-15T12:15:00.003+02:00

Hipp Priest is a guitar based noise duo from Norway, consisting of Jubal Death and Death States. Well, I'm not sure if it's really noise, but I don't know what else to call it. Their myspace page says Psychobilly/death metal - but that is most assuredly a result of their somewhat strange sense of humor, not the music.

Their tracks range from toned down guitar textures, to ear wrenching overdrive, all with a humoristic twist that constrasts starkly with their rather dark soundscapes.

As far as I know their music is only available on myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/hipppriest

More politics, and a movie too.

2009-08-11T19:20:00.003+02:00

Many years ago, when I was in secondary school, our teacher showed us a film called the Wave. Many of you may have heard of it, or even seen it.
It's about a school teacher who more or less unwittingly manages to create a fascistoid movement out of his students, in an attempt to demonstrate just how a totalitarian regime arises.
It has recently been remade as Die Welle (2008), but assumptuous as I am, I hazard a guess that the original still packs enough heat to be worth your attention. Despite being from 1981.

The film is even based on a real event. How much of it is dramatized I don't really know. Regardless it's a decent exploration of the dynamics of a totalitarian movement. Expecially its analysis of how the movement can supplant other needs for some people, who otherwise wouldn't fit in. (You can read more about the real life experiment at wikipedia.

Enough yabbering. It's not very long, and you really should take the fifty or so minutes it takes to watch it. Here it is, in all its glory, courtesy of Youtube:

My Moral Dilemma

2009-08-06T21:19:00.002+02:00

It's election time in Norway, and as you all should know by now: I am an anarchist. I am opposed to the state, and I seek to abolish it.
However these goals are not entirely realistic, not in my lifetime anyway, and thus people seek to influence me to vote for some party or another in this election. As they have done so many times before. I certainly see their point: it would be nice to be able to participate in some way to make the world a better place.

Let's sum up the status quo of norwegian politics.

Norway is a parliamentary democracy with a puppet king. The power lies with the parliament, and it's power is divided among (currently) seven political parties. Three of these have allied themselves and formed a majority government. The Socialist Left Party, the Labour Party and the Center party (rural interest party really). These three parties have highly varied ideological platforms (no you dumb yankees, not all socialists are the same), ranging from semi revolutionary socialism, via centrist eurosocialism to reactionary isolationist nationalism. It's a small miracle how they manage to work together.
The opposition, consisting of the remaining four parties contain the Christian conservative party, the Social Liberal Party, The Conservative Party and the right leaning populist Progress Party (liberal party as they would call themselves - and again for the yankees, look up Milton Friedman and liberalism. You'll see that what you call liberal is a far pitch away from historical liberalism).
In addition we have two smaller parties who might win a seat in the coming election: a communist party called Red, and the Coast party, a strange party whose single real issue seems to be killing more seals and whales.

In reality, post election Norway will one of two governments: a collaboration between the conservatives and right wing populists (with a serious racist policy attached) or a the current coalition (which includes the wolf killing center party and the quite racist labour party). Fat chance I'll support any of those. So, how about the smaller parties?
Christian Conservatives? No, not likely.
Liberal party? Not really. They have an anti urban platform, are euro-sceptical, support ambigious nationalist language policies and are generally strange.
Communists? I'd rather emigrate?
Whale killers? Hahahaha.

I can't vote for any of these idiots. Even if I wanted to vote my choice would be between nine evils, out of which even the smallest evil is such a far cry from anything I support that it would burn an eternal stain on my very soul. All of these choices will make the world a worse place to live in, and I can't support that.

I'd rather have an unblemished moral than support any of these filthmongers. Retardcracy is for retards.

Kidz on Fuzz

2009-06-17T22:18:00.003+02:00

When I saw Alien Sex Fiend some time ago they were supported by a local band called Kidz on Fuzz. A charming duo with a highly energetic style of performance. It was truly fascinating. Very old skool and diy. Not to mention having one of the most gender ambigious vocalists I have seen this side of y2k. Kudos for that.

The two of them have now released a single of sorts. I say 'of sorts' cos it's free, in the monetary sense, and available for download.

The Single has four tracks, two original and remixes of said two tracks. Both by Her Ethic.
While the two original tracks are well enough on their own (primitive, dancy, sexy and minimalist) the two remixes are the most interesting part of the deal. Especially the forest fire remix, being the most industrial of the tracks. (I find myself raving, and that has to be good.)

Go listen to it, and perhaps even download it. It's not as interesting as their live performance, but certainly worth a listen, if you're into that kind of shit.

And of course, kudos for spreading the music for free. Free Culture is the Future.

http://www.last.fm/music/Kidz+on+Fuzz/Bois+Night+Out+single

http://www.myspace.com/kidzonfuzz
http://www.myspace.com/herethic

Join the Party!

2009-06-09T12:46:00.005+02:00

Today I have joined the norwegian Pirate Party.
Guess I have to renounce my claim at anarchism then. :P

Anyways:
piratpartiet.biz - the norwegian homepage. Membership is free, but you can donate. The goal is to reach 5000 members, in order to participate in the national election next year. For the first time in my life I will vote, hopefully. I will vote against privacy intrusions, both by the authorities and the corporations, I will vote against copyright and patents and I will vote for freedom of speech, free thought and free culture.

Pirates in the Parliament!

2009-06-08T01:28:00.003+02:00

Ahoy!
I wish to extend my congratulations to the swedish Piratpartiet (Pirate party) for securing a mandatate in the EU parliament.

For anyone not familiar with Piratpartiet you can read about them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piratpartiet

Tiananmen Square

2009-06-04T11:05:00.004+02:00

It was exactly twenty years ago today that my belief in authority died. It had been suffering for quite some time, and it was better off dead. But the way it died was traumatic.

The late eighties were troubled by uprisings and protests and general political chaos around the entire world. Even Norway had its share as neo nazis clashed with left wing extremists and anarchists, and the police between them with horses and long hard batons. But this was not how my belief in authority died.

Communism was skipping along on one wounded leg, and though the Berlin wall was still going to stand there for another five months and five days, we all knew what way things were heading. And we were right, mostly, withing two years the soviet union and all its european satelites (barring one) had changed regime and was turning towards democracy. The general idea was that communism was over.

But not so.

In China a large number of disparate organizations, mostly run by students, had been assembling all over China. Their demands were as disparate as the number of participants, but in genereal they demanded reform. The protests lasted for several days, and here in the west we thought that the end had come to Deng Xiao Peng and his tyrranical cohorts. Evidently they also feared this, and they had very little scrouples about calling in the army. The results were thousands of dead students. Nobody knows how many. The chinese authorities claim somewhere in abundance of 200, while other sources generally range from somewhere over 3000 to as much as 7000. With perhaps as many as 30,000 wounded.

And what did our governments, parliaments and diplomats do? Generally speaking not a thing. In the twenty years since they have done even less. Half assed mentions of human rights aren't much worth in the face of the potentially largest consumer market in the world. It's shamefull. Politicians talk about ideals, but when push comes to shove what really matters is employment and taxation, and their own salaries.

I remain an optimist in some way, but I know now that the state will oppose change by any means it has at its disposal. The state is hardly ethical when it comes to survival. I also know that change is likely to be slow and arduous. But still, I know that change is inevitable. We cannot let our children and grandchildren be subjected to people that massacre students, or idly stand by as its done.

"Smash the control images, smash the control machine." WSB

Free Records, Poser!

2009-05-16T23:26:00.003+02:00

I have created a new blog for uploading music:

http://frp93.blogspot.com/

The first upload is Kultur Terror, Live in Studio december 1998.

First of May

2009-05-01T11:09:00.005+02:00

Today is May the first, an historic day with emotional content - for those who know that is. The day has been thoroughly appropriated by state socialists, to the point where it only gives rise to dull disgust and half assed protests on my behalf.

This day was never their day, but like all other symbolic aspects related to socialism the statists abused it, and took it over. Even to the point where their governments, totalitarian and democratic alike, elevate the first of May to a national holiday. What? This international day of anti-authoritarian protest has become a symbol of nationalism, celebrated with national flags? Indeed.

In may 1886 several striking workers had gathered in haymarket square in Chicago, to protest against appalling conditions imposed on them by the capitalists. It was a part of a proposed general strike, that gathered perhaps as many as 500,000 supporters in cities all over the United States. 40,000 of these were on strike in Chicago. Naturally the capitalists and their mercenaries feared for their money and system - as well as their lives. They were met with strike breaking, pinkerton men and armed police. As a small group of strikers attacked a group of strike breakers police fired indiscriminately at the crowd. (Sounds familiar?) Six strikers were killed.

They day after, workers met at Haymarket Sq., some of them armed. Police came and started "dispersing" the crowd. That is attacking people. A bomb was thrown at the police, and they opened fire again, and kept shooting for five minutes. Police reports in the Chicago Tribune even state they fired so wildly around them that several police officers were wounded by friendly fire. There are reports that some strikers fired back, but it has been establised that most police were injured by their own. As for the bomb, to this date noone knows who threw the bomb, and there is even speculation that a pinkerton man was responsible. Hardly likely, but I wouldn't be shocked. That kind of stuff still happens. I believe a worker threw the bomb, with ample reason, considering the incident from the day before. Even though I do not support or condone such violence I would be hard pressed to condemn it, given the situation.

The results were clear: more than fifty dead workers as well as several injured on both sides. After the entire affair eight anarchists were trialled, and four were executed. One killed himself in jail.

That is why we commemorate may day. Not because of Marx, not because of Gramsci, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Gro Harlem Brundtland or Tony Blair. Not for communism, social democracy or democratic socialism, but because of anarchism. Real socialism is about freedom and protest against authorities, not lying, cheating and oppression in the holy names of Marx and Engels. Granted, the day was inaugurated by the Second International, but the people they chose to commemorate were anarchists. Communists have never been above using whatever means they have at their disposal to further their own cause. The victims of their anti-anarchist terror under Trotski's Red Army, or in the spanish civil war can testify that they didn't stop at symbols either.

Casualties of War

2009-04-18T00:32:00.005+02:00

Pirate Bay has lost the first round of trials in Sweden, in what is appearantly, and expectedly, a sham of a trial. IFPI has demonstrated that bullshit walks and money talks yet once again. By getting the results they quite simply purchased from corrupt, eager to please, politically controlled courts, they have shown us exactly what "democracy" and "rule of law" means.

In short: might makes right, and screw the common man.

Anyhow, this impotent ruling has no practical bearing on anything. Even if the appeals should uphold the ruling (and there will, presumably, be quite a few rounds of appeals), file sharing cannot be stopped by shutting down a single service. Worst Case scenario: it forces file sharing underground, and the four heroes behind Pirate Bay are sacrificed on the altar of corporate appeasement - casualties of war. To IFPI it's a pyrrhic victory, if that even. It's a demonstration of how much the capitalists are powerless before freedom of information, despite having the purchasing power to bribe Sweden's judicial ring leaders into submission. This powerlessness is even something they have themselves unwittingly unleashed and sponsored. Irony is a sweet fruit when it's doled out so poetically.

This entire farce has reminded me of how the internet was back in the olden days. Comercial content was shunned and using the internet to promote your products could result in mailbombing. It was a place for freedom, games, nonsense and underground groups, not just porn and online poker/shopping. People created content because they wanted to, not to spread your cookies and make money. While the internet has been largely appropriated by comercial interests since then, it's still a super highway for free thought. Thank you IFPI for reminding us just how much we have acheived, and fuck you very much. The internet isn't for you capitalists, conniving, parasitic thieves that you are, it's for us. Your filthy money can't change that.

Anyway, enough of this ranting, I have some inspiration I wish to share: I wish to point your eyes towards the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. 15 years ago, when the internet was still largely free from capitalists, a former acid rocker wrote this little piece of political clear sightedness, and it's still worth a read. If we can bring down the record companies and Hollywood, we can bring down the whole fucking house. Not over night, but it might still happen.

Information wants to be free, and as long as it's unfree so are we.

Support!

2009-04-01T21:31:00.003+02:00

While I realize that their motivations are as varied as the number of participants itself, I would still like to state my support for the demonstrations in London today.

Keep the authorities on their toes! Keep it going!

More D.I.Y.

2009-03-10T23:43:00.003+01:00

I also found this, by the same author:

http://www.diynow.org/

It's a book about how to make and publish music on your own.
Not fucking hard these days, grab a mic and a computer and put it on myspace under "experimental"... But anyways, learning from experienced people is always a bonus. ;)

D.I.Y. or Die

2009-03-10T19:42:00.005+01:00

Thought I'd post this excellent documentary on D.I.Y. culture here. This is what counterculture is about: the freedom, will and opportunity to create your own culture, rather then the predigested commercial nonsense we are continually spoon fed. The documentary contains interviews with several legendary underground culture-providers from the NYC area. The film is in eight parts and was uploaded by the filmmaker himself. :)

Electronic Behavior Control System

2009-03-07T21:34:00.011+01:00

It's time to celebrate some revolutionary heroes again. This time, EBN, Emergency Broadcast Network.

EBN was formed around 1991, and gained notoriety soon after by "remixing the gulf war" while the war was still developing. In a way even precipitating Baudrillard's focus on the Gulf War as an entertainment phenomena rather than a real war. Who doesn't remember George Bush mouthing the classic line "we will, we will rock you"?

The gulf war was only a starting point and EBN consciously used media and military technology in their counter cultural assault on consensual reality. Their onslaught hit a nerve in the general public, and soon after the comercialist populists in U2 hired them to help create the stage show for the Zooropa tour and other visuals.

Not only were they radical though, they were also radically talented. In a style reminiscent of Public Enemy mixed with Negativland they constructed landscapes of political soundbites, military jargon, media snippets and funky beats. Their album Telecommunications Breakdown (1995) is an instant classic, and your collection should not be without. Download it (or buy it) and listen to it a few times. That's the least you could do.

I'm going to leave you with a link to my favorite track, by way of youtube,
Electronic Behavior Control System, a track that expertly shows off their method. You gotta love the way they mix Clinton, Bush and Perot into a single unit.(long intro)

KULTUR TERROR!

2009-03-07T02:01:00.007+01:00

I have uploaded some old Kultur Terror-tracks.

Go to Myspace
Or Last.fm

Howl

2009-03-05T16:01:00.006+01:00

Rediscovered an old track today:

Mediafire link No password.

It's quite good actually, but way too big for myspace and such.
Made for Howl by Ginsburg.

Download and distribute for free. :)
Artwork by Batcheeba

Celebrate the Revolution!

2009-02-21T19:42:00.007+01:00

It's been nearly ten years since Napster came online. June 1999 changed the world in no small way.
Mp3's were allready available but most people had never heard of them. Downloading was allready there, with mp3.com as the hubstar, but most people didn't bother, and most musicians were oblivious to what was going on.

Back in the late nineties I was turned on to the anti-copyright movement, and felt strongly for taking down the record industry. I still do.
Back then I thought we were going to do this by recording and trading cd's. CD-r was the biggest thing since tape. It was swiftly surpassed. Napster came along and the record industry was shaking in its parasitic knees. We all remember the trials and Lars Ulrich and all that. The record industry thought they had won, but they overlooked two very important details:
We now knew it could be done. Music (and other electronic media) could be traded without the middle man. We knew it could be done easily too.
The other thing more and more people started realizing was that the record companies weren't there for the artists, but for their own sake. The record companies exploited the artists and after Napster more and more of them started releasing their music online in one form or another. Now, ten years later, they all do it - or they don't get played.

While I personally had released mp3's on the internet, for free, as early as 1998 I didn't really see the onset of the revolution that was going on around me. Not that I was in any way alone about that. Hardly anyone had come to realize the opportunity we had been presented as musicians. Even IUMA.com, by far the best music site on the internet to date, had to close down because of lacking interest from sponsors. I, and many with me, still saw burning cd's and creating elaborate profesional looking jewel cases as the way to bring down the record industry - or just spreading their music. Man oh man were we wrong.

The ongoing trial against Pirate Bay in sweden is the newest in a long line of attempts to retain control of our media consumption, by the faceless corporations. Their opponents are mere kids, but are certainly no longer portrayed as a bunch of delinquents, or "cyber terrorist hackers", by the media. Nope. The populace is surprisingly sympathetic to taking the rights away from the corporations and giving it to us: the listeners and musicians.

The last ten years have been nothing short of a real electronic revolution. We now control the horizontal and the vertical, not Them. The can actually go fuck themselves and consider getting a new job. They corporations wont go away for many years, not even the dinosaur record labels, but they are obsolete and it's more evident by the day. Even if they should win this trial it would be a pyrrhic victory at best. Downloading and distributing free content can't be stopped.

Thank you Napster! We will never forget!

Cultural Terrorist Manifesto

2009-02-21T01:23:00.006+01:00

It's time to take out the record industry people. And in these days of copyright piracy lawsuits I thought it would be appropriate to post a text that has been influential in my work as a counter culture musician and anarchist, namely the Cultural Terrorist Manifest.

The manifesto was put together by a group called the Grey Wolves, a power electronics/death industrial duo from the UK. You can read more about them here or here.

Without further ado, the text:

Cultural Terrorist Manifesto

A terrorist who hijacks an airplane or plants a bomb in a crowded shopping centre apparently doesn't care who gets hurt as long as he (sic) achieves his aim. That innocent people are turned into bloody corpses or maimed for life is not his concern. The cultural terrorist is no different. The cultural terrorist, an assassin of the future, an executioner of morality. Cultural terrorism, an attitude, a state of mind - not a set of values to be dogmatically followed. Cultural terrorism is a celebration of the power of the individual.

Our aim is to pollute the minds of the public, to sow the seeds of insanity into society. Our victims are of all ages - everybody from the cradle to the grave. Man cannot bear too much reality and as a result of this the cultural terrorist is in the business of providing a reality attack. An over exposure of reality - the dirt behind the day dream. No subject is taboo, all must be exposed. No one is sacred. Everybody as well as everything should feel the wrath of the cultural terrorist. The object of cultural terrorism is to exploit situations and people in order to cause a reaction, preferably negative. Our aim is to make money in order to finance our war which we wage upon society, The money is required so that we can purchase the technology which will tear into the heart of all that is considered normal. We are the cancerous cell that would painfully destroy all that is in contact with it. We are working to erase the conforming instinct. To prevent humanity from ever acting with a common will.

The cultural terrorist's weapons are anything that enables him to inflict his views upon others or make him money. Be it film, video, audio cassettes, music, photocopiers, printed words, pictures - any media whatsoever is acceptable as long as it achieves the objective. We are little concerned how violent, how perverted, how degenerate, how much our material appeals to the very lowest of emotions, or how much the material twists and pollutes fresh young minds and further warps those already in trouble. If it makes money it will eventually achieve our aim and we will use it. We believe nothing is impossible, there is no god, there is no morality so we manipulate our environment to its fullest extent. Plagiarism is not only acceptable it is welcomed with open arms. We believe that you should not be afraid to steal from anyone. Our way is that of the liar and deceptor. We also know that the bigger the lie the better the chance of people believing it. Under cover communication is enemy crime not politics.

Elaborate safeguards may be placed at airports to separate would-be terrorists from their weapons. But we the cultural terrorists are free to distribute our soul destroying weapons to whom and where we choose. The cultural terrorist is both benevolent and evil. Pull the wool over your own eyes in a call to arms. We feel very strongly that an active role of participation should be taken in this struggle by people already interested in this form of warfare. The cultural terrorist is involved in an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhuman world. Cultural terrorism is alien to this society and our technology will tear into it to open up wounds that may never again heal. Tomorrow belongs to us.Confusion as a weapon / Confusion the key word.

Healthy confusion, some call it "evil". Confusion that sparks the need to question. Confusion calling fear, the adrenalin to flow, the blood rush and the life force to sit up and take notice. Confusion making us question everything in search of some (un)sense. Everything to be probed into. Indulging into whatever subjects we feel like. Making our lives that much more interesting for ourselves. No subject should be taboo. Spewing it out in our writings, in our "artwork", in our aural pieces. Digesting and regurgitating, sometimes in almost original form and other times in unrecognisable confusion. Leading to questions from others, not sure of where we stand, their need to know, pretending not to care, yet seeking the safety of answers that fit their way, the safe way of thinking. We stand everywhere and nowhere. We wade in cool rivers / we tread in dogshit. Creating only for ourselves. Taking anything from our surroundings we desire or find necessary ... Alternative media ... Mindfuck to oblivion ... A disjointed, chaotic view of this fucked up, ever decaying globe. Gladly we take our part in the information / disinformation war in a fearless way. Ours is a wide open mouth sucking deadlife media cock. Ours is a wide open arsehole shitting out deadlife media junk food. This here is the stink and defiance of a blanket protest. A big fuckoff to "peer group pressure". No attempt is made to conform, to speak your / their words. Always the fight against those who would control our minds and our bodies. In this our weapons are our very lives.

Clash of the Civilizations

2009-02-21T00:03:00.009+01:00

Several years ago I gave a few lectures on cultural understanding with regards to Islam and prejudice. At the time Taliban had just recently captured Kabul, and I was a volunteer in an NGO promoting education for girls in Afghanistan. As you can expect there was quite a bit of fuzz over this, as several people were afraid that the funds we collected would end up in Taliban's hands. (They didn't.)

The world has changed since then. The Twin Towers have fallen to the ground and the Taliban has yet again been reduced to a rebel army. Still however I believe the lecture bears repitition. Atleast what I remember from it.

Let it first be said however that I am an atheist, and my sympathies for Islam are exactly the same as they are for Christianity or Judaism: deism is nonsensical. However I do believe in respect and understanding, and that is what I hope to further here.

If we look at Islam through our own media we can easily sum up the presentation: war, terrorism, poverty, sharia, burka, outlawed alcohol, dictatorship and not eating pork etc.
To most people these terms are (mostly) strongly negative. However let us look at how europe would look in a foreign newspaper:
Religious and ethnic conflict (the war in bosnia was raging at the time, as well as northern Ireland, Kosovo came soon thereafter), terrorism (IRA, ETA and historically the RAF are well known.), poverty (we have some pretty decent slums in our cities), rioting (Soccer matches in the UK, streetfighting between nazis and antinazis, or police), political chaos (several countries have a hard time putting together functional governments and chaos ensues, Italy and Belgium are good examples) and so forth.
The media reports what people find interesting, and people seem to find violence and conflicts to be interesting. Still to a certain level they do report the truth, but only to a certain level.
Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with app a billion adherents spread out over more or less the entire globe. Let us look a little closer at the islamic customs and countries.
Several of the countries are democracies, and atleast as secular as my own home country. Granted many of them have limited political freedom, and some have nearly none whatsoever. This is however changing rather rapidly. Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world, and an islamic state. Pakistan has recently taken steps towards becoming a full fledged democracy once again. Afghanistan is being reformed as is Saudi Arabia. Heck even Iran has some sort of democratic reform going on. Turkey is a secular democracy, a nato member and possible future EU member.Most of the countries are also peacefull, and haven't experienced war since world war II or before. Several of the countries are also among the world's richest.

Terrorism is certainly one of the words we have come to associate more and more with Islam after the founding of Israel in 1948, and yes there are a great deal of Islamic terrorist in the world. They are not alone however, and historically speaking neither are they special in any way. We certainly have our share of terrorists in Europa, as previously mentioned, and there is hardly anything that points to terrorism being particularly linked to Islam. Most islamic countries are indeed in peace, and there is a great deal of evidence showing that many islamic terrorist are indeed from western countries. The world is complex.

Many would point to the concept of Jihad as a special link between Islam and terrorism, and yes Jihad is often used to legitimate terrorism. However even this term is complex. The most exact translation of this term would be 'struggle', and there are several types of jihad. Most important to all muslims is the inner, or small jihad, the struggle for oneself to be a better muslim. Most known to us however is jihad as holy war, a war that can be declared when an islamic country is under attack by non-muslim invaders. Islamic theologians disagree on exactly when this form of jihad can be declared, but a very famous example was during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Not even that jihad was uncontroversial though, and Bin Laden's holy war on the USA is a flat out misinterpretation of jihad in its entirety.

I could go on and on. Burkas are only used by the Pashdun tribe in Afghanistan and Pakistan, female circumsicion is uncommon outside of Sudan and Somalia, sharia is different for each country and can only apply to a muslim etc etc. Islam is also very complex, and while some muslims are reactionary, violent and fanatic - most are respectfull, progressive and likeable people.

I have known several muslims from many parts of the world in my life. Iranians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Albanians and Kosovans, as well as Iraqis, Kurds and Turks Some of these have been jerks, but most of them have been very OK. More than anything working with and talking to and knowing muslims has taught me that Islam is about respect and tolerance. Muhammed (peace unto him) and his followers granted foreigners religious freedom while we Europeans burned people for dissent. The books we burned as blasphemous were stored and studied in the Caliphate and the prophet himself had higher thoughts on women than were common in his time. It's a shame that our image is Islam is dominated by Taliban's destruction of the Bamyan buddhas, and other such repulsive acts, and if you read this, please reconsider. The world needs reconciliation and respect, not conflict.

False Awareness strikes back

2009-02-18T14:18:00.004+01:00

Today's subject is Habermas and False Awareness.
While I cannot say I'm en expert on Habermas I have picked up a thing or two in my long time as a student.
Primarily his term False Awareness.

Habermas belongs to the marxist group of philosophers known as the Frankfurt School (as does Theodor Adorno), and is an exponent of Critical Theory, in which his term false awareness is a more or less central concept.

False Awareness, in short, means that what you think is right is a product of your mind being conditioned to a certain state of affairs. While functioning normally you would reject said state, but being unable to do so, you adapt. Cognitively speaking: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
In a marxist world view this is a handy way of explaining why the "working class" would readily embrace capitalism rather than marxism. The workers are being lulled into a false awareness where they themselves think they have reached a definition that marxism is wrong, and capitalism is right.
Usually the various types of cultural industry takes the blaim here. Hollywood and music industry in particular.

While I certainly see Habermas' point, I disagree somewhat. We have all encountered people who seem to extoll thoughts that sound like sound bites from television or some other source. In fact it seems to be quite common. "Democracy might not be perfect, but it's the best we have" for instance is a good example of this. It's easier to adopt a commonly held belief, than it is to create your own. And certainly less time consuming.

However, my main problem with habermasian thought is that it lends itself very easily to ad hoc analysis and totalitarian dogma. "If you don't agree with my carefully constructed analysis, it's clearly because you have false awareness!" It doesn't allow for disagreement, but rather blames such discordant thoughts on what is, in effect, brain washing by the ruling class and its ownership of the media. For instance, something I often encounter: left wing feminists who claim that ALL female sexworkers are oppressed by men. If they are exposed to a female sexworker who disagrees they do not reassess their view, but rather changes the terrain to fit the map. The sexworker simply doesn't realize that she is oppressed, even though she feels entirely free. People's experience is second to ideology, and when they don't match ideology wins.

By no means do I wish to undersell the media as a source of thoughts, but this is simply going much to far. Try discussing with someone who implicitly claims that your oppinions are not oppinions, they are a cognitive process by which you fail to realize reality.

To me False Awareness is clearly an ad hoc hypothesis. It's not critical at all, rather it is some sort of defense mechanism. Ironically, rather than admit the very real failures of marxist theory a logical moebius strip is created to save it. "We were right all along, but people cannot realize it, because their oppinions are being created and upheld by the entertainment industry." The matrix has you my friend!
False Awareness becomes an easy way out. Instead of analysing your opponents views and adjusting your own (if necessary) you blaim the cultural industry for ruining all possibilities for freedom.

Personally I would like to claim that all oppinions and concerns need to be addressed on equal terms. Discounting someones beliefs on the basis that they are not themselves the progenitor of that belief is arrogant and cowardly. Not to mention, it defeats the purpose. If your goal is to change the opposition's minds you clearly need to defeat their line of arguments, not run away from it.

Just a post to say I'm here.

2009-02-18T14:09:00.000+01:00

I'm here. Expect random thoughts soon.