First Official Blog...Is Being Poor Dangerous?

Tezcatlipoca, or "One Leg".

NO. 1

Tezcatlipoca is the god of the night sky, hurricanes, obsidian, conflict, and providence. When depicted, he usually wore a talisman with a disk worn as a chest pectoral. While depicted with black and yellow stripes painted across his face, he is usually shown with his left foot replaced with an obsidian mirror, bone, or snake, as it was lost to the sea monster Cipactli in the mythos. In the Aztec religion, he was the central deity. In Aztec or Mesoamerican folklore, he and other gods could shapeshift, and he was no different as his counterpart was the illusive but powerful jaguar, which is why he is known as the jaguar god.

NO. 2

This figure is extremely popular, and worshipped by the Mayan and Olmec communities. His name in the Mesoamerican language means ‘Smoking Mirror.’ This deity has numerous epithets which allude to different characteristics, like Ipalnemoani ("He by Whom We Live"), Necoc Yaotl ("Enemy of Both Sides"), and Tioque Nahuaque (‘Lord of the Near and the Night’), etc. His power to omnipresence was more a connection that extended far beyond obsidian since ritual bloodletting and human sacrifice were conducted with obsidian. Apart from being a creator god, he was also a trickster and ruled over the modern Aztec pantheon.

NO. 3

Tezcatlipoca, according to Aztec mythology, was born to the primordial creator deities Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, and had four siblings; one of whom, Quetzalcoatl, the god of the wind, patron of priests, and inventor of calendars and books; he was known as the Serpent Feathered god. The brothers feuded as much as they worked together, working towards the same goal but sometimes in opposition towards each other. After being born, this deity spent over 600 years for his youngest brother Huitzilopochtli to grow flesh before Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, together, made the world. Before the world was made, the only thing that was technically alive were a few gods, a massive ocean and the sea monster, Cipactli, which Tezcatlipoca successfully lured away and killed by using his foot as bait. Both brothers were able to create the world on the sea monster’s body.

He's so handsome

MAG-FUCKING-NIFICENT!!!

Reblog if you need this energy

source

the Irish Republican Army

The tactics and strategies that the Irish Republican Army used were expecting volunteers to go up against the British army in the fight against neo-colonialism and imperialism in the hopes for a socialist movement without other European interference. The Irish Republican Army started during the rise of guerilla warfare, from the last resort to a defeated enemy, or the archaic resource of thieves and bandits, it has now become the most advanced method of political mobilization. ‘‘Theories of guerilla warfare are common property and can be reduced to fairly simple formulate—perhaps to one word, diffusion. Diffusion in space, in that conventional military principle of the concentration of force, is replaced by dispersion, and diffusion in time, in so far as rapid military decisions thus become impossible, and an indefinite time-perspective is adopted. The purely military effects of guerilla warfare will usually be seen as subordinate to its political and psychological effects. Victory is achieved not so much by knocking the enemy’s sword from his hand as by paralyzing his arm. It might be argued that consciously modern guerrilla methods first emerged successfully in Ireland, where, between 1917 and 1921, a subversive movement grew up from grassroots and fought it’s way to the substantial achievement of its political program—the I.R.A.

Throughout its history, the IRA carried out a high-intensity campaign of terrorism, with the stated goal of bringing about the unification of the six countries of Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic and the end of British involvement in Northern Ireland. Growing out of a much longer history of conflict, the Provisional Irish Republic Army belongs separately from the Republican movement in 1969 when the group split off from what became known as the Official Irish Republican Party (Official IRA). Beyond the activities of Republican groups, the conflict also involves violence perpetrated by Loyalist organizations, which support continued English involvement in Northern Ireland.

Their words were very blunt in explaining that anyone wanting to join could die for their country; ‘’Tactics are dictated by the existing conditions. Here again, the logic is quite simple—the rule of thumb for all our actions can therefore be clearly seen to be that we must explain by whatever means we have at our disposal why we bomb, why we punish criminals, why we execute, etc. A War of attrition against enemy personnel, which is aimed at causing as many casualties and deaths as possible so as to create a demand from their people at home for their withdrawal; A bombing campaign aimed at making the enemy’s financial in our country profitable while the same time curbing long term financial investment in our country; To make the Six Counties as at present and for the past several years ungovernable except by colonial military rule; To sustain the war and gain support for its end by National and International propaganda and publicity campaigns; and by defending the war of liberation by punishing criminals, collaborators and informers.’’

The cons of overthinking

The Animal Manifesto

NO. 1

Aristotle wrote, ‘’Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of deformation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie.’’ (Book VIII, pg.6) to compare this to his hierarchy the ‘’The Great Chain of Being’’ in his book, ‘’The History of Animals, where humans are at the top, and slaves and non-human animals are at the bottom, justifying the subjugation and oppression of these beings. But that isn’t fact, it’s just a theory to support this type of biased reasoning at the time. In this essay, or manifesto, I will explore my four main steps that I believe will benefit all animals, humans, and the environment.

 NO.2

    The discussion about the cruel treatment of animals, particularly agricultural animals like cows, chickens and pigs, and the harmful effects it has on our society and on the environment is still talked about now. In her paper called In Defense of Slavery, sociologist, Marjorie Spiegel compares the suffering of animals and humans. For example, chickens cramped in cages, stacked on top of each other, to the slaves in the south. The comparison of non-human animals to humans isn’t the right way to make the point across that we need to liberate all animals that we use for food from these machine-type farms, because comparing animals to captive human beings is wrong.

      The difference between non-human animals and humans, are what early scientists has described as, ‘’The argument to prove that the reason why animals do not speak as we do is not that they lack the organs but that they have no thoughts; (Humans) We all have moral status because we *think*. If animals think, they must use language. Humans who do not speak use symbolic language to express original thought.’ (Descartes, 1646). This type of thinking is why for centuries the abuse of animals has gone on for so long, and it has only caught attention during the last two decades. 1) My point is, all animals, including humans, share the Earth and we must co-exist to help protect it. Since we can speak, we believe we are the superior species, and even then, we feel that way and dominate other races of humans, anyone or anything we feel that is ‘other’.

   NO.3

  All animals have a right to life, even the right to bodily integrity, Regan, (pg.25) ‘’If animals have rights, and if rights are the trump card in the moral game, their rights override any benefits, real or imagined, we have gained, or stand to gain, from using them in biomedical research.’’ And this is something I agree to. Utilitarianism, the practice of maximizing the good stuff and minimizing the harm, and is connected to animal welfare, is the complete opposite. (Bentham, pg.9) The liberation of all animals, from zoos, farms, circuses, labs, etc. is, in my opinion, the moral way. I understand the reasoning behind using animals as test subjects for research and medical cures, but I know there are other ways to cure diseases. All animals deserve to be in there, natural habitat, and it is not fair for us to be keeping them in tanks and simple four inch. rooms with the door locked. The only animals that should be involved with humans are domestic dogs, cats and birds, etc. Simply because they wouldn’t survive in the wild, since they are descended from actual wild animals.

       In Marc Beckoff’s, The Animal Manifesto, one of the reasons he uses to envision the world a better place is, ‘’Connection breeds caring; alienation breeds disrespect,’’ is one very important step we humans must learn if we want instill peace, for all living beings. For example, humans express lighter emotions, especially to dogs and cats, animals we normalize and see as pets, whereas we express extreme dislike and contempt to many animals, like rats, pigeons, reptiles, bugs and even some dogs, like the pit bull. For example, during the late 1800’s, the English Sparrow was one of the most documented problem animals of that time. ‘’The English Sparrow is a curse of such virulence that it ought to be *systematically attacked and destroyed’’,  (U.S Department of Agriculture, 1889). The hatred of this particular bird stem from moral attributes, rather than scientific ones. They are foreigners, they attack American birds, there character is disreputable, and they need to be controlled as foreigners.  Humans also show contempt to other humans, those of a different race and different culture. We still don’t understand one another, and so we make up stereotypes from one person we’ve met, and suddenly that stereotype is placed on the whole race of people, alienating and disrespecting a whole people. It leads to social problems, fear, and occasionally, death, toward the oppressed.

  NO. 4

  The environment is the most important place we all have to take care of, and it fits into my thinking of the human-animal relationship because we are the cause for its downfall. The Rain forest in South America is nicknamed, ‘The lungs of the Earth’’ for a reason, and every day it is getting destroyed, or cut down to make room for more land, which is damaging to animals’ habitats and the ecosystems, and to ourselves. We dominated and distanced ourselves from nature.  The only reason why it is affected is because humans are destroying the natural order. The Meat and Dairy industry is giving land animals’ products displaying scientific substances inside it to speed up the process of killing for consumption. The animals, on the one hand, excrement is filled with nitrogen, and when that piles up all together, the air is affected.

The main reason, alongside the obvious reasons, for global warming is because of how much meat and dairy, we are consuming. As long as there is a want and need for meat, global warming will always be a problem. Wanting to eat meat is not a horrendous thing, seeing that humans are omnivores. But there is simply no reason to speed up the natural process for killing these animals by mixing drugs with their food. Most humans know about the daily abuses these animals go through, but we ignore the social world, so we don’t see it, and we sanitize everything, and it lets us off the hook. This is called the toilet assumption, (Spiegel, 1988). In my opinion, we can improve the way we treat animals, even land animals. We can do better, the way we treat others, we can show more compassion and love to everyone and everything. And my final point is again from (Beckoff, 2010) and that is acting compassionately helps all beings and our world. Showing compassion to animals and to non-human animals can definitely affect our day-to-day understanding of the world. We all have our own personal beliefs, and it’s okay to disagree, but respectfully.

Eugenics, and how it leads to gender

NO.1

What is eugenics? Better yet, what was the eugenics movement about? Wikipedia states that ‘'it’s a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population, historically by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or promoting those judged to be superior. In recent years, the term has seen a revival in bioethical discussions on the usage of new technologies such as CRISPR and genetic screening, with a heated debate on whether these technologies should be called eugenics or not.’’

NO.2

The concept was created by Plato, where he suggested the concept of selective breeding; but the term was invented by a cousin of Darwin, Francis Galton, who launched the movement to ‘improve the human race, or at least, to halt its perceived decline. His ideas spread quickly, and by the 1920s eugenics movements existed all over the world. Eugenics, a movement for social betterment clothed in the mantle of modern science, claimed the allegiance of most genetic scientists and drew supporters from the political right, left, and center. The movement was embraced by Hitler and the rise of Nazism, which thankfully lost most of its power at the fall of the Third Reich in Europe and America, but some of its ideas still linger in the States. Like the notion of gender and marriage; strictly speaking, of white heterosexual couples.

NO.3

In the 1920’s eugenicist, Paul Popenoe brought marriage counseling to the U.S, where he sought to protect ‘family values’ since there was widespread concern over the declining white birth rates and created the American Institute of Family Relations (AIFR) where they popularized pseudoscientific sexual differences to the masses. Back then, everything in pop culture had little trails leading back to eugenics, including in schools, taught to their children, plastered as ads to their buildings, like pamphlets and books, all on advocating for the white female students to produce more children. Popenoe argued that the ‘male-female difference transcended all other human differences and was the ‘greatest that can exist between the two normal human beings.’ He felt that was this sex binary was essential to the survival of the family, nation, and western civilization, and therefore must be protected from the decadence of modern society.

NO.4

Post-war eugenicists were threatened by the higher education women which they felt decreased ‘natural birthrates and called for traditional marriage with defined sex-gender roles arguing that ‘men and women were made for marriage, biologically and psychologically.’ Patricia Hill Collins explains in her book, “It’s All in the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation that ‘‘stationed in the center of ‘family values’ debates is an imagined traditional family ideal. Formed through a combination of marital and bloody ties, ideal families consist of heterosexual couples that produce their own biological family. Defined as a natural or biological arrangement based on heterosexual attraction, this monolithic family type articulates with governmental structures. Because family constitutes a fundamental principle of social organization, the significance of the traditional family ideal transcends ideology. In the United States, understandings of social institutions and social policies are often constructed through family rhetoric. Families constitute primary sites of belonging to various groups: to the family as an assumed biological entity; to geographically identifiable, racially segregated neighborhoods conceptualized as imagined families; to so-called racial families codified in science and law, and to the U.S nation-state conceptualized as a national family.’’