Un Étoile Errant

(Source: , via keleighelizabeth)

blahblahblasphemy:

For some reason this particular gentleman just amuses me.

uhm?

from the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda  (via thefreenomad)

(Source: mikedoc73, via sweetlittlefairytale245)

—Peter Gelderloos, Why Nonviolence Protects the State- Nonviolence is Racist (via thefullmetalbitch)

I would like to have this on my blog again.

(via intricate-veins)

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m always glad to see people being productively critical of non-violent discourse, but I think there’s a tricky line as well, where it’s turning into “If you choose non-violent resistance, you’re an apologist sell out”, where non-violent discourse is being painted as a purely neo-colonialist phenomenon. What about Native peoples who do believe in non-violent resistance, even now in hind sight, and it’s not apologist politics? I say this after extended conversations with a Mi’kmaq professor and her son, who made me embarrassed about the ways I talked about non-violence. What about Palestinians who think violent resistance is justified but no longer working to their advantage? Non-violent resistance can mean different things. What do we mean by violence and non-violence anyway? When I think of violence, I think of the imperialist/colonial state apparatus that is fueled by violence in both the visible/physical and invisible/systemic/psychological forms, with the latter being key. Which is to say, I actually don’t imagine resistant violence to actually be violence per se, which is why I ask: is there room to think and talk about a “non-violent resistance” that speaks outside of the above parameters, that is subversive and “violent” but not merely in the corporeal sense? Is there a way to engage in so-called “non violence” without being consumed by the foundational violence of the structures we are working within?

These are just impulsively written thoughts, don’t take them as fully formed or anything.

(via residueatlas)

I used to be profoundly anti-violent resistance. And most of that was because I, coming from a position of ignorance and privilege, was taught that violent resistance was not resistance, but generally random explosive violence without cause or purpose. Thus, I should be afraid of it and if ever called upon to participate, instantly refuse. It was generally understood to be the hallmark of an inherent flaw in the marginalized population who had finally had enough—their anger, their irrationality, their inability to reason, etc. The stance on violent resistance ignored historical and social truth, racism and other -isms, to further demonize and dehumanize communities. It still does. 

I do not personally believe that certain forms of non-violent resistance are an emblem of the selling out or weakening of a movement. I believe that the privileging of non-violence (instead of viewing it as one of any given number of tactics or strategies or the like) in common modern discourse is NOT an accident or anything other than a calculated move and it is that very same elevation of nonviolence as the ONLY ‘right’/’moral’ way to revolt that is so, so wrong.

I know it is no coincidence that schools in the US revere Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. for their ‘nonviolence’, but will never talk about the violence that was ever present in both their societies and the movements of resistance around them. Oftentimes, it is not the nonviolent act itself that is reactionary but the credence it is given at the expense of all other forms of resistance.

The other questions you raise are good ones as well and I’ll probably be thinking about them for quite some time to come.

(via intricate-veins)

(via azaadi)

themajesticbim:

The face of Malcolm X, famous African American Muslim leader and human rights activist, is depicted using the Diwani Jali Arabic calligraphy script. The text is an Arabic translation of the following quote, obviously repeated many times:

“If violence is wrong in America, then violence is wrong abroad.”- Malcolm, X 1963

YES!

(via my-sufi-heart)

toobaa:

“Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by.” 

―  A.S. Byatt

azaadi:

orientalismisalive:

zainyk:

Who Knew There were Breasts Under that Burka? - The Daily Beast

In a story about the photograph above, which has apparently caused some controversy the following statistic stood out:

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia account for 77 per cent of Europe’s total lingerie exports.

Wait, you mean to tell me there isn’t an endless abyss beneath a niqab? An actual human…with body parts? Female body parts, nonetheless? 

Shocking.

*GASP*

mehreenkasana:

frombaghdadwithlove:

jesteractivist:

More U.S. Soldiers Killed Themselves Than Died in Combat in 2010. Something seems pretty fucked up about this. 

For the second year (2010) in a row, more US soldiers killed themselves (468) than died in combat (462). “If you… know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,” General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, “because we don’t know.”  Suicide is a tragic but predictable human reaction to being asked to kill – and watch your friends be killed – particularly when it’s for a war based on lies.  Perhaps being required to bag the mangled flesh of fellow soldiers could be another reason that some are committing suicide.

More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat

What war does.

George Carlin (via arreter)

ruineshumaines:

Scottish sculptor Rob Mulholland creates these eerie mirrored sculptures out of Perspex, a kind of acrylic glass. The pieces create the uncanny effect of blending into their surroundings, at times appearing almost completely camouflaged and yet jumping out at you suddenly as your perspective shifts around them. Mulholland’s largest installation of six figures, Vestige, is currently installed at David Marshall Lodge in Scotland. The artist, via his website:

The essence of who we are as individuals in relationship to others and our given environment forms a strong aspect of my artistic practise. In Vestige I wanted to explore this relationship further by creating a group, a community within the protective elements of the woods, reflecting the past inhabitants of the space. […] The six male and female figures represent a vestige, a faint trace of the past people and communities that once occupied and lived in this space. The figures absorb their environment, reflecting in their surface the daily changes of life in the forest. They create a visual notion of non – space. A void as if they are at one moment part of our world and then as they fade into the forest they become an intangible outline.

Mulholland will be exhibiting at the 8th Godington House Sculpture exhibition in July of 2012, and you can see much more of his work on his website.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof • In an opinion piece on the death of soldiers after they return home. A few other key stats — more former soldiers have committed suicide after returning home than died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq combined, being a veteran doubles the risk of suicide, and being a veteran between ages 17 and 24 quadruples the risk. Yikes. Read up on this disturbing trend. (via shortformblog)

(via angielovesowls)

suckshitcunt:

Monk by Fototraveller on Flickr.

(via my-sufi-heart)

fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory:

African-American artist Elizabeth Catlett, who died on April 2 of this year, lived in Mexico for over half a century, becoming a Mexican citizen in 1962 and teaching at the UNAM for several years. She first arrived in the country on a fellowship in 1946. Her work above, Sharecropper (1952), became part of LACMA’s permanent collection in 2011.

Anonymous asked: Tell us more about yourself! Who are you? Girl/Boy? College, highschool? Interests or major? Where do you want to end up and whatnot :)

Hola Anon, 

Thanks for bringing that up. I feel like a dunce Ive never really done that yet on tumblr.

Im a 30 y/o NYer male, I work in scientific research, I also teach a grad course I developed also in science. I studied a bunch science stuff and did many years of research in a variety of labs.

I’m looking to enter a Comparative Literature PhD as that’s really my passion. I have 3 blogs out there one dedicated to some satirical sarcastic writing, another to the poetry I write , and the last to my philosophical and mystic musings

Condoleezza Rice: ‘I Don’t Know When Immigrants Became The Enemy’ (via huffingtonpost)

(via sarahstocracy)