By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/9801-white-supremacists-love-ron-paul
[....]
Hacktivist collective Anonymous struck a gold mine with Operation Blitzkrieg - an effort to hack into and shut down White Nationalist (WN) websites and forums. Anonymous leaked thousands of emails and private messages from the white supremacist network American Third Position, which is defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Anonymous also leaked the address, phone number, social security number and resume of White News Now owner and administrator Jamie Kelso on this website. But in leaking the emails and messages, Anonymous also discovered that a vast number of A3P members claim to be high-ranking members of the Ron Paul campaign. Ron Paul's campaign has some serious explaining to do if this is true. Read what the SPLC has to say about A3P:
The American Third Position is a political party initially established by racist Southern California skinheads that aims to deport immigrants and return the United States to white rule. The group is now led by a coterie of prominent white nationalists, including corporate lawyer William D. Johnson, virulent anti-Semite Kevin MacDonald and white nationalist radio host James Edwards. David Duke's former right-hand man, Jamie Kelso, helps with organizing. The party has big plans to run candidates nationwide.
The SPLC also has quotes from Kelso and Johnson, in detailed profiles from their website.
"No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race.... Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States." - Bill D. Johnson, 1985
"... in a mixed-race environment, altruism towards other sub-species, like Jews, Mestizos, Blacks, and Asians, is always damaging to our own kind's survival ... The non-Whites, who don't share these White traits, must be doubled-over with laughter at times as they watch, in astonishment, as we help them in every way we can to give away our lands, our women, our savings, our safety, our happiness, and our lives for their benefit." - Jamie Kelso, 2006
In leaked private messages, Kelso claims that he and Johnson are top organizers for Ron Paul's campaign.
"I'll give you some more real-life examples of WN folks like us who are very successfully navigating back and forth between great White Nationalism and full mainstream activism. I'll introduce you to folks like William Daniel Johnson, the chairman of the A3P, who is simultaneously Ron Paul's #1 man in Southern California. When Ron has VIP get-togethers at $2,000 a plate they are in Bill's dining room on his 80-acre estate."
Kelso also boasted repeatedly about meeting with both Ron and Rand Paul during the 2011 CPAC for three consecutive days.
"Then I'm heading to DC to meet up with Ron Paul and Rand Paul, personally, at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference Feb. 10-12.
"Bill and I will be meeting with Ron and Rand Paul. I'm in a teleconference call with Bill (and Ron Paul) tonight. Much more later. Things are starting to happen.
"We'll be meeting with Ron Paul and Rand Paul. Bill and I got to talk with Ron tonight by phone."
In private messages, Ron Paul organizers in A3P forums essentially admitted to each other that Ron Paul's base was overwhelmingly white, and ripe for inclusion in their own network. They even spoke of being the bridge being the White Nationalist movement and Ron Paul supporters.
"All of us who have helped organize events among these Ron Paul millions are keenly aware that 98% of these folks are White (look at any photo of a Ron Paul rally ... look at my photos of the crowds of 15,000 each on the west lawn of the Capitol on July 12, 2008 and at the Minneapolis counter-convention on September 2, 2008), and that almost all of these White folks want the non-White invasion of our White lands stopped yesterday."
"Anyone who can't see that Ron Paul is the best viable candidate from a pro-White perspective is not bright enough to be of any value to the pro-White movement."
"The most important of those innovations is BRIDGING from our tiny EXPLICITLY pro-White movement to the huge IMPLICITLY pro-White revolution that has been gathering ever since Ron Paul started it rolling in mid-2007."
Even when confronted with any of the ugly, bigoted remarks in his newsletters, or the more recent evidence that Ron Paul actually signed off on each newsletter before they went public, or when shown the picture of Ron Paul posing with campaign donor Don Black of Stormfront, Ron Paul's campaign has soldiered on. But his campaign owes the people and the media a direct response to A3P's claims that Ron and Rand Paul met in private at CPAC with a former Klan leader's right-hand man.
Ron Paul supporters are always quick to dismiss accusations of racism when they point to his opposition to the drug war. Indeed, his pro-decriminalization platform along with his anti-war credentials and his advocacy for tighter regulation of the Federal Reserve have won supporters from the right and the left. But now, no mainstream American should be able to throw their support behind Ron Paul with a clear conscience until he openly disavows his associations with the white supremacist movement and returns all the money donated to his campaign from its leaders and members.
[....]
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Comics and Contemporary Cultural Theory
http://downthetubescomics.blogspot.com/2012/02/call-for-papers-from-akira-to-zizek.html
FRIDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2012
Call for Papers: From Akira to Žižek: Comics and Contemporary Cultural Theory
Papers are now being invited for the academic comics tome Studies in Comics (volume 3.2).
Guest editor Tony Venezia tell us this special issue - sub-titled From Akira to Žižek: Comics and Contemporary Cultural Theory - seeks to provide a forum for new articulations between comics studies and contemporary cultural theory.
Be warned, it's heady stuff for those of us with low attention spans, perhaps.
"The importance and continued relevance of post-structuralist/postmodernist thought, the Frankfurt school’s studies of mass culture, McLuhan’s media theory and Bourdieu’s critical sociology are rightly acknowledged," notes Tony.
"Such figures dominate theoretical academic discourse on comics, as in other areas of cultural studies, often at the expense of engagement with alternative strands of critical thinking.
Rather than risking stagnation, Tony argues comics studies needs to "critically engage with theoretical paradigms not yet sourced". And that's the brief for this volume.
Submissions are welcome from scholars and enthusiasts that explore the conjunctions of comics and cultural theory. These could be engagements with the work of specific thinkers or emergent schools including, but not limited to:
Bruno Latour and ANT – Michel Serres – Paul Virilio – eco-criticism – thing theory - N. Katherine Hayles – Teresa de Lauretis - Franco Moretti – Manuel De Landa – Manuel Castells - cognitive capitalism – transmedia narratives – Giorgio Agamben – Édouard Gissant – Jacques Rancière – Friedrich Kittler – non-representational theory - speculative realism/materialism - Alain Badiou – Zygmunt Bauman – Rosi Braidotti – Antonio Negri – Jan van Dijk - affect theory – Lev Manovitch - Kojin Karatani – visual culture studies - and Slavoj Žižek...
Articles should be 4,000-8,000 words from any discipline with a strong critical focus. Abstracts should be received by 1st May 2012 in the first instance.
Please send 300 word abstracts to studiesincomics@googlemail.com and include the word ARTICLE in the subject heading. Please indicate the intended word count of the article.
Completed papers will be required by 15th August 2012. All submissions are peer reviewed and papers must be in English. Reviews of publications and exhibitions are also welcome, as are creative submissions, by the same deadlines indicated above.
- More info: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-journal,id=168/view,page=2/
FRIDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2012
Call for Papers: From Akira to Žižek: Comics and Contemporary Cultural Theory
Papers are now being invited for the academic comics tome Studies in Comics (volume 3.2).
Guest editor Tony Venezia tell us this special issue - sub-titled From Akira to Žižek: Comics and Contemporary Cultural Theory - seeks to provide a forum for new articulations between comics studies and contemporary cultural theory.
Be warned, it's heady stuff for those of us with low attention spans, perhaps.
"The importance and continued relevance of post-structuralist/postmodernist thought, the Frankfurt school’s studies of mass culture, McLuhan’s media theory and Bourdieu’s critical sociology are rightly acknowledged," notes Tony.
"Such figures dominate theoretical academic discourse on comics, as in other areas of cultural studies, often at the expense of engagement with alternative strands of critical thinking.
Rather than risking stagnation, Tony argues comics studies needs to "critically engage with theoretical paradigms not yet sourced". And that's the brief for this volume.
Submissions are welcome from scholars and enthusiasts that explore the conjunctions of comics and cultural theory. These could be engagements with the work of specific thinkers or emergent schools including, but not limited to:
Bruno Latour and ANT – Michel Serres – Paul Virilio – eco-criticism – thing theory - N. Katherine Hayles – Teresa de Lauretis - Franco Moretti – Manuel De Landa – Manuel Castells - cognitive capitalism – transmedia narratives – Giorgio Agamben – Édouard Gissant – Jacques Rancière – Friedrich Kittler – non-representational theory - speculative realism/materialism - Alain Badiou – Zygmunt Bauman – Rosi Braidotti – Antonio Negri – Jan van Dijk - affect theory – Lev Manovitch - Kojin Karatani – visual culture studies - and Slavoj Žižek...
Articles should be 4,000-8,000 words from any discipline with a strong critical focus. Abstracts should be received by 1st May 2012 in the first instance.
Please send 300 word abstracts to studiesincomics@googlemail.com and include the word ARTICLE in the subject heading. Please indicate the intended word count of the article.
Completed papers will be required by 15th August 2012. All submissions are peer reviewed and papers must be in English. Reviews of publications and exhibitions are also welcome, as are creative submissions, by the same deadlines indicated above.
- More info: http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-journal,id=168/view,page=2/
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Summer School, Universität Bonn
http://www.philosophie.uni-bonn.de/aktuelles/third-annual-international-summer-school
Third Annual International Summer School
"The Ontological Turn in Contemporary Philosophy" (July 2 - 13, 2012)
Organizer:
Professor Dr. Markus Gabriel
Chair in Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy (Bonn University)
Keynote Addresses/Visiting Professors:
Prof. Ray Brassier (American University, Beirut)
Prof. Iain Hamilton Grant (Bristol)
Prof. Martin Hägglund (Harvard/London Graduate School)
Prof. Graham Harman (American University, Cairo)
Prof. Slavoj Žižek (Ljubljana, NYU, Birkbeck, European Graduate School)
Course Description:
What is the world? What do we mean when we speak of the world in philosophy and claim things such as true thought being about the world? Is the world "out there," as Bernard Williams and Adrian Moore's "absolute conception of reality" suggests, or is it a horizon or regulative ideal guiding our epistemic practices?
In metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology it is common to speak of the world without bothering to explicate what this term means. Even though it features in debates concerning our access to the external world and even in book titles like Mind and World, it usually does not seem to express more than the vague realist assumption or platitude that not all objects or facts are made up, hallucinated, or in some way or another constructed by thinking subjects. Much of the 20th century's linguistic turn, both in the analytical and in the hermeneutical/phenomenological traditions, assumes that the world is what we have access to with truth-apt thought, yet also is that which might be distorted by our attempts to grasp it as it is in itself. Over the last decade, many voices (such as Hilary Putnam, Stanley Cavell, Alain Badiou, Quentin Meillassoux and Paul Boghossian, to name a few) have urged that the overall territory of the debate regarding the position of thinking in a world of facts is fundamentally confused by missing the very facticity of the world. This has triggered a thoroughgoing return to realism, prominently figuring in the thought of the avant-garde movement of "speculative realism" or "speculative materialism," as it has been labeled. Interestingly, the debates often associated with Badiou's ontology and the critique of all transcendental philosophy in Meillassoux's After Finitude have, in a recent turn, led to a reassessment of German idealism, for example in the work of Markus Gabriel, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Slavoj Žižek. On a closer look, it turns out the Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel's criticisms of Kant can be read as attempts to overcome transcendental epistemology and themselves motivate an ontological turn.
This year, we will discuss an array of perspectives on the ontological turn developed by the organizer and visiting professors in recent work. In particular, we will address the concepts of speculative philosophy, the relation between transcendental philosophy and ontology in general, the issue of contemporary forms of realism and materialism, and the prospects for a suitably realist or materialist reading of figures such as Schelling, Hegel, and Derrida. The philosophers assembled will present and discuss their recent work in the form of a lecture followed by a seminar.
[....]
Third Annual International Summer School
"The Ontological Turn in Contemporary Philosophy" (July 2 - 13, 2012)
Organizer:
Professor Dr. Markus Gabriel
Chair in Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy (Bonn University)
Keynote Addresses/Visiting Professors:
Prof. Ray Brassier (American University, Beirut)
Prof. Iain Hamilton Grant (Bristol)
Prof. Martin Hägglund (Harvard/London Graduate School)
Prof. Graham Harman (American University, Cairo)
Prof. Slavoj Žižek (Ljubljana, NYU, Birkbeck, European Graduate School)
Course Description:
What is the world? What do we mean when we speak of the world in philosophy and claim things such as true thought being about the world? Is the world "out there," as Bernard Williams and Adrian Moore's "absolute conception of reality" suggests, or is it a horizon or regulative ideal guiding our epistemic practices?
In metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology it is common to speak of the world without bothering to explicate what this term means. Even though it features in debates concerning our access to the external world and even in book titles like Mind and World, it usually does not seem to express more than the vague realist assumption or platitude that not all objects or facts are made up, hallucinated, or in some way or another constructed by thinking subjects. Much of the 20th century's linguistic turn, both in the analytical and in the hermeneutical/phenomenological traditions, assumes that the world is what we have access to with truth-apt thought, yet also is that which might be distorted by our attempts to grasp it as it is in itself. Over the last decade, many voices (such as Hilary Putnam, Stanley Cavell, Alain Badiou, Quentin Meillassoux and Paul Boghossian, to name a few) have urged that the overall territory of the debate regarding the position of thinking in a world of facts is fundamentally confused by missing the very facticity of the world. This has triggered a thoroughgoing return to realism, prominently figuring in the thought of the avant-garde movement of "speculative realism" or "speculative materialism," as it has been labeled. Interestingly, the debates often associated with Badiou's ontology and the critique of all transcendental philosophy in Meillassoux's After Finitude have, in a recent turn, led to a reassessment of German idealism, for example in the work of Markus Gabriel, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Slavoj Žižek. On a closer look, it turns out the Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel's criticisms of Kant can be read as attempts to overcome transcendental epistemology and themselves motivate an ontological turn.
This year, we will discuss an array of perspectives on the ontological turn developed by the organizer and visiting professors in recent work. In particular, we will address the concepts of speculative philosophy, the relation between transcendental philosophy and ontology in general, the issue of contemporary forms of realism and materialism, and the prospects for a suitably realist or materialist reading of figures such as Schelling, Hegel, and Derrida. The philosophers assembled will present and discuss their recent work in the form of a lecture followed by a seminar.
[....]
Romney Isn’t Concerned
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/opinion/krugman-romney-isnt-concerned.html?_r=2
If you’re an American down on your luck, Mitt Romney has a message for you: He doesn’t feel your pain. Earlier this week, Mr. Romney told a startled CNN interviewer, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.”
Faced with criticism, the candidate has claimed that he didn’t mean what he seemed to mean, and that his words were taken out of context. But he quite clearly did mean what he said. And the more context you give to his statement, the worse it gets.
First of all, just a few days ago, Mr. Romney was denying that the very programs he now says take care of the poor actually provide any significant help. On Jan. 22, he asserted that safety-net programs — yes, he specifically used that term — have “massive overhead,” and that because of the cost of a huge bureaucracy “very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.”
This claim, like much of what Mr. Romney says, was completely false: U.S. poverty programs have nothing like as much bureaucracy and overhead as, say, private health insurance companies. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has documented, between 90 percent and 99 percent of the dollars allocated to safety-net programs do, in fact, reach the beneficiaries. But the dishonesty of his initial claim aside, how could a candidate declare that safety-net programs do no good and declare only 10 days later that those programs take such good care of the poor that he feels no concern for their welfare?
[...]
Now, the truth is that the safety net does need repair. It provides a lot of help to the poor, but not enough. Medicaid, for example, provides essential health care to millions of unlucky citizens, children especially, but many people still fall through the cracks: among Americans with annual incomes under $25,000, more than a quarter — 28.7 percent — don’t have any kind of health insurance. And, no, they can’t make up for that lack of coverage by going to emergency rooms.
Similarly, food aid programs help a lot, but one in six Americans living below the poverty line suffers from “low food security.” This is officially defined as involving situations in which “food intake was reduced at times during the year because [households] had insufficient money or other resources for food” — in other words, hunger.
So we do need to strengthen our safety net. Mr. Romney, however, wants to make the safety net weaker instead.
Specifically, the candidate has endorsed Representative Paul Ryan’s plan for drastic cuts in federal spending — with almost two-thirds of the proposed spending cuts coming at the expense of low-income Americans. To the extent that Mr. Romney has differentiated his position from the Ryan plan, it is in the direction of even harsher cuts for the poor; his Medicaid proposal appears to involve a 40 percent reduction in financing compared with current law.
So Mr. Romney’s position seems to be that we need not worry about the poor thanks to programs that he insists, falsely, don’t actually help the needy, and which he intends, in any case, to destroy.
Still, I believe Mr. Romney when he says he isn’t concerned about the poor. What I don’t believe is his assertion that he’s equally unconcerned about the rich, who are “doing fine.” After all, if that’s what he really feels, why does he propose showering them with money?
And we’re talking about a lot of money. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Mr. Romney’s tax plan would actually raise taxes on many lower-income Americans, while sharply cutting taxes at the top end. More than 80 percent of the tax cuts would go to people making more than $200,000 a year, almost half to those making more than $1 million a year, with the average member of the million-plus club getting a $145,000 tax break.
And these big tax breaks would create a big budget hole, increasing the deficit by $180 billion a year — and making those draconian cuts in safety-net programs necessary.
Which brings us back to Mr. Romney’s lack of concern. You can say this for the former Massachusetts governor and Bain Capital executive: He is opening up new frontiers in American politics. Even conservative politicians used to find it necessary to pretend that they cared about the poor. Remember “compassionate conservatism”? Mr. Romney has, however, done away with that pretense.
At this rate, we may soon have politicians who admit what has been obvious all along: that they don’t care about the middle class either, that they aren’t concerned about the lives of ordinary Americans, and never were.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/opinion/krugman-romney-isnt-concerned.html?_r=2
If you’re an American down on your luck, Mitt Romney has a message for you: He doesn’t feel your pain. Earlier this week, Mr. Romney told a startled CNN interviewer, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.”
Faced with criticism, the candidate has claimed that he didn’t mean what he seemed to mean, and that his words were taken out of context. But he quite clearly did mean what he said. And the more context you give to his statement, the worse it gets.
First of all, just a few days ago, Mr. Romney was denying that the very programs he now says take care of the poor actually provide any significant help. On Jan. 22, he asserted that safety-net programs — yes, he specifically used that term — have “massive overhead,” and that because of the cost of a huge bureaucracy “very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.”
This claim, like much of what Mr. Romney says, was completely false: U.S. poverty programs have nothing like as much bureaucracy and overhead as, say, private health insurance companies. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has documented, between 90 percent and 99 percent of the dollars allocated to safety-net programs do, in fact, reach the beneficiaries. But the dishonesty of his initial claim aside, how could a candidate declare that safety-net programs do no good and declare only 10 days later that those programs take such good care of the poor that he feels no concern for their welfare?
[...]
Now, the truth is that the safety net does need repair. It provides a lot of help to the poor, but not enough. Medicaid, for example, provides essential health care to millions of unlucky citizens, children especially, but many people still fall through the cracks: among Americans with annual incomes under $25,000, more than a quarter — 28.7 percent — don’t have any kind of health insurance. And, no, they can’t make up for that lack of coverage by going to emergency rooms.
Similarly, food aid programs help a lot, but one in six Americans living below the poverty line suffers from “low food security.” This is officially defined as involving situations in which “food intake was reduced at times during the year because [households] had insufficient money or other resources for food” — in other words, hunger.
So we do need to strengthen our safety net. Mr. Romney, however, wants to make the safety net weaker instead.
Specifically, the candidate has endorsed Representative Paul Ryan’s plan for drastic cuts in federal spending — with almost two-thirds of the proposed spending cuts coming at the expense of low-income Americans. To the extent that Mr. Romney has differentiated his position from the Ryan plan, it is in the direction of even harsher cuts for the poor; his Medicaid proposal appears to involve a 40 percent reduction in financing compared with current law.
So Mr. Romney’s position seems to be that we need not worry about the poor thanks to programs that he insists, falsely, don’t actually help the needy, and which he intends, in any case, to destroy.
Still, I believe Mr. Romney when he says he isn’t concerned about the poor. What I don’t believe is his assertion that he’s equally unconcerned about the rich, who are “doing fine.” After all, if that’s what he really feels, why does he propose showering them with money?
And we’re talking about a lot of money. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Mr. Romney’s tax plan would actually raise taxes on many lower-income Americans, while sharply cutting taxes at the top end. More than 80 percent of the tax cuts would go to people making more than $200,000 a year, almost half to those making more than $1 million a year, with the average member of the million-plus club getting a $145,000 tax break.
And these big tax breaks would create a big budget hole, increasing the deficit by $180 billion a year — and making those draconian cuts in safety-net programs necessary.
Which brings us back to Mr. Romney’s lack of concern. You can say this for the former Massachusetts governor and Bain Capital executive: He is opening up new frontiers in American politics. Even conservative politicians used to find it necessary to pretend that they cared about the poor. Remember “compassionate conservatism”? Mr. Romney has, however, done away with that pretense.
At this rate, we may soon have politicians who admit what has been obvious all along: that they don’t care about the middle class either, that they aren’t concerned about the lives of ordinary Americans, and never were.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
London Conference in Critical Thought
Žižek and the Political
http://londonconferenceincriticalthought.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/zizek-and-the-political/
Posted on January 31, 2012by londonconferenceincriticalthought
Stream Coordinator: Chris McMillan
Arguably the most prominent critical theorist of our times, Slavoj Žižek has regularly intervened in contemporary political debate over issues such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. Nevertheless, there is little consensus over the value of these interventions or the effectiveness of Žižekian theory as a mode of political practice. Whilst Žižek is often readily enjoyed as a philosopher of culture and ideology, or an adept reader of Lacanian theory or German idealism, significant doubt remains over the political credentials of his theory. Indeed, for many Leftists’ Žižek’s work exemplifies the tragedy of our times; full of damming of critique without any concrete solutions. This stream invites papers to critically engage with these wide-ranging debates around the political difficulties and potential of Žižekian theory.
Whilst not seeking to prescribe any particular responses, papers from a broad range of perspectives might consider Žižek’s relationship to;
- Marxism and political economy;
- Democracy and the state;
- Communism and the ‘communist hypothesis’;
- Ideology or the politics of ideology and enjoyment;
- The political prospects of psychoanalysis;
- Broader theoretical papers that reflect upon the structural possibilities for Žižekian political engagement are also encouraged.
http://londonconferenceincriticalthought.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/zizek-and-the-political/
Posted on January 31, 2012by londonconferenceincriticalthought
Stream Coordinator: Chris McMillan
Arguably the most prominent critical theorist of our times, Slavoj Žižek has regularly intervened in contemporary political debate over issues such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. Nevertheless, there is little consensus over the value of these interventions or the effectiveness of Žižekian theory as a mode of political practice. Whilst Žižek is often readily enjoyed as a philosopher of culture and ideology, or an adept reader of Lacanian theory or German idealism, significant doubt remains over the political credentials of his theory. Indeed, for many Leftists’ Žižek’s work exemplifies the tragedy of our times; full of damming of critique without any concrete solutions. This stream invites papers to critically engage with these wide-ranging debates around the political difficulties and potential of Žižekian theory.
Whilst not seeking to prescribe any particular responses, papers from a broad range of perspectives might consider Žižek’s relationship to;
- Marxism and political economy;
- Democracy and the state;
- Communism and the ‘communist hypothesis’;
- Ideology or the politics of ideology and enjoyment;
- The political prospects of psychoanalysis;
- Broader theoretical papers that reflect upon the structural possibilities for Žižekian political engagement are also encouraged.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
"The Mask of Anarchy"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Written after the massacre carried out by the British Government, at Peterloo, Manchester 1819
As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.
I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed the human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.
Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.
And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.
Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.
And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'
With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.
And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.
And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.
O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.
And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.
For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King.
'We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our Purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'
Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering - 'Thou art Law and God.' -
Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'
And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.
For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.
So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament
When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:
'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!
He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me -
Misery, oh, Misery!'
Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.
When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:
Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,
It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.
On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.
With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men - so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.
As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.
And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:
And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.
A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose
As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe
Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:
'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,
'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.
'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.
'Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;
'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More that e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.
'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.
'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.
'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.
'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.
'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.
'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!
'This is slavery - savage men
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.
'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:
'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.
'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.
'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.
'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.
'Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.
'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.
'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.
'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.
'Thou art Love - the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,
'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.
'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.
'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.
'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.
'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.
'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan,
'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -
'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -
'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around
'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -
'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold -
'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -
'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.
'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.
Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.
'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.
'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.
'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,
'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.
'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,
'The old laws of England - they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty!
'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.
'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.
'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.
'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.
'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'
Written after the massacre carried out by the British Government, at Peterloo, Manchester 1819
As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.
I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed the human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.
Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.
And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.
Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.
And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.
Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.
And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'
With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.
And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.
And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.
O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.
And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.
For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King.
'We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our Purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'
Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering - 'Thou art Law and God.' -
Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'
And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.
For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.
So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament
When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:
'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!
He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me -
Misery, oh, Misery!'
Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.
When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:
Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,
It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.
On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.
With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men - so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.
As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.
And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:
And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.
A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose
As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe
Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:
'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,
'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.
'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.
'Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;
'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More that e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.
'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.
'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.
'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.
'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.
'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.
'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!
'This is slavery - savage men
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.
'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:
'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.
'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.
'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.
'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.
'Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.
'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.
'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.
'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.
'Thou art Love - the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,
'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.
'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.
'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.
'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.
'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.
'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan,
'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -
'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -
'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around
'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -
'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold -
'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -
'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.
'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.
Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.
'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.
'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.
'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,
'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.
'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,
'The old laws of England - they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty!
'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.
'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.
'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.
'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.
'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'
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