fw

apart from this: words from a servant of power

we are all more or less servants of power,
and the reason we are is our ignorance
and our being unaware of our ignorance, where
the ignorance meant is of things as they really are*

power cares not at all
about people or the planet,
only about more power
and more money
to buy more power*

2023-12-25 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

being unaware of our ignorance / ignorance of our own ignorance (!?)

images are of tweets embedded in the copy of this post on fw / see further notes there

it’s worth noting here as well that stories we tell ourselves matter, that “all we know is stories – some are helpful, some not” (!gi) / see a most helpful one by Jacob Needleman*

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz

And, I might add, a week after killing a Christian woman and her daughter INSIDE A CHURCH, an act the Pope himself called "terrorism" 👇https://t.co/eIgcc9J6ZP

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) December 25, 2023

useful idiots: young victims of propaganda

official video presents supposedly admirable role for the young

to serve here means to be prepared
to kill people when so ordered
or to support those who do

what most (young) people choose to ignore
or don’t yet see is this:
orders come down from a power elite
that cares for nothing but power*

2023-12-12 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

useful idiots (!?)

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz

image on X/Twitter tweeted by the Financial Times on December 6 with this text:

The catastrophic destruction of northern Gaza in less than seven weeks has approached that caused by the years-long carpet-bombing of German cities during the second world war https://ft.com/content/7b407c…

the image above links to the original tweet

anyone can read an archived version of the tweeted article*

from the Financial Times article, published December 5:

“Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne — some of the world’s heaviest-ever bombings are remembered by their place names,” said Robert Pape, a US military historian and author of Bombing to Win, a landmark survey of 20th century bombing campaigns. “Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns.”

2023-12-07 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

commonly confused: ordnance and ordinance (!?) / #copyediting: see later in the article

it’s worth noting here as well that stories we tell ourselves matter, that “all we know is stories – some are helpful, some not” (!gi) / see a very helpful one by Jacob Needleman*

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz

the enabling parents, Biden and Blinken

the image above is from the current Substack home page for Bill Astore* – and here is what he says in a post there:

Biden and Blinken are those permissive parents who are dominated by an unruly child. Let’s call the child “Bibi.” They don’t dare tell Bibi to stop. They don’t dare punish him. They don’t dare make a scene, because Bibi will throw a tantrum and make their lives hell. So they allow Bibi to do whatever the hell he wants to do, except just a bit quieter, or slower, or less violent. They enable the child, in short, …*

see also an excellent long read on Bibi by Joshua Leifer on November 21, archived*

2023-12-03 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz

enabled by consent, disabled by dissent

in the physical world the all-pervasive force
that affects everything and everyone is gravity

in the human world – our world – it’s power

power cares for nothing
except more power
and stops at nothing
to gain more power

as a social illness unaddressed
it’s terminal: the end of us all

so let’s address it, understand it, and deal with it:
power is enabled by consent, disabled by dissent*

2023-11-30 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

our world / the world as it is thought to be

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz