SirPalomides

The “victim” in this case in a wealthy organization with backing from the most powerful, wealthy state on the planet with a well-documented record of conducting misinformation and sabotage campaigns against anyone who challenges it, while itself unleashing continuous acts of shocking brutality and oppression across the globe. So no, I’m not going to believe this “victim” anymore than I would believe the Iranian MeK cultists, the rich white Cubans in Miami moaning about Castro, or Hutu genocidaires whining about Kagame. World’s smallest violin for these imperialist tools. So while “ in your mind” something is without a doubt happening rational people will need firmer evidence than the claims of a deranged right wing cult.

Another by Carrington, “And then we saw the daughter of the Minotaur”

“Warning Mother” by Leonora Carrington. IMO one of the greatest of the surrealist painters, better than the overrated douche Dali and the mediocre Magritte, but they unjustly are the famous ones.

That said I wouldn’t get too hung up on what is “authentic” Gnosticism. The classical Gnostics don’t seem to have been at all. They were mythopoetic eclecticists and questions of strict succession don’t seem to have necessarily been of huge importance.

The name “SARS-Cov-2” didn’t exist in December. He obviously was talking about SARS of 2003. What’s propaganda bullshit is calling someone a “whistleblower” who was communicating to some friends in a private chat, and saying he was jailed or arrested when he was called in to sign a paper. Meanwhile there are cases of US medical officials being punished for actual whistle blowing yet this is not being plastered all over Western media as proof of the repressive nature of the US regime or whatever.

Gnosticism was a highly inventive and protean set of doctrines that subsisted in different currents, some of which died out but others that continue in various forms. It is not always easy to say exactly what makes something gnostic as opposed to hermetic, Neoplatonist, etc. A lot of ideas that are sometimes deemed “gnostic” in popular presentations were really just commonly held ideas in the Hellenistic world. For instance, the notion that our world is controlled by oppressive “archons”, who can be either demons or incompetent angels, and who imprison us and prevent our access to higher spiritual realities, is important in the letters of Paul and his understanding of salvation. Gnosis as something gained through asceticism and mystic contemplation apart from the transient world runs through mainstream Christian spirituality, seem in the the Desert Fathers and the Philokalia. Apart from Christianity there are other gnostic formations in existence- the Yezidis and Mandaeans, for instance, although these communities are endangered and exceptionally remote for most people. There are occult groups with roots in Golden Dawn or claiming Masonic or Rosicrucian lineage- are they legitimate? I guess it depends on how literally you take the need for some kind of apostolic succession. My opinion is that such lineage claims tend to involve a fair amount of mythology and sleight of hand.

For those interested in the question of whether China is socialist, and unimpressed by the inconclusive anecdotes of US state department shills, a reading list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16iw83noTdWvDiECaITX83rGhP_lros8QdBTrNnCoe6c/edit

Oof, Trotskyite confirmed. Now I know why you’re bitter. Have y’all seen this one? It’s a classic

Historically, strident anti-communism tends to drive liberals into the arms of fascists. That sad trend may be observed here. There can be no dialogue with such people.

Walker- Let’s see: kuroshiro, who has been pushing the Wuhan lab theory, calls me a CCP troll in reply to a guardian article I shared disproving the claim that nothing is being done about animals allegedly running amok in Wuhan- you quote his post approvingly. You then quote me calling out Master Logray’s racist bullshit about cats and dogs and then try to defend him with unrelated rambling about corruption, sanitation, etc. My characterization of your remarks is completely fair.

I would happily clear up the bullshit about Li Wenliang, fortunately others have done it for me. Even in lockdown I don’t have time to spend hours picking apart non-stop imperialist propaganda.

That’s some pretty desperate reaching and ad hominem nonsense. Defending right-wing racist misogynist creeps like Falun Gong is just downright gross and no amount of tu quoque is going to cover that shitty smell. If I start running my own cult with its own US- and Canadian- government funded media wing then my own kooky dabblings might be more relevant. Meanwhile here’s this article again debunking Falun Gong’s organ harvesting claims: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/30/reports-china-organ-harvesting-cult-falun-gong/ Also worth noting that Simon Denyer of the Washington Post is probably the only Western journalist to go to China to independently investigate Falun Gong’s organ harvesting claims and what he found did not support them: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-the-face-of-criticism-china-has-been-cleaning-up-its-organ-transplant-industry/2017/09/14/d689444e-e1a2-11e6-a419-eefe8eff0835_story.html

The internalized racism in Hong Kong is quite breathtaking and on full display during the protests, waving British flags, calling on Trump to “liberate” them, spray painting “ji-na” (equivalent to “chink) on mainlander owned buildings etc. Speaking Mandarin or even Hokkien can get you beat up; even mainlanders who come out to support the protests get treated like shit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-hongkong-mainlande/a-coronavirus-betrayal-even-friends-shun-mainland-protesters-in-hong-kong-idUSKCN21Y14G Of course despite the article being from Reuters I’m sure it will be dismissed as CCP misinformation.

Also worth noting the article I shared that caused KuroShiro to call me a CCP troll with Walker’s agreement was from noted CCP mouthpiece *checks notes* the Guardian.

What I’m referring to. He thinks there is some connection between eating cats and dogs and COVID-19. Nothing about sanitation, just “wow those people eat everything.”

I don’t deny that cats and dogs are eaten- though as you hint the practice is increasingly unpopular. Nor is it something I would do myself. But to talk about this practice as if it is uniquely immoral, unsanitary, uncivilized, as opposed to cow, pig, chicken, etc is indeed racist and that is the clear assumption behind several of the posts on this thread. The stuff Walker brought up about, eg, that nightmarish powder milk thing(I was in Beijing when that broke) has nothing to do with the cultural mores of what animals are or aren’t acceptable to eat.

Of course if Walker wants to come out against the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory here, as you do, no one’s stopping him. As it is, he is defending blatantly racist comments about the cultural consumption of cats and dogs as if it has something to do with sanitation, corruption scandals, etc. Of course a stronger China leads to more anti-Chinese racism. It’s when privileged classes- in this case white elites- feel their privilege threatened or eroded that they get the most vicious. Regarding the “evil” communist party, I think the short article I posted on the Chinese communist revolution page is a good opening response to that.

It’s funny how the minute after @Trunk banned a whole bunch of right wing Trump supporters a whole bunch of you suddenly crawled out of the woodwork posting blatant right wing propaganda- Fox News, Epoch Times, Jordan Peterson, etc. Quite a few people with “direct experience of the way China operates” don’t regurgitate Trump talking points, conspiracy theories, and blatant racism. But hey, you guys know what’s what. Don’t forget to listen to your doctor.

Could you say more about this? I know there are passages that say things like, "it is fitting to make an offering" but I wonder how literally this is to be taken and what form the offering would take.

Been listening to a lot of dub while working from home (King Tubby, Lee Perry, Augustus Pablo, Bill Laswell, etc.) I love this song:

I'm not deeply informed about any form of astrology but I would wager that it's not possible to generalize too much about how it works, because there are so many different systems and methods of consultation and interpretation. Do we will something into being by predicting it? If that's true, then the problem isn't with the divination but with the way our minds work constantly. Read a sample entry of the I Ching here. When one consults it, it is done with specific questions- not super-broad questions like "what will happen in the future?" but "how can I prepare for the coming week?" or "how should I plan for my trip?" The answers the book gives are couched in imagery and very broad statements, and one relies on commentaries as well as a good skill for making analogies to apply them to the situation. The most obvious, literal correspondence may be misleading. They also leave a lot of room for personal agency- there are frequently indications about how you might make a bad situation good or vice versa by certain types of action.

I'll say this, though- the I Ching is not a fatalistic predicter. Its readings are about how to respond to events- what one can do to best bring about, take advantage of, mitigate, or avoid a given development. A lot is left in the hands of the reader.

Man they pay me 50 cents a post doing this, it adds up. Meanwhile God Emperor Li Hongzhi pays you his "volunteers" nothing to share crappy Epoch Times videos. Suckers!

You should rephrase your question because it's unclear to me what the criticism of astrology is, and which astrology is being talked about.

Source: https://oxfordpoliticalreview.com/2020/04/24/china-series-1/