The critically endangered buffy-headed marmoset is one of the rarest primates in the world. Suffering from a catastrophic decline and beset by countless threats, they face imminent extinction in the wild.
Male buffy-headed marmosets are model fathers and assist heavily in the care of infants by carrying them on their backs, which allows the mother time to rest and produce milk to feed her offspring. Juvenile marmosets generally stick with the family group until adulthood and help their parents with the care of newborn infants.
These enchanting and charismatic tiny monkeys have a distinct “gothic” appearance. They live deep in the forests of a tiny area of Brazil. Buffy-tufted-ear Marmosets are also known as buffy tufted-ear mamosets or the white-eared marmosets and ‘mountain marmosets’.
It lives in groups made up of two to eight individuals but in the past when the species was more widely spread and in greater numbers, sightings of groups with up to 20 members were sometimes recorded. I
t displays complex social behaviour and though most groups seem to be led by a dominant monogamous breeding pair, there have been reports of polyandrous (one dominant female breeding with several males) and polygynous behaviour (one dominant male breeding with several females).
At dusk, the troop will retreat to a communal tree hollow where they sleep out the night huddled together for warmth and safety from nocturnal predators.
They are New World monkeys living in a geographically isolated region in the Atlantic coast that has been decimated for palm oil, soy and cattle ranching agriculture and mining.
The buffy-headed marmoset is an important species in contributing to the health of the Atlantic rainforest due to its diet of insects and fruit. Predation of insects by the monkey helps to regulate invertebrate populations while the consumption of fruit helps with the dispersal of seeds that eventually grow into trees – enhancing the structure, composition, and regeneration of the rainforest.
According to latest estimates, no more than 2,500 individuals are left in the wild, a perilously low population. Bombarded by unrelenting pressures that continue to undermine its survival, the extinction of the species seems ever more probable in the 21st century.
A commercial ship was struck by a Houthi missile fired from Yemen as it passed through the Southern Red Sea on Saturday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) has said. It added that two more missiles were shot down by an American destroyer patrolling the area.
FILE PHOTO: A cargo ship crosses the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt, on December 29, 2023
The Ansar Allah Houthi movement’s political bureau last week denounced the US-led maritime coalition, saying it is “an integral part of the aggression against the Palestinian people, Gaza and the Arab and Islamic nation.”
They also accused it of seeking to “militarize the Red Sea for the benefit of the Israeli entity,” according to the Yemeni news agency Saba.
The Singapore-flagged containership Maersk Hangzhou, owned and operated by Denmark, signaled at 8:30pm local time that it had been attacked and requested assistance, CENTCOM said on X (formerly Twitter). According to the statement, the vessel remains seaworthy and no injuries have been reported among the crew.
Saturday’s strike came a day after Denmark announced it would contribute to the US-led OPG, sending a frigate next month.
Warships USS Graverly and USS Laboon responded to the call for help, with the former shooting down two ballistic missiles “fired from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen toward the ships,” the statement said.
Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk announced in mid-December that it was suspending all cargo shipments through the Red Sea due to attacks targeting commercial vessels in the region.
However, last week the company said it planned to resume shipping, linking the move to the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), which was set up to ensure safe passage.
An international naval operation to secure trade in the area was announced by Washington last week, as Houthi attacks have forced major shipping companies to seek alternative routes, disrupting global supply chains. The Red Sea is the entry point for vessels using the Suez Canal, which handles about 12% of global trade.
The Houthi revolutionary resistance, who control most of Yemen’s territory, said they would attack Israeli-linked ships in response to the Israeli bombing and ground invasion of Gaza. Twenty-three ships have been attacked or seized in the Red Sea since November 19, according to CENTCOM.
A cargo ship caught fire in the Red Sea on December 15 after being hit by a projectile from Yemen, say US and Ambrey
The news agency identified the ship as the Liberian-flagged Al Jasrah. This was confirmed by the private intelligence firm Ambrey, which also reported the attack.
“The projectile reportedly hit the port side of the vessel and one container fell overboard due to the impact,” Ambrey said. “The projectile caused a ‘fire on deck’ which was broadcast via” radio.
The Al Jasrah is operated by the German-based Hapag Lloyd. Ambrey noted that the shipping company “is known to have offices in the Israeli ports of Ashdod, Haifa and Tel Aviv.”
Ansar Allah demonstrates military in North Yemen
The attack on the ship was most likely carried out by the Houthis (Ansar Allah), who are a part of the so-called Axis of Resistance that is backed by Iran and opposes Israel.
Two ballistic missiles were fired in a second attack, one of which struck a vessel, causing a fire, which the crew was working to extinguish, the US official said.
The Associated Press news agency identified the vessel struck in the second attack as the Liberian-flagged MSC Palatium III.
The group has fired several missiles and drones at the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat since the beginning of the Israeli war on the Palestinian Gaza Strip. It has also assaulted a number of Israeli-owned ships and announced a blockade on all ships heading to Israel.
Danish shipping company Maersk said on Friday it was suspending its vessels’ passage through the key Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and the German container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd said it would pause journeys in the Red Sea until Monday.
Just day earlier, the Houthis said that they struck the Maersk Gibraltar, a Hong Kong-flagged cargo container vessel, near the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait with a suicide drone.
This was however denied by both the ship owner, Danish shipping company Maersk, and the United States Central Command, which said in a statement that the vessel was in fact targeted with a ballistic missile.
“We will continue to prevent all ships heading to Israeli ports until the food and medicine our people need in the Gaza Strip is brought in,”
The Houthis recent attacks forced ships heading to Israel from Asia to take a route that circles Africa, making the journey three weeks longer and more expensive.In addition, the arrival of commercial ships to the port of Eilat has almost completely stopped.
The U.S. has reportedly warned the Houthis from continuing their attacks and is preparing to announce a special upgraded multinational task force in the Red Sea.
The Prime Minister of Yemen’s National Salvation Government (NSG), Abdulaziz bin Habtour, said on 10 November that Sanaa will continue to conduct attacks on Israel for as long as the ethnic cleansing campaign of Gaza continues.
Alanya and Palatium III both listed Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as their destination, according to data from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic.
“We will continue to prevent all ships heading to Israeli ports until the food and medicine our people need in the Gaza Strip is brought in,” the AnsarAllah statement said.
No casualties reported from strike on Strinda tanker as it passed through strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
“We assure all ships heading to all ports of the world apart from Israeli ports that they will suffer no harm and they must keep their identification device on,” it said.
The Ansar Allah movement, called Houthis in the West after their leader, at present have forced a Ceasefire with US backed Saudi colonial forces, who still seek to have their proxies returned to control all Yemen, despite failing in the long horrific war. With US backing the Saudis obtained recognition of their occupiers and proxies as still the legally recognised government of Yemen.
AnsarAllah have long had a growing expertise in building long range drones, always blamed by the West on Iranian aid. The Houthis are mainly a local branch of Shiite muslims who are also severely repressed in Saudi Arabia which is ruled by a Sunni clan.
B).. Israeli soldiers surrounding world famous Gaza prison wall.A)..Palestinians driving a bulldozer through it..
Israel’s Expertise in Pacifying the Palestinians was in High Demand by Capitalist Elites As their Populations Around the World Grow Restive…..but Genocide may be a step too far.
As the world watches in horror Israel’s military assault on the people of Gaza, people are left to wonder why world leaders are not doing more to censure Israel and are allowing Israel to get away with mass killing.
Jeff Halper, an American-Israeli anthropologist who has written numerous books on Israeli history, has a clear answer.
He says that leaders of countries around the world are feeling more insecure as wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny capitalist elite and popular disaffection and the threat of rebellion grows.
Israel is revered precisely for its mastery of population-control techniques against the Palestinians, which many leaders want to emulate against dissident or minority groups within their own borders.
Part of Israel’s ace in the hole, according to Halper, is its development of a formidable weapons industry that allows it to supply high-tech weapons to countries around the world for the purpose of population control.
Israel is at the cutting edge in the development of surveillance satellites, weaponized and surveillance drones, Artificial Intelligence (AI) target identification systems, spyware gadgets and crowd control and cyberwarfare technologies, which it sells around the world.
Israel additionally provides training to police and military forces and supplies mercenaries who can be found in presidential guards and among the enforcers of drug cartels.
Eitan drone made by Israel Aerospace Industries which is used by the Israeli Air Force. [Source: jpost.com]
Because of their heavy reliance on Israeli military aid, many countries may make a show of criticizing certain Israeli excesses but do nothing to impede them, refusing to impose economic sanctions or embargoes or trying to cut Israel off from world trade.
Halper spoke during a webinar on December 6 sponsored by the War Industries Resistance Network and Massachusetts Peace Action. His presentation included a map which showed the huge number of countries to which Israel sells weapon systems.
Among them are countries run by dictators to which even the U.S. refuses to sell weapons, like Equatorial Guinea and Myanmar.
Israel is also China’s number two arms supplier and the top supplier to India, which purchases more than $1 billion per year.
Additionally, Israel is a supplier of arms to South Korea, Brazil, Russia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Turkey and Azerbaijan which used the arms to brutalize Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh.
Halper sees Israel as a key global enforcer of the world capitalist system whose arm sales extend to 191 countries (up from 130 eight years ago).
The Occupied Territories have functioned as a laboratory for testing new weapons and counterinsurgency techniques by Israel which collaborates closely with the U.S. military and allows for testing of its new weapon systems.
U.S. leaders are in love with Israel because they seek to emulate Israel’s success against the Palestinians in asymmetrical warfare, which they have failed at miserably in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and before that Vietnam.
U.S. leaders also see as a model for the U.S.-Mexico border the censor-laden wall that Israel built surrounding Gaza.
Halper warned that we are in danger of “all being Palestinized.”
All of this is by a global capitalist elite and its political representatives who are adopting ever more repressive measures in an attempt to sustain their wealth and power.
Funding Your Own Assassins
Israel’s claim to be fighting in Gaza in self-defense is undercut by the emergence of new details about its role in funding and propping up Hamas.
On December 10, The New York Times published an article entitled “‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas” by Mark Mazetti and Ronen Bergman.
The article noted that, “for years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip—money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.” So too did three American presidents—Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden.
According to the Times, much of the money was dispensed to Hamas from suitcases by Qatari officials who were escorted into Gaza by the Mossad. The money allowed Hamas to divert some of its own budget toward military operations targeting Israel, including the October 7 attacks.
Netanyahu and some of his billionaire friends. [Source: timesofisrael.com]
CovertAction Magazine has previously detailed how the Israeli billionaire class, whom Benjamin Netanyahu represents, has sought a state of permanent war as part of their governing strategy.
The billionaires grow rich from war and the Israeli war industry, and the creation of a terrorist threat legitimizes expanded military operations designed to wipe out the Palestinians and enhance the goal of establishing a “Greater Israel.”
Israel had been gripped with massive protests on the eve of the Israel-Gaza War against rising inequality and the attempt to subordinate Israel’s judiciary to the executive branch, with Netanyahu personally facing corruption charges.
Once the war broke out, the protests dissipated and Netanyahu could play his familiar role of uniting Israelis of all class backgrounds against a foreign enemy—which conveniently he and his ruling circle had helped to empower
The October 31 issue of The New York Times had an article tellingly titled “They Refused to Serve. Now They’re Supporting Israel’s War Effort.” It profiled former coordinators of the anti-Netanyahu street protests who had once vowed not to serve in the IDF, but who were now supporting Israel’s war effort in reaction to the Tribe of Nova massacre and helping to organize clothing and military equipment drives for soldiers on the front lines of the war in Gaza.
No wonder then that Netanyahu’s government ignored warnings of the impending Hamas attack!
A Times article on December 20 was titled “After the Oct. 7 Attacks, Israelis Are Becoming More Politically Conservative.”
It emphasized that a) Israel’s peace camp had been driven virtually underground after the October 7 attacks; b) that being a leftist had now become a dirty word; and that c) Israelis had moved decidedly to the right on a number of issues, including support for settlers in the West Bank, endorsement of far-right politicians, and even the reestablishment of a military occupation of Gaza.
Tai Schneider, a columnist for the Times of Israel was quoted as saying “the trauma of what happened on Oct. 7 shifted Israeli society. It made them question the most basic tenets of whether they were safe in their homes. They are calling now for more—more military, more protection–more hard-line policies.”[1] This is similar in many ways to what happened in the United States vis-à-vis 9/11.
The Times in its December 10 article emphasized as a motive for Netanyahu’s funding of Hamas his goal of wanting to establish a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
In 2012, Netanyahu told Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that having two strong rivals, including Hamas which does not recognize Israel’s legitimacy, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.
Shlomo Brom, a retired general and former deputy to Israel’s national security adviser, said that “one effective way to prevent a two-state solution is to [create a] divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.” The division gives Mr. Netanyahu an excuse to disengage from peace talks, noting that he can say, “I have no partner.”[2]
This motive is totally perverse and undermines Netanyahu’s claim to have launched military operations to protect Israeli security— from an enemy that he financed, no less.
Chaos Agents
Netanyahu’s critics include Ami Ayalon, the former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, who stated that Israel was “controlled by “chaos agents” whose goal is to create a “human disaster” in Gaza, because “from the chaos we shall start again.”
“This is exactly the theory of the most radical, fundamental Muslim organizations,” of ISIS and al-Qaeda, Ayalon said.
He added that it is foolish to go to war without defining a political goal: “The military goal is never the end goal, military is a tool, war is not the objective…. Victory is never measured in military terms. So when we say ‘the day after,’ we are trying to define the concept of victory, and we are not doing it. It’s a huge failure.”
Dethrone King Bibi
On December 25, Haaretz’ lead editorial was titled “Dethrone King Bibi.” It argued that the conditions exist to resume the huge protests against Netanyahu and his government that shook Israel for months before October 7.
At that time, the protests were focused against Bibi’s dictatorial “judicial reform;” now, their focus will be “King Bibi’s” responsibility for creating the conditions that led to October 7 and the current war.
Haaretz wrote that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the one who bears the greatest blame for the security, diplomatic and social failures that led to the October 7 massacre and the outbreak of war. The thousands who protested on Saturday night in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Caesarea, calling for him to be deposed, prove that conditions have matured for the protests to be resumed and to expand the ranks of those taking to the streets.”
Haaretz went on to note that Netanyahu accepts no responsibility for that disaster of October 7, but blames the IDF, the intelligence services, the Oslo peace accords and “Yitzhak Rabin and those who continued his path,” the Israeli daily writes, and adds: “All of the above is enough without saying a word about the judicial coup he advanced in the service of the extreme Kahanist right, with its appetite for annexation and Jewish supremacy.”
Haaretz concluded by stating that “the time has come to demand from the one who wrought disaster on the State of Israel to vacate his throne and allow others the chance to repair what he has destroyed.”
Sherra Frenkel, “After the Oct. 7 Attacks, Israelis Are Becoming More Politically Conservative,” The New York Times, December 20, 2023, A8. ↑
Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Netanyahu’s finance minister, put the Israeli strategy bluntly in 2015 when he said: “The Palestinian Authority is a burden,” while “Hamas is an asset.” ↑
You are drunk, yes, but you know you’re not that drunk. You just know you want to move to this place immediately, especially when you learn its name: Home.
–Revolution, Ferdinand Freiligrath, 1850, as quoted by the anarchist Hugo Kalmar in The Iceman Cometh, Eugene O’Neill, 1946
Step 1:
You are sitting in a shitty bar, in San Francisco, and your life also happens to be shitty. Most of the people around you are actual pieces of shit, and the few who aren’t have shitty lives similar to yours.
Why is your life so shitty? In part, it’s because you don’t even live in San Francisco, you just work here because this is the walled castle-city where all the money is, and over half of the people who seem to actually live in this dystopian hell-hole are miserable, dog-shit tech zombies.
Sometimes you talk with them, but mostly both of you are too depressed to say anything meaningful. However, on this particular night, they hand you a newspaper and say it seems interesting. The title of the newspaper isThe New Era.
Instead of look at the piece-of-shit totalitarian surveillance device (ie: smartphone) sitting by your half-empty alcoholic beverage, you instead read The New Era.
Almost immediately, you begin to realize this paper is something you’ve never seen before.
In the first article, you find this sentence: The columns of this paper will be open to the discussion of any topic that tends to better humankind’s conditions, and to give them the absolute freedom that is theirs by right, and that no generation, of the past, present, or future, may in any manner abridge.
The language is a bit odd, but you generally approve.
In the next article, you realize this New Era was printed as a way to bring people north to an anarchist commune in Washington State, about a 13 hour drive away.
They have formed something called the Mutual Home Association, and its only objective is to assist its members in obtaining and building homes for themselves and to aid in establishing better social and moral conditions.
In plain words, they state that any person over the age of 16 years may become a member of this association by paying into the treasury a sum equal to the value of the land he or she may select… a sum equal to the taxes assessed against the tract of land he or she may hold and his or her share of the common expenses of construction.
The moment some doubt about this whole scheme creeps into your thoughts, it instantly disappears when you learn that all money received from membership shall be used only for the purchase of land.
The real estate of this association shall never be sold, mortgaged, or disposed of. A unanimous vote of all members of the association shall be required to alter the article of incorporation. All certificates of membership shall be for life.
As far as you can tell, this commune is all about creating places to live for its members, cheaply, and with all its resources.
You read the next article, trying to figure out if this is actually just the front for some weird cult, but then you read this: we believe that all natural opportunities should be absolutely free, and that land isthe most essential to the maintenance of life and happiness of human beings.
We have formulated a plan, whereby those interested in making a home for themselves with good surroundings and at the same time place a small area of land outside the realms of speculation and its evil effects can do so.
We propose to do this by incorporating as an association, so that all land may be deeded direct to the association, thereby putting it out of the power of any one individual, to sell, mortgage of dispose of the land, as might be done were there individual deeds.
This seems pretty reassuring, even if you are drunk, and you’re even more enthusiastic when you see this very anti-cult sentiment printed in the columns: a group of socialists here can have their officers, by-laws, rules, and any regulations they may choose, but they can not force their ideas upon others who think and act differently.
And so, knowing this is probably not a cult, but a bunch of people tired of paying rent, you happily read the final sentence of this article: the more restriction you place upon the movements and desires of human beings, the greater the unhappiness of the people, and the more they will resent it.
As far as you can tell, for around $2,000, not even half of your life-savings, you can secure the right to build a house on two acres of land, which will be yours for life, and what’s even crazier, these New Era folks will help you, given they have a saw-mill, meaning you won’t need to buy lumber from Home Depot.
It sounds fake for just one more moment, but then you see the prominent ad on the back page:
These people don’t write so good, which makes you trust them even more, and as luck would have it, you are in fact a gardener, or cultivator, given your job is at a high-end nursery where piece-of-shit tech-yuppies can buy expensive novelty plants for their luxury apartments.
You are drunk, yes, you hate this fucking place, but you know you’re not that drunk. You just know you want to move to this place immediately, especially when you learn its name: Home.
Unfortunately, the anarchist commune described above no longer exists, at least in its anarchist incarnation.
It still exists as an unincorporated community called Home, Washington, its population over 1,000 as of 2023. At its height as an anarchist commune, Home housed nearly 1,000 anarchists, spreading to both sides of a small inlet of the Salish Sea.—
It’s been so surreal watching Western rightists babbling about how savage and barbaric Muslim culture is amid the 2023 zombie resurrection of Bush-era Islamophobia, even while Western civilization amasses a mountain of 10 thousand child corpses.
What we see in Gaza is a much better representation of what Western civilization is really about than all the gibberish about freedom and democracy we learned in school.
Israeli forces bombing the Gaza Strip on Oct. 10. (Al Araby, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
When Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the assault on Gaza as a war “to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization,” he wasn’t really lying. He was telling the truth — just maybe not quite in the way that he meant it.
The demolition of Gaza is indeed being perpetrated in defense of Western values and is itself a perfect embodiment of Western values. Not the Western values they teach you about in school, but the hidden ones they don’t want you to look at. Not the attractive packaging with the advertising slogans on the label, but the product that’s actually inside the box.
For centuries Western civilization has depended heavily on war, genocide, theft, colonialism and imperialism, which it has justified using narratives premised on religion, racism and ethnic supremacy — all of which we are seeing play out in the incineration of Gaza today.
What we are seeing in Gaza is a much better representation of what Western civilization is really about than all the gibberish about freedom and democracy we learned about in school.
A much better representation of Western civilization than all the art and literature we’ve been proudly congratulating ourselves on over the centuries.
A much better representation of Western civilization than the love and compassion we like to pretend our Judeo-Christian values revolve around.
It’s been so surreal watching Western rightists babbling about how savage and barbaric Muslim culture is amid the 2023 zombie resurrection of Bush-era Islamophobia, even while Western civilization amasses a mountain of 10 thousand child corpses.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Herzog in Tel Aviv on Nov. 3. (State Department, Chuck Kennedy)
That mountain of child corpses is a much better representation of Western culture than anything Mozart, da Vinci or Shakespeare ever produced.
This is Western civilization. This is what it looks like.
Western civilization, where Julian Assange awaits his final appeal in February against U.S. extradition for journalism which exposed US war crimes.
Where we are kept distracted by vapid entertainment and artificial culture wars so we don’t think too hard about what this civilization is and who it is killing and maiming and starving and exploiting.
Where news cycles are dominated more by celebrity gossip and Donald Trump’s latest mouth farts than by the mass atrocities that are being actively facilitated by Western governments.
Where liberals congratulate themselves for having progressive views on race and gender while the officials they elect help rip apart children’s bodies with military explosives.
Where Zionist Jews center themselves and their emotions because opposition to an active genocide makes them feel like they are being persecuted, and where Israel supporters who are not Jewish still kind of feel like they are being persecuted also.
Where a giant globe-spanning empire powered by militarism, imperialism, capitalism and authoritarianism devours human flesh with an insatiable appetite while we congratulate ourselves on how much better we are than nations like Iran or China.
These are Western values. This is Western civilization.
Ask somebody to tell you what their values are and they’ll give you a bunch of pleasant-sounding words about family and love and caring or whatever. Watch their actions to see what their actual values are and you’ll often get a very different story.
That’s us. That’s Western civilization. We say we value freedom, justice, truth, peace and free expression, but our actions paint a very different picture. The real Western values, the actual product inside the box underneath the attractive label, are the ones you see acted out in Gaza today.
You are drunk, yes, but you know you’re not that drunk. You just know you want to move to this place immediately, especially when you learn its name: Home.
–Revolution, Ferdinand Freiligrath, 1850, as quoted by the anarchist Hugo Kalmar in The Iceman Cometh, Eugene O’Neill, 1946
Step 1:
You are sitting in a shitty bar, in San Francisco, and your life also happens to be shitty. Most of the people around you are actual pieces of shit, and the few who aren’t have shitty lives similar to yours.
Why is your life so shitty? In part, it’s because you don’t even live in San Francisco, you just work here because this is the walled castle-city where all the money is, and over half of the people who seem to actually live in this dystopian hell-hole are miserable, dog-shit tech zombies.
Sometimes you talk with them, but mostly both of you are too depressed to say anything meaningful. However, on this particular night, they hand you a newspaper and say it seems interesting. The title of the newspaper isThe New Era.
It grows hot, O Babylon! ‘Tis cool beneath thy willow trees!
Instead of look at the piece-of-shit totalitarian surveillance device (ie: smartphone) sitting by your half-empty alcoholic beverage, you instead read The New Era.
Almost immediately, you begin to realize this paper is something you’ve never seen before.
In the first article, you find this sentence: The columns of this paper will be open to the discussion of any topic that tends to better humankind’s conditions, and to give them the absolute freedom that is theirs by right, and that no generation, of the past, present, or future, may in any manner abridge.
The language is a bit odd, but you generally approve.
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In the next article, you realize this New Era was printed as a way to bring people north to an anarchist commune in Washington State, about a 13 hour drive away.
They have formed something called the Mutual Home Association, and its only objective is to assist its members in obtaining and building homes for themselves and to aid in establishing better social and moral conditions.
In plain words, they state that any person over the age of 16 years may become a member of this association by paying into the treasury a sum equal to the value of the land he or she may select… a sum equal to the taxes assessed against the tract of land he or she may hold and his or her share of the common expenses of construction.
The moment some doubt about this whole scheme creeps into your thoughts, it instantly disappears when you learn that all money received from membership shall be used only for the purchase of land.
The real estate of this association shall never be sold, mortgaged, or disposed of. A unanimous vote of all members of the association shall be required to alter the article of incorporation. All certificates of membership shall be for life.
As far as you can tell, this commune is all about creating places to live for its members, cheaply, and with all its resources.
You read the next article, trying to figure out if this is actually just the front for some weird cult, but then you read this: we believe that all natural opportunities should be absolutely free, and that land isthe most essential to the maintenance of life and happiness of human beings.
We have formulated a plan, whereby those interested in making a home for themselves with good surroundings and at the same time place a small area of land outside the realms of speculation and its evil effects can do so.
We propose to do this by incorporating as an association, so that all land may be deeded direct to the association, thereby putting it out of the power of any one individual, to sell, mortgage of dispose of the land, as might be done were there individual deeds.
This seems pretty reassuring, even if you are drunk, and you’re even more enthusiastic when you see this very anti-cult sentiment printed in the columns: a group of socialists here can have their officers, by-laws, rules, and any regulations they may choose, but they can not force their ideas upon others who think and act differently.
And so, knowing this is probably not a cult, but a bunch of people tired of paying rent, you happily read the final sentence of this article: the more restriction you place upon the movements and desires of human beings, the greater the unhappiness of the people, and the more they will resent it.
As far as you can tell, for around $2,000, not even half of your life-savings, you can secure the right to build a house on two acres of land, which will be yours for life, and what’s even crazier, these New Era folks will help you, given they have a saw-mill, meaning you won’t need to buy lumber from Home Depot.
It sounds fake for just one more moment, but then you see the prominent ad on the back page:
These people don’t write so good, which makes you trust them even more, and as luck would have it, you are in fact a gardener, or cultivator, given your job is at a high-end nursery where piece-of-shit tech-yuppies can buy expensive novelty plants for their luxury apartments.
You are drunk, yes, you hate this fucking place, but you know you’re not that drunk. You just know you want to move to this place immediately, especially when you learn its name: Home.
Unfortunately, the anarchist commune described above no longer exists, at least in its anarchist incarnation.
It still exists as an unincorporated community called Home, Washington, its population over 1,000 as of 2023. At its height as an anarchist commune, Home housed nearly 1,000 anarchists, spreading to both sides of a small inlet of the Salish Sea.—
Diarmuid Breatnach (Reading time: 4 mins.) If we truly want to help the Palestinians, we need to stop calling for a “ceasefire” and also stop calling for implementation of the “two state” option. A ceasefire is a temporary measure agreed between or imposed on all the belligerents in an armed conflict and indeed the Irish […]
The Free 