When the Trumpets Blare

Allah says that when the Trumpet is blown for the Resurrection, and the people rise from their graves,there will be no kinship among them that day, nor will they ask about one another, meaning that lineage will be of no avail on that Day, and a father will not ask about his son or care about him.

And no friend will ask a friend about his condition, though they shall be made to see one another, meaning no relative will ask about another relative, even if he can see him and even if he is carrying a heavy burden. Even if he was the dearest of people to him in this world, he will not care about him or take even the slightest part of his burden from him.

That Day shall a man flee from his brother. And from his mother and his father. And from his wife and his children.

 

On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will gather the first and the last, then a voice will call out, `Whoever is owed something by another, let him come forth and take it.' And a man will rejoice if he is owed something or had been mistreated by his father or child or wife, even if it is little.

Then, when the Trumpet is blown, there will be no kinship among them that Day, nor will they ask of one another.

Then, those whose Scales are heavy, these! they are the successful. The one whose good deeds outweigh his bad deeds, even by one. And those whose Scales are light means their evil deeds outweigh their good deeds.

 

Oh, that good old Koran story about the end of days! The end of times as outlined in Islamic writings is one of the very finest religious apocalyptic scenarios around: rich in detail, vivid, and far reaching in religious implications. No wonder so many Muslims are deeply convinced judgment day (`Qiyamah', in Koran terminology) will come about one day.

So here's what will happen. The Koran discerns `minor' and `major' omens predicting the end of days. Many of the `minor' omens (there are 72 signs in total) are already here for everybody to be seen. Men will behave more like women and women will imitate men. Men will dress in silk. Children will be disobedient, and youngsters will be role-models. People who used to be shepherds will build tall buildings.

And there's more. Many will engage in dangerous sports, divorces will be a daily occurrence and people will favour their friends over their families. Liquor will be consumed in the streets, and dancing and wild music will be everywhere. Religious leaders will make worldly profits, while intellectuals rather engage in science than in the study of religion. Also, there will be the usual apocalyptic rumble-a-bumble: earthquakes, devastating wars, storms and floods. If you add things up, it looks like the end of days is quite near, don't you think?

 

Well, don't worry -- yet. When time's up, you can't miss it. For the signs will become more and more grotesque. One after another, they roll in like `a string of beads falling one after the other', as the prophet Muhammad put it.

As a first sign the countdown to doomsday is ending, nature displays some very odd phenomena. You'll notice red winds sweeping across the country. Some people find their face gets malformed -- hey, isn't that a pig's face? Others are even less fortunate: everywhere, people are suddenly swallowed into the ground.

Then a cataclysmic religious war breaks out. It's Muslims versus Christians, and soon after the outbreak of war, half of the Christian armies sign a peace treaty with the Muslims. The Muslim-Christian coalition conquers Istanbul, while the `bad' Christians conquer Syria. But that all changes when the Christian army starts heading for Mecca. Suddenly, the ground cracks open and gone are the Christians.

Well, that doesn't mean war is over. The Muslims raid the Middle East, lose two thirds of their army but in the end win back Syria and Palestine. Immediately, they declare Holy War (Jihad) on India -- and win.

You find all this warfare a bit boring? Just wait, more miraculous things are about to happen. As peace settles down in the Muslim empire (that by now stretches from the Middle East deeply into Asia), the world is plagued by a severe drought that lasts three years.

After that, suddenly a very creepy character shows up. Al-Dajjal is his name. And he actually is the Muslim anti-Christ. Well-educated Muslims will instantly recognise the guy: he is short, red-faced, has hair that sticks up and is blind at the right eye. The false prophet inspires vast amounts of followers anyhow: 70,000 heavily armed believers join the bad guy.

Gladly, in the meantime another chap comes to power: Al-Mahdi. Now Al-Mahdi is there to keep the balance between good and bad. He is a military leader, is named after the prophet and of course calls everyone to the true Islam as often as he can.

It takes a third miracle man to break down the stalemate between Al-Dajjal and Al-Mahdi: Jesus. Yes, you read that right: when the world is about to end, Muslims too expect Jesus -- `Isa' in the Koran -- to return from heaven. It is a miraculous thing to see, since Isa returns with much dramatic display: he descends from the sky in Damascus while a mass prayer is going on. If you're a Christian, you're in for a big surprise: without an eye's blink, Jesus denounces Christianity and calls upon everybody to convert to Islam.

(Exit Mundi)

 

Pelican/The Creeper

Swans/Why Are We Alive

Russian Circles/When The Mountain Comes to Muhammad

Converge/Cruel Bloom

Bonnie Prince Billy/Cycles

Jodis/Little Beast

Xerrox/Soma

 

A Dark Star Approaches…

The idea that Earth has been visited by aliens at some point in the distant past is not a new one. In Sumer, the alien Gods were known as the Anunnaki. While in Greece, they are known as Annodoti and in the Celtic lore, the Tuatha de Danaan. Tthe Semetic scriptures (Torah, Talmud, Old Testament, and other Apocryphal texts like the Book of Enoch), call them The Nephilim, The Sons of God, or The Watchers.

We are told the gods themselves had their own monarchy, with laws of succession similar to our own, and they built a global empire upon the Earth, with great cities, temples and monuments, and mighty nations established on several continents. They created mankind as a slave race to work on their farms and in their gold mines, among other things. The Sumerian legends are very clear: man was made to bear the yoke of the gods. Man was separate from the gods, like a domesticated animal, and there was a great cultural taboo amongst the gods against sharing any of their sacred information with humanity, even things such as writing and mathematics. These gods ruled directly over Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, and their rule is recorded in the histories of all three civilizations.

At some point, the legends tell us some of the gods broke rank. This is again recorded in just about every culture on Earth that has a written or oral history of legends. Some of the gods, finding human females most appealing, intermarried with them (breaking, of course, a major taboo within their own culture), and creating a race of human/god hybrids.

Zacharia Sitchin, an expert in ancient Semitic and Hebrew languages, offers the premise that mythology is the repository of ancient memory, the Bible is a historic and scientific document, and ancient civilizations were the product of knowledge given to the people by the Anunnaki. The Biblical verses dealing with the fashioning of The Adam are condensed renderings of much more detailed Sumerian and Akkadian texts, found etched on clay tablets, in which the role of the Elohim in Genesis is performed by the Anunnaki "Those Who From Heaven to Earth Came." Inscribed in Cuneiform, the worlds first written language, these Sumerian tablets and cylinder seals have been available since the 1800's and are currently dispersed among many museums worldwide.

The recovered records place the location of the Anunnaki laboratory where the first humans were said to have been literally produced in central Africa. Indeed, Mitochondria DNA places the first homo-sapiens sapiens in the same time frame and location; in east central Africa just above their gold mines.

In a lecture at New York University in 1993, Sitchin further outlined his theory about human origins and our link with the Anunnaki by saying, “Ancient history and legend around the world, as well as the Bible, attest to the fact that there were once giants in the earth; men of awesome dimensions, bulk and height.

In Genesis 6:1-4 we read, "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose... There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, that they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown".

These actions (the interbreeding and sharing of secrets with humans) incurred the wrath of the Most High God, and a number of other gods who were disgusted by this interracial breeding. This sparked the massive and devastating battle of the gods that has come down to us in the legends of both the War in Heaven, and the Deluge. Then, in order to cleanse the Earth’s surface of the curse of humanity, they covered it with a flood. Interestingly, this flood is mentioned in the legends of almost every ancient culture on Earth.

These Anunnaki are said to occupy another planet in our solar system (known to scientists as 'Planet X'). This planet is called Nibiru, and is situated somewhere beyond Pluto. This planet, unlike other planets in our solar system, moves clockwise, rather than counter clockwise. It was a collision of Nibiru with another planet in our solar system which created Earth.

Nibiru's orbit passes through our solar system only once every 3,600 years, which is equal to one Nibiru year. The Mesopotamian and biblical sources present strong evidence that the orbital period of the 12th Planet is 3,600 years. The number 3,600 was written in Sumerian as a large circle. The epithet for the planet, shar, also meant "a perfect circle" or "a completed cycle". It also meant the number 3,600. The identity of the three terms - planet/orbit/3,600 - could not be a mere coincidence. The reign periods (a Sumerian text) gives are also perfect multiples of the 3,600 year shar. The conclusion that suggests itself is that these shar's of rulership were related to the orbital period shar, 3,600 years.

When Planet X enters our immediate solar system, its effects are far reaching, even at a distance. With it close the sun regularly discharges major solar flares even during a solar minimum. Much extra electrical energy reaches earth as a result. Interplay begins between the electromagnetic fields of the planets, along with our sun. Some of the earlier effects are unusual weather changes becoming normal, an up-tick in seismic and volcanic activity, melting of our poles, along with the overall ensuing environmental adaptations. These effects are typically things that are being blamed on particles from our dirty civilization or what is known as global warming.

The closer Planet X gets to our immediate solar system and earth, the more dramatic are its effects. It is believed that what we have termed Ice Ages, were in fact pole shifts. The gravitational pull upon our core, during its pass, can be great enough to dislodge our crust, resulting in a slip over the core. Described as "the slipping peach skin effect", if you hold a peach in your hand long enough, the skin will loosen and can then be slipped over the flesh of the fruit.

All the people of the ancient world considered the periodic nearing of the 12th Planet as a sign of great upheavals, great changes, and new eras. The Mesopotamian texts spoke of the planet's periodic appearance as an anticipated, predictable, and observable event: "The great planet, at his appearance dark red."

The day itself was described by the Old Testament as a time of rains, inundation's, and earthquakes. If we think of the Old Testament (hebrew) based biblical passages as referring, like their Mesopotamian counterparts, to the passage in Earth's vicinity of a large planet with a strong gravitational pull, the words of Isaiah can be plainly understood: "From a far away land they came, from the end-point of Heaven do the Lord and his weapons of wrath come to destroy the whole Earth. Therefore will I agitate the Heaven and Earth shall be shaken out of its place. When the Lord of Hosts shall be crossing, the day of his burning wrath."

Servotron/ People Mover

The B-52's/ Whammy Kiss

Louis + Bebe Barron/ Forbidden Planet Overture (Reprise)

Simply Saucer/ Here Come the Cyborgs (Part 1)

The Urinals/ Last Days Of Man On Earth

Angus MacLise/ Tunnel Music #1

Cluster/ Caramel

Chrome/ New Age

Heinz Funk Electronic Combo/ Space Machine

Roky Erickson & the Aliens/ Creature With The Atom Brain

William Shatner / Rocket Man

The Anunnaki are a belligerent and conquering race. They are fierce, evil, lustful, incestuous, bloodthirsty, deceitful, jealous and domineering. They are also carnivorous and are often cannibalistic. They also demand human sacrifices of virgins from those they conquer and from their own kind whom they enslave.

Wherever the Anunnaki went and conquered, they consolidated the people into densely populated communities so they could better force the people to work for them and to control them physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and economically as slaves. They control by instilling fear and keeping the people ignorant. The Anunnaki Remnants are now amongst us. They are our current puppet masters who manipulate and control the world. At present, the cloning of humans, animals and plants are common activities with these aliens in our midst. This diabolical scheme is not known to the general public and it will be vehemently denied by the world leaders and their minions, as they await the return of their masters riding in the wake of their Dark Star.

Superior Universal Alignment

Valentina de Andrade received her gift of prophecy in 1981. Her neighbors found her talents of clairvoyance and fortune telling remarkable, and she became a trusted seer in the backwater Amazonian town of Altamira. She was also the leader of "Lineamiento Universal Superior" (L.U.S. -- Superior Universal Alignment), a group that believed that the end of the world would come in 1986, with extraterrestrial space ships saving only the sect's followers.

Valentina's preaching started in 1981 after having received extraterrestrial messages through divine cosmic beings. Valentina embarked upon her mission to spread the information she had received. Her teachings were to be found in her book God, The Big Farce, claiming that God does not exist, that Jesus is an extraterrestrial, and she assumes the mantle of a lofty cosmic entity of "light, love and truth", which had become incarnate on Earth to perform a mission.

A central pillar to the beliefs of Superior Universal Alignment is that children born after 1981 are a reincarnation of evil and must be expunged. To become a member, one must abandon one's children and only the true adherents were to avoid the pending destruction of the earth by escaping in a spacecraft.

As with many “apocalypse cults” of the past, the coming and going of the date for the end of the earth left many followers unsettled. Certain core members believed that maybe they had not lived the word to its fullest, that they had proven themselves unworthy. In 1989 the children in and around Altamira started going missing.

19 children disappeared and 5 corpses were found between 1989 and 1993. The children were boys between the ages of 8 and 13, tortured, raped and stabbed to death. The bodies had been mutilated with genitals and vital organs removed. The region was in a panic and the police initiated seven separate investigations. Though several of the children were indigent, making a living as “shoe shine boys” in the town center, the police couldn’t seem to make a connection and the probes went nowhere.

The break came with the escape of 9 year old Wandiclei Pinheiro. Indentifying his captors as influential members of society (the son of a very wealthy local land baron, two physicians, a policeman as well as Valentina herself) the truths sent shockwaves through southern Brazil. The story that unfolded painted a picture of ritualistic human sacrifice and cannibalization with the doctors removing the organs to sell on the black market.

Four of the men were arrested immediately. Valentina escaped custody by fleeing the country. She remained highly mobile for the next decade, spending time in Argentina, Uruguay and at one point even Las Vegas.

Coven/ Satanic Mass

Riz Ortolani/ Massacre of The Troupe

Sir Richard Bishop/ Blood-Stained Sands

Six Organs of Admittance/ Eighth Cognition/ All You've Left

Boduf Songs/ I Can't See a Thing in Here

Los Jaivas/ Que O La Tumba Serás

Orthodox/ Marcha De La Santa Sangre

Broadcast & The Focus Group/ A Seancing Song

Delia Derbyshire/ The Wizards Laboratory

To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie/ The Needle

The five were eventually collected and put on trial in 2003. Though the other four were convicted and given life sentences, de Andrade once again escaped due to an alibi which placed her out of the area when the murders were committed.

Valentina de Andrade, now 82, continues to live and preach among her flock in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Mother of His Country

 

George Washington is famous for having said “I cannot tell a lie. But a startling discovery of the secret diaries of America’s first president reveals that his entire life was in fact, a lie.

“George Washington was actually born Georgia Washington!” revealed Mount Vernon Museum caretaker Perry Wygge. “Which makes him even more remarkable, since he refused to be bound by the conventions of the time. Bound by a full-body corset, yes. But not by outmoded regulations.”

Discovered appropriately enough, in a large forgotten chest, the diaries bear out the restless indignation that posessed even young Georgia.

“Truly am I weary of the treatment afforded women in this world,” 14-year old Georgia wrote in 1746. “Am I condemned to a life of being handmaiden because of my birth gender?”

Georgia’s best friend growing up on the banks of Virginia’s Potomac River was her older half brother Lawrence.

“Oh that I could be as Lawrence, riding and hunting and acting as lord of the manor,” the young girl wrote.

Her parents could not understand their tomboy daughter longing for the rough and tumble adventures of a young lad.

“Mother would have me spend my days in girlish frills, spinning yarn,” the sobbing girl confessed in her diary on her 11th birthday on February 22, 1743. The tear stains are actually still visible on the ink. “I cannot. I will not”

Another influence on her life was the wealthy Fairfax family. Georgia was especially drawn to Lord Fairfax, an outdoorsman with a passion for fox hunting who seemed to understand Georgia’s manly tendencies.

“He cares not that I dress in britches and refuse to ride side saddle,” the future president wrote. “He knows only that I handle my mount and chase down the fox as well as any man. He calls me ‘George’ a title I wear with pride.”

Georgia’s transformation to George was helped by the fact that, like her mother, she was uncommonly tall and. in her own words, “most unfortunately homely for a woman, though passable for a man.”

In 1754, the sympathetic Fairfax family helped “George” get a commission in the Virginia militia, and for the next five years Major Washington commanded me during the French and Indian Wars. The skills learned here would make George the hero of the American Revolution.

“not even the most battle hardened old soldier, questions my masculinity.” Georgia wrote with relief. “that is gratifying, since it is difficult to control the desire I oft feel for many of my troops.

“Indeed, my one regret is that I shall live my life alone,” he went one. “Though I could woo a lass, what woman would want me once the truth were known?”

Yet in 1758 Georgia found herself drawn to Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy Virginia widow. The attraction seemed mutual and, one night, Georgia confessed her secret to Martha…who had a secret of her own.

“I was born Martin,” she told him. “Once I donned one of those happy white wigs, I knew I couldn’t stop there.”

They married in 1759. Gerogia resigned from the military and settled into life with Martin at the Mount Vernon estate. When the American Revolution erupted in 1776, the highly respected officer was chosen to command the Continental army.

“Betsy Ross sews flags,” he wrote. “Abigail Adams, though as wise as her husband, minds the farm while John serves in the Congress. Our new nation when we build one, must be changed.”

On October 19, 1781 Englands army, the most powerful on Earth, surrendered to General Georgia Washington and her ragtag troops.

“I have proved, if only to my satisfaction, that a woman is the equal of any man.”

LITE/ Ghost Dance

Swervedriver/ Last Train To Satansville

No Age/ You're A Target

Dead Meadow/ Shivering King

The Velvet Underground / Candy Says

Black Mountain/ Don't Run Our Hearts Around (Live ATP 9th Dec 07)

Evangelista/ On The Captain's Side

Angelic Upstarts/ Woman In Disguise

Seu Jorge/ Rebel Rebel

Though Georgia was content to return to Mount Vernon, the public was not yet done with her. she was unanimously elected as the new nation’s first president and would serve two terms before retiring for good. Georgia Washington went to her grave without anyone ever learning that the greatest leader of his time was, in reality, a woman or that, the first lady was actually the first man.

“This sort of makes the Clinton’s seem positively mainstream, doesn’t it?” asked Perry Wygge. “It just goes to show the the private life of a president has nothing to do with how well he—or she—does the job.”

Vorovskoy Mir

It had for centuries been a wholly closed society. Extravagantly depraved and despairing, rejecting morality, politics, patriotism and even social intercourse with the outside world. The Thieve’s World...Vorovskoy Mir...this is the name given to the direct predecessor of the Russian mafia. 

Born in a time when all property was owned in theory, by the Tsar, felonies were not only crimes, they were attacks on the state. Organized crime in Tsarist Russian developed into a highly ritualized secret society. A society complete with it's own complicated customs and traditions, strict rules and codes of honor. Members distinguished themselves from one another using an elaborate series of tattoos. These told the story of where the man had been and what he had accomplished. One rule above all others ruled The Thieves' World: Never sell out to the state.

The extermination of Vorovskoy Mir was of primary importance to Vladimir Lenin upon his ascension to power through the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. They were too powerful, too anti authoritarian, and they needed to be eliminated. Members were hunted ruthlessly and tirelessly during the early years of the Soviet Union. By the 1930's the whole of the culture, what was left of it, had been shifted to the infamous Soviet gulag.

Within the walls of the prison camps the tradition of the tattoo came even more to the fore. Created through the use of melted rubber to color the skin, these tattoos reached a whole new level of ornate design. They would detail a man's life story: his level and rank within the prison and the criminal world, where he had done time, what crimes he had committed.  The location and design of a specific tattoo were recognized as sending a specific message to those who would observe them.

The Thieves World could very well have died within Stalin's prison camps, yet history intervened. The German invasion and World War 2 would set off a chain of events that would transform Vorovskoy Mir into the most powerful and ruthless criminal organization on Earth: The Red Mafiya.

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The Soviets lost 20 million people to the Germans during World War 2. Facing huge manpower shortages Stalin offered those languishing in the gulags a deal: fight for the Motherland and they would gain their freedom. This experience allowed the members of the Thieves World to gain knowledge in the use of arms and see the impact of an organized effort toward a particular goal. Military experience provided the training needed to create a more organized system for these ex-prisoners when the war would come to an end. In many cases near the end of the war weapons and valuables were collected for use in the future.

Come the end of the war the prisoners did not gain their freedom however. They were returned the gulags from whence they came. This set the stage for the second conflict that would shape that which would become the Red Mafiya. From 1945 to Stalin's death a civil war, and a series of brutal killing sprees raged in the prisons between those who had fought for the Soviets and those who refused to take the deal and were left behind; the Bitch Wars.  Inmates who had refused to serve in the military believed that the ones who did serve, called "bitches" by the inmates, had broken the most sacred rule of the culture; they had sold out to the state.

Each faction attempted to destroy the other and control in the camp and prison systems swung to one faction to the other over time. While the two factions fought with each other, both factions could not help but also learn from each other. Each side did have in common distrust and rejection toward the powers of the Soviets and this bound over time to bring an end to the constant warfare and created a new and better-organized movement.

 

Stalin's death brought wide release from the prison camps and a return to greater Soviet society. he new organization quickly reassembled itself in the new a more liberal society and began to form opportunities to expand its operations. The stash of weapons gained through the war and the cooperation formed through the prison wars had developed an organized that was much more organized and specific goal oriented that the organizations that had existed prior to WWII. Even more important the new efforts of the Soviet government to create a more liberal society, as a reaction the years of autocratic Stalinist rule, provided opportunities of expansion for the new organized crime movements. With the attempts to lessen complete government control, room was provided to the crime organizations to flourish taking advantage of the rationing and call for sacrifice during the war that was being replaced for a call for more consumer goods and expansion of business opportunities. These new crime organizations were more than willing to provide what was needed to meet post-war needs and demands. A bond of corruption created links between the organizations of crime and the membership of the Communist Party. Links that would in the future allow the “Russian Mafia” to rise to a level that placed it in many cases on the par of Party control. This new situation was shifting power to the crime organizations, that could cut through the miles of government red tape in the providing of services and goods.

By the 1960s, a vibrant black market was operating in the Soviet Union, with the gangsters acting as unofficial middlemen, circulating privately produced goods or state materials with the tacit cooperation of the factory managers and civil servants. As profits grew, elements within the Vorovskoi Mir began to work more closely with the government officials in their regions. By the time perestroika began in the 1980's, the line between the Vorovskoi mMir and the Soviet government was difficult to distinguish. Both groups had amassed fortunes through the black market and corruption. In fact, Soviet prosecutors first used the word mafiya to describe corrupt Soviet bureaucrats.

Schaatz/ Esterel Halliday

An Albatross/ Floodgates Released

HEALTH/ Death +

Mew/ Nervous

Harmonia & Eno '76/ Sometimes In Autumn (Shackleton Remix)

Mouse on the Keys / Saigo no Bansan

Wooden Shjips/ Blue Sky Bends

Nervous Sex/ Wasp Meat

Flower Travellin' Band / Kamikaze

As the Soviet government fell in the early 1990's, it was this group that had the will, knowledge and strength to grab the power, ushering in the age of the oligarch. The unusual coalition of professional criminals, former members of the underground economy, members of the former Party elite, and the police formed a group that transcends traditional conceptions of organized crime groups. It has created a political and economic power of a criminal class more powerful and advanced than anything Russia has ever experienced before. Here was an organization that bound the power of the government and the gangs, operating with resources and global reach previously reserved only for the nation state.

Grand Odinist Party: New Normandy Reich of Theodish Belief

The Reik is, in essence, the Web of Oaths that binds the Folk together in vor tru (our faith); as much as it is a "church", it is also a systematic tether, which binds those of our Thiud together as a tribe of inter-dependant clans and rooftrees.  Normandy clings to the values and principles of retro-tribalism and takes the cultural context and tribal dynamics of our ancestors and works them into a modern expression. It is not for the timid, it is not an easy path, but it is Vor Normannitas, Our Own Normanness, and therefore worth our tireless efforts.

With an annual cycle of fainings (celebrations) held throughout the year in various places around the northeast United States, our Tribe gathers together as often as possible to honor our Gods, especially our Patron Tiw.

(via Village Voice)

The Queens Tribune reported that a conservative Republican was running a strong race in the 19th district and had a chance to win in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. But this was a conservative Republican with a difference: Dan Halloran is the spiritual leader of a local pagan group that worships Norse gods.

Although the Tribune's story had no hint of derision for Halloran's religious affiliation, the newspaper was immediately attacked for its perceived ties to Halloran's Democratic opponent. Other publications were quick to defend the Republican lawyer, some sounding offended that a candidate's religion, however unusual, should become a news story during an election.

But Halloran's beliefs are newsworthy. As far as we can tell, he has a chance to become the first pagan elected to political office in the country's history. (He is certainly the first major party candidate approaching an election with his pagan beliefs already made public.) And while pagans have been growing in numbers for decades, the word "pagan" usually conjures nature-worshippers with interests in faeries and magick. What is a conservative Republican doing with the goddess crowd?

In fact, Halloran and his fellow travelers are more properly thought of as "heathens," not pagans, and the tribal customs they ascribe to are heavy on hierarchy and tradition.

As the Tribune first pointed out, Halloran is "First Atheling," or prince, of a Germanic neo-heathenist "theod" or tribe. State records show that he incorporated the group in 2002 with the official name of "New Normannii Reik of Theodish Belief."

 

Colloquially, Halloran's followers refer to their tribe as "New Normandy," with a territory that incorporates New York City and parts of New Jersey (some of Halloran's Pennsylvania tribesmen recently broke away -- with his blessing -- to form their own group, which they call "Arfstoll Thjod").

After talking with several members of the local theods and looking at what Halloran and others have written, the Germanic neo-heathenism of New Normandy appears to be an inclusive, family-friendly pursuit. Local members enjoy researching history, dressing up, and trying as much as possible to live within the customs and beliefs that one might find in 12th century pagan Denmark while actually living and working in 21st century New York.

 
But there's also a darker side to the heathenism movement in America. Festering in the country's prisons, white supremacists who call themselves heathens and Odinists (after the chief Norse deity Odin), have for decades preached hate and carried out violence in the name of Norse and Germanic mythic figures -- who also inspired Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Hate watchdogs like the Southern Poverty Law Center have long warned about the rise of heathen prison gangs.

 

(read the rest here)

 

Darkthrone/Transilvanian Hunger

Burzum/Jesu Dod

Bathory/Sacrifice

Satyricon/Min Hyllest Til Vinterland

Emperor/Towards the Pantheon

 

New Normandy is dedicated to reviving the folkways of the northern European people. It is our hope to reconstruct those folkways in order to strengthen our bonds of community, friendship, and family. In that sense, we emulate the ancient Normans, descendents of the Scandinavians, whose bravery helped them change the course of history. We are doing nothing less than re-forging the ancient ties of belonging to a tribe, and there is no greater gratification than belonging to something meaningful, and larger than yourself.

We practice this folkway, known as Théodish Belief, which emphasizes the bonds of the community and the development of a worldview and cultural ethos that our ancient forebears would have honored, and uses these tools to to forge a connection between the individual and the divine. We believe in and honor the Gods and Goddesses of the North, spirits of the land, and the memories of our ancestors.

Ours is not an easy path to follow, but our halls are open to all who believe they have what it takes to face the fires of ordeal that the modern world throws at them.

The Plot Thickens…

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal is widely lauded in today's history books as a bold measure to stem the tide and reverse the rot of the Great Depression. This despite the fact that U.S. domestic policy actual in subsequent decades, has done everything in it's power to dismantle said measures. However much like activist measures originating from the left today, the New Deal (and by extension Roosevelt) was reviled and feared by the right wing corporate ruling class of the 1930's.

In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen and plutocrats were in a panic. They believed it to be clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. They also believed that Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs, including if necessary, by military coup.

To to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. This included some of America's richest and most famous names of the time:

• Irenee Du Pont - Right-wing chemical industrialist and founder of the American Liberty League, the organization assigned to execute the plot.
• Grayson Murphy - Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks.
• William Doyle - Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup.
• John Davis - Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan.
• Al Smith - Roosevelt's bitter political foe from New York. Smith was a former governor of New York and a codirector of the American Liberty League.
• John J. Raskob - A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. In later decades, Raskob would become a "Knight of Malta," a Roman Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone.
• Robert Clark - One of Wall Street's richest bankers and stockbrokers.
• Gerald MacGuire - Bond salesman for Clark, and a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion.

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In 1933 the fascist model that was sweeping Europe was widely admired and supported by many members of the American corporate elite.  Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, John and Allen Dulles (who, besides being millionaires, would later become Eisenhower's Secretary of State and CIA Director, respectively), Prescott Bush (future U.S. Senator for Connecticut and father and grandfather to two future American Presidents) were all very public in their admiration of Hitler and Mussolini. Even going so far to invest heavily in Italy and Germany during the fascist period. There was great respect for a leader like Mussolini who dealt strongly with labor unions, put down social unrest and put industry and business first. The fact that it was done at the barrel of a gun was inconsequential. The leaders of what has become know as "The Business Plot" felt that it was high time that a fascist leadership model be implemented within the United States.

"We need a fascist government in this country… to save the nation from the communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America..." --Gerald MacGuire

Gerald MacGuire was installed as the point man for the plotters. Upon traveling to Europe to study and gather information on fascist systems he noticed that both Hitler and Mussolini had been swept to power upon the backs of thousands of jobless and disaffected World War 1 veterans as shock troops. The cabal behind The Business Plot felt that the same conditions existed and therefore could be exploited their own ends in the United States. This in light of the recent massacre of The Bonus Army (thousands of American WW1 veterans protesting for payment of promised compensation in 1932), driven out of Washinton D.C by Douglas MacArthur by bullets and teargas that left several dead and hundreds injured.

It was decided that all the plotters needed to tap into veteran rage was the proper leader. The man chosen to lead the coup was Marine General Smedley Butler. Butler, a two time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and one of the foremost military officers of his time, was incredibly popular with the veteran's movements of the era. He has also spent his career by his own admission as a tool of corporate interests.

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism....
“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
“During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
– Major-General Smedley Butler, 1933.

What the businessmen proposed was dramatic: they wanted General Butler to deliver an ultimatum to Roosevelt. Roosevelt would pretend to become sick and incapacitated from his polio, and allow a newly created cabinet officer, a "Secretary of General Affairs," to run things in his stead. The secretary, of course, would be carrying out the orders of Wall Street. If Roosevelt refused, then General Butler would force him out with an army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion.

MacGuire assured Butler the cover story would work:

"You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second…"

The leadership of The Business Plot had miscalculated in their selection however, Butler despite his dissatisfaction with current leadership, had zero interest in overthrowing the American government. He instead took on the role as a "double agent", playing along with the plotters in order to gather further information.

The plot fell apart when Butler went public. The general revealed the details of the coup before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, which would later become the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (In the 50s, this committee would destroy the lives of hundreds of innocent Americans with its communist witch hunts.) The Committee heard the testimony of Butler, but failed to call in any of the coup plotters for questioning, other than MacGuire. In fact, the Committee whitewashed the public version of its final report, deleting the names of powerful businessmen whose reputations they sought to protect. The most likely reason for this response is that Wall Street had undue influence in Congress also. Even more alarming, the elite-controlled media failed to pick up on the story, and even today the incident remains little known. The elite managed to spin the story as nothing more than the rumors and hearsay of Butler, even though Butler was a Quaker of unimpeachable honesty and integrity. Butler, appalled by the cover-up, went on national radio to denounce it, but with little success.

Butler was not vindicated until 1967, when journalist John Spivak uncovered the Committee's internal, secret report. It clearly confirmed Butler's story:

"In the last few weeks of the committee's life it received evidence showing that certain persons had attempted to establish a fascist organization in this country…
There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned and might have been placed in execution if the financial backers deemed it expedient…
MacGuire denied [Butler's] allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made to General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principle, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various form of veterans' organizations of Fascist character."

Baroness/ War, Wisdom and Rhyme

Goblin Cock/ Striped Tiger Snaps

Fuck Buttons/ Olympians

Rudimentary Peni/ Only Human

The Screamers/ In a Better World

Wire/ Strange

Throbbing Gristle/ The Man From Nowhere

Rorschach/ In The Year Of Our Lord

"The crucial events of the plot to seize the White House unfolded between July and November, 1933, with hearings before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee begun in New York City on November 20, 1934. On November 26 the committee released a statement detailing the testimony it had heard, and its preliminary findings. On February 15, 1935, the committee submitted to the House of Representatives its final report, verifying completely the testimony of General Butler.
"There is strong evidence to suggest that the conspirators may have been too important politically, socially, and economically to be brought to justice after their scheme had been exposed before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee of the House of Representatives. The largely anti-Roosevelt press of the New Deal era scotched the story as expeditiously as possible."

—Former House Speaker Edward McCormak