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JSP as Nepal's king-maker party
"I have given my word to Oli that I will not turn against him"
Nepali Times April 5, 2021
Illustration: DIWAKAR CHETTRI
The man of the week in Nepali politics is Mahant Thakur of the Janata Samajbadi Party. He is being courted by both the Maoist Centre, the Nepali Congress and the K P Oli-led UML.
The country has been mired in political games, ever since the Supreme Court restored the House of Representatives on 23 February. However, after the Supreme Court delivered its verdict to resuscitate NCP (UML) and NCP (Maoist Centre) on 7 March, there has been an impasse.
The UML is the largest party in the House with 121 seats. In order to attain majority, it needs the backing of one of the other parties in the house– the NC, Maoist Centre and Janata Samajbadi Party.
The Parliamentary arithmetic is such that the UML needs the JSP to form a new government, or to survive a possible no-confidence vote. The Maoist Centre can only withdraw its support for the UML if it can get the numbers from the NC and the JSP.
The NC itself requires the JSP MPs on its side to ally with the Maoist Centre. Which is why various political leaders have been making a bee line to the Mahant Thakur residence in Sano Thimi this past week.
The UML is not in favour of forging a partnership with NC, the chief opposition in the House, with 63 seats in the lower house. The Maoist Centre which has 54 MPs, have repeatedly stressed on withdrawing their support to the government at any given time. In this scenario, the 34 seats held by the JSP will be enough to bail out the government.
The leaders of the Oli faction say the possibility of forming a government with the JSP is "highly probable". As per the demand by the JSP for the release of Resham Chaudhary, the government has not just constituted a dialogue team, but the team has already started deliberations. So, is the JSP all set to form a coalition with the UML? Mahantha Thakur spoke to Nepali Times about his preference.
Nepali Times: You said recently in Janakpur that talks with Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli are progressing positively. Are the UML and the JSP inching close to an agreement regarding formation of a new government?
Mahant Thakur: We have held several rounds of discussions with Oli. He has said he will not resign and if the motion of no confidence comes up, he will face it and if the result does not favour him, then he will go for a fresh mandate. We have put forward our demands. The Prime Minister has sought the opinion of the Attorney General. He is seeking legal advice to decide on what procedure to adopt. This is why I said the dialogue was positive, but no decisions yet.
The Prime Minister has not given assurance to fulfill your demands?
PM Oli has said he will do his best regarding our demands. He gave us three options. First would be participating in the government. Second, would be to support the government from outside, and third, if we do not go with them, then we should not go anywhere. Our friends lost lives in jail, fighting for their rights. They were injured and even physically disabled. We will decide what to do after these issues are resolved.
What are your demands?
Release of prisoners, Constitution amendment to address citizenship-language issues. Most of the leaders of today have either made it by taking up arms or have been through prison sentences. All of them have already received clean chit. Our politics has never been for power. Cases have been filed against us because we were demonstrating for our rights. In just 13 districts of Madhes, there are 292 registered cases against more than 1,200 people.
Prachanda himself admits there are many cases against him, but those cases do not affect him. On the contrary, we are facing punishment for merely protesting to demand our legitimate rights. We had reached an agreement in writing with both Oli and Prachanda in the past on amending the Constitution, so that our demands could be addressed. But it was not implemented.
Can Resham Chaudhary and others who were convicted by courts also be released in the name of political consensus?
Resham Chaudhary was not present there on the day the Tikapur incident happened. He is not involved. The ones who were responsible for the massacre fled. Everyone is aware of the fact that Resham Chaudhary is innocent. He was victimised because where the incident occurred is a Tharu settlement.
Which of the parties do you think will more likely back your demands?
So many things are best left unsaid until the time is right. In the present context, the Nepali Congress who was expected to lead the government has stepped back, so it is not possible for them to address our demands. The House constituted for five years was dissolved by PM Oli within three years. Even though the Supreme Court has reinstated the House, Prachanda is protesting against Oli. Technically, they still have not separated from Oli. So there is no ground for us to be confident regarding support.
Has this indecision itself split your own party?
It has been less than a year since our party was unified. We had to reorganise the ranks during the merger. When a party unifies, it is not possible to keep the posts from the previous parties intact. Some positions might be annulled. That causes tension in the party. But whatever the decision, we have agreed to forge ahead as a unified party. We had agreed on every individual providing their own inputs during deliberations and making unanimous decisions when the merger happened. We will not back unilateral decisions.
Your name has also come up as a possible Prime Minister.
Madheshis are remembered only when there is a major crisis. People from the Madhes are brought to the forefront only when a mass is required during protests. During the premiership of Baburam Bhattarai, after Nepali Congress and UML declined to head towards the poll under his leadership, my name was suggested. Even now, the circumstance is dire and there seems to be public support, as well. But to actually be nominated as a Prime Minister, an agreement has to be reached in the House.
Oli has not offered you to become the Prime Minister?
No, he has said he will not resign.
Have Nepali Congress and Maoists offered the JSP leadership of a new government?
Both Congress and Maoist have sought our support. But they have not asked us to take leadership. During a meeting with us, Sher Bahadur Deuba said he would not table a no-confidence motion, but that if the offer of Prime Minister comes up, he would think about it. He offered to make a coalition government with our support, but we said that we would not form a coalition until our demands were met.
By when will your party decide whom to support in the government?
The first executive committee meeting scheduled for March could not be held due to inadequate preparations, as the political report to be presented at the meeting had not been finalised. More work is being done in the context of adjustment, so the meeting is yet to happen. Now that Holi is over, we will soon be fixing a date for the meeting. It will discuss our stance on the current political stalemate, among other things.
Full interview in Nepali in Himal Khabarpatrika: https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/122703
Buddha Air spurt in domestic flights
Nepal's 1st hydroelectric plant is a museum piece
Calm before another storm in Nepal February 24, 2021 Photo: SOCIAL MEDIA he morning after Nepal's Supreme Court reinstated the…


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September 4, 2017 archive
All-Clear Given at Texas Chemical Plant Fires
The evacuation zone was lifted Monday around the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas after flooding resulted in explosions and fires throughout the weekend. The Houston Chronicle reported a controlled burn destroyed six final trailers of decomposing chemicals, prompting authorities to life the 1.5-mile evacuation zone. "Arkema will continue to work with its neighbors and …
Nation's Largest Natural Gas Pipeline System Affected by Hurricane Harvey
The people responsible for the big decisions at Williams Cos. in Tulsa have had more than their share of problems over the past week to ten days because of Hurricane Harvey and the flooding. A big part of the company's Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line was affected and so were customers thousands of miles away who …
Rep. Bridenstine Encounters Opposition to Head NASA
Oklahoma U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine is about to get the job he has dreamed of getting….Administrator of NASA. He openly campaigned for the job since President Trump took office in January and on Friday night, the White House nominated the Republican congressman. All he needs now is approval of the U.S. Senate. But that could …
Boil Order Issued for Some Cleveland County Residents
Residents of the Stonetown Sunnylane Estates Public Water Supply in Cleveland County were warned over the weekend to boil their drinking water because E. coli was confirmed to be in the water. The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality issued the boil order on Friday and said residents would be notified when the water was considered …
Energy Continues Boosting Oklahoma's Economy
Another sign that Oklahoma's economy is making improvements, albeit small ones. The August report from the Creighton Economic Forecasting Group directed by economics professor Ernie Goss show more positive movement. Oklahoma is one of 9 Midwestern states where supply managers are surveyed. "After falling below growth neutral for July, Oklahoma's overall index climbed to 56.2 …
Number of Oklahoma Swift Water Rescue Teams Declines in Hurricane Relief
The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management continues to send workers to Texas and work with FEMA following the hurricane. "A State of Emergency for Oklahoma remains in effect so that state, county, and local governments can adequately respond to the mutual aid requests and needs of the Gulf Coast states," said Keli Cain, public information …
Hundreds More Oklahoma National Guard Troops Sent to Texas
Nearly 500 Oklahoma National Guard troops were sent to Texas over the weekend to help with hurricane relief. For many, they had returned just weeks ago from a six-month mission in Ukraine where they had trained Ukrainian soldiers. Lt. Col. Adam Headrick, commander of the "Tomahawk" Task Force is with the 1st Battalion of the …

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


requested additional services. In response to increasing customer demand, as well as a market need for contract packaging in Arizona, Kleen Concepts broadened its service offerings. This is just one example of how Kleen Concepts grows with its customers. As customers have new needs, we make them our needs. We continually expand our capabilities by investing in the new equipment. This saves our customers time and money while allowing for a strict adherence to quality control. Kleen Concepts believes in growing and changing with our customer's needs and wants, and we pride ourselves in getting the job done efficiently and effectively. The focus never strays from the highest quality product and unbeatable customer service.


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Actor, Director, Movies, Script to Screen, Trailers
Who Freaks You Out More: these Grandparents, these Aliens, or Johnny Depp?
Three new trailers with very different sources of extreme tension. So the question we pose to you today is this; who would you rather be trapped in a house with less, the grandparents from M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming The Visit, Johnny Depp's Whitey Bulger from the upcoming Black Mass, or whatever the hell those things are in Area 51?
Let's take a look:
Yes, M. Night's had a rough run as of late, but he looks to have his mojo back with his latest. Perhaps the only thing scarier than creepy little kids is creepy old people, so the conceit of The Visit immediately had our attention. A single mother (Kathryn Hahn, can someone please cast her as the lead in a comedy soon? Thanks) sends her two sweet kids off to see grandma (Deanna Dugan) and grampa (Peter McRobbie). Little does mom or the kids no, something is seriously wrong with grams and gramps. Just check out what grandma's doing at the1:01 mark, and grandpa's no normal himself at 1:17. "Would you mind getting inside the oven to clean it?" grandma asks. Um, no?
Notorious Boston gangster (and once the FBI's Most Wanted Man) Whitey Bulger has already been the subject of a semi-recent film with huge stars, Martin Scorsese's The Departed, in which Bulger is thinly veiled as Frank Costello, and played with a menacing panache by Jack Nicholson. Now it's Depp's turn in this proper Bulger biopic, Black Mass, only his Whitey is drained of Nicholson's flair and instead one frosty, terrifying blue-eyed gangster. So watch the below clip, and tell us if that's not the most intense scenes revolving around a recipe in film history. It reminds us of the famous "Do I amuse you?" scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito tortures Ray Liotta's Henry Hill for laughing at his joke.
Oren Peli is the man behind the Paranormal Activity franchise, and his latest flick has the same docu-horror conceit, only now instead of vengeful spirits he's messing around with aliens (and what appears to be a much healthier budget). For all the freaky stuff going on this trailer, the most inspired bit of weirdness is the "white blood" at 1:42 in.
So what's your verdict—the grandparents, the gangster or the extraterrestrial ghouls?
Featured image: Johnny Depp plays Whitey Bulger in 'Black Mass.' Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
TAGSArea 51 Black Mass Front of Book The Visit Warner Bros. Pictures
The Black Widow Super Bowl Spot is Pure Adrenalin
Oscar-Winning Writer Kevin Willmott on Re-Teaming With Spike Lee For Da 5 Bloods
Advancing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Interviews, Movies, Policy, Screenwriter


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"Electrification, the future of the Industry"
Podcast feat James O'Loghlin & Michael Wheatland
Michael Wheatland \ April 26, 2022
Listen on Spotify Watch on Youtube
Home \ Sustainable Processing \ "Electrification, the future of the Industry" feat. James O'Loghlin & Michael Wheatland
Welcome to the seventh Episode of INNOVATING FOR THE EARTH
with innovation expert and radio and TV presenter James O'Loghlin
As the world shifts to more renewable energy sources for transport fuels, heating, and utilities many industries are facing much higher energy costs as well as carbon trade barriers around the world. This has happened before with the shift away from coal, then the shift away from heavy fuel oil, and again with natural gas.
Governments are spending big on electrical infrastructure upgrades and flagging that the future of industry is going to be powered exclusively with electricity with grid scale storage and export with batteries and hydrogen.
Many mineral or chemical processes haven't had the opportunity to make use of low cost, renewable electricity because availability of proven, large scale, electric fired thermal processing hasn't been available until now.
The next 10 years is going to see significant shifts in costs and processing methods to more sustainable energy sources. A shift to processes which are more flexible in energy source and feedstock. A seismic shift in Process Engineering, Economics and Profitability is here today.
Is your business ready for the coming decade?
Calix electric calcination is the next step in thermal mineral processing. The world is shifting from the use of fossil fuels over to clean, adaptable technologies. The Calix Technology enables this transition to clean fuels, while maintaining flexibility with process integration and energy source.
Find out more: https://calix.global/sustainable-processing/
Calix eyes Australian green steel, lithium battery production in the Pilbara
"Engineering for the Future" feat James O'Loghlin & Matthew Gill & Claire de Jacobi
"Electrification, the future of the Industry" feat. James O'Loghlin & Michael Wheatland
Calix technology for zero emissions iron and steel ZESTY
CALIPSO™ – Calcined Clay for the Cement Industry


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What Is Marxism?
Criticism of capitalism
Social classes
Revolution, socialism and communism
Classical Marxism
Academic Marxism
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union
Chinese Revolution
General criticisms
Epistemological and empirical critiques
Socialist critiques
Anarchist and libertarian critiques
Economic critiques
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that views class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Marxism uses a methodology, now known as historical materialism, to analyze and critique the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic economic, social, and political change. According to Marxist theory, in capitalist societies, class conflict arises due to contradictions between the material interests of the oppressed and exploited proletariat—a class of wage labourers employed to produce goods and services—and the bourgeoisie—the ruling class that owns the means of production and extracts its wealth through appropriation of the surplus product produced by the proletariat in the form of profit.
This class struggle that is commonly expressed as the revolt of a society's productive forces against its relations of production, results in a period of short-term crises as the bourgeoisie struggle to manage the intensifying alienation of labor experienced by the proletariat, albeit with varying degrees of class consciousness. In periods of deep crisis, the resistance of the oppressed can culminate in a proletarian revolution which, if victorious, leads to the establishment of socialism—a socioeconomic system based on social ownership of the means of production, distribution based on one's contribution and production organized directly for use. As the productive forces continued to advance, Marx hypothesized that socialism would ultimately be transformed into a communist society: a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership and the underlying principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
Marxism has developed into many different branches and schools of thought, with the result that there is now no single definitive Marxist theory. Different Marxian schools place a greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while rejecting or modifying other aspects. Many schools of thought have sought to combine Marxian concepts and non-Marxian concepts, which has then led to contradictory conclusions. However, lately there is movement toward the recognition that historical materialism and dialectical materialism remains the fundamental aspect of all Marxist schools of thought. Marxism has had a profound impact on global academia and has influenced many fields such as archaeology, anthropology, media studies, science studies, political science, theater, history, sociology, art history and theory, cultural studies, education, economics, ethics, criminology, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, film theory, critical psychology and philosophy.
The term "Marxism" was popularized by Karl Kautsky, who considered himself an "orthodox" Marxist during the dispute between the orthodox and revisionist followers of Marx. Kautsky's revisionist rival Eduard Bernstein also later adopted use of the term. Engels did not support the use of the term "Marxism" to describe either Marx's or his views. Engels claimed that the term was being abusively used as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to cast themselves as "real" followers of Marx while casting others in different terms, such as "Lassallians". In 1882, Engels claimed that Marx had criticized self-proclaimed "Marxist" Paul Lafargue, by saying that if Lafargue's views were considered "Marxist", then "one thing is certain and that is that I am not a Marxist".
Main article: Marxism and Religion
Marxism analyzes the material conditions and the economic activities required to fulfill human material needs to explain social phenomena within any given society.
It assumes that the form of economic organization, or mode of production, influences all other social phenomena—including wider social relations, political institutions, legal systems, cultural systems, aesthetics, and ideologies. The economic system and these social relations form a base and superstructure.
As forces of production, i.e. technology, improve, existing forms of organizing production become obsolete and hinder further progress. As Karl Marx observed: "At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution". These inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society which are, in turn, fought out at the level of the class struggle.
Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority (the bourgeoisie) who own the means of production and the vast majority of the population (the proletariat) who produce goods and services. Starting with the conjectural premise that social change occurs because of the struggle between different classes within society who are under contradiction against each other, a Marxist would conclude that capitalism exploits and oppresses the proletariat, therefore capitalism will inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution.
Marxian economics and its proponents view capitalism as economically unsustainable and incapable of improving the living standards of the population due to its need to compensate for falling rates of profit by cutting employee's wages, social benefits and pursuing military aggression. The socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanity's mode of production through workers' revolution. According to Marxian crisis theory, socialism is not an inevitability, but an economic necessity.
In a socialist society, private property—in the form of the means of production—would be replaced by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, but on the criteria of satisfying human needs—that is, production would be carried out directly for use. As Friedrich Engels said: "Then the capitalist mode of appropriation in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the product that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment".
The discovery of the materialist conception of history, or rather, the consistent continuation and extension of materialism into the domain of social phenomenon, removed two chief defects of earlier historical theories. In the first place, they at best examined only the ideological motives of the historical activity of human beings, without grasping the objective laws governing the development of the system of social relations … in the second place, the earlier theories did not cover the activities of the masses of the population, whereas historical materialism made it possible for the first time to study with the accuracy of the natural sciences the social conditions of the life of the masses and the changes in these conditions.
— Russian Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, 1913
Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.
—  Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1858
The materialist theory of history analyses the underlying causes of societal development and change from the perspective of the collective ways that humans make their living. All constituent features of a society (social classes, political pyramid, ideologies) are assumed to stem from economic activity, an idea often portrayed with the metaphor of the base and superstructure.
The base and superstructure metaphor describes the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx: "The sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society" and forms a society's economic base. The base includes the material forces of production, that is the labour and material means of production and relations of production, i.e., the social and political arrangements that regulate production and distribution. From this base rises a superstructure of legal and political "forms of social consciousness" of political and legal institutions that derive from the economic base that conditions the superstructure and a society's dominant ideology. Conflicts between the development of material productive forces and the relations of production provokes social revolutions and thus the resultant changes to the economic base will lead to the transformation of the superstructure. This relationship is reflexive, as at first the base gives rise to the superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of social organization, hence that formed social organization can act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure so that the relationship is not static but a dialectic, expressed and driven by conflicts and contradictions. As Engels clarified: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes".
Marx considered class conflicts as the driving force of human history since these recurring conflicts have manifested themselves as distinct transitional stages of development in Western Europe. Accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production:
Primitive communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.
Slave society: a development of tribal to city-state; aristocracy is born.
Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.
According to the Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, "the principal content of Marxism" was "Marx's economic doctrine". Marx believed that the capitalist bourgeois and their economists were promoting what he saw as the lie that "the interests of the capitalist and of the worker are … one and the same", therefore he believed that they did this by purporting the concept that "the fastest possible growth of productive capital" was best not only for the wealthy capitalists but also for the workers because it provided them with employment.
Exploitation is a matter of surplus labour—the amount of labour one performs beyond what one receives in goods. Exploitation has been a socioeconomic feature of every class society and is one of the principal features distinguishing the social classes. The power of one social class to control the means of production enables its exploitation of the other classes.
In capitalism, the labour theory of value is the operative concern; the value of a commodity equals the socially necessary labour time required to produce it. Under that condition, surplus value (the difference between the value produced and the value received by a labourer) is synonymous with the term "surplus labour", thus capitalist exploitation is realised as deriving surplus value from the worker.
In pre-capitalist economies, exploitation of the worker was achieved via physical coercion. In the capitalist mode of production, that result is more subtly achieved and because workers do not own the means of production, they must voluntarily enter into an exploitive work relationship with a capitalist in order to earn the necessities of life. The worker's entry into such employment is voluntary in that they choose which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or starve, thus exploitation is inevitable and the "voluntary" nature of a worker participating in a capitalist society is illusory.
Alienation is the estrangement of people from their humanity (Gattungswesen, "species-essence", "species-being"), which is a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of production belong to the employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others and so generate alienated labourers. In Marx's view, alienation is an objective characterization of the worker's situation in capitalism—his or her self-awareness of this condition is not prerequisite.
Marx distinguishes social classes on the basis of two criteria: ownership of means of production and control over the labour power of others. Following this criterion of class based on property relations, Marx identified the social stratification of the capitalist mode of production with the following social groups:
Proletariat: "[…] the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live." The capitalist mode of production establishes the conditions enabling the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat because the workers' labour generates a surplus value greater than the workers' wages.
Bourgeoisie: those who "own the means of production" and buy labour power from the proletariat, thus exploiting the proletariat. They subdivide as bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie.
Petite bourgeoisie are those who work and can afford to buy little labour power i.e. small business owners, peasant landlords, trade workers and the like. Marxism predicts that the continual reinvention of the means of production eventually would destroy the petite bourgeoisie, degrading them from the middle class to the proletariat.
Lumpenproletariat: the outcasts of society such as the criminals, vagabonds, beggars, or prostitutes without any political or class consciousness. Having no interest in international or national economic affairs, Marx claimed that this specific sub-division of the proletariat would play no part in the eventual social revolution.
Landlords: a historically important social class who retain some wealth and power.
Peasantry and farmers: a scattered class incapable of organizing and effecting socio-economic change, most of whom would enter the proletariat while some would become landlords.
Class consciousness denotes the awareness—of itself and the social world—that a social class possesses and its capacity to rationally act in their best interests, hence class consciousness is required before they can effect a successful revolution and thus the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Without defining ideology, Marx used the term to describe the production of images of social reality. According to Engels, "ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces". Because the ruling class controls the society's means of production, the superstructure of society (the ruling social ideas), are determined by the best interests of the ruling class. In The German Ideology, he says "[t]he ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force."
The term "political economy" initially referred to the study of the material conditions of economic production in the capitalist system. In Marxism, political economy is the study of the means of production, specifically of capital and how that manifests as economic activity.
Marxism taught me what society was. I was like a blindfolded man in a forest, who doesn't even know where north or south is. If you don't eventually come to truly understand the history of the class struggle, or at least have a clear idea that society is divided between the rich and the poor, and that some people subjugate and exploit other people, you're lost in a forest, not knowing anything.
— Cuban revolutionary and Marxist–Leninist politician Fidel Castro on discovering Marxism, 2009
This new way of thinking was invented because socialists believed that common ownership of the "means of production" (that is the industries, the land, the wealth of nature, the trade apparatus, the wealth of the society, etc.) will abolish the exploitative working conditions experienced under capitalism. Through working class revolution, the state (which Marxists see as a weapon for the subjugation of one class by another) is seized and used to suppress the hitherto ruling class of capitalists and (by implementing a commonly-owned, democratically controlled workplace) create the society of communism, which Marxists see as true democracy. An economy based on co-operation on human need and social betterment, rather than competition for profit of many independently acting profit seekers, would also be the end of class society, which Marx saw as the fundamental division of all hitherto existing history.
Marx saw work, the effort by humans to transform the environment for their needs, as a fundamental feature of human kind. Capitalism, in which the product of the worker's labor is taken from them and sold at market rather than being part of the worker's life, is therefore alienating to the worker. Additionally, the worker is compelled by various means (some nicer than others) to work harder, faster and for longer hours. While this is happening, the employer is constantly trying to save on labor costs: pay the workers less, figure out how to use cheaper equipment, etc. This allows the employer to extract the largest mount of work (and therefore potential wealth) from their workers. The fundamental nature of capitalist society is no different from that of slave society: one small group of society exploiting the larger group.
Through common ownership of the means of production, the profit motive is eliminated and the motive of furthering human flourishing is introduced. Because the surplus produced by the workers is the property of the society as a whole, there are no classes of producers and appropriators. Additionally, the state, which has its origins in the bands of retainers hired by the first ruling classes to protect their economic privilege, will disappear as its conditions of existence have disappeared.
According to orthodox Marxist theory, the overthrow of capitalism by a socialist revolution in contemporary society is inevitable. While the inevitability of an eventual socialist revolution is a controversial debate among many different Marxist schools of thought, all Marxists believe socialism is a necessity, if not inevitable. Marxists believe that a socialist society is far better for the majority of the populace than its capitalist counterpart. Prior to the Russian revolution of 1917, Lenin wrote: "The socialization of production is bound to lead to the conversion of the means of production into the property of society … This conversion will directly result in an immense increase in productivity of labour, a reduction of working hours, and the replacement of the remnants, the ruins of small-scale, primitive, disunited production by collective and improved labour". The failure of the 1905 revolution and the failure of socialist movements to resist the outbreak of World War One led to renewed theoretical effort and valuable contributions from Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg towards an appreciation of Marx's crisis theory and efforts to formulate a theory of imperialism.
"Classical Marxism" denotes the collection of socio-eco-political theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. "Marxism", as Ernest Mandel remarked, "is always open, always critical, always self-critical". As such, classical Marxism distinguishes between "Marxism" as broadly perceived and "what Marx believed", thus in 1883 Marx wrote to the French labour leader Jules Guesde and to Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue—both of whom claimed to represent Marxist principles—accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggle.
From Marx's letter derives the paraphrase:
"If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist".
American Marxist scholar Hal Draper responded to this comment by saying:
"There are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike".
On the other hand, the book Communism: The Great Misunderstanding argues that the source of such misrepresentations lies in ignoring the philosophy of Marxism, which is dialectical materialism. In large part, this was due to the fact that The German Ideology, in which Marx and Engels developed this philosophy, did not find a publisher for almost one hundred years.
The theoretical development of Marxist archaeology was first developed in the Soviet Union in 1929, when a young archaeologist named Vladislav I. Ravdonikas (1894–1976) published a report entitled "For a Soviet history of material culture". Within this work, the very discipline of archaeology as it then stood was criticised as being inherently bourgeois, therefore anti-socialist and so, as a part of the academic reforms instituted in the Soviet Union under the administration of Premier Joseph Stalin, a great emphasis was placed on the adoption of Marxist archaeology throughout the country. These theoretical developments were subsequently adopted by archaeologists working in capitalist states outside of the Leninist bloc, most notably by the Australian academic V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957), who used Marxist theory in his understandings of the development of human society.
Marxist sociology is the study of sociology from a Marxist perspective. Marxist sociology is "a form of conflict theory associated with … Marxism's objective of developing a positive (empirical) science of capitalist society as part of the mobilization of a revolutionary working class". The American Sociological Association has a section dedicated to the issues of Marxist sociology that is "interested in examining how insights from Marxist methodology and Marxist analysis can help explain the complex dynamics of modern society". Influenced by the thought of Karl Marx, Marxist sociology emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century. As well as Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim are considered seminal influences in early sociology. The first Marxist school of sociology was known as Austro-Marxism, of which Carl Grünberg and Antonio Labriola were among its most notable members. During the 1940s, the Western Marxist school became accepted within Western academia, subsequently fracturing into several different perspectives such as the Frankfurt School or critical theory. Due to its former state-supported position, there has been a backlash against Marxist thought in post-communist states (see sociology in Poland) but it remains dominant in the sociological research sanctioned and supported by those communist states that remain (see sociology in China).
Marxian economics refers to a school of economic thought tracing its foundations to the critique of classical political economy first expounded upon by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxian economics concerns itself with the analysis of crisis in capitalism, the role and distribution of the surplus product and surplus value in various types of economic systems, the nature and origin of economic value, the impact of class and class struggle on economic and political processes, and the process of economic evolution. Although the Marxian school is considered heterodox, ideas that have come out of Marxian economics have contributed to mainstream understanding of the global economy. Certain concepts of Marxian economics, especially those related to capital accumulation and the business cycle, such as creative destruction, have been fitted for use in capitalist systems.
Marxist historiography is a school of historiography influenced by Marxism. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography are the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes. Marxist historiography has made contributions to the history of the working class, oppressed nationalities, and the methodology of history from below. Friedrich Engels' most important historical contribution was Der deutsche Bauernkrieg (The German Peasants' War), which analysed social warfare in early Protestant Germany in terms of emerging capitalist classes. The German Peasants' War indicate the Marxist interest in history from below and class analysis, and attempts a dialectical analysis. Engels' short treatise The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1870s) was salient in creating the socialist impetus in British politics. Marx's most important works on social and political history include The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, The Communist Manifesto, The German Ideology, and those chapters of Das Kapital dealing with the historical emergence of capitalists and proletarians from pre-industrial English society. Marxist historiography suffered in the Soviet Union, as the government requested overdetermined historical writing. Notable histories include the Short Course History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik), published in the 1930s to justify the nature of Bolshevik party life under Joseph Stalin. A circle of historians inside the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) formed in 1946. While some members of the group (most notably Christopher Hill and E. P. Thompson) left the CPGB after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the common points of British Marxist historiography continued in their works. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class is one of the works commonly associated with this group. Eric Hobsbawm's Bandits is another example of this group's work. C. L. R. James was also a great pioneer of the 'history from below' approach. Living in Britain when he wrote his most notable work The Black Jacobins (1938), he was an anti-Stalinist Marxist and so outside of the CPGB. In India, B. N. Datta and D. D. Kosambi are considered the founding fathers of Marxist historiography. Today, the senior-most scholars of Marxist historiography are R. S. Sharma, Irfan Habib, Romila Thapar, D. N. Jha and K. N. Panikkar, most of whom are now over 75 years old.
Marxist literary criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism based on socialist and dialectic theories. Marxist criticism views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originate. According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social institution and has a specific ideological function, based on the background and ideology of the author. Notable marxist literary critics include Mikhail Bakhtin, Walter Benjamin, Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson.
Marxist aesthetics is a theory of aesthetics based on, or derived from, the theories of Karl Marx. It involves a dialectical and materialist, or dialectical materialist, approach to the application of Marxism to the cultural sphere, specifically areas related to taste such as art, beauty, etc. Marxists believe that economic and social conditions, and especially the class relations that derive from them, affect every aspect of an individual's life, from religious beliefs to legal systems to cultural frameworks. Some notable Marxist aestheticians include Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Lifshitz, William Morris, Theodor W. Adorno, Bertolt Brecht, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukács, Ernst Fischer, Louis Althusser, Jacques Rancière, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Raymond Williams.
According to a 2007 survey of American professors by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, 17.6% of social science professors and 5.0% of humanities professors identify as Marxists, while between 0 and 2% of professors in all other disciplines identify as Marxists.
Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political economist and socialist revolutionary who addressed the matters of alienation and exploitation of the working class, the capitalist mode of production and historical materialism. He is famous for analysing history in terms of class struggle, summarised in the initial line introducing The Communist Manifesto (1848): "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles".
Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German political philosopher who together with Marx co-developed communist theory. Marx and Engels first met in September 1844. Discovering that they had similar views of philosophy and socialism, they collaborated and wrote works such as Die heilige Familie (The Holy Family). After Marx was deported from France in January 1845, they moved to Belgium, which then permitted greater freedom of expression than other European countries. In January 1846, they returned to Brussels to establish the Communist Correspondence Committee.
In 1847, they began writing The Communist Manifesto (1848), based on Engels' The Principles of Communism. Six weeks later, they published the 12,000-word pamphlet in February 1848. In March, Belgium expelled them and they moved to Cologne, where they published the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a politically radical newspaper. By 1849, they had to leave Cologne for London. The Prussian authorities pressured the British government to expel Marx and Engels, but Prime Minister Lord John Russell refused.
After Marx's death in 1883, Engels became the editor and translator of Marx's writings. With his Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884) – analysing monogamous marriage as guaranteeing male social domination of women, a concept analogous, in communist theory, to the capitalist class's economic domination of the working class—Engels made intellectually significant contributions to feminist theory and Marxist feminism.
Lenin and Stalin
With the October Revolution in 1917 the Bolsheviks took power from the Russian Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks established the first socialist state based on the ideas of Soviet Democracy and Leninism. Their newly formed federal state promised to end Russian involvement in World War I and establish a revolutionary worker's state. Following the October Revolution the Soviet government was involved in a struggle with the White Movement and several independence movements in the Russian Civil War. This period is marked by the establishment of many socialist policies and the development new socialist ideas mainly in the form of Marxism-Leninism. In 1919 the nascent Soviet Government established the Communist Academy and the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute for doctrinal Marxist study as well as to publish official ideological and research documents for the CPSU. With Lenin's death in 1924 there was an internal struggle in the Soviet Communist movement, mainly between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky in the form of the Right Opposition and Left Opposition respectively. These struggles were based on both sides different interpretations of Marxist and Leninist theory based on the situation of the Soviet Union at the time.
The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should regard it not as a dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution. It is not just a matter of understanding the general laws derived by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin from their extensive study of real life and revolutionary experience, but of studying their standpoint and method in examining and solving problems.
-Mao Zedong, Little Red Book
At the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War and more widely World War II the Chinese Communist Revolution took place within the context of the Chinese Civil War. The Chinese Communist Party, which was founded in 1921, was in conflict with the Kuomintang over the future of the country. Throughout the Civil War Mao Zedong developed a theory of Marxism for the Chinese historical context. Mao found a large base of support in the peasantry as opposed to the Russian Revolution which found its primary support in the urban centers of the Russian Empire. Some major ideas contributed by Mao were the ideas of New Democracy, Mass line, and People's War. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was declared in 1949. The new socialist state was to be founded on the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin.
From Stalin's death until the late 1960's there was increasing conflict between the PRC and the Soviet Union. De-Stalinization, which first began under Nikita Khrushchev, and the policy of detente were seen as Revisionism (Marxism) and insufficiently Marxist. This ideological confrontation spilled into a wider global crisis centered around which nation was to lead the international socialist movement.
Following Mao's death and the ascendancy of Deng Xiaoping, Maoism and official Marxism in China was reworked. This new model was to be a newer dynamic form of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism in the PRC. Commonly referred to as Socialism with Chinese Characteristics this new path was centered around Deng's Four Cardinal Principles which sought to uphold the central role of the Chinese Communist Party and uphold the principle that the PRC was in the Primary stage of socialism and that it was still working to build a communist society based on Marxist principles.
In 1959, the Cuban Revolution led to the victory of Fidel Castro and his July 26 Movement. Although the revolution was not explicitly socialist, upon victory Castro ascended to the position of Prime Minister and adopted the Leninist model of socialist development, forging an alliance with the Soviet Union. One of the leaders of the revolution, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (1928–1967), subsequently went on to aid revolutionary socialist movements in Congo-Kinshasa and Bolivia, eventually being killed by the Bolivian government, possibly on the orders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), though the CIA agent sent to search for Guevara, Felix Rodriguez, expressed a desire to keep him alive as a possible bargaining tool with the Cuban government. He would posthumously go on to become an internationally recognised icon.
In the People's Republic of China, the Maoist government undertook the Cultural Revolution from 1966 through to 1976 to purge Chinese society of capitalist elements and achieve socialism. However, upon Mao Zedong's death, his rivals seized political power and under the Premiership of Deng Xiaoping (1978–1992), many of Mao's Cultural Revolution era policies were revised or abandoned and much of the state sector privatised.
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the collapse of most of those socialist states that had professed a Marxist–Leninist ideology. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the emergence of the New Right and neoliberal capitalism as the dominant ideological trends in western politics—championed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher—led the west to take a more aggressive stand towards the Soviet Union and its Leninist allies. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union the reformist Mikhael Gorbachev became Premier in March 1985 and sought to abandon Leninist models of development towards social democracy. Ultimately, Gorbachev's reforms, coupled with rising levels of popular ethnic nationalism in the Soviet Union, led to the state's dissolution in late 1991 into a series of constituent nations, all of which abandoned Marxist–Leninist models for socialism, with most converting to capitalist economies.
At the turn of the 21st century, China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam remained the only officially Marxist–Leninist states remaining, although a Maoist government led by Prachanda was elected into power in Nepal in 2008 following a long guerrilla struggle.
The early 21st century also saw the election of socialist governments in several Latin American nations, in what has come to be known as the "pink tide". Dominated by the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez, this trend also saw the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Forging political and economic alliances through international organisations like the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, these socialist governments allied themselves with Marxist–Leninist Cuba and although none of them espoused a Leninist path directly, most admitted to being significantly influenced by Marxist theory.
For Italian Marxist Gianni Vattimo in his 2011 book Hermeneutic Communism, "this new weak communism differs substantially from its previous Soviet (and current Chinese) realization, because the South American countries follow democratic electoral procedures and also manage to decentralize the state bureaucratic system through the Bolivarian missions. In sum, if weakened communism is felt as a specter in the West, it is not only because of media distortions but also for the alternative it represents through the same democratic procedures that the West constantly professes to cherish but is hesitant to apply".
Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping has announced a deepening commitment of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to the ideas of Marx. At an event celebrating the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, Xi said "We must win the advantages, win the initiative, and win the future. We must continuously improve the ability to use Marxism to analyse and solve practical problems…" also adding "powerful ideological weapon for us to understand the world, grasp the law, seek the truth, and change the world,". Xi has further stressed the importance of examining and continuing the tradition of the CPC and embrace its revolutionary past.
Criticisms of Marxism have come from various political ideologies and academic disciplines. These include general criticisms about lack of internal consistency, criticisms related to historical materialism, that it is a type of historical determinism, the necessity of suppression of individual rights, issues with the implementation of communism and economic issues such as the distortion or absence of price signals and reduced incentives. In addition, empirical and epistemological problems are frequently identified.
Some Marxists have criticised the academic institutionalisation of Marxism for being too shallow and detached from political action. For instance, Zimbabwean Trotskyist Alex Callinicos, himself a professional academic, stated: "Its practitioners remind one of Narcissus, who in the Greek legend fell in love with his own reflection … Sometimes it is necessary to devote time to clarifying and developing the concepts that we use, but indeed for Western Marxists this has become an end in itself. The result is a body of writings incomprehensible to all but a tiny minority of highly qualified scholars".
Additionally, there are intellectual critiques of Marxism that contest certain assumptions prevalent in Marx's thought and Marxism after him, without exactly rejecting Marxist politics. Other contemporary supporters of Marxism argue that many aspects of Marxist thought are viable, but that the corpus is incomplete or outdated in regards to certain aspects of economic, political or social theory. They may therefore combine some Marxist concepts with the ideas of other theorists such as Max Weber—the Frankfurt School is one example.
Philosopher and historian of ideas Leszek Kołakowski pointed out that "Marx's theory is incomplete or ambiguous in many places, and could be 'applied' in many contradictory ways without manifestly infringing its principles". Specifically, he considers "the laws of dialectics" as fundamentally erroneous, stating that some are "truisms with no specific Marxist content", others "philosophical dogmas that cannot be proved by scientific means" and some just "nonsense". He believes that some Marxist laws can be interpreted differently, but that these interpretations still in general fall into one of the two categories of error.
Okishio's theorem shows that if capitalists use cost-cutting techniques and real wages do not increase, the rate of profit must rise, which casts doubt on Marx's view that the rate of profit would tend to fall.
The allegations of inconsistency have been a large part of Marxian economics and the debates around it since the 1970s. Andrew Kliman argues that this undermines Marx's critiques and the correction of the alleged inconsistencies, because internally inconsistent theories cannot be right by definition.
Marx's predictions have been criticized because they have allegedly failed, with some pointing towards the GDP per capita increasing generally in capitalist economies compared to less market oriented economics, the capitalist economies not suffering worsening economic crises leading to the overthrow of the capitalist system and communist revolutions not occurring in the most advanced capitalist nations, but instead in undeveloped regions.
In his books The Poverty of Historicism and Conjectures and Refutations, philosopher of science Karl Popper, criticized the explanatory power and validity of historical materialism. Popper believed that Marxism had been initially scientific, in that Marx had postulated a genuinely predictive theory. When these predictions were not in fact borne out, Popper argues that the theory avoided falsification by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses that made it compatible with the facts. Because of this, Popper asserted, a theory that was initially genuinely scientific degenerated into pseudoscientific dogma.
Democratic socialists and social democrats reject the idea that socialism can be accomplished only through extra-legal class conflict and a proletarian revolution. The relationship between Marx and other socialist thinkers and organizations—rooted in Marxism's "scientific" and anti-utopian socialism, among other factors—has divided Marxists from other socialists since Marx's life.
After Marx's death and with the emergence of Marxism, there have also been dissensions within Marxism itself—a notable example is the splitting of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Orthodox Marxists became opposed to a less dogmatic, more innovative, or even revisionist Marxism.
Anarchism has had a strained relationship with Marxism since Marx's life. Anarchists and many non-Marxist libertarian socialists reject the need for a transitory state phase, claiming that socialism can only be established through decentralized, non-coercive organization. Anarchist Mikhail Bakunin criticized Marx for his authoritarian bent. The phrases "barracks socialism" or "barracks communism" became a shorthand for this critique, evoking the image of citizens' lives being as regimented as the lives of conscripts in a barracks. Noam Chomsky is critical of Marxism's dogmatic strains and the idea of Marxism itself, but still appreciates Marx's contributions to political thought. Unlike some anarchists, Chomsky does not consider Bolshevism "Marxism in practice", but he does recognize that Marx was a complicated figure who had conflicting ideas, while he also acknowledges the latent authoritarianism in Marx he also points to the libertarian strains that developed into the council communism of Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek. However, his commitment to libertarian socialism has led him to characterize himself as an anarchist with radical Marxist leanings (see political positions of Noam Chomsky).
Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives such as Stalinism, Ceaușism and Maoism. Libertarian Marxism is also often critical of reformist positions, such as those held by social democrats. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France, emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.
Other critiques come from an economic standpoint. Vladimir Karpovich Dmitriev writing in 1898, Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz writing in 1906–1907 and subsequent critics have alleged that Marx's value theory and law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall are internally inconsistent. In other words, the critics allege that Marx drew conclusions that actually do not follow from his theoretical premises. Once these alleged errors are corrected, his conclusion that aggregate price and profit are determined by and equal to aggregate value and surplus value no longer holds true. This result calls into question his theory that the exploitation of workers is the sole source of profit.
Both Marxism and socialism have received considerable critical analysis from multiple generations of Austrian economists in terms of scientific methodology, economic theory and political implications. During the marginal revolution, subjective value theory was rediscovered by Carl Menger, a development that fundamentally undermined the British cost theories of value. The restoration of subjectivism and praxeological methodology previously used by classical economists including Richard Cantillon, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Jean-Baptiste Say and Frédéric Bastiat led Menger to criticise historicist methodology in general. Second-generation Austrian economist Eugen Böhm von Bawerk used praxeological and subjectivist methodology to attack the law of value fundamentally. Non-Marxist economists have regarded his criticism as definitive, with Gottfried Haberler arguing that Böhm-Bawerk's critique of Marx's economics was so thorough and devastating that as of the 1960s no Marxian scholar had conclusively refuted it. Third-generation Austrian Ludwig von Mises rekindled debate about the economic calculation problem by identifying that without price signals in capital goods, all other aspects of the market economy are irrational. This led him to declare that "rational economic activity is impossible in a socialist commonwealth".
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue that Marx's economic theory was fundamentally flawed because it attempted to simplify the economy into a few general laws that ignored the impact of institutions on the economy.
Next story Communism
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Animal Worship
Illnesses and Afflictions
The Heroine's Journey: The Modern Woman's Quest For Professional And Personal Fulfillment
Christian And Islamic Viewpoints On The Prayer Of Jabez
For a Sick Child
Thomas Aquinas' Prayers
Hasidic Judaism
13. Ar-Ra'd
Proselytism
Religious Nationalism
Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
Genesis Flood Narrative


text:
I Will Hurt You Only Once 1: I Will Hurt You Only Once
The strongest magic comes from the deepest trauma. That's the cruel price of magic.
— Galdinol Misfanic, Civilization, or The Cause for Magic Leaving Our World
Gichyòbi yawned as he headed to the front door. Joints in his knees and shoulder popped and cracked from sitting too long. He reached the entrance and pushed it open to let the cold desert air in.
Behind him, Rutejìmo and Mapábyo walked hand and hand. The younger couple were leaning against each other. Both were exhausted from running across the desert the all day and then talking until almost morning.
Gichyòbi let his senses enter the stone underneath him. He felt the vibrations coming toward him from all directions. He could easily distinguish the distinct feel of other members of the Wamifūko clan compared to the few strangers still walking around so late in the morning. One of them was a few blocks away but in the path of the couple leaving.
He sent a request through the stones, his thoughts vibrating along the rock. «Could someone move the drunk on Red Facet Passage near Rolling Rock Street away? The Shimusògo are heading to the Glorious Saber Inn.»
A patrolling Wamifūko warrior changed directions and headed straight for the stranger. By the time Rutejìmo and Mapábyo left, their path would be clear.
It only took a second for everything to happen. Gichyòbi held out one large hand. "Be safe walking to the inn."
Mapábyo stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. She was a wiry girl with nearly obsidian skin. Her eyes were dropped with exhaustion. "Thank you, Chyòbi. Dinner was lovely."
He hugged her firmly before releasing her.
Rutejìmo hugged Gichyòbi but said nothing. His body was tiny compared to Gichyòbi's muscular frame but there was a strength in the racer's body. He gave Gichyòbi a weak smile before pulling away.
Mapábyo caught his hand, guiding him through the door almost much as she was drawing him closer to comfort him.
Gichyòbi closed the door behind them but kept his senses tracking them through the stone as they shuffled to the inn.
Kidóri, his wife, came up to hug him from behind. She was much shorter than him but almost as wide. Her curvy body felt right pressed against his back. Her love and warmth brought a smile to his lips. "Jìmo looks like he has one hand on death's breast."
He grunted in agreement.
"He needs a break," she announced as she released Gichyòbi. Underneath his feet, he could feel her other words. «Gichyòbi says to reschedule the Shimusògo visit with the clan council for two days. Have someone put the notice under their door so they don't have to leave.»
He chuckled and sent a pulse of approval.
Somewhere on the far side of the Wamifuko City, one of the awake clerks acknowledged with a vibration of the rocks.
She yawned. "Clean up, please?"
"Of course, my queen of rocks. Your order shall by my only command." He bowed dramatically as he grinned.
She smiled and looked over her shoulder, her dark hair obscuring much of her face. She was beautiful and he let her know with a focused pulse of energy along the rocks. Her smile grew wider and she rocked her hips from one side to the other. "Don't stay up too late."
With a wiggle of her ass, she headed up the stairs.
Gichyòbi admired her until she was out of sight and her footsteps faded into the depths of their room. Then he heading into the living room to pick up the discarded cups and plates from hours of talking.
In the kitchen, he set everything into the sink and opened the valve to the hot water. As the steaming liquid poured over the dishes, he headed straight for the ice chest and pulled out a small cask of his current batch of stout. It was a southern recipe from one of the clans near the pale lands and required a few ingredients that cost him a pretty coin.
Gichyòbi poured himself a large mug before turning the cast to the ice box. Humming to himself, he took a long swallow before setting it next to the sink and began to wash dishes.
It wasn't much longer before he felt the delicate touch of bare feet on the stone ground. Judging from the weight and stride, it was Nifaópi, his daughter.
He grinned. Without looking back, he said, "Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"
"I was thirsty." She pulled out a drawer enough for her to climb up it and onto the counter. Her nightgown caught on the drawer and he reached over to free it before she ripped the blue fabric.
Nifaópi turned around and sat on the edge of the counter. Without asking, she reached over and picked up his mug. Sniffing at it, she pulled a face.
He laughed. "Water?"
"Yes, Great Papa." Nifaópi set the mug on the other side of her body, away from him and his drink.
Gichyòbi got another mug and filled it with colder water before handing it to her. As she grabbed hers, he reached over and rescued his own.
"Salute!" she said with a grin.
They tapped mugs and both took deep drinks.
With a satisfied sigh, he set the mug down on the far side of the side and returned to cleaning the dishes.
"Papa?"
"Yes, my diamond?"
"Why does Jìmo get so angry when he talks about his family?"
Gichyòbi hesitated for a moment, startled by the question but also dreading it. He concentrated on scrubbing meat from the plate as he tried to formulate his thoughts as he delved into an uncomfortable topic. "Great Shimusogo Rutejìmo's family hurt him badly while he was growing up."
"They hit him?"
"No, not really. They were…" He struggled with the words to describe what the Shimusògo had done. "… they let him think that no one loved him."
"No one came to kiss his knees when he scraped them?"
Gichyòbi chuckled. "No, my diamond, no kisses of scraped knees and no hugs before bed."
"That's mean. Why were they so mean?"
He tensed. "He needed to be hurt when he was young otherwise he wouldn't…." He trailed off. There were somethings he wasn't supposed to say to a child.
"But he's old now."
"Old?" He looked at her. "He's not even thirty."
Nifaópi looked at her father and then rolled her eyes just like her mother. "Fine, he's really old."
"I'm forty-three!"
"And you are so old, you're almost dead," she said in a serious tone.
He gave her a mock glare. "See if I'm going to feed you tomorrow."
She stuck her tongue out at him. Then she hopped off the counter to grab some bread and cheese from a pantry before returning. With her eyes focused on Gichyòbi's face, she deliberately tore off a hunk of both and shoved them into her mouth. The gap of her missing front tooth only added to the challenge.
"Fine, he's old. The problem is that his family never stop hurting him. They had gotten used to treating him differently that they forgot to learn how to love him."
Nifaópi had to swallow loudly to clear her mouth. A fleck of cheese remained on the corner of her lip. "Pábyo treats him nicely."
"Mapábyo loves him and is probably the first one to help him see that he's amazing and wonderful and a good man."
"Everyone needs a Pábyo."
"Yeah, everyone does." Gichyòbi finished another plate and set it on the counter.
Nifaópi bit down on the cheese and ripped off a hunk with her mouth.
"Tear it off first!" he snapped.
She chewed loudly, her mouth open. Then she grinned and closed it before finishing. After a moment of watching him clean, she stood up on the counter and stepped over the sink to grab a towel. Pushing his mug further down the counter, she sat down and started to dry the dishes.
"Will they ever stop being mean to him?"
"Probably. Now that it's obvious what he's become, its easier to accept that he has always been different." He couldn't explain how Rutejìmo had become one of the kojinōmi, a caretaker of the dead. Nifaópi wasn't ready to understand the confusing world of those who lived outside of society.
She finished a dish. "You won't hurt me, will you?"
Gichyòbi froze as the dreaded question came up. He should have known it was coming from the line of questions, but it still hit. As he closed his eyes, he reached out for his wife through the stone. «Nifaópi is asking about hichifūma.»
Hichifūma, the secrets they kept from their children until they go through their rite of passage and bind themselves to one of the clan spirits. It was the reason Rutejìmo had been hurt so badly.
Kidóri's response shook the ground faintly. «Are you going to tell her?»
«She asked about Rutejìmo's pain.»
The problem with stone-speaking was that emotions couldn't be sent. He wished he could see his wife's face to know her thoughts. Instead, he had to hold himself still.
«Do you want to tell her?»
He nodded. «I think we should. It's worth the risk after seeing how much he hurts.»
"Papa, is this a secret?"
He turned to see his daughter staring at him. Her emerald eyes were dancing as she took in his face.
"The ground is shaking, you're talking to Mama."
Gichyòbi chuckled. "Clever girl."
He pulled his hands from the water and dried them. "Can you listen to something I'm going to say and keep it a secret? You can't tell anyone, but most of all, not your brother."
"Because this is a secret that can't be forgotten. Even though it won't affect you for many, many years, its going to be there and it will change your life." His chest ached as he struggled. "Just knowing it is enough."
Her eyes glistened. She nodded slightly.
He didn't say anything.
"I promise," she whispered. "I won't tell anyone."
Gichyòbi took a deep breath and fought to keep his voice from cracking.
She inhaled.
He took her hands in his, the tiny little palms dwarfed by his fingers. He kissed them gently before looking into her eyes. "I'm sorry. I am going to hurt you too. At a very specific point in your life, I'm going to hurt you more than anything you have ever felt before."
A whimper tore his heart apart.
He rushed forward, kissing her fingertips again. "I promise, I will only hurt you once, but I must do it."
"W-Why?"
Tears ran down his cheeks.
She tugged on her hands and he let her pull away. "Why, Papa? Why would you do that?"
Gichyòbi struggled to say anything. He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, about to say something that would ruin everything.
Kidóri's words rippled through the stone. «Do you need me in there? I'm in the hall behind you.»
He smiled. «Not yet, my love.»
She gave a word of encouragement and nothing else.
He focused on his crying daughter. "Do you like it when I take you through the stone?"
"Y-Yes?"
"Or when mama makes all those flowers bloom at once? Remember when she made the blue petals for your birthday?"
Nifaópi wiped her nose. She gave him a smile. "Yes."
"That's magic. Clan magic."
"I know what magic is, Papa," she said rolling her eyes.
"What about my brother? What about him?"
Her smile faded. "He's…."
"Go on. He's not here, he's not to hear anything you say in this moment. I promise." Gichyòbi tensed as he waited for the answer he knew would be coming.
"He's not very good, Papa. He keeps hurting himself when he walks through stone. That's why he fills out all the forms and and stuff."
"So, would say his magic was strong?"
Nifaópi cringed as if Gichyòbi was about to yell at her.
He stroked her cheek. "I'm not going to yell, I'm trying to explain why I have to hurt you."
"But you didn't hurt him, right?"
Gichyòbi felt the memories jam into his stomach, cutting deep. "No, but that's because I told him the secret. My papa and my mama did also because they were worried about him. Many people told him and he listened."
He let out a long, shuddering breath. His brother had forgiven him for his role, but even years later, it still hurt. He forced himself to focus on his daughter. "No one told me, which is why I'm so strong. I didn't know the secret. Your mama didn't know it either."
She frowned. "I-I don't understand, Papa. How can a secret make someone strong? How can hurting someone give you magic?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
Nifaópi hesitated. She sniffed and looked around, then dragged his mug closer to him. For a moment, he thought she was going to drink from it but she only toyed with the rim. "Why?"
Gichyòbi sighed. His chest ached and his heart hurt. He shook his head for a moment, trying to steel himself.
Kidóri rescued him by coming into the room, her bare feet whispering across the stone. "You remember that time when you and your brother fell off the wall and into the water basin?"
Nifaópi nodded and cringed.
"What happened?" Kidóri came up to slip her arms around Gichyòbi and their daughter.
"I started to drown. I kept trying to grab the edge but my fingers were slipping. I broke my fingers. There was water everywhere and I couldn't stop it from going into my nose."
"Did you think you were going to die?"
"Y-Yes, Mama."
Kidóri wiped the tears from her eyes. "Its moments like that when magic finally comes. When you are grabbing at the wall, trying to rescue your brother, and there is water in your lungs. That feeling, that horrible feeling like you aren't going to make it? That's when the clan spirits can finally hear you."
Gichyòbi added his own words. "The more terrified you are, the most scared, the more you are convinced you are going to die, the more powerful the connection and the stronger your magic."
"But I didn't get magic then. Neither of us did. I thought I was going to die."
Her mother answered, "Last year your mind and body weren't ready yet. It happen about the time when you are struggling not to cry or lash out at your brother, when you start to grow hair along your southern fields, and your breasts get bigger. That will be the point, many years in the future."
Nifaópi buried her face into her mother's arm. "So if I almost die when I'm older, I get magic?"
When said that way, Gichyòbi couldn't help but feel her words as a knife into his stomach. He knew it was coming, he thought about it like any parent did. He bowed his head. "Yes. If you knew you were going to be okay, you wouldn't be as terrified and the spirits won't be able to talk to you."
"Then why do you have to hurt me, Papa?" His daughter's voice was muffled from being pressed against her mother's arm.
Kidóri kissed Nifaópi on top of her head. "Because he loves you."
Nifaópi pulled away. "He's going to kill me, Mama! Papa is going to hurt me! Why? Why would he do that!?"
"Oh, my diamond," Gichyòbi said as he hugged her tightly. Tears burned his eyes as he cursed the world they grew up. "I have to do this."
"To keep you safe."
Nifaópi stopped for a moment. "What?" He could almost see her struggling to understand.
Gichyòbi closed his eyes tightly, squeezing out the tears. He was risking everything to let her know, but he kept thinking about how much pain Rutejìmo had gone through. "We do it before the desert does it for us. If we don't, you might be in the middle of the sands when it happens. You might be poisoned, drowned, or suffocating and we might l-lose you." His voice cracked.
Nifaópi shook her head.
Kidóri continued where Gichyòbi faltered. She looked into his eyes as she spoke in a low, strained voice. "The desert will making it happen, I promise you that. However, if we do it ourselves, your clan will be close by to make sure you survive no matter what happens."
With that, the secret had been broken.
Gichyòbi squeezed her waist. Through the ground, he sent a quiet word. «I hate this so much.»
"I-I won't drown?"
Gichyòbi shook his head. "No, I will do everything in my power to make sure you are safe. No matter in the world is worth losing you or your brother. When it's over, I won't ever hurt you again. But until that point, I need you to believe you are going to die otherwise you won't hear the magic."
In the back of his head, memories of his own rite rose up. Even now, decades later, he could still taste the foul air as he pounded desperately on the inner walls of a coffin made of stone. The scratches were still on his fists, if he looked. He had nearly suffocated to death in that tomb, not knowing that his own mother was watching only inches away. He had no doubt she was feeling the same thing he was experiencing in the moment.
Nifaópi toyed with his mug. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rocked it back and forth.
Kidóri started to take it away but then stopped. She sighed and leaned into Gichyòbi. «I hope we are doing the right thing.»
«Me too, my love.»
Nifaópi sniffed once and then began to bawl.
Gichyòbi's heart ripped in half. He opened his mouth but couldn't find words that would help. There was nothing he could say.
His daughter reached out to grab both of them, pulling their bodies close as she sobbed into the space between their arms.
Kidóri and Gichyòbi held their daughter tightly as the sobs wracked her body.
His back began to ache almost immediately as he had to crouch down to hold them but he didn't care. All the pain in the world was nothing to the sorrow of seeing his daughter in distress. It was part of being a parent, even the monster the desert would force him to become.
«I hate that magic requires so much pain.»
He nodded silently.
«Why does the sun-damned sand make us do this?» Kidóri asked. «To Nifaópi? To Rutejìmo? To our entire family?»
«Because if we don't, the desert mother will do it herself. The sands are far crueler than anything we will do to her. Would you rather put your children in her hands?»
She kissed Nifaópi. «Never.»
Their daughter's tears began to slowly subside.
Kidóri shifted her hand to pull her off the counter.
Nifaópi buried her face into her mother's breast. Her cries were softer. It sounded like she would be sleeping soon.
Gichyòbi pried his arm free. «Think she'll remember this?»
«I hope not.» Kidóri looked at him with concern. «You know what will happen if she does?»
«Then I will have to hurt her even more.» He frowned. «We were wrong for telling her?»
Kidóri kissed their daughter's head. «No, she has to know that we love her. Even if it remains in the back of her head, I can't have her ever think that she isn't anything less than our diamond in the sands.»
Gichyòbi stroked Nifaópi's hair, running his fingers along her curls. After a moment, he pulled away. "I love you, Ópi. With all my heart, I will always love you."
«Leave the rest of the dishes, come to bed.» Kidóri carried Nifaópi out of the kitchen.
Gichyòbi sighed and looked at the remaining mess. Reaching out, he grabbed his mug. He didn't have a taste for it anymore. Carefully, he poured it down the drain.
The desert demanded he hurt his children and he would obey. The consequences were too much to bear. But he refused to do it again. He would hurt his daughter only once.
Then he would spend the rest of his days telling her how much he loved her.
Gichyòbi
Galdinol <<Epigraph>>
Kidóri
Mapábyo
Nifaópi
Rutejìmo
Wamifuko City
Shimusògo
Wamifūko
hichifūma


text:
Q: graphql mutation argument name is [Object: null prototype] I try to post mutations query throw my nodejs based grapql api.
My schema in the server side:
...
input PostPickProps {
  userId: String
  matchId: String
  predictionModelId: String
  modelVersionNumber: Int
  modelVariationIndex: Int
  pickEnd: String
}

type Mutation {
  postPick(props: PostPickProps): String
}
...

Query from the app:
export const postPick = async ({
  userId,
  matchId,
  predictionModelId,
  modelVersionNumber,
  modelVariationIndex,
  pickEnd
}) => {
  const res = await fetch(`
    mutation {
      postPick(props: {
        userId: "${userId}"
        matchId: "${matchId}"
        predictionModelId: "${predictionModelId}"
        modelVersionNumber: ${modelVersionNumber}
        modelVariationIndex: ${modelVariationIndex}
        pickEnd: "${pickEnd}"
      })
    }
  `)

  return res
}

my resolver in the server side:
export const postPick = async ({ props }) => {
  const {
    pickEnd,
    matchId,
    userId,
    predictionModelId,
    modelVersionNumber,
    modelVariationIndex,
  } = props

  console.log(props) // output [Object: null prototype] { userId: 'hack' ...}
  ...

console.log output is not as expected:
[Object: null prototype] {
  userId: '5cb51b16e6161e6e5cb51b16',
  matchId: '5cb51b16e6161e6e401262c2',
 predictionModelId:'5ca0f4afb88b3a2e006faa0d',   ....

I suspect get props object as declared on my schema.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The war in Ukraine is pushing bread prices higher in the Middle East. That could lead to unrest.
by Justin Ho
High bread prices have helped topple governments in the region.
Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images
https://www.marketplace.org/2022/03/28/the-war-in-ukraine-is-pushing-bread-prices-higher-in-the-middle-east-that-could-lead-to-unrest/
What happened to Lebanon's economy?
by Sabri Ben-Achour
The country was once a financial, cultural and economic hub in the Middle East. It is now mired in a deepening economic crisis.
https://www.marketplace.org/2021/09/16/what-happened-to-lebanons-economy/
Syrian refugees face economic distress
by Janet Nguyen
9 in 10 refugees living in Jordan are poor or are expected to be.
https://www.marketplace.org/2015/12/16/refugees-lebanonjordan/
Refugees bring in big business in Europe
by Kai Ryssdal , Mukta Mohan and Bridget Bodnar
The mass migration has created unlikely opportunities.
BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
https://www.marketplace.org/2015/09/15/refugees-bring-big-business-europe/
Refugee crisis is bad in Europe, but worse elsewhere
by Tracey Samuelson
Most of Syria's 4 million registered refugees are in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.
https://www.marketplace.org/2015/09/11/refugee-crisis-bad-europe-worse-elsewhere/
The cost of misery: migrants in Europe
Accepting refugees isn't much of an economic threat.
https://www.marketplace.org/2015/09/09/cost-misery-migrants-europe/
Lebanon copes with garbage crisis and sustainability
After a stinking week, disposal resumes in Beirut, but will the solution last?
https://www.marketplace.org/2015/07/28/lebanon-copes-garbage-crisis-and-sustainability/
Saudi Arabia pledges $3bn to help Lebanon fight Hezbollah
by Carine Torbay
Saudi Arabia has made a $3 billion pledge to help Lebanon buy arms to counteract the role of Hezbollah.
https://www.marketplace.org/2013/12/30/saudi-arabia-pledges-3bn-help-lebanon-fight-hezbollah/


text:
Q: Printing hashmap instances ordered using priority queue I have inserted the distinct words of a txt file and how many times they repeat in a hashmap as keys and values respectively. The thing is, I want to print the k most used words in descending order using a PQ, but although it seems easy to insert the values in the priority queue of integers and then get the k max integers, I can't figure out a way to get the key corresponding to each value back again to print it (the values might not be unique). A solution would be to invert the hashmap, but it doesn't seem as a "safe" choice.
public static void main(int k)throws IOException{

   //Create input stream & scanner
   FileInputStream file = new FileInputStream("readwords.txt");
   Scanner fileInput = new Scanner(file);

   Map<String, Integer> frequency = new HashMap<>();
   LinkedList<String> distinctWords = new LinkedList<String>();
   PriorityQueue<Integer> pQueue = new PriorityQueue<Integer>();

   //Read through file and find the words
   while(fileInput.hasNext()){
       //Get the next word
       String nextWord = fileInput.next().toLowerCase();
       //Determine if the word is in the HashMap
       if(frequency.containsKey(nextWord)) {
           frequency.put(nextWord, frequency.get(nextWord) + 1);
       }
       else {
            frequency.put(nextWord, 1);
            distinctWords.add(nextWord);
       }

    }

    //Close
    fileInput.close();
    file.close();

}

A: There might be multiple solution, here is mine. create a class with two fields; one for the String and one for the Integer. Make the class implement Comparable and override the method compareTo so it compares the Integers.
public class WordFrequency implements Comparable<WordFrequency> {
    private String word;
    private Integer frequency;

    public WordFrequency(String word, Integer frequency) {
        this.word = word;
        this.frequency = frequency;
    }

    // descending order
    @Override
    public int compareTo(WordFrequency o) {
        return o.getFrequency() - this.getFrequency();
    }

    public Integer getFrequency() {
        return this.frequency;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return word + ": " + frequency;
    }
}

Then, convert your map<String, Integer> to a PriorityQueue<WordFrequency>:
PriorityQueue<WordFrequency> pQueue = frequency.entrySet().stream()
        .map(m -> new WordFrequency(m.getKey(), m.getValue()))
        .collect(Collectors.toCollection(PriorityQueue::new));

If you want to print it, you must use poll(), otherwise the order is not guaranteed.
while(!pQueue.isEmpty())
        System.out.println(pQueue.poll());


Who is Sarah Palin? The news confirmed this morning that she will be Senator John McCain's VP running mate on the Republican ticket. I'm avidly reading and watching the news reports to find out more about Sarah Palin.
My first impressions were YES, the first woman in Republican history to be on the ticket. And then my next thoughts were: Is she qualified?
I just finished watching the TV broadcast as John McCain introduced Sarah Palin for the first time as his VP running mate. I felt very emotional as tears welled up in my eyes. I was surprised by them as I'm not one who cries easily. As I listened to her speak, I learned much about this woman.
Sarah Palin is a wife and mother of five children. Wow; five children! She is 44 years old and is a Washington outsider. She comes from a middle class family with parents who were teachers. She was a high school point guard and earned the nickname "Barracuda". She went from being a soccer mom, to serving on the PTA, the city council, mayor of her home town and then elected as the Governor of Alaska. She ran on a platform of reform; to stop wasteful spending. So far, so good.
I loved it when she introduced her family. She spoke with such respect for her husband, Todd. She seemed proud that he was a fisherman and also a production manager in the oil field. He's also a snow mobile racer. They're celebrating their 20th anniversary today. Her eldest son Track is in the US Army and will be deploying to Iraq on September 11th. He wasn't able to be in attendance for obvious reasons but her other four children were introduced as Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig. Trig is just a baby and has Down's syndrome.
An article on About.com was forwarded to me this morning by my friend, Laurel. I learned that Sarah and Todd Palin were aware of their baby's condition prior to his birth. The following quote was released by the Palin family after the baby's birth and I found it in the article mentioned.
This says so much to me; Sarah Palin is pro-life. I think she must be Super Woman and Super Mom too.
She mentioned that it has been 80 years since women gained the right to vote. She went on to honor the two women who made such great strides forward in politics; Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic VP candidate in 1984 and Hillary Clinton. I liked her graciousness in acknowledging other women's accomplishments. Way to go!
Sarah Palin spoke about what's needed in Washington; grit, integrity and a fierce devotion to the common good. She also spoke of having a servant's heart as a leader. One other aspect I like.
Yes, I have much more to learn about her ability to serve in such an important position. I love to read and learn about all of the candidates from both parties. But so far, I believe Senator John McCain made a wise choice. (After all, this blog is about "choices".) There are 18 million voters who are Hillary Clinton supporters. Is it possible that some of them might switch party allegiance? I don't have that answer and will be watching.
In the meantime, happy birthday Senator McCain... and happy anniversary to the Palin's. They all have much to celebrate today!
Amen, well written article. I to teared up and I sat there thinking "why the heck am I tearing up?" Maybe because out of everyone in Washington, she looks real and can be the woman next door that you admire greatly.
Yes, I like someone who is "real" too, Laurel.
I appreciate your thoughts about Sara Palin. The more I hear about her, the more I like her. Also, as I speak with other friends, I find that they too, are encouraged by MeCain's choice.


Times after V-Day are tough, but the Kingsmen can slowly get up on their feet again. Everyone gets on- except Eggsy, now knighted Tristan, it seems. Haunted by the carousel of his thoughts, he looses himself in desperation and finds himself on (very) top of Tower Bridge one night. He leaves a voicemail for his former mentor, a goodbye slash suicide note, and ...doesn't jump.
too much realism for a vampire fic is that a thing?
Leave it to Harry to unintentionally turn himself into a vampire. Merlin is still trying to wrap his head around it, and his inner rationalist still vehemently protests the very term, but for lack of a better one, vampire is what they have to go on, so vampire it is.
When Harry got recruited, he expected his career in Kingsman to be not altogether dissimilar from a Bond movie. It is, kind of, except that instead of a colourful villain, he has to deal with an omega resistance movement, instead of a Bond girl, he gets a surly Scot who would shoot him for the designation, and, most important, he no longer has any idea whom he can trust. He should have become a tailor instead.
A fill of this prompt @ dressing-room3: "Late 80s, Omegas are still regarded as weak and inferior, so many eyebrows are raised when young Merlin was placed as a candidate. Omega, unbonded. Everyone thought that he'd be the first to go, that an omega couldn't get into Kingsman because they were weaker, docile, slaves to their hormones.
But he proved them wrong. Arthur still refused to put him out in the field, so he became the go to handler. A lot of the older knights tried to get him to mate with them, doing a variety of not so nice things, until Galahad, the second youngest agent, decided to be Merlin's personal watchdog."
Eggsy is determined to do well by Harry. He'll build him up, help him understand what a good man he is. While they're together Eggsy will do his best to live for Harry and make him understand how much more he's worth. And when Eggsy succeeds and Harry realizes he can have more, that he deserves more--- Eggsy will never be what holds Harry back from finding true happiness.
When Harry comes back, Eggsy can't find it in himself to keep his feelings quiet any longer. But no matter how this plays out, Eggsy knows to the bottom of his soul that he will never, ever be good enough for someone as amazing as Harry Hart.
The Kingsman Bed and Breakfast has been in Merlin's family for years. He ran it with his ma since he was 10 and inherited it completely once she passed away a month ago. Left with a generous amount of money and instructions to use it towards the B&B Merlin seeks out a family owned reno company called: Unwin Renovations. Hoping for better business and nothing more Merlin is not at all expecting the alpha son, Eggsy Unwin, of the owner to show an interest in the older omega.