Remember those who never had a chance. Like many of us, they grew up in a wasteland of broken families, pointless wage-slave jobs, hippie ideals and grim social collapse mundanities, a utopia of fond visions and a dystopia of nightmarish collisions with the reality those denied. They had nothing to look forward to but a mortgage in the burbs, a family ending in divorce, and a society which systematically disregards the beautiful and zeroes in on the failed, the corrupt and the deceptive. A world coated in advertising and saturated with deceit.
It is my unfortunate duty to relay to you that Adam Gadahn, a metalhead and devout fan of Incantation and Timeghoul, passed away in January by drone strike. As the lapdog media relates:
Officials also announced that a separate strike killed Adam Gadahn, an American who became a prominent propagandist for al Qaeda, was close to Osama bin Laden, and had a $1 million bounty on his head. The deaths bring to seven the number of Americans killed in drone strikes, six of them inadvertently.
The White House said it was unaware the four were present at the sites, which were hit on Jan. 14 and Jan. 19 near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. President Barack Obama apologized to the families of the hostages and said he took full responsibility as commander in chief.
This conflict is beyond politics. Yes, we have divided into factions but no, that is not our problem. Our problem rebirths itself time and again because it is within. We have become rotten, whores to our own independence and manipulators so canny we have even fooled ourselves. This civilization has sold itself snake oil for centuries and the result is the continual destruction of those with spirit, sensitivity and the guts to do something about it. Those who conform, lower standards and follow trends always win. This is the source of evil the real thing, as opposed to the supernatural scapegoat that the credulous choose to believe exists.
Evil is real. Its name is error, and all error consists of separating our expectations from reality. That eventually becomes a devotion to lying about the split between mental image and the world beyond, at which point we retreat into a fantasy existence of mental projection, desires and emotions. As a wise poet once said:
Take your instinct by the reins
You’d better best to rearrange
What we want and what we need
Has been confused, been confused
We are confused. Our wars no longer advance anything but the defense of the status quo, and all of us hate that. We all admit the problem is morons and that 90% of everything sucks, but no one is willing to get past the sacred cows lest some opportunist step up and whip up a lynch mob to tear down the heretic. “The nerve of that guy — he said our society is actually failing. What a rube!”
Above you can see a letter written by Gadahn back in the day. It contains some of his opinions on death metal and literature. He had great taste in metal, came from a broken home in a broken time, and did his best. Rest in peace, Adam.
Tags: adam gadahn, incantation, massacra, sepultura, timeghoul
Fuck that scumbag motherfucker! I hope he suffered for hours in agonizing pain before dying.
Who did he send this letter to?
This was from our correspondence in 1993.
Was he the guy known as La Bette Noir? If not, is he still around?
Are Americans killed by American drones called collateral damage. Everyone else is considered that if killed by the United States of America.
Yes, they are.
Fuck that weakling. Glory to the West.
Ah yes! the good old days of correspondence via ink! i.e. without having to translate every point of reference through the autists-filter. People took great pride in this genre, even when kickin back and you can sense that in Adam’s letter. But it also helped that most bands didn’t suck back then, and the ones that did were easily identifiable and cast out by unwritten scene law. But internet stuffed a lot of stuff up (most of the generation born within it for example). Oh and of course it is sad to see creative young people get on the wrong path, yet not too surprising. We all too easily get to thinking everyone is an individual, but forget there isn’t always much choice. Reality time!
RIP, real Hessian
He’s guilty of the same evil that plagues the United States- being lost and blindly following someone else’s orders rather than thinking for himself. Just because he laid his life on the line doesn’t make him honorable. I don’t care that he supported the “enemy” of the United States. Fuck the United States. I agree that a violent uprising is the only way we can change things but who he sided with isn’t the solution.
It sucks that a friend of yours went this route, Brett. I had a metal friend who lost it and killed his parents. His taste in music didn’t grant him a free pass though. I haven’t yet, but I often think about visiting him in jail, just to hear his rationale for what he did. Apparently our whole friend circle, myself included, was on a “people to kill” list. So I’m looking forward to an interesting conversation.
I appreciate the sympathy. He was a good kid, and while his choices may seem terrible, very little is as one dimensional as the Christian good/evil dichotomy. There is evil, surely, but it is not found in tidy little separated groups by political allegiance. Good luck with your friend. It sounds like he may have mental health problems. I have encountered similar situations myself and they are emotionally difficult.
I wish I could believe in this:
In the hands of humans, “think for yourself” becomes apathy and detachment.
The only yardstick that matters is, What result will this create? and Is it good?
Are you an ends justify the means guy?
Yes and No.
I believe ends must reflect reality, that justification is nonsense, and that the ends determine the means.
That is to say: the goal must be realistic, and the methods chosen to achieve it will depend on the goal, rather than the other way around.
People who insist that the means justify the ends are always manipulators. “We are good, because we use good means, therefore we must be given total power!”
I agree that the means rarely justify the ends. But the inverse is rarely plausible either.
Cause and effect rarely exists properly anymore.
I agree heartily here, and see the reason behind this as human solipsism, or our tendency to assume that the world which we perceive through ourselves is in fact something of our own making such that changing those perceptions changes the reality. It is a philosophy of anaesthesia.
Both ends and means have the potential to inflict human suffering. There’s no difference. Be the change you seek.
Human suffering happens anyway. The question is how to ensure (1) good results from that suffering and (2) make that suffering meaningful.
I don’t think anyone would disagree with that, along with a minimising suffering principle.
People who believe that the ends justify the means generally do so because their ideas are shitty and no-one likes them (the ideas, not the person). No-one else wants to bring about their shitty grand plan without being violently coerced. So those “ends > means” guys try to convince themselves they are being moral by switching their frame of thought, by blaming the lumpen proletariat and so on.
Often, the means that are most disliked are the means that are needed. Compare: eating your vegetables versus eating ice cream.
Most of humanity have zero self-discipline and will do whatever is self-destructive if not guided. In groups, they form lynch mobs that crusade for no social standards, which in turn makes civilization fall apart.
How do things look out there to you now?
I’d say things look pretty bad, if anything you just said was true.
For instance, lynch mobs have never crusaded for “no social standards”, not even those modern hippy liberals who push for more freedoms. A valueless lynch mob doesn’t exist.
Rather, people have always naturally banded together throughout history to use their power to enforce certain standards, which has usually meant preying on the weak. Instead of production, you get predation. It is a miracle that we reversed this and forged the concept of the rule of law (you can thank the English and the Magna Carta for that). It is furthermore astounding how that legacy has only survived by being defended time and time again in open warfare and chiefly by England, Britain and the United States. The natural state of mankind is lawlessness and the domination of the weak by the strong. That is how civilisation falls apart.
I look out there and see a brilliant inheritance.
We live on different planets. Good day.
You either believe the ends justify the means or the means justify the ends.
There isn’t any other position you can take in a given situation.
At least given the definition of ends as referring to the end result as a whole. If you were to kill two people to save one for example, are the ends one person saved, or one person saved + two killed. If the distinction you make is the former, then you wouldn’t see the ends as always justifying the means. If the latter, then you would simply see the means as referring to whatever action the party or parties involved commit directly. Which is obviously irrelevant to anyone who isn’t a woman. It’s a semantic confusion that seems to underlie many of the disagreements on this. Though like Brett mentioned, Judeo-Christian morality surely also plays a role. And then there’s the aforementioned gender…
There isn’t one stance here that is absolute, since it’s impossible to fully determine the weight of the means until well after the act and also because the ends rarely equate to exactly what the act is predicted to fulfill. Nothing is in black and white, and reducing population to statistics doesn’t justify means so much as calculate a numerical amount to them in order to validate the ends.
@ Phil (answering above and below)
“Rather, people have always naturally banded together throughout history to use their power to enforce certain standards, which has usually meant preying on the weak. Instead of production, you get predation. It is a miracle that we reversed this and forged the concept of the rule of law (you can thank the English and the Magna Carta for that). It is furthermore astounding how that legacy has only survived by being defended time and time again in open warfare and chiefly by England, Britain and the United States. The natural state of mankind is lawlessness and the domination of the weak by the strong. That is how civilisation falls apart.”
A perfect analysis, well put. You will notice that this system only came about once Christianity had become the dominant force in Europe and has no precedents in civilizations before Christianity. The order of the natural world is that the strong dominates the weak. Sadly physically strong does not always equal ‘makes good decisions’ hence the problems you pointed out.
But you are not likely to find common ground with Brett, however, because he seems to believe it is right that the strong should dominate the weak. His writings of the past seem to imply he would prefer the world of the Sagas of Icelanders to that of the Renaissance. Of course, he probably means ‘strong’ in the general sense of having the all the best attributes (I hope). The problem is that the physically strong, in his regime, would always dominate the wise and virtuous, as they always did before we had a social system where the physically strong and those in strong positions restricted their own behaviour – Christian morality. In effect, they recognised a force that was infinitely stronger than them and that they would one day answer to.
@ Dualist
While I don’t deny the mollifying influence of Christianity there is at least the important exception of the ruling structure of the old Germanic tribes as described by Tacitus in Germania. Those tribes would eventually carry their prototypical democratic/law-like customs over to England!
I am aware of the difference in approach Brett takes. Of course, I believe it is an incorrect approach, to say the least.
In some bizarre hypothetical where someone is forced to choose between eliminating a) a sweet and lovable yet mentally handicapped and dependent person or b) a sweet and lovable person free of mental issues or dependency issues, probably a conservative estimate of at least 50% would choose to eliminate option b out of pity for option a. Preshate it, Christianity. It is safe to say that this is a modern phenomenon and only willful obliviousness can explain any lack of comprehension of why this inversion is suicidal. I’m the strongest most capable mother fucker on this planet (yeah, right). But I can say that I have observed enough to assert with absolute certainty that anyone perceived to have transcendent attributes is, at least generally speaking, utterly despised and must be either brought down a few notches or dispensed with.
Can’t speak for Brett but would assume he’d characterize choosing to eliminate option a as the more level headed, forward thinking and indeed “grown up” choice. Could be wrong. But OF COURSE Brett is not asserting physical strength as an indicator of character. Physical attributes probably but not brute strength, so it seems weird to even speculate as much.
Commoners can demonstrate strength of character and can even be fun to hang out and get drunk with, but only the strongEST will possess the fortitude necessary for choosing the leader most able to put feelings aside long enough to confront the copious amount of tough decision making involved with maintaining and advancing a healthy and “strong” society.
This is similar to my philosophy on life. “Evil” is what separates us from the truth and “good” is what brings us closer to the truth.
A means is justified as long as the end serves the cause of truth.
Judging by your previous comments, you would be one of the first to go in a “violent uprising”. The reason? You think too much. Angry lynch mobs don’t much value such a quality.
Moreover, would you really prefer a life of tumult and uncertainty with the threat of lumpenprole death squads looming over you at all times as opposed to your current life of comfort where you can play Guilty Gear in your underwear while blasting your favorite deathcore band?
Haha, apologists for muslim murderers on the far left and the far right. Horseshoe theory confirmed, again.
Adam can suck the dark lord’s veiny cock in hell, good riddance
Far-right recognizes failure of status quo; far-left is simply anti-majoritarian; in the middle are the apologists.
LOL “Far-left is simply anti-majoritarian.”
You really are a jester, aren’t you?
You deny that the far-left is anti-majoritarian?
OK then.
I guess we have a different understanding of the far-left then. Far-left thinkers like Chomsky and Richard D. Wolff are very much pro-majority.
What is your reasoning behind your initial statement?
You are probably using the word “pro-majority” the way I use the term “populist.”
“Populist” meaning “democratic”. You have the same reservations about democracy as many on the left do, especially in Europe.
I’d be interested in any anti-democracy voices on the left that you care to cite.
Generally, since the core of the left is egalitarianism, it makes no sense for them to be anti-democracy, but they often argue for the caretaker state, as under Communism.
I would prefer to avoid that fate.
José Manuel Barroso, former president of the EU commission:
“Governments are not always right. If governments were always right we would not have the situation that we have today. Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.”
The leaders of the EU project (all of them socialists, former communists, or social democrats) all have an unhealthy distrust of national democracy and prefer making up the rules as they go along. The EU has been swallowing up national (democratic) competences for some time.
Unless by left-wing you simply mean “likes personal liberty”.
“Governments are not always right. If governments were always right we would not have the situation that we have today. Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.”
Sounds like the sense of this was rather that no government is ever always right, not even democratic ones. Unless there’s a broader context that was left out.
A better distinction would be the one between democracy with utilitarianism. The first implies (at its ideal level anyway) an active participation in some political process. The second doesn’t necessarily require or allow anything of the people being affected by it but still seeks to do everything in the name of benefiting a majority and this is a good thing simply because it is for the majority. Lenin’s concept of a revolutionary vanguard — an enlightened caste of revolutionaries that would be called upon to “gently” guide the majority of people toward socialism/communism — is probably the best known example of the left’s intellectual justification for doing something in the name of a majority while still supposedly acting in the interests of that majority.
This was inspired by previous comments. The only power we gleaned from “power to the people” is the ever increasing energy of the approaching tidal wave. Optimism and further postponement of regrouping steadily increase its power and the assurance of its arrival. A few will dodge the crash but most will be subsumed including the healthiest and most capable among us. It’s alot easier for average Joe to wake up in the morning blind to the future, but the ultimate is for one to have all the basic mental wiring of the historically more intelligent realist and yet somehow psyche themselves into believing that the angelic “downtrodden” can be entrusted to commandeer the ship (this describes every single “leader” in our current age).
Something about that darn millennium rollover seems to have burst the dam. For at least the past 15 years anyone not wearing reality filtering goggles who loves themselves and their heritage gets to look forward to the same joyous realization every new years day: that even with 7 billion incomprehensibly complex brains the only goal is to one-up the exacerbation and futility of the previous year. Optimism is tantamount to mass murder. Those living in the city, whether driving on the road or walking down the street or shopping at a box store or eating in a restaurant or buying popcorn at the movies or attending an event or waiting in line at the dmv, can witness festering issues much more readily than smaller populations but make no mistake: disillusionment with life and vicious rancor between warring camps has blanketed every inch of the West (the well concealed “passive” rancor is by far the most maddening to the realist since s/he is the only one who notices it). Miscellaneous cultural trends that are no longer laughing with you but AT you, the behaviors, interactions and conversations that you observe, not to mention the fate that awaits if you piss off the wrong person; it’s well worth the investment as all of this is filtered out quite efficiently by modern day reality filtering goggles. Whereas a time traveler from 1850 to 1950 may feel some culture shock, one from 1950 to today will definitely wish he had taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
So if there is a single molecule of intelligence left, posterity will be quite curious as to how exactly something so seemingly innocuous as optimism could have bequeathed them nothing but grey people and smoldering [insert noun choice here]. After a nice little chuckle, feel free to file this under “paranoid overblown cynicism” and carry on.
Hey Brett,
I just want to say that in this shitty world, it’s really cool to see somebody stand by someone who died making such an unpopular decision. A million people can say they probably agreed with Adam on 90% of his thoughts, but few would be there for one in his situation when the end came. At least he had the balls to make a decision and commit to it. Good or bad, history will judge. It’s hard to judge the world in a negative manner and condemn a man for following an unorthodox lifestyle. Right or wrong, at least he tried. Thanks for bringing that to the forefront where otherwise it would have been forgotten.
@ Phil (Answering you response to my comment above – there’s no reply tab for some reason…)
I agree, there’s definitely been democratic systems before. The 1st century tribes you mentioned and Greece etc. But I’m sure you’ll agree that in both of these examples the order of the day was the physically strong dominating the weak. In Sparta, Plato’s inspiration for his Republic, the whole social order was based on each Spartan warrior having one slave each – the Helots who were the indigenous people of the lands conquered by the Spartans in earlier days. Each Helot’s lot in life was the do the hard labour of food production etc. No doubt the Spartan’s suspected the Helots resented this and expected treachery so each year it was LEGAL to kill any Helot a Spartan didn’t quite like the look of.
As for the Germanic peoples, their whole ethos was a Heroic one. I’ve read Tacitus’ Germania too but we probably have more information about their Norse cousins, from the Sagas I mentioned. Now, I’m not saying the Germanic peoples had no concept of honour – this couldn’t be less true. The bullying of lesser men was not something to brag about. In every single episode involving Berserks that I have read they are always portrayed as bullies and normally come to a sticky end at the ends of an Egil, Gunnar or Skarp-Hedin. But the whole system came down to who was the physically toughest. Please don’t think I lack respect for that society – they lived their lives with an intensity our contemporaries couldn’t imagine and yes, their concept of honour makes ours pale into insignificance. But, to put it bluntly, I don’t think Varg or Fenriz would have flourished had they lived in those days. Varg is a man who murdered an unarmed weakling as an act of one-upmanship after Faust’s murder. Fenriz would have probably been exposed at birth as a runt.
It is simply not true that the truly great rose to the top and people were only serfs because that’s all they were capable of. It WAS possible to rise up through running a farm well and consolidating your gains – but such people were still often looked down upon because of their lack of esteemed lineage. I remember an example (I think it was near the end of either Gisli Surson’s or the People of Vatnsdal’s Saga) were somebody’s bondsman had been freed had actually saved a little money, went abroad and made a fortune. This was clearly a man with virtue and forward-thinking who certainly didn’t ‘deserve’ to be a serf. But one of the heroes of the saga heard about this and sought him out and stole all the money off him. The serf made a fortune once again and the same ‘hero’ relieved him of it all again. The whole tone of the saga during those episodes was not one of shock but conveyed a sense that this was right and proper – because he was just from the serf class. This is not a healthy value in a society.
Without Christianity there would have been no hope of values such as these changing, ever.
I believe most DM fans who oppose Christianity do so because they do not really understand its true values, even less its philosophy. A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing regarding Christianity. They often only have experience of the lame, limp-wristed ‘hey, let’s just all get on and tolerate anything’ breed seen in the more evangelical Protestantism of the US. Real, muscular Christianity – the Catholicism of the middle ages – is ultimate system to ensure:
“(1) good results from [] suffering and (2) make that suffering meaningful.”
If you read the lives of the Saints you will encounter men who could endure ANYTHING – and still retain the joy of life. Even Nietzsche (in Human, All Too Human) idolises their self-control and wonders how people will reach those levels of self discipline once the world eventually lost its belief in the eternal. These were men who would NOT tolerate self-centred behaviour – which is the ultimate ERROR and hence evil. Their kind hardly exists at all these days so I understand why people do not see much to praise in the lives of your average american protestant. When talking about Christian’s you must look at people who live it to its full extent – these are the standard that people in a truly Christian society aim for. Mayhem (and Watain) laugh about blowing up cathedrals. The men, including the warriors, of the middle ages BUILT them. Often knowing the work would take centuries and they would never live to see it….