Anne Rice on censorship

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Widely-read horror/occult author Anne Rice had the following to say about censorship and people who try to bully some opinions out of the marketplace:

Signing off with thanks to all who have participated in our discussions of fiction writing today. I want to leave you with this thought: I think we are facing a new era of censorship, in the name of political correctness. There are forces at work in the book world that want to control fiction writing in terms of who “has a right” to write about what. Some even advocate the out and out censorship of older works using words we now deem wholly unacceptable. Some are critical of novels involving rape. Some argue that white novelists have no right to write about people of color; and Christians should not write novels involving Jews or topics involving Jews. I think all this is dangerous. I think we have to stand up for the freedom of fiction writers to write what they want to write, no matter how offensive it might be to some one else. We must stand up for fiction as a place where transgressive behavior and ideas can be explored. We must stand up for freedom in the arts. I think we have to be willing to stand up for the despised. It is always a matter of personal choice whether one buys or reads a book. No one can make you do it. But internet campaigns to destroy authors accused of inappropriate subject matter or attitudes are dangerous to us all. That’s my take on it. Ignore what you find offensive. Or talk about it in a substantive way. But don’t set out to censor it, or destroy the career of the offending author.

We see this play out time and again in metal: a group of SJWs is offended by something, or pretends to be offended so they can feel powerful by destroying it, and they act to make sure that it is removed before anyone can even consider it. That is counterproductive to discussing or even understanding it, but the SJW goal is not to increase understanding, but to limit it so that they can control it.

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Joseph Stalin, pipe aficionado

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Lots of good people smoke pipes. Some bad ones — can people even be categorized as “good” and “bad”? — do as well. One of the more interesting cases concerns Joseph Stalin, Communist dictator most famous for his brutal methods. But, as I am prone to remind people, his methods worked and he brought the Soviet Union to its greatest strength out of all of its dictators.

He smoked in a somewhat unusual way:

“I have my first cigarette or pipe, depending on how I feel; sometimes I crumble a Herzegovina flor cigarette into a pipe, sometimes I smoke it straight. The first smoke of the day is important for setting your mood. If a pipe draws hard or leaves bitter juices in the bowl, if a cigarette is harsh and sears your windpipe, it can get you started wrong. To some this might see egotistical absorption in my own minutiae, which it would be if those minutiae did not affect so many other people. After a good smoke, if I am brought a list of Enemies of the People scheduled for execution and I spot a familiar name, I might easily write, in my own hand, that the person in question is to be sent to the camps, whereas if a bad pipe has soured my mood, I’ll sign the list without even looking.” – The Autobiography of Stalin by Richard Lourie

Although I enjoy a good pipe, it has never affected me this way. Then again, you are unlikely to find me signing death lists whether I have the power or not. Even more, the category “Enemies of the People” makes my skin crawl and reminds me how the Democrats and their loony wives treated metalheads back in the 1980s. Here are some of Stalin’s pipes, some rumored to be gifts from fellow strongman Winston Churchill:

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Another source gives us more insight on the ironic truth — much like how SJWs hide their privileged origins — behind Stalin’s choice of tobacco:

So what was ‘Herzegovina Flor’? The smokes were produced at the Moscow ‘Java’ factory, which was originally established by Samuel Gabai, from Kharkov, in the 19th century. Gabai’s idea was to produce a tobacco like no other, so he found a tobacco plant in Java, grew it in Herzegovina and then shipped it to Moscow. The products initially became favoured by the elite nobility and fledgling bourgeoisie. So Stalin, as the leader of the first worker’s state was in a quandary. If he smoked the cigarettes, he would give the wrong impression. So he opted for the common man’s pipe, but since he couldn’t tear himself away from the flavour of the tobacco, he decided to use it to fill his pipe. Eventually, the elite origins of the tobacco were forgotten and it became indelibly associated with the man himself.

Stalin smoked expensive cigarettes, but hid that fact by smoking them in a pipe, since at the time pipes were the domain of the common man. Pipes required relatively unprocessed shredded tobacco which without government taxation to equalize the price is always cheaper than cigarettes, which contain relatively little tobacco compared to your average pipe pouch. It does not seem appropriate for a Man of the People — or even a People’s Hero SJW — to be smoking expensive cigarettes. The genius of Stalin is that over time, he changed expectations such that his expensive cigarettes became associated with his brutality instead of their formerly elite status.

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“Can Latinos be Nazis?”

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Speaking of performances quietly cancelled because of perceived political views of the band, the Phoenix New Times brings us a hilarious story about SJW-induced panic over political incorrectness:

The bands’ members are mostly of Mexican descent , bringing up the question, can Latinos be Nazis?

The headliner, Nokturnal Warfare, is a Los Angeles-based group describing itself as a “nican tlaca black metal” band, a reference to a nativist Mexican pride movement. It might seem counter-intuitive for Mexican radicals to associate themselves with neo-Nazis, but there exists an offshoot of national socialist black metal (NSBM, a.k.a. Nazi metal) that has melded with certain strains of Mexican pride movements. A Spanish-language NSBM label called Pagan National Socialist Organization includes bands that feature hybrid images such as swastikas made from Aztec symbols.

The storyline is the same: show is booked, SJWs find some incriminating imagery on Facebook and swarm together in a Tumblr hive, promoter cancels show but is afraid to say why. Then we run into these ludicrous questions about whether these guys are actually Nazis considering that they are not white and not German. The hilarity accelerates:

On the band’s use of swastikas: “The swastika we use is the Mexica, better known as the Aztec swastika. It symbolizes the sun, primarily the sun war god Huitzilopochtli who was the supreme god of the southern native Mexica. … The swastika IS a Mesoamerican sacred pagan symbol. All because the third Reich uses it doesn’t mean we use it the same.”

They do sort of have a point. Swastikas show up in American Indian culture and the related Mesoamerican cultures, much as swastikas show up in Japanese, Finnish, Korean, Indian, Buddhist and Hindu imagery. Before the second World War, swastikas were common in American advertisements, including for Coca-Cola. This ruins the idea that a swastika has to mean whites hating non-whites. Even more, it calls to mind the question: if any group has pride in itself, does that make them Nazis?

Such questions are beyond the scope of this article.

What is within its scope is the problem metal faces with SJWs: they find new meaning in life by destroying the art of others. Their goal is not to expand meaning, but to collapse it into two categories. Either you agree to bleat the SJW orthodoxy, or you are an enemy of the state, an ideological dropout who should be treated as a mental patient. The hypocrisy of it is that most SJWs are white trust-fund babies who went to expensive colleges to learn this stuff, and now use it to assuage their deep inner doubt as they labor on in utter failures of lives.

This brings to mind other times SJW ideology has collided with reality, such as when bisexual Turks troll around with Nazi and racist imagery just to provoke the sheer stupidity of the herd. The SJWs are the herd; they are being trolled in the classic sense, which occurs when people poke at the sacred cows and taboos of an uptight group knowing that the group will lash out in hilarious ways. This is not much different than the Church of Lucifer opening a “church” in a tourist trap or metal bands using themes of war, eugenics, Darwinism, disease and apocalypse to momentarily stir their audience into brief glimpses of something like thought.

In the meantime, another show is cancelled and SJWs attempt to sweep the band under the rug, terrified that somewhere out there the rest of us might make up our own minds. With SJWs, like with Nazis and Stalinists, you either say the right thing… or you must be destroyed. It’s not surprising that metal continues to clash with these intolerant, small-minded and bigoted SJWs, exploding into the conflict we call “Metalgate” because it reflects the same attempts at industry takeover by SJWs as we saw in GamerGate. As with the gaming industry, SJWs have failed to take over metal, and are now fighting a rearguard action to try to save their fractured sense of self-esteem.

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Maryland Deathfest organizers confirm Disma removal from California Deathfest for SJW reasons

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As reported previously, the California Deathfest (produced by Maryland Deathfest) has booted death metal band Disma for alleged un-PC associations. The organizers of the Maryland Deathfest refused to answer queries by our journalists and others about the reason why Disma was booted.

And then, they publicly denied it:

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Unfortunately for them, a metal defender confirmed that the dismissal was politically motivated by reaching out to vocalist Craig Pillard (Incantation, Disciples of Mockery):

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His statement read:

they removed Disma!
with no announcement to make us look like the assholes

yes, its true the liberal agenda pc assholes got to the promoter of those shows and we removed Disma which is a not affiliated with any political group at all… but it only helps us for people naturally will get drawn to us more because of this now… thanks for your support for Disma

At this point, the Maryland Deathfest organizers began backpedaling about their reason for refusing to make a statement:

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As they tell it, you see, it was not because they did not want to make a statement, but because in some imagined division in our mind, we — and the others who wrote to them — were not “journalists.” Never mind the hundreds of death metal, black metal and heavy metal bands who see us that way, or the work we do. This was a convenient lie for them to escape accountability. As word of Pillard’s statement spread, however, the retreat and backpedaling began in earnest.

Even worse for them is the fact that this issue has come up before with Disma. SJWs complained in Austin, and Disma was yanked there, too, despite there being no evidence or clarification that Craig Pillard is actually involved with any of these political beliefs. Even more, since Disma has a guitarist of Jewish heritage, it is highly unlikely and even laughable that the band would have any political leaning.

No, this was a witch-hunt, pure and simple. It makes SJWs feel powerful to force the world to bend to their ways, and when they can use guilt as a weapon and force others to obey the voices inside their own heads, they almost feel validated. Almost, because they keep doing it again and again. As Metalgate has proven, SJWs are not the most successful, good-looking, intelligent or competent people, which is why they form an angry mob. The people who could not make Onward to Golgotha get an almost sexual thrill from taking down those who could.

This is why Metalgate exists: to defend artistic expression from the small-minded nanny society witch hunters. Here is Pillard’s statement from the last time Disma was witch-hunted by SJWs after their Walter Mitty style cube jobs:

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“To the less than one tenth of one percent of the bleeding hypocritical liberalists and to anyone that actually cares, this is my first and final statement; Disma-in no way, shape, or form, has any significance to the ideas of project Sturmfuhrer. On my part alone, the solo projekt known as Sturmfuhrer was a musical and social experiment in the extreme; its purpose was not meant for your pleasure, but for your pain. If I have offended anyone, then it has fulfilled its intended purpose. I do not belong to, or associate with any ideological group in any capacity. To penalize the collective band known as Disma, would be hypocritical and absurd. Thank you for the extra press! – Craig Pillard”

Beef, its whats for dinner!!!

Like many metal musicians, Pillard pushed the boundaries of what is socially acceptable in order to make a point. He was not making propaganda, i.e. music that tells you to think a certain way. This was an artistic statement. But SJWs, bored and lonely in their successless lives, always seek new targets. To give them a sense of purpose. To make them feel important. Even to convince them for a few moments that they are actually good people, instead of mediocrities with the moral caliber of a boiled clam. And Maryland Deathfest gave in, then lied about it, and then lied some more, all to protect this tiny group of people who have never created any metal worth listening to.

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Jim Konya/Sadist from Nunslaughter, 1971-2015

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Much respected and befriended drummer Jim Konya, a/k/a “Sadist,” of Nunslaughter has died. He suffered a series of strokes beginning three weeks ago and was put on life support last week, with the machines deactivated on October 7.

Over the years, Nunslaughter with Konya at the helm has produced a series of speed metal/death metal hybrid records known for their unrelenting energy, gleeful anti-Christianity and creative riffs. His drum work propelled the work forward with a type of combat-like integrity.

We have dimmed the lights at the Dark Legions Archive in tribute to this legendary metalhead. As his obituary reminds us, “He was an avid sports fan, especially of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Jim has many friends all over the world because of his musical tours and love of music. He will be missed by many.”

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBgWJG2dFxk

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Supuration releases video for “Reveries of a Bloated Cadaver” from upcoming compilation Reveries

Grindcore/alternative-rock/deathmetal/progressive rock band Supuration released a track “Reveries of a Bloated Cadaver” from their upcoming re-envisioning of earlier material, Reveries. The band has taken its style of technical death metal and unconventional progressive rock and used it to re-imagine these older tracks in newer form, but has done so without losing the distinctive energy of the earlier material.

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Troll rockers Black Pussy continue to push boundaries

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Hard rock band Black Pussy, who have deliberately provoked the uptight and easily offended with their name, continue to disturb the sedentary and senile world of heavy rock with further provocations. Upon completing a set of successful live dates, the band was amused to see the following from an irate SJW:

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As usual, heavy rock is arrayed between the realist rebels and the nanny establishment, with the former wanting to push boundaries further and the establishment wishing it would all go away so they can go back to selling lukewarm 1970s rock as if it were a new genre. SJWs and hipsters, who act as enablers to industry, do the best they can to enforce more boundaries so that heavy rock must be limited to a narrow range of material, making it easy to churn it out on an assembly line and reap the profits.

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Infamous, Solitudo and Warnungstraum releasing Il Rifugio del Silenzio split

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Melodic primal black metal band Infamous, along with cohorts Solitudo and Warnungstraum, will release a three-way split on Eremita Productions in December 2015. The bands — each in a variant of the traditional black metal style — have contributed a total of 50 minutes of material.

Limited to 200 hand-numbered copies, the 6-panel digipak will feature the nature-oriented and feral artwork which customarily adorns Infamous releases. For those who have enjoyed this band’s evolution into more Ildjarn-styled territory, with the warmer melodies familiar to Southern European black metal, should anticipate this release with joy.

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Pestilence to release The Dysentery Penance compilation of demos

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Legendary Dutch death metal band Pestilence is re-issuing its two demos from 1987 on a compilation entitled The Dysentery Penance, out in CD/digital on November 30, 2015 with the vinyl to follow in early 2016. The two demos, “The Penance” and “Dysentery,” show the formative years of the technical death metal style later to evolve from Pestilence.

To be released on Vic Records, this new release shows yet another death metal band reaching into the vaults so that new generations can experience the sense of possibility and discovery as these bands forged ahead in uncharted waters to create the new death metal style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvxo23nAC9c

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Hipsters attack black metal with pale imitations

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Since the early 1970s, the music industry and the social scene behind it — comprised of those who use external appearance to signal social success — has been trying to find some way to counter the authenticity of metal. While rock and blues stars appeared to be rebels, the truth emerged over time that most were very conventional in their outlook except for hedonism.

Heavy metal on the other hand rejected the founding myths of our society since the intellectual shift so-called “The Enlightenment,” in which people decided that social pressure to enable the individual to be “equal” whether right or wrong, good or bad, was more important than social standards. Heavy metal pointed out that our perceived enemies are scapegoats, and the real problem is that the enemy is us, and that people are delusional and happy hippie flower power is another variety of the bourgeois deliberate ignorance of reality that promotes social decay.

In recent years, the same people who were hippies back in the 1960s — the conformity of appearance non-conformist and then going to work at a bank and retiring as a fat Baby Boomer — have returned as “social justice workers,” or SJWs. These people, together with an industry that realizes it can sell more re-branded indie rock than it can discover compelling metal bands, have created a new style that culturally appropriates the appearance of black metal while injecting it with the same messages of self-indulgence, self-pity, victimhood and pacifism that the hippies bleated about back in the day.

As the UK’s leading cheerleader paper reports, the herd is claiming this new false black metal is in fact an “innovation,” despite it resembling music from thirty years ago that black metal bands detested.

Enter “blackgaze”, the buzz term for a new school of bands taking black metal out of the shadows and melding its blast beats, dungeon wailing and razorwire guitars with the more reflective melodies of post-rock, shoegaze and post-hardcore. It’s a geographically loose scene and its bands have been embraced by the indie media, which means you’re now as likely to hear black metal at ATP as in the Carpathian mountains.

Alert readers may note the “post-rock, shoegaze and post-hardcore” attribution, which Death Metal Underground has long identified as being the origins of this material. In other words, it is not black metal, but indie rock playing “dress up” as black metal. The quest of the industry for a safe rebellion goes on.

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