{"id":114,"date":"2011-07-30T08:36:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T13:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/2011\/07\/30\/start-the-war-without-me"},"modified":"2011-07-30T08:36:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T13:36:00","slug":"start-the-war-without-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/30\/start-the-war-without-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Start the War Without Me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[EDITED:\u00a0 As I sat through the day I realized that this post \u2013 hastily pounded out as soon as I woke up this morning \u2013 didn\u2019t really convey everything I wanted it to.\u00a0 It has been edited from its original form.\u00a0 The changes are in blue, <\/font>lest anyone accuse me of \u201ccovering my tracks\u201d.<\/font><\/p>\n

Like most people raised in this society (there are other societies that suffer this problem, but I can\u2019t speak to them in the same way), my brain is contaminated with the idea of the End Times.\u00a0 Some day \u2013 and probably soon! \u2013 there will be an epic struggle to determine the fate of the universe: the Y2K Bug; the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; 2012 and the Mayan Calendar; whites becoming a racial minority; the Islamic fundamentalist takeover of the world.\u00a0 A guy I knew in high school had been \u201cassured\u201d by his \u201cspirit guides\u201d that there would be a race war in 2013.\u00a0 My own delusions of the Apocalypse always revolved around a battle between the One God and the Old Gods \u2013 or their followers, at least.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe this any more \u2013 consciously, at least – but I\u2019ve spent too many hours contemplating this and other end-time scenarios to wholly resist the power of the meme.<\/font><\/p>\n

Now we have the New Apostolic Reformation<\/a>, which is flatly declaring war<\/a> not just against the followers of the the Old Gods, but against everyone who opposes their uniquely American Protestant Free-Market-Is-The-Hand-Of-God Capitalism.\u00a0 (No, I won\u2019t link to them directly.\u00a0 I can\u2019t handle the troop-carriers of trolls that might unleash.\u00a0 Use yer Google.)\u00a0\u00a0 Some pagans \u2013 and not just our own troll-warriors – are talking about fighting back<\/a>.\u00a0 Others are framing themselves as conscientious objectors<\/a>.\u00a0 This situation takes me uncomfortably back to the age of eighteen \u2013 except that back then I would not have hesitated to join the fray. <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

Politically, I\u2019m a pacifist: I don\u2019t believe that there is any justification for two groups of people to line up and do violence against one another.\u00a0 Personally, though, I\u2019m a believer in self-defense: if you come at me swinging, I\u2019ll duck, dodge, hit you with a fucking chair until I can run away, then destroy you from a distance (I am a Scorpio, after all).\u00a0 So \u2026 I\u2019m sympathetic to both sides of the argument.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But \u2026 Allison Leigh Lilly, in particular, makes a lot of good points. There\u2019s a lot<\/em> of creepy nationalism in the idea of nominating any deity as the God of American Freedom; choosing Columbia or Zeus over Jesus and Jehovah \u2026 doesn\u2019t really impress me any.\u00a0 The eliminationist language on both sides makes me uncomfortable.\u00a0 Further, the DC40 campaign does not parallel with either scenario above: it is neither a direct person-to-person attack against me, nor a move by one state against another.<\/font>\u00a0 I don\u2019t want the NAR\/Third Wave to curl up and die; I just want them to go away and let me live my life somewhere else.\u00a0 And they don\u2019t necessarily want me to die: they\u2019ll settle for a theocratic state that subjugates me to third-class citizenship, or perhaps outright slavery.\u00a0 The DC40 campaign is maleficent magic aimed at motivating lawmakers to do their dirty work for them.<\/font><\/p>\n

Fortunately, magic gives us options that are more nuanced that \u201clet them hit me, run away, or hit them back\u201d.\u00a0 We can shield ourselves \u2013 build a magical bunker, if you will.\u00a0 We can try to bind our enemies from doing us harm.\u00a0 We can do our own enlightenment-bombing of the Capital\u00a0 \u2026 or even the NAR, themselves (problematic, but better than trying to give anybody cancer)<\/font>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I\u2019m about to leave behind my base of power.\u00a0 I\u2019m not just leaving Aradia and our space where we\u2019ve built up so much power.\u00a0 I\u2019m not just leaving Pasiphae and Aidan, with whom we\u2019ve worked with for much of the last two years, and Chirotus and D \u2013 with whom I disagree about more and more, but who I think I could convince to work with me on this one \u2013 and the KU Cauldron and all the other local groups and places of power I\u2019ve worked with for most of my life.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m leaving the entire state of Missouri for a city and state where I have no relationship to the land or its people.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to be rebuilding from scratch.\u00a0 My altar may not be able to make the move at all; at best I\u2019m going to be able to pack bits and pieces.<\/p>\n

So \u2026<\/p>\n

Working alone.\u00a0 With no relationship to the land.\u00a0 With half my stored power left behind.\u00a0 Attending classes full time at a badass school (full of hardcore pacifist Quakers, I might add) which will consume more time and energy than I can really imagine at this stage (and be the magical equivalent of trying to build a ballista atop a sinkhole).<\/font><\/p>\n

What is morally right? What is tactically feasible? What is the best long-term strategy? What are the odds that the answers to these questions are the same course of action?<\/font><\/p>\n

What can I do?\u00a0 What should I do?<\/p>\n

The answers: I don\u2019t have them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[EDITED:\u00a0 As I sat through the day I realized that this post \u2013 hastily pounded out as soon as I woke up this morning \u2013 didn\u2019t really convey everything I wanted it to.\u00a0 It has been edited from its original form.\u00a0 The changes are in blue, lest anyone accuse me of \u201ccovering my tracks\u201d. Like … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[76,149],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-witchcraft","tag-ethics","tag-magic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-1Q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}