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Mankh's avatar

Steve, am reading "A Violent Evangelism" by Luis N. Rivera who i learned of from your excellent documentary "The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code", and even though i was already aware, it's amazing how consistently the language and mission is blatantly and clearly stated as a mechanism for slavery, domination, supremacy, etc. Rivers notes, "Even armed actions are referred to as pacifying actions." That kind of Orwellian mindf#^* has contributed to what people globally are still dealing with. And you do a good job conveying the effect of all that and subsequent blues...which reminded of how electronic music of Germany in the 1960s e.g. Krautrock was "a cultural foundation of taking control of their collective destiny away from the memory of Nazi dictatorship" (wikipedia).

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jacob silverman's avatar

"indigenous musical response" sounds fake to me. Let some academic b.s. They played guitars and harmonicas. Don't know what part of that requires such fancy language. Please stick to what you know. Also, in his opening material: " the means of control " So this reminds me of what Stephen N. is usually talking about. It is usually about white people wanting total control. This was partially mitigated, for a number of years, by CAPITALISM, which is misunderstood. This is what I write about. I understand economics.

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Steven Newcomb's avatar

Greetings Jacob,

That's a rather pugilistic post right out of the gate. Maybe it seems fake because that's not what I wrote. What wrote "ingenious musical response" to the "controlled terrorized space of slavery." Not sure why your mind read that as "indigenous." I confess at the outset my article my ignorance of "The Blues," but I enjoy that musical genre, and I've gone to a few Blues concerts and seen BB King, Buddy Guy, and Robert Cray. I know it's just "guitars and harmonicas" but please give them and the originators of their genre a little bit of credit. My first name is spelled "Steven" which is pretty evident to anyone who bothers to read the author byline. I am not in the habit of using the term "white," though perhaps I sometimes do when it matches the context of a historical period or a quote from someone who lived during an earlier era. I find it peculiar and kind of funny when someone takes issue with something I've written but does so without ever using the one word that I use ad naseum, "domination," and which is even in the title of my Substack "The Domination Chronicles." I call that a non-response response. A case in point is when you use only one part of the Jay Cantor quote "means of control" and do not mention the other part of his quote, specifically "logic, law, and terror." I am not quoted once in your post, which I do find a little odd. I'm happy you've found your niche in the subject of capitalism. I hope you don't mind me saying so, but rhetorical criticism doesn't seem to be your forte. Thanks for reaching out!

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jacob silverman's avatar

No. I am Autistic (I capitalize it when referring to myself). I commented on your work before. I am your “biggest fan,” dude. You are my no. one favorite Substack writer but I did not understand why you were talking about blues. I am the number one (white) blues fan in existence. I used to frequent Buddy Guy’s lounge in a black area of Chicago when I was younger, before I went crazy in 1999 from “Primal Therapy.” Nice meeting you. Still do not comprehend why you are talking about the blues when this is not what you mainly study.

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jacob silverman's avatar

I also played blues. I was the guitarist.

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Helena Sasso's avatar

Made my just think of Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.”

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April Mondragon's avatar

Thank you.

" That's what makes you a human being - the willingness to sing another one free." Martin Prechtel, Flowering Mountain.

In other spaces, many still believe and say there is American "separation of church [christendomination] and state [domination]". Can a human being call for liberation from domination, if they can't remember nor even imagine their original free existence nor "see" the systemic systems of domination? If *CPTSD* is a symptom of grief, profound grief, the Love for what one misses, and what one misses is original free existence, then yes, was and still is nowtime for the call of conscious personal and collective liberation. With liberation comes the necessary rejuvenation of personal and collective responsibilities for one another and all life.

* CPTSD might be better described as Compound: Historical and Present Traumatic Stress Depression from Systemic Domination.

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Laurent's avatar

In response to your last paragraph, Susanne Langer’s “Philosophy in a New Key” will assist you in the importance of changing the question, or even rejecting the imposed question in order to ask a new one. You need only read the first 10 pages or so to get her drift.

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Sibelius's avatar

I have lost all hope, to see this changing in my lifetime. Thank you for this article. Greetings from Europe

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Shauneil Scott's avatar

I always will. Not sure what others will choose.

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