Friday 23 August 2024

Hostis Humani Generis




ROMANA: 
The clipboard marks 
the spot -- I'll stand guard. 
 
(The Doctor climbs through the hole and up a ladder. 
When he's out of sight, Romana enters and heads for a staircase. 
The Doctor reaches the top of the ladder.

RORVIK: 
Is this what you're looking for, Doctor? 
(Rorvik drops the clipboard.

Tom: 
Look here, Rorvik. 
You've got to STOP this backblast. 
You'll kill us all. 

Rorvik, The Slaver-Captain : 
So YOU Say, Doctor. I Say, 
It's the only way OUT of here. 

(Rorvik stands on The Doctor's fingers.

Tom
You can't BLAST through those mirrors. 
You must REALISE by now, it just 
throws The Energy straight BACK. 

Rorvik, The Slaver-Captain
 It MUST Break; it HAS to Break
Everything BREAKS eventually. 

(He kicks The Doctor back down the ladder, comes after him 
and starts to strangle him with his own scarf. 
Romana arrives and tries hitting Rorvik with the clipboard.

Tom : 
Never mind the clipboard, short the cables. 

(The Doctor gives Romana the manacles.

Tom
Drain the main power line. 
Earth it to the ladder. 

ROMANA: 
I know -- I've 
already done it. 

(Rorvik lets The Doctor go and heads 
for the ladder to undo the damage.

Tom : 
Biroc? What are 
YOU Doing Here? 

BIROC: 
Nothing

Tom: 
It's alright for YOU -- 

BIROC: 
And for you, too
Do Nothing. 

Tom : 
Do Nothing? 

ROMANA: 
Of course, Doctor. 
Don't you see

Tom : 
Yes, that's right
Do Nothing, 

.......if it's the right sort of Nothing. 

(They join hands with Biroc and fade away. 
Rorvik has removed the manacles from the cable.

Rorvik, The Slaver-Captain
RUN, Doctor -- SCURRY off, 
back to your blue BOX. 
You're like ALL the rest.... 
Lizards when there's 
A Man's Work to Be Done -- 
I'm SICK of Your Kind; 
Faint-hearted, DO-nothing, 
lily-livered DEADweights. 

This is The End for ALL of You! 
I'm FINALLY Getting 
Something DONE
Bwahahahaha! 


Master Sol :
What are you?

The Stranger :
I have no name.
But the Jedi like you 
might call me… Sith.

Master Sol :
[panting]
Why risk discovery?

The Stranger :
Well, I… I did 
wear a mask.

Master Sol :
What do you want?

The Stranger :
Freedom.
[Mae yelps]
The freedom to wield 
my power the way I like.
Without having to answer 
to Jedi like you.
[breathing heavily]

I want a pupil,
an Acolyte.

But this one… [gasping]
went back on our deal.
She exposed me.

So, now I have to kill every 
single last one of you.
[Mae grunting, panting]

I don’t make The Rules.
The Jedi do.

And The Jedi say
I can’t exist.
They see my face
they all die.



Hostis humani generis (Latin for 'an enemy of mankind') is a legal term of art that originates in admiralty law. Before the adoption of public international law, pirates and slavers were generally held to be beyond legal protection and so could be dealt with by any nation, even one that had not been directly attacked.

A comparison can be made between this concept and the common law "writ of outlawry", which declared a person outside the king's law, a literal out-law, subject to violence and execution by anyone. The ancient Roman civil law concept of proscription, and the status of homo sacer conveyed by proscription may also be similar.

Background
Perhaps the oldest of the laws of the sea is the prohibition of piracy, as the peril of being set upon by pirates, who are not motivated by national allegiance, is shared by the vessels and mariners of all nations, and thus represents a crime upon all nations. Since classical antiquity, pirates have been held to be individuals waging private warfare, a private campaign of sack and pillage, against not only their victims, but against all nations, and thus, those engaging in piracy hold the particular status of being regarded as hostis humani generis, the enemy of humanity. Since piracy anywhere is a peril to every mariner and ship everywhere, it is held to be the universal right and the universal duty of all nations, regardless of whether their ships have been beset by the particular band of pirates in question, to capture, try by a regularly constituted court-martial or admiralty court (in extreme circumstances, by means of a drumhead court-martial convened by the officers of the capturing ship), and, if found guilty, to execute the pirate via means of hanging from the yard-arm of the capturing ship, an authoritative custom of the sea.[2]

Although summary battlefield punishment was conducted by certain nations at certain times with regard to pirates, it was regarded as irregular (but lawful if the attenuation of due process was dictated by urgent military necessity), as individuals captured with pirates could potentially have a defense to charges of piracy, such as coercion.[3] For instance, in early 1831, the 250-strong crew captured off Ascension was brought to Ascension and summarily hanged, as they were acting in a rebellious manner and threatening to overthrow the 30-man crew of HMS Falcon, a British sloop-of-war, which took them captive. As the summary punishment, in this case, was due to military necessity, there was clear evidence of the offense, and it was done proximate in time and location to the battlefield, it can be classified as merely irregular, and not a violation of the custom of the sea.[3]

Theorized extended usages of the term
The land and airborne analogues of pirates, bandits and hijackers are not subject to universal jurisdiction in the same way as piracy; this is despite arguments[4] that they should be.[citation needed] Instead these crimes, along with terrorism, torture, crimes against internationally protected persons[5] and the financing of terrorism are subject to the aut dedere aut judicare principle (meaning prosecute or extradite). In the current global climate of international terrorism some commentators have called for terrorists of all sorts to be treated hostis humani generis.[6]

Other commentators, such as John Yoo,[7] have called for the extension of this hypothetical connection of hostis humani generis from pirates to hijackers to terrorists all the way to that of "unlawful enemy combatants". Unlawful enemy combatants, or persons captured in war who do not fight on behalf of a recognized sovereign state, have become an increasingly common phenomenon in contemporary wars[dubious – discuss], such as the War in Afghanistan, Iraq War, Chechen Wars and Syrian Civil War.

Actual extended usages of the term
The only actual extension of hostis humani generis blessed by courts of law has been its extension to torturers. This has been done by decisions of U.S. and international courts; specifically, in a case tried in the United States in 1980, Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, 630 F.2d 876, the United States 2nd Circuit Court ruled that it could exercise jurisdiction over agents of the Alfredo Stroessner military dictatorship of Paraguay (in their individual capacity[8]) who were found to have committed the crime of torture against a Paraguayan citizen, using its jurisdiction under the Offenses Clause of the Constitution of the United States, the Alien Tort Claims Act, and customary international law. In deciding this, the court famously stated that "Indeed, for purposes of civil liability, the torturer has become like the pirate and slave trader before him: hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind." This usage of the term hostis humani generis has been reinforced by the ruling of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the conviction of a torturer in Prosecutor v. Furundžija.

In the Eichmann trial of 1961, the Jerusalem District Court did not explicitly deem Adolf Eichmann a hostis humani generis. The prosecution, however, invoked the standard, ultimately cited in the verdict by reference to piracy.

The Rule of One, The Power of Two







The Sith Lord Darth Plagueis 
was obsessed 
with Immortality.









Darth Plagueis attempted to create 
a Force dyad with Darth Sidious,

discovering in the process, the ability of 
Essence Transfer --






Evelyn, you're a disturbed woman,
You cannot Hope 
to provide...








The Tree of Woe

"And now we're going to hear a piece of Music that tells a very definite story. As a matter of fact, in this case, The Story came first and the composer wrote The Music to go with it. 

It's a very old story, one that goes back almost 2,000 years. A legend about A Sorcerer who had An Apprentice. He was a bright young lad, very anxious to learn The Business. 

As a matter of fact, he was a little bit too bright because he started practising some of The Boss's best magic tricks before learning how to control them -- 

One day, for instance, when he'd been told by His Master to carry water to fill a cauldron, he had the brilliant idea of bringing a broomstick to life to carry The Water for him. 

Well, this worked very well, at first

Unfortunately, however, having forgotten the magic formula that would make the broomstick stop carrying the water, he found he'd started something he couldn't finish."




Breaking Boys



FAGGING (from “fag,” meaning “weary”; of uncertain etymology), in English public schools, a system under which, generally with the full approval of the authorities, a junior boy performs certain duties for a senior. In detail this custom varies slightly in the different schools, but its purposethe maintenance of discipline among the boys themselves — is the same. Dr Arnold of Rugby defined fagging as “the power given by the supreme authorities of the school to the Sixth Form, to be exercised by them over the lower boys, for the sake of securing a regular government among the boys themselves, and avoiding the evils of anarchy; in other words, of the lawless tyranny of brute force.” Fagging was a fully established system at Eton and Winchester in the 16th century, and is probably a good deal older. That the advantages of thus granting the boys a kind of autonomy have stood the test of time is obvious from the fact that in almost all the great public schools founded during the 19th century, fagging has been deliberately adopted by the authorities. 

The right to fag carries with it certain well-defined duties. The fag-master is the protector of his fags, and responsible for their happiness and good conduct. In cases of bullying or injustice their appeal is to him, not to the form or house master, and, except in the gravest cases, all such cases are dealt with by the fag-master on his own responsibility and without report to The Master. Until recent years a fag’s duties included such humble tasks as blacking boots, brushing clothes, and cooking breakfasts, and there was no limit as to hours; almost all the fag’s spare time being so monopolised. This is now changed. Fagging is now restricted to such light tasks as running errands, bringing tea to the “Master’s” study, and fagging at cricket or football. At Eton there is no cricket fagging, and at most schools it is made lighter by all the fags taking their turn in regular order for one hour, so that each boy has to “fag” but once in so many weeks. At Rugby there is “study-fagging” — two fags being assigned to each Sixth Form boy and made responsible for the sweeping out and tidying up of his study alternately each week, — and “night-fagging” — running errands for the Sixth between 8.30 and 9.30 every evening,—and each boy can choose whether he will be a study-fag or night-fag. The right to fag is usually restricted to the Sixth Form, but at Eton the privilege is also granted the Fifth, and at Marlborough and elsewhere the Eleven have a right to fag at cricket, whether in the Sixth or not.

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, 
Volume 10 — Fagging

Thursday 22 August 2024

The Theatre of Cruelty





Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty
In his book The Theatre and Its Double, Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theater, particularly the Balinese. He admired Eastern theater because of the codified, highly ritualized physicality of Balinese dance performance, and advocated what he called a "Theatre of Cruelty." By cruelty, he meant not sadism or causing pain, but rather a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality which, he said, lies like a shroud over perceptions. He believed that text had been a tyrant over Meaning, and advocated, instead, for a theater made up of a unique language, halfway between thought and gesture. He also believed that sexual activity was harmful to the creative process and should be avoided if one hoped to achieve purity in one's art.

Antonin Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all expression is physical expression in space. He advocated a system of "social therapy" through theater.

The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid 

(Antonin Artaud, 
The Theatre of Cruelty).

An outline of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty

Artaud had a pessimistic view of the world, 
but he believed that theater could affect change.
Remove the audience from the everyday, and 
use symbolic objects to work with the emotions and soul of the audience.
Attack The Audience's senses through an array of technical methods 
and acting so that the audience would 
be brought out of their desensitisation 
and have to confront themselves.
Use the grotesque, the ugly, and pain 
in order to confront an audience.

Philosophical views
Imagination, to Artaud, was reality; dreams, thoughts, and delusions are no less real than the "outside" world. Reality appears to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theater to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.

His later work presents his rejection of the idea of the spirit as separate from the body. His poems glorify flesh and excretion, but sex was always a horror for him. Incest, cannibalism, and deicide were instead normal urges, proved by the activities of tribal cultures untainted by civilized Western man. Civilization was so pernicious that Europe was pulling once proud tribal nations like Mexico down with it into decadence and death, poisoning the innocence of the flesh with the evil of a God separate from it. The inevitable end result would be self-destruction and mental slavery, the two evils Artaud opposed in his own life at great pain and imprisonment, as they could only be opposed personally and not on behalf of a collective or movement. He thus rejected politics and Marxism wholeheartedly, which led to his expulsion by the Surrealists, who had begun to embrace it.

Like Nietzsche and Buddha, Artaud saw suffering as essential to existence, and the price one must pay to become a complete human being. He thus rejected all utopias as inevitable dystopias.

Influence
Theatrical practitioner Peter Brook took inspiration from Artaud's "Theatre of Cruelty" in a series of workshops that lead up to his well-known production of Marat/Sade.

The Living Theater was also heavily influenced by him.

Tuesday 20 August 2024

The Body of a King






Ownership of The Truth 
subverts The Pursuit of it.


“In the early 1990s, the Western democracies seemed to be The Future.

The collapse of The Soviet Union meant that their ideas 
were now going to spread all across The World.

But at Home, in both Britain and America, there were still forces deep in the heart of both societies that had little to DO with Democracy.

It seemed that despite all the changes of the past 30 years, 
that underneath, the OLD structures of Power and The Corruption 
and The Anger that created, was STILL there.

In Los Angeles in March 1991, Rodney King was 
chased and stopped by police for drunken driving.

Despite offering NO Resistance, he was 
beaten REPEATEDLY by FOUR officers.

It was videoed by a man watching from a balcony.
He took it to The Police, but NO-ONE was interested.

So he gave the tape to a local TV station.

When it was shown, there was an outburst of anger against the police violence.

Four of the officers were put on trial.
But they were ALL acquitted by an overwhelmingly white jury.

“Due to the escalation of the situation, and the seriousness of the problems that are occurring, The Sheriff has mobilised ALL department personnel.”

For six days, thousands of people rose up and rioted across Los Angeles.

It was only STOPPED whenthe National Guard and soldiers from Marines were brought onto the streets.

It was an outpouring of the anger that had been simmering throughout the 1980s in the black community — that despite ALL the reforms and the changes in attitudes since the 1960s, nothing 
had REALLY changed.

It seemed that those in Power in America were still DEEPLY racist, and would use violence AGAINST  blacks in America to MAINTAIN that Power —

“ALL of it needs to STOP, but I'm gonna to tell you...

Get down on our knees and pray to God that the violence….

I know that The Government, whatever, can't STAND us black people — He's doing everything in the world to make The Black Man be extinct.

But I'm going to tell you one thing, 
Us black people are gonna to SURVIVE —

And that's Wrong about — 
the black people tearing up the, you know, 
burnin’ down buildings, that's WRONG.

But still, through it all, 
We Gonna SURVIVE!!
So f**k everybody, I'm off —“

“….All right, that's just an example 
of the frustration that's being FELT here —“

In Britain, a series of scandals revealed that dozens

of innocent people had been
held in jail...

..some for over 15 years.

They included the Guildford Four
and the Birmingham Six.

Most of them were Irishmen who'd
been accused of being

members of the IRA and planting
bombs in English cities.

Every time they had tried to
prove their innocence,

they had been blocked by some
of the most senior figures

in the British establishment,

despite overwhelming
evidence of false confessions

and faked evidence.

Eminent men at the very
centre of power,

from the most senior law lord
to the Attorney General

and to the Commissioner
of the Metropolitan Police,

all of them, it was alleged, knew
that the prisoners were innocent.

But they had done nothing,

and the evidence remained
locked away...

..because they had an unshakeable
conviction that the establishment

must never be shown to be wrong.

Finally, in March 1991,

the Birmingham Six were
freed at the Old Bailey.

Ladies and gentlemen.

For 16 and a half years,
we have been used as political

scapegoats for people
in there at the highest.

The police told us from the start
that they knew we hadn't done it.

They told us they didn't care
who'd done it.

They told us that we were selected
and that they were going to

frame us just to keep
the people in there happy.

That's what it's all about.

To save face.

Justice? I don't think them people
in there have got the intelligence

nor the honesty to spell the word,
never mind dispense it.

They're rotten.

But there were others, also
at the heart of power in Britain,

who seemed to have lost all
contact with reality.

The intelligence agencies,
from MI6 to GCHQ,

whose job was to watch and monitor
what was happening in the world,

had completely failed to predict
the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Mrs Thatcher, who had supported
the spies throughout the 1980s,

was shocked.

Her foreign policy adviser wrote...

"All that intelligence that they
gave us didn't tell us

"the one thing we needed to know.

"That the Soviet Union
was about to collapse."

It was a colossal failure

of the whole Western system
of intelligence.

But some of the spies still didn't
believe what was happening.

Sir Percy Cradock was head of
the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Despite everything, he was convinced
the Soviets were just

faking the collapse.

They were just up
to their usual tricks.

They were still planning
to take over the world.

Both Britain and America were
societies that had been

built on empire and conquest through
violence and the exercise of power.

But neither of them
had ever faced up to this.

And instead, they had both built
dreamlike myths

about their exceptionalism,
to shield and protect themselves.

But in both cases, those myths
were rooted in fear.

In Britain at the start
of the 20th century,

not only were those in charge
frightened by what

they had done abroad,
with the slave trade and in China,

they now had a feeling
that it was coming closer,

that something dangerous might also
be happening inside England itself.

The Empire had led to giant
industrial cities

rising up all across England.

They were dark, frightening places
where millions of people

lived in appalling conditions.

What alarmed those in charge was
the violence and the anger that

was building up there among what
was called the masses.

But the danger also seemed to come
from the top of society as well.

From the new industrialists and
bankers, who ran the global empire.

They also seemed to be
out of control.

There was a wave
of financial scandals

and no-one seemed to be
able to stop them.

The novelist EM Forster wrote...

"England is being menaced by the
inner darkness in high places

"that has come with this
commercial age."

Trapped by what they saw
as a danger below

and corruption above,
the middle classes retreated.

They turned away into another
imaginary version of England,

where there were none
of these threats.

It was invented for them by a whole
generation of writers,

artists and musicians who,

in an act of
collective imagination,

created a complete dream
image of England's past...

..one that still haunts
the country today.

At its heart was a vision of a
natural order in the countryside,

outside the cities.

One of the key figures was a man
called Cecil Sharp.

He travelled through England
recording old songs,

and he filmed himself and his
friends learning old rural dances.

Sharp made it absolutely clear
that this was a political project.

His aim was to create a new
kind of English nationalism

which had, at its heart,
the idea of The Folk.

It was a concept that he had
taken from German nationalism :

The Innocent rural people
and Their Culture.

Now, is the sort of dancing he does
the dancing that would have been

Monday 19 August 2024

We Have it Coming

"Unforgiven" - We All Have It Coming HD



EXT DAY -- UNDER A TREE

(MUNNY and KID await thier reward. 
MUNNY is standing surveying the landscape while KID 
sits against the tree drinking from a bottle of whiskey. 
In the distance we see a rider approaching.)

KID
Was that what it was like in the old days, Will? 
Everybody riding out shooting, smoke all 
over the place, folks yelling, 
bullets wizzing by?


MUNNY
I guess so.

KID
Shit. I thought they was going to get us. 
I was even scared a little. Just for a minute. 
Was you ever scared in them days?

MUNNY
I can't remember
I was drunk most 
of the time. 

KID
I shot that fucker three times. 
He was taking a shit and 
he went for his pistol and 
I blazed away. First shot... 
I got him right in the chest. 
Say, Will...

MUNNY
Yeah,

KID
That was the first one.

MUNNY
First one what?

KID
First one I ever killed.

MUNNY
Yeah?

KID
You know how I said I shot five men? 
It weren't true. That Mexican that 
come at me with a knife, I just 
busted his leg with a shovel. 
I didn't kill him neither.

MUNNY
Well, you sure killed the hell 
out of that fella today.

KID
Hell ya!
(Drinks, on the verge of tears)
I killed the hell out of him, didn't I. 
Three shots and he was taking a shit! 

MUNNY
(Looking at him
Take a drink, Kid.

KID
(Drinks)
Jesus Christ. It don't seem real
How he ain't gonna never 
breathe again, ever. 
And the other one, too. 
All on account of 
pulling a trigger.

MUNNY
It's a hell of a thing , killing a man. 
You take away all he's got
and all he's ever
gonna 
have.

KID
Yeah. Well, I guess they had it coming.

MUNNY
We all have it coming, kid.

(KATE  rides up on a horse)

MUNNY
I was watching you, seeing 
that you wasn't followed.

KATE
Silky and Faith, they rode off to the east 
and two deputies was following them. 

(She hands a bag to MUNNY who 
turns and holds it out to KID)

MUNNY
Here. Want to help me count this stuff?

KID
I trust you, Will.

MUNNY
Well don't go trusting me too much. 
In fact, we'll give Ned his share together that
way you'll know I ain't holding out on ya.

KATE
(Confused)
Ned's share?

MUNNY
Yeah. He went south, 
we'll catch up to him.

KATE
Ned..... He's Dead.

(Both MUNNY and KID stand)

MUNNY
What do you mean he's dead? 
He went south yesterday. 
He ain't dead.

KATE
They.... they killed him. 
I thought you knew that.

MUNNY
Nobody killed Ned. 
He didn't kill anyone
He went south yesterday. 
Why would anybody kill Ned? 
Who killed him?

KATE
Little Bill. The Bar-T boys caught him 
and Little Bill, he beat him up. 
He was making him answer questions 
and beating him up and then 
Ned just died. They got a sign on him 
saying he was A Killer. 

MUNNY
They got a sign on him!

KATE
In front of Greely's

MUNNY
A sign on him in front of Greely's.
(She nods
These questions 
Little Bill was asking, 
what kind were they?

KATE
Uh... About where 
you and him was.

MUNNY
Then what?

KATE
A cowboy come in saying you killed 
Quick Mike in a shithouse at the Bar-T.

MUNNY
So Little Bill killed him 
for what we done.

KATE
Not on purpose, but he started 
hurting him worse
making him tell stuff. 
First Ned wouldn't 
say nothing, and then 
Little Bill hurt him so bad 
and he said who you was.
 
He said how you was really 
William Munny out of Missouri and 
Little Bill said "The same William Munny 
that dynamited the Rock Island 
and Pacific in '69 killing women 
and children and all" and Ned said 
you done worse than that. Said you was 
more cold blooded than William Bonney 
and how, if he hurt Ned again, you was 
going to come kill him like you 
killed a U.S. Marshall in '70.

(As she talked MUNNY has begun to drink 
slowly from the bottle of whiskey.
It is as if his past is coming back to him 
and with it all his old habits)

MUNNY
But that didn't scare 
Little Bill, did it?

KATE
No sir.

(He corks the bottle and throws it to the ground. He turns to KID who has been watching in
amazement)

MUNNY
Give me your Schofield.

KID 
What for, Will?

MUNNY
Give it to me.

KID
(ScaredYeah, sure.
(Hands the gun to 
MUNNY who checks it
You go on, keep it. I'm never 
going to use it again. 
I don't kill nobody no more. 
I ain't like you, Will. 

MUNNY
You'd better ride 
on back, Miss. 

(She rides off)

KID
(Motions towards bag
Go on, keep it. All 
of it, It's yours. 

MUNNY
What about your spectecles 
and fancy clothes?

KID
I guess I'd rather be blind 
and ragged than dead.

MUNNY
You don't have to worry, Kid. 
I ain't gonna to kill ya
you're the only friend I got.