The Gaza Conflict

In this time, it is important to say some words about the current situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Recently, Hamas militants began to fire rockets into Israel, some striking as far as 40 kilometers away. In response, Israel has begun a bombing campaign that has left over 300 people dead. The idea of all of these people being militants is illogical, as one needs only to look at history to know that civilians die at a much higher rate in any sort of armed conflict. Unfortunately, we, outside of the Conflict, have no reliable sources to inform us as to what is really happening in Gaza. Why has Hamas began firing rockets into Israel? It appears to be madness, but is actually a calculated step by Hamas leaders to gain an Ideological Victory against Israel, just as Hezbollah did in 2006. Because of this, it seems a ground campaign into Gaza by the IDF seems imminent. Who is and will be paying the price in this conflict? It most assuredly will be the civilians of Gaza, but also the people of Israel and throughout the Arab World. On each side, the people are trapped in an Ideological Conflict which they themselves had no hand in creating. There has been one Israeli man killed. In response Israel has killed at least 300 men. Ambitudo a Mortis declares both Israel and Hamas to be wrong, as each are killing in the name of Ideology at the expense of its civilians. Ambitudo a Mortis and the Revolution it advocates stands only for the People, throughout the world, and dismisses all Ideology, and damns all Conflict created for and because of it.

-AAM

Living Without a Why

"He who lives in the goodness of his nature lives in God's love, and love has no why."

- Meister Echart

Ideology

They do not know it, but they are doing it.
-Karl Marx on Ideology in Das Kapital

Dissent

"Power concedes nothing without demand."
- Frederick Douglass

Spinoza

“The purpose of the state is freedom”.

Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza, (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677), was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death.
-source

Slajov Žižek

A recent lecture by one of the greatest minds in our world today.

Apathy

"Apathy is always the impediment to progress."

- Shepard Fairey

Ethics, Aesthetics, and A Presidential Election

"Ethics is aesthetics." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Here is an article on artist Shepard Fairey and the Obama campaign Aesthetic.

CLICK

20th Cenutry Socialism

The fear of economic crisis, i.e. the loss of jobs, is most effectively being used by capitalists to keep workers' demands within limits.

-1971, New German Critique, The German New Left

John Locke

When a government is no longer serving its people, it must be dissolved.
At times, the dissolution of governments is necessary, to delay only results in further bloodshed.

Virtu

Justice is Balance.

Leo Tolstoy

On Politics:

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.

Revolutionary Art

When art inspires, or is inspired by, the Will of the People.

La Liberté guidant le people
by: Eugène Delacroix

Returning

Returning in September.
E-mail.

Featured Poem

"If you should ask me where I've been all this time
I have to say "Things happen."
I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,
on the river ruined in its own duration:
I know nothing save things the birds have lost,
the sea I left behind, or my sister crying.
Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock
with day? Why the dark night swilling round
in our mouths? And why the dead?"
-Pablo Neruda

Featured Painting

In the Car
Roy Lichtenstein

America

"America is the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else."
-Gore Vidal

Peace Without Freedom

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."
-Malcolm X

Governments

The most important crime for any political system to avoid is hypocrisy.

Life

"There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue."

-Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Koons

I featured Koons without one of his works.



Stacked

The Importance of Art

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."
-Leonardo

Luxury Degradation

"The advertising industry uses abstraction and luxury to, eventually bring in degradation to whoever they're targeting in this life; you take their economical and political power from them."
-Jeff Koons

May

It's May. Live what you say.
-AMBITUDO A MORTIS-

Decadence

"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent."
- Jacque Barzun

Featured Painting

The Second of May 1808
by Francisco de Goya

Fanon

"I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization."

- Frantz Fanon

Teaism

"Teaism is a cult founded on the

adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday

existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual

charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a

worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish

something possible in this impossible thing we know as life."

-The Book of Tea, Kakuzo Okakura

Sun Tzu

All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are near. Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him... Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Foco

"The foco theory of revolution by way of guerrilla warfare, also known as focalism (Spanish language: foquismo), was inspired by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, based upon his experiences surrounding the rebel army's victory in the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and formalized as such by Régis Debray. Its central principle is that vanguardism by cadres of small, fast-moving paramilitary groups can provide a focus (in Spanish, foco) for popular discontent against a sitting regime, and thereby lead a general insurrection. Although the original approach was to mobilize and launch attacks from rural areas, many foco ideas were adapted into urban guerrilla warfare movements by the late 1960s."

Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a 19th Century German Philosopher and one of the creators of German Idealism. Hegel was also known for his interest in History and was key in the development of the philosophy of history. Hegel viewed history as driven by negatives, as one large, long clash of thesis opposing antithesis.
"History is the study of the successive follies of mankind."

Attitude

There are many different Attitudes. The creative attitude, the logical attitude, the calm attitude, the introspective attitude, the compassionate attitude, the reckless attitude. Do not allow one Attitude to become dominant over another.

Design

Design, usually considered in the context of applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other creative endeavors, is used both as a noun and a verb. As a verb, "to design" refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, system, or component. As a noun, "a design" is used for either the final (solution) plan (e.g. proposal, drawing, model, description) or the result of implementing that plan (e.g. object produced, result of the process). More recently, processes (in general) have also been treated as products of design, giving new meaning to the term "process design".

Revolutionary Words

"Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and endeavor to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: It must meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the proletariat to change the mental outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic "authorities" and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system."
-GPCR 1966

The Good Republic

"No well ordered republic allows the demerits of its citizens to be canceled out by their merits; but, having prescribed rewards for a good deed and punishments for a bad one, and having rewarded someone for doing well, if that same person afterwards does wrong, it punishes him, regardless of any of the good deeds he has done. And, when such ordinances are duly observed, the city long enjoys freedom, but otherwise will always be ruined. Because if a citizen who has rendered some signal service to the state, acquire thereby not merely the repute which the affair has brought him, but is emboldened to expect that he can do wrong with impunity, he will soon become so insolent that civic life in such a state will disappear."
-Machiavelli, The Discourses

Perception

Men in general are as much affected by what a thing appears to be as by what it is, indeed they are frequently influenced more by appearances than by reality.

Vegetius

Few men are born brave. Many become so through training and force of discipline.
Vegetius

Featured Painting

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha
by: Vermeer

Musashi

The Book of Five Rings
Miyamoto Musashi wrote Go Rin No Sho in 1645 before his death at the age of 61 from natural causes. In it are his views on war, swordsmanship, philosophy, and life. He never lost a duel and refused the leisurely lifestyle under the Tokugawan Shogunate. Musashi died a hermit in his cave, writing. Here is one of his most important writings, The Book of the Void.

"The Ni To Ichi Way of strategy is recorded in this the Book of the Void.

What is called the spirit of the void is where there is nothing. It is not included in man's knowledge. Of course the void is nothingness. By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist. That is the void.

People in this world look at things mistakenly, and think that what they do not understand must be the void. This is not the true void. It is bewilderment.

In the Way of strategy, also, those who study as warriors think that whatever they cannot understand in their craft is the void. This is not the true void.

To attain the Way of strategy as a warrior you must study fully other martial arts and not deviate even a little from the Way of the warrior. With your spirit settled, accumulate practice day by day, and hour by hour. Polish the twofold spirit heart and mind, and sharpen the twofold gaze perception and sight. When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.

Until you realise the true Way, whether in Buddhism or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objectively, from the viewpoint of laws of the world, we see various doctrines departing from the true Way. Know well this spirit, and with forthrightness as the foundation and the true spirit as the Way. Enact strategy broadly, correctly and openly.

Then you will come to think of things in a wide sense and, taking the void as the Way, you will see the Way as void.

In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.


Twelfth day of the fifth month, second year of Shoho (1645)

Teruo Magonojo for SHINMEN MUSASHI"

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian patriot and general in the 19th century. He is well known for personally leading military campaigns that brought about the unification of Italy. He also assisted in military campaigns in South America and was offered a commission by Abraham Lincoln personally. In 1833, Garibaldi joined the Carbonari revolutionary organization in its attempted insurrection in Piedmont, Italy. After the failed attempt he was captured, sentenced to death, and fled to Marseilles, France. Garibaldi then headed to Brazil, and assisted the southern gauchos against Imperial Forces in the War of the Tatters. The Republican Revolution failed and the Italian went on to Uruguay where he founded the Italian Legion. Garibaldi fought on behalf of the Colorados (red-skins) against the Blancos (whites) in the Uruguayan Civil War. There, Garibaldi mastered guerrilla war tactics and won substantial victories in Cerro and San Antonio del Santo.
In 1848 Garibaldi returned to Italy and participated in the unsuccessful First Italian War of Independence and attained some minor military victories. In 1849, Garibaldi was sent to Rome in order to defend the new Republic just begun there. The Papal States, however, urged Napoleon III of France to intervene. In April, 1849, Garibaldi took command of the defense of Rome and defeated a substantially numerically superior French army. In 1860, Garibaldi, with an army of 8000, crossed into and conquered the whole of Sicily, defeating many of Napoleon's strongest garrisons on the island. In September of the same year, he went on to Naples and took the city. Despite his military successes, Garibaldi had not yet faced and withstood the whole of the French Army. On September 30th, with a volunteer army of 24,000, Garibaldi personally led his forces to victory over the French Army in the Battle of Volturno.
On March 17th, 1861 Italy was officially unified.
Giuseppe Garibaldi died on June 2nd, 1882.

Ethics

"What cannot be said must be passed over in Silence."
-Wittgenstein

Featured Poem

If I walk the noisy streets,
Or enter a many thronged church,
Or sit among the wild young generation,
I give way to my thoughts.

I say to myself: the years are fleeting,
And however many there seem to be,
We must all go under the eternal vault,
And someone's hour is already at hand.

When I look at a solitary oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods.
It will outlive my forgotten age
As it outlived that of my grandfathers'.

If I caress a young child,
Immediately I think: farewell!
I will yield my place to you,
For I must fade while your flower blooms.


Each day, every hour
I habitually follow in my thoughts,
Trying to guess from their number
The year which brings my death.


And where will fate send death to me?
In battle, in my travels, or on the seas?
Or will the neighbouring valley
Receive my chilled ashes?

And although to the senseless body
It is indifferent wherever it rots,
Yet close to my beloved countryside
I still would prefer to rest.


And let it be, beside the grave's vault
That young life forever will be playing,
And impartial, indifferent nature
Eternally be shining in beauty.

-Alexander Pushkin, 1829

Featured Painting

This featured painting entry is not a painting at all, but a statue by artist Ron Mueck.

Limitations of Language

One of the foremost concepts to understand is that language is a limitation. One must remember that learning as a concept is an impossibility, and the correct approach is recollection and discovery. One must not assume that they can somehow teach someone with words; many times an audience does not understand the words since they do not understand how the speaker is using them, or what he really means by them. This is called reference. The answer to this difficulty is that one must learn to inhabit the language of the speaker and discover its meaning and sense for themselves. The speakers of language must show what they mean by constructing pictures in language, thereby allowing the listener to see for themselves what the speaker means. The beauty of language must be seen. When one reads a book, even if it be over two thousand years old, one may see, by grasping the meaning intuitively, the same thing the author had seen.

The Bourgeoisie

"The bourgeoisie has played in history a most revolutionary part.
The bourgeoisie, where it has conquered power, has destroyed all feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder all the many-coloured feudal bonds which united men to their 'natural superiors,' and has left no other tie between man and man but naked self interest and callous cash payment. It has drowned religious ecstasy, chivalrous enthusiasm, and middle class sentimentality in the ice-cold water of egotistical calculation. It has transformed personal worth into mere exchange value, and substituted for dearly bought chartered Freedoms the one and only unconscionable freedom of Free Trade. It has, in one word, replaced an exploitation veiled by religious and political illusions by exploitation open, direct, and brutal.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every profession previously venerated and regarded as honourable. It has turned doctor, lawyer, priest, poet, and philosopher into paid wage workers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away the veil of sentiment from the family relation, and reduced it to a mere money relation."
-Marx and Engels

Belief

Why allow knowledge to outweigh beliefs? Knowledge is ever changing, belief is everlasting.

Recommended Film

Ambitudo a Mortis is not in the business of endorsements. However, a very well made documentary, titled A Map for Saturday, has proved itself worthy of one. The film is a documentary, by Brook Silva-Braga, on leaving his bourgeois job to journey across the world. You can find out more on the website: amapforsaturday.com

Democracy, Republics

The United States of America federal government breakdown:
100 Senators
435 Congressmen
9 Supreme Court Justices
1 President
TOTAL: 545
The United States of America Population:
300,000,000
(The President is indirectly elected, he in turn appoints Justices.)

Göring

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

The Discontent

"Whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it."
[Niccolo Machiavelli]

Flames

One small flame can start miles of wildfires. Overestimate your enemy, but never underestimate yourself.

Featured Painting

Crucifixion by the Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dali.

Rule of Law

An unjust law is no law at all, said Augustine. All of us, then, have a duty to resist them. By not doing so we cause an inheritance of the misunderstanding of law to persist. In this type of system, it is not long before the concept of Justice is lost in the minds of individuals forever.

Discord

Although owing to the envy inherent in man's nature it has always been no less dangerous to discover new ways and methods than to set off in search of new seas and unknown lands because most men are much more ready to belittle than to praise another's action, none the less, impelled by the natural desire I have always had to labor, regardless of anything, on that which I believe to be for the common benefit of all, I have decided to enter upon a new way, as yet untrodden by anyone else. And, even if it entails a tiresome and difficult task, it may yet reward me in that there are those who will look kindly on the purpose of these my labors. And if my poor ability, my limited experience of current affairs, my feeble knowledge of history, should render my efforts imperfect and of little worth, they may none the less point the way for another of greater ability, capacity for analysis, and judgment, who will achieve my ambition; which if it does not earn me praise, should not earn me reproaches.


Time Begins
-Ambitudo a Mortis-

Journeys

Life is a journey, it is important to not only recognize this concept as a cliche or ideal, but as an actual truth. One must be willing to take the first steps of their journey, without influence, without fear, and without any regret.

Ideas

The world is an idea. Reality and ideas are not polar, but one and the same.

Accountability

Humans have made their own world, and still refuse the responsibility for it.
Always remember responsibility for your actions right or wrong; accountability through introspection are the keys to virtue.

Gorgias

1. Nothing exists;
2. Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and
3. Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.

Featured Painting

Napoleon Crossing the Alps,
by Jacques-Louis David.

Judgments

When one judges a person, it is not merely an assumption or an observation. It is a judgment about the person's Being, who they are in their absolute singularity, and with judgments come consequences. If one must make judgments, it should be done so with certainty, for the risk of not doing so is too great.

Holy

We have killed every person who has appeared in the world to tell us the Truth. Men say they love humanity, but once they see a man, once seeing the man's face for the first time; he hates him and despises him. And so, when man sees this other man for the first time, he instantly realizes how much he hates him, so much so that he must kill him. Man does not want to see the face of the other man. He wants to love humanity. But when that other man shows his face, and forces the man to look, he sees and realizes he has never loved humanity, he has never loved the world. And the man can not take it, he must believe what he has been told, the man who's face he has first seen must be lying to him, he won't stop lying, and he must quiet him. So the man must kill him, he must kill him so he may love humanity.

The Want

Seek what you truly want, not what others want; or, what others tell you you should want. There will always be another thing to want, and in that case you will never be content.

Featured Poem

This time an Ancient one by the Roman poet Horace.

Leuconoe, don't ask — it's dangerous to know —
what end the gods will give me or you. Don't play with Babylonian
fortune-telling either. Better just deal with whatever comes your way.
Whether you'll see several more winters or whether the last one
Jupiter gives you is the one even now pelting the rocks on the shore with the waves
of the Tyrrhenian sea — be smart, drink your wine. Scale back your long hopes
to a short period. Even as we speak, envious time
is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting little in the future.

Dogs and Men

"There's nothing funny in nature, however funny it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dogs could reason and criticize us they'd be sure to find just as much that would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations of men, their masters-far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am convinced that there is far more foolishness among us."
-Fyodor Dostoevsky

Love?

An interesting video of the Philosopher Jacques Derrida speaking on one of the eternal questions.

A Thought

The world is made up of facts; our language of beliefs.

New Year

A message for this New Year. One should never set goals merely because one cycle is at an end and another is beginning. Goals should be always growing, always changing, and each day must be a step in reaching them. The trivialities of this world must always be ignored and the eyes must always be focused on the things which are truly there. Therefore, I believe it to be true that any goal made because of any sort of consequence, for any sort of personal gain, is worthless. Seek the things because they must be, because you have no other choice than to seek them, because it is right to do so in its own rightness. I hope everyone a good New Year.
-The Author
[ambitudo.a.mortis@gmail.com]