dclcq

Latest Posts by dclcq

Apple Trees, Sunset, Eragny, 1896, Camille Pissarro

Medium: oil,canvas

Latvian photographer Gunārs Janaitis was just 14 years old when he secretly took this photo of train leaving for Siberia labour camps on 25th of March, 1949. The animal wagons carried people captured by Russian authorities. The deportations were based on allegations for being either: 1) a nationalist; 2) a kulak (Soviet term for a relatively wealthy farmer). On this day in 1949, 42 125 people were deported from Latvia: 13 248 families, 11 316 men, 19 822 women, 10 987 children. Almost all of the deportees (95%) were Latvians.

Last rays in a snowy forest

niiloi

hi hello now's a great time to read umberto eco's essay on ur-fascism if you haven't already

I've started noticing online how people from countries that don't need national defense really do not understand the nature of mandatory military service and wartime duty.

I had happened to scroll my way into a discussion on some american influencer family, who are all about being wealthy Conservative Christians who homeschool their kids so they won't get exposed to any other kind of values. Anyway one of the daughters married a man from Ukraine because there's no sufficiently white, conservative and christian men left in America I guess.

And originally this girl (who was sheltered, homeschooled, didn't speak any other language than english, and had zero experience of living independently) was supposed to move to Ukraine to live with her new husband, but then shit hit the fan. So they shipped their little family back to the US to live cozy on her parents' money.

So I happened to scroll into discussion about the Ukraine husband and the apparent vitrol happening online among the people who keep tabs on this family out of sheer curiosity. And there was someone, an american I guess from their writing style, who was baffled by the community's attitude towards him dodging the draft in his homeland. Like yeah the guy is a smug homophobic jackass, but isn't it fucked up to demand that he should volunteer to go fucking die??

And I kind of paused right there, having a kind of epiphany about how different worlds we come from, and how I really could not begin to explain this to someone who did not grow up this way. I'm not from Ukraine and I've never personally known war, but coming from Finland, I've got an understanding of how countries with a border and history with Russia are raised to think about war.

War isn't something you volunteer for. It's not something you can opt in or opt out of. It's something that comes to you, inevitably and eventually, and you're just lucky if it doesn't happen during your time. But if it does, that's just the cards that were dealt to you.

From the perspective of an invader, it's easy to equate "volunteering to fight" with "volunteering to die". It's easy to think that if you simply refuse to fight in war, there will be no war. That's not what it's like for those being invaded. When the war is brought to you, your choice is between "get shot in combat" and "get shot in your living room". Death is not voluntary, you only get to choose when and where.

Choosing to shake off that sense of duty doesn't make it disappear, it simply drops the weight on someone else's shoulders. Somone who may be more capable than you or less capable than you. If you were in a room with a button, knowing that there's a chance that you might die if you don't push it, but that there's a stranger in the next room, who has an equal chance of dying if you do push it. You don't know what those odds are, but if you decide to save yourself, you've chosen to rather risk the stranger.

Resenting someone from dodging military duty when their country is being invaded isn't a matter of hating someone for wanting to live. It's about knowing that this person decided: "Someone else's son deserves to die more than I do."

"Mäletan, kuidas sa mõne aasta eest südametäiega pahvatasid metsaraiumise kohta: see on ju riiklik laastamine! Ja veel enam jäi hinge kõrvulukustav vaikus, mis peale seda mõtteruumis maad võttis. Ei tõtanud keegi noid sõnu parandama ega ümber lükkama, las vana mees räägib, maailm veereb edasi, uued uudised tulevad ja ebamugavus lahtub, piinlik apsakas ununeb. Aga see, mis oli varjul nende sõnade taga, jäi. See pilt, kuhu osutas sinu tõstetud sõrm. Vaadake seda maad, milline häbi! See, mida riik on teinud oma loodusega, ei ole olnud väärikas. Eesti loodusega on läinud samamoodi, nagu läks indiaanlastega. Selle maa loodus on lõputute seadusemuudatuste, arengukavade ja töötubade kaudu viimaks ikkagi inimeste käest välja petetud, nende hinge on väärkoheldud, väärikust alandatud. Eesti Loodus elab edasi reservaadis, see on ilus, seda saab imetleda, sealt metsaande korjata, piltegi teha, seminare ja töötubasid korraldada. Aga midagi on muutunud, lõplikult. Midagi väga olulist on surnud – eks sõnastagem see. Mis see siis on? Pihta on saanud loodus, aga ka usk elu põhiväärtustesse. Usk Eesti looduse kaitsesse on kokku kukkunud. Selle asemele on tulnud teadmine, kui odav on riik, kui alandlik ja hirmunud, kui lihtne on teda raha ja ähvardustega üles osta, panna tegema seda, mida ta mingil juhul teha ei tohiks. Riik on samm-sammult taganenud raha surve ees. Riik on kaotanud väärikuse. See on kõige hullem asi, mis saab juhtuda. Loodus annab riigile väärikuse. Loodus on riigi südametunnistus. Ühiskonda ei iseloomusta mitte see, mida ta loob, vaid see, mida ta keeldub hävitamast. Nii on arvanud Ameerika looduskaitsja John C. Sawhill."

- Valdur Mikita Järelhüüe Fred Jüssile "Head teed sulle, kotkas"

Mul ei ole olnud mingisuguseid eesmärke, sest ma ei näe eesmärke. Minu silmade ees on tundmatu maastik, minu tee kulgeb sellesse maastikku või ta suubub sellesse või läheb edasi. Ma ei näe selle maastiku üksikasju. Ma ei näe, mis on mägede taga, mis on teekäänakute taga, mis on teispool orgusid, teispool metsi, aga ma pean teadma suunda. Ja see suund on minus endas olemas. See suund on otsekui mingi heli, mingi toon, mida ma ei tohi kaotada. See on kõige tähtsam. See on peamine. Ja kõik muu tuleb. - Fred Jüssi 1935 - 2024

Joanna Karpowicz „7 AM, Poland”, 42 x 29,7 cm, acrylic on paper, 2024 (from artist's fb page)

Henryk Weyssenhoff - Łoś na trzęsawisku ( Marshlands with an elk )

Fine Art of the Forest

(c) riverwindphotography, August 2024

Despite its green image, Ireland has surprisingly little forest. [...] [M]ore than 80% of the island of Ireland was [once] covered in trees. [...] [O]f that 11% of the Republic of Ireland that is [now] forested, the vast majority (9% of the country) is planted with [non-native] spruces like the Sitka spruce [in commercial plantations], a fast growing conifer originally from Alaska which can be harvested after just 15 years. Just 2% of Ireland is covered with native broadleaf trees.

Text by: Martha O’Hagan Luff. “Ireland has lost almost all of its native forests - here’s how to bring them back.” The Conversation. 24 February 2023. [Emphasis added.]

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[I]ndustrial [...] oil palm plantations [...] have proliferated in tropical regions in many parts of the world, often built at the expense of mangrove and humid forest lands, with the aim to transform them from 'worthless swamp' to agro-industrial complexes [...]. Another clear case [...] comes from the southernmost area in the Colombian Pacific [...]. Here, since the early 1980s, the forest has been destroyed and communities displaced to give way to oil palm plantations. Inexistent in the 1970s, by the mid-1990s they had expanded to over 30,000 hectares. The monotony of the plantation - row after row of palm as far as you can see, a green desert of sorts - replaced the diverse, heterogenous and entangled world of forest and communities.

Text by: Arturo Escobar. "Thinking-Feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South." Revista de Antropologia Iberoamericana Volume 11 Issue 1. 2016. [Emphasis added.]

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But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have skewed towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees [...] [because] planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. [...] [But] ill-advised tree planting can unleash invasive species [...]. [In India] [t]o maximize how much timber these forests yielded, British foresters planted pines from Europe and North America in extensive plantations in the Himalayan region [...] and introduced acacia trees from Australia [...]. One of these species, wattle (Acacia mearnsii) [...] was planted in [...] the Western Ghats. This area is what scientists all a biodiversity hotspot – a globally rare ecosystem replete with species. Wattle has since become invasive and taken over much of the region’s mountainous grasslands. Similarly, pine has spread over much of the Himalayas and displaced native oak trees while teak has replaced sal, a native hardwood, in central India. Both oak and sal are valued for [...] fertiliser, medicine and oil. Their loss [...] impoverished many [local and Indigenous people]. [...]

India’s national forest policy [...] aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area. Schemes under this policy include plantations consisting of a single species such as eucalyptus or bamboo which grow fast and can increase tree cover quickly, demonstrating success according to this dubious measure. Sometimes these trees are planted in grasslands and other ecosystems where tree cover is naturally low. [...] The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. The Indian government’s definition of “forest” still encompasses plantations of a single tree species, orchards and even bamboo, which actually belongs to the grass family. This means that biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored, or convey the consequences of displacing native trees with competitive plantation species or identify if these exotic trees have invaded natural grasslands which have then been falsely recorded as restored forests. [...] Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored. And reviving ecosystems in which trees are scarce is important too.

Text by: Dhanapal Govindarajulu. "India was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years - here are the results." The Conversation. 10 August 2023. [Emphasis added.]

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Nations and companies are competing to appropriate the last piece of available “untapped” forest that can provide the most amount of “environmental services.” [...] When British Empire forestry was first established as a disciplinary practice in India, [...] it proscribed private interests and initiated a new system of forest management based on a logic of utilitarian [extraction] [...]. Rather than the actual survival of plants or animals, the goal of this forestry was focused on preventing the exhaustion of resource extraction. [...]

Text by: Daniel Fernandez and Alon Schwabe. "The Offsetted." e-flux Architecture (Positions). November 2013. [Emphasis added.]

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At first glance, the statistics tell a hopeful story: Chile’s forests are expanding. […] On the ground, however, a different scene plays out: monocultures have replaced diverse natural forests [...]. At the crux of these [...] narratives is the definition of a single word: “forest.” [...] Pinochet’s wave of [...] [laws] included Forest Ordinance 701, passed in 1974, which subsidized the expansion of tree plantations [...] and gave the National Forestry Corporation control of Mapuche lands. This law set in motion an enormous expansion in fiber-farms, which are vast expanses of monoculture plantations Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus species grown for paper manufacturing and timber. [T]hese new plantations replaced native forests […]. According to a recent study in Landscape and Urban Planning, timber plantations expanded by a factor of ten from 1975 to 2007, and now occupy 43 percent of the South-central Chilean landscape. [...] While the confusion surrounding the definition of “forest” may appear to be an issue of semantics, Dr. Francis Putz [...] warns otherwise in a recent review published in Biotropica. […] Monoculture plantations are optimized for a single product, whereas native forests offer [...] water regulation, hosting biodiversity, and building soil fertility. [...][A]ccording to Putz, the distinction between plantations and native forests needs to be made clear. “[...] [A]nd the point that plantations are NOT forests needs to be made repeatedly [...]."

Text by: Julian Moll-Rocek. “When forests aren’t really forests: the high cost of Chile’s tree plantations.” Mongabay. 18 August 2014. [Emphasis added.]

YUKI Rei（由木礼 Japanese, 1928-2003）

End of the Summer 夏の終わり　1972 Woodblock print 72 × 37cm via

The thing is, I have nothing against socialism or communism as a political ideology; trust me, I'm as anti-capitalist as they come. The leftism is really not the problem here.

The problem is when in their leftism, people – Americans, really, and western Europeans – use the ussr as this sort of goal, this complete antithesis to the modern capitalist society, this almost-utopian place to live. They use hammer and sickle symbol, the ussr anthem; sometimes, as a joke, sometimes, not so much.

Not only that clearly shows that they know absolutely nothing about the ussr – it's also spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not, which is especially insidious now, when russia is literally committing a genocide.

The ussr wasn't a socialist utopia where everyone is equal. It was a totalitarian dictatorship, responsible for colonisation and genocide of multiple people and cultures. Just like the russian Empire before it. Just like modern russia continues to do now.

For many Eastern European and Central Asian people, hammer and sickle is not just a symbol of a political ideology. It's the symbol, under which people were starved to death, imprisoned or executed for daring to write in their own language; in which cultures were erased, people – forcefully assimilated, stripped of their own national identity.

It's the propaganda of being "the same people, the same nation" that russians love to use; that westerners love to believe, for the sole reason of the oppressed daring to look similar to the oppressor; for the sole reason of Americans being unable to look past their own history and realize oppression comes in many shapes and forms.

By using the ussr symbols in your political movement, you're denying the atrocities commited under that symbol and spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not.

It's not "progressive" to wave around a hate symbol.

Do your research.

Iceland II, 2024, oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm

I think one of the kindest things you can do for people with various mental health struggles is just... let people back into your life after they've been absent for a while.

Making friends as an adult is so fucking hard already and isolating yourself from other people is a very common symptom of depression, anxiety, burnout, ocd, trauma, grief, etc. Which means that someone will do the hard work of recovery/healing and resurface back into a world where their previous friends have written them off because they stopped showing up.

So if you know someone where you're like "yeah we could have been better friends but they fell off the map a bit" and that person suddenly reaches out, or starts showing up to events even though you kind of forgot they were still in the group chat... well they may have been Going Through It and you don't actually have to punish them for their absence you can just be glad that they're back.

Checkout - Caroline Bird

September 2017

KAWAI Gyokudō（川合玉堂 Japanese, 1873-1957）

via    more

Vanessa Stockard

"Another Day, Another Chair"

btw, the molotov cocktail got named that by Finns who used them when fighting back against the Soviet Union’s imperialist invasion of their country, as a mocking reference to Vyacheslav Molotov’s propaganda about said invasion (“we’re not bombing them, we’re just flying in food deliveries because they’re starving!”)

so i’m not gonna stop y'all from making molotov cocktail jokes, but you’d better not turn around and post soviet apologia afterwards. respect the cocktail’s history

Ita Ever (1.04.1931 - 9.08.2023).

It has been announced that the legendary Estonian actress Ita Ever has passed. She was 92 years old.

Ita Ever was a staple both on screen and on the stage in Estonia until very recently. Her perhaps most memorable role for the younger generations has always been Metsamoor in Nukitsamees (1981).

"Putin was wrong to invade, but Europe and US should negotiate peace instead of fueling warmongering Zelenskyy" - this is the message I've been getting almost every day. So I decided to respond with a thread.

First of all, dear peacemakers, do you have a clue what are Putin’s demands for peace? I will tell you: Russia is allowed to invade and control Ukraine’s government, resources, and legislation for an indefinite time.

Ukraine’s army must be demilitarized and almost destroyed. This means leaving no weapons, and no means to respond to any future threat from Russia. All damage Russia brought to Ukraine must be rebuilt by Ukrainians and Europeans.

All criminal accusations, all sanctions must be lifted. All crimes must stay unpunished. Territory, Russia took over by force, must stay under Russia no question. Russia does not agree to draw its forces out of Ukraine.

It still insists it is allowed to deport Ukrainians from their homeland and instead let Russians move in. Look at what is going on in Mariupol. This will be all of Ukraine.

At the same time each attack, each mass murder committed by Russians in Ukraine is blamed on Ukraine. Logic: Stop protecting yourselves, you are not allowed. We are allowed to shoot anti-ship missiles at your cities.

But it is you who’s guilty, bloody warmongers. Stop resisting. Let us turn you into the colony. Because we have the right, because we used to have you and want to have you back by force in 21st century.

Meanwhile, the ones, you call warmongers from EU and US: provide weapons on their own schedule, do not provide any means we can use to attack Russia or even Crimea. Strictly forbidden to use any of their weapons to bring war to Russia. Still are afraid of Russia losing

Agree to lift sanctions from Russian oligarchs, put Russian banks on Swift, buy Russian nuclear energy even at times Russians keep largest NPP in Europe hostage.

But let's think we agreed on Russia's peace terms after all it did to us. After it destroyed our cities, and industries, killed, raped, and kidnapped our people. Because "every war ends with negotiations", right?

NATO indeed got a boost because Russia attacked Ukraine. So they do have a plus. We got weapons to stand and retake our territory. Also a plus. But let's go into the "negotiations camp". Imagine this war ends on Russian terms, and that's the terms Russia agrees to negotiate.

What message do we send to the world: If you are a bigger power that wants to colonize neighboring countries, you can do it. You can come and kill the natives, destroy their houses, kidnap their kids, and turn them into your new citizens to replace those killed in war.

You can send natives to filtration camps, take away their property and send your own people from depressive regions to live in better conditions in the colonized country. and that is fine. You will still be at UN, still will be doing business as usual.

You might suffer from sanctions for a while, but you can always use loopholes or kill even more natives to pressure the world to lift the sanctions and let you continue your war. it will work. You will consolidate power at home, showing how strong you are.

You will use mindblowing propaganda efforts, mixing historical conflicts to get allies in modern times, making people previously colonized by others that now the sovereign state you still see as your breakaway colony, is somehow guilty for this war.

You dare to blame Ukraine, the West for this war, but not the one who actually has boots on the ground. not the one who destroys food destined maybe for your countries. This all because when you were suffering, nobody helped you. now you think it is fair for this to continue.

and the most mindblowing thing here is that if Putin's peace will happen, you will all remember us, like we now remember Syrians, Georgians, Chechens, and Afghanistan. World ignored all warnings, and kept business as usual, while one by one Russia was destroying us.

Now Putin, feeling the Ukraine fatigue and upcoming election year moods shits, feels blood and already reminds Poland that Stalin presented her lands. WEAK UP!!!!

The ones, who strip us of agency, because we need help fighting on our own with the largest army on the continent, please get a life. Read history. read about Ukraine. We have free and fair elections, even now there are openly pro-Russian lawmakers in parliament.

Yes, during the war we got a bit less democratic, but as did ANY OTHER COUNTRY during the war in history.

Our parliament still has heated debates about laws, we got rather strong institutions. We are older than Russia, we just had different names, like most of the countries in their history. Please read, and educate yourselves more. don't just write "independent thinker" in your bio

if you think that just letting Russia win will end this and it will be good, you should stop also in your daily life: standing for yourself or your loved one when someone's abusing him or her. Let bully at school to abuse your kid, and ask your kid what did he do to provoke it?

Stop writing quotes of great leaders about justice in your bios. Because you clearly are not ready to fight for justice, so be truthful. Write something about surrendering for the sake of peace. be honest to yourself. END.

Me, and many others like me probably will not survive to live in the new world, where surrendering to an aggressor who's murdering is right, cause you might get the chance that not all of you will be murdered, some might be enslaved and live happily ever after.

And honestly, I start thinking it is fine that I might not survive to live in this new "wonderful" world our place will turn if Russia is not defeated in Ukraine.

-- by Nika Melkozerova Source

Kathleen Caddick（British, b.1937）

Snow in the Park  Acrylic on canvas   49.5 x 59.6cm    via

Christina Olson, 1947. Andrew Wyeth,1917–2009. Tempera on panel.

I’ll have to disengage from online stuff on Ukraine for a while because although I have no intention of isolating myself from the life-changing events that are occurring in my literal backyard and are going to affect Europe for years to come, the rate at which I’ve been consuming the news cycle is starting to affect my head and that’s just not benefiting anything or anyone.

But before I do fuck off, a few words on what I’ve been noticing today. Namely that after the initial shock of seeing the terrorist gas station just going fucking mental and actually invading a sovereign country with no justification whatsoever, people (overwhelmingly uninformed Americans, as is tradition) have gone back to both-sidesing the war and sharing their dumbass radical centrist takes on how maybe Putin not good, but NATO is at fault. How NATO provoked the little fascist oligarchy into two days of nonstop war crimes. How if the evil West had just told Ukraine to fuck off, we don’t want you around, everything would have been peachy keen.

And there’s only one thing I can say to that—if you don’t support a people’s right to decide on its fate, on who it chooses to associate with; if you think that countries are by default beholden to whoever wields the biggest stick and have no right to rock the boat because might makes right, then I don’t give a fuck about how many thoughts and prayers you post—you don’t support Ukraine. You’re not an anti-imperialist and you sure as fuck aren’t a leftist. You’re a useful lapdog for the propaganda of a dying empire stuck in the 19th century notion of great powers that are somehow entitled to a sphere of influence, regardless of whatever said sphere of influence has to say about it or whether it even wants to be one. You’re showing a willingness to throw a free people expressing a desire to live in democracy to an expansionist dictatorship that’s a humans rights nightmare, simply “because that’s how the world works, nothing to do about it”. By regurgitating the Kremlin line on NATO provocation and “expansion” (i.e. Russia’s former colonies doing everything in their power to get the fuck out of Russia’s homicidal reach), you’re actively promoting colonialism and imperialism and you’re as useful to the victims of these horror shows as a soiled toilet paper.

Your “suck it up, buttercup” helps no one whatsoever. Quite frankly, it’s a part of the reason why we got here.

I implore you, read a fucking book on Eastern European history. Go into therapy with your U.S. centrism and “every conflict is like the Iraq War” because I swear, nobody in this part of the world is impressed with your main character syndrome. Grow out of the idiotic thinking that just because US BAD, an authoritarian regime automatically good.

You’re a part of the problem. Get solved, please.

Ma hakkasin postitama, et kuidas tõlkida kadakasaksacore inglise keelde, et kas peaks hoopis olema salsakeelne wachholderdeutscher-core sest "omg uskumatu sakslastel on sõna kõige jaoks!!!!11" (höhö joke's on you) või junipergermancore, mis keskmisele inglise keele emakeelena kõnelejale ütleb umbes-täpselt mitte midagi.

Siis tulebki, nagu @mistermooneyes seda juba tegi, lahti kirjeldada, et tegu on esteetika, mis peegeldab kolonialistlikku suhet kohalike ja võimul olijate vahel ja, kuidas oma identiteet tuleb maha salata, et jõuda üldse selle esteetikani. Ja see terve jänese urg vallandus sellest.... et mingid tüübid siin lehel riisuvad igast suvalisi tääge kokku??

Ja ma tean, et see pole mingi uus nähtus. strangeaeon kirjeldas seda, kuidas riisutud ühte kuhja nii queer-eskapism kui ka padukatoliiklased. Ja nüüd seda tohuvapohu vaadata....

Kuidas ma siia jõudsin? Millest ma üldse jahun?

Võib-olla polegi oluline, mis on kadakasaksacore inglise keeles, sest võib-olla ei olegi enam võimalik cottagecore'ist kolonialismi välja juurida

Foggy memories of January by @90377

Instagram | Etsy shop

An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.

Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man under Socialism

friendship with russians is when they conquer your land through a genocide and then say: “we can live in peace, but acting like your culture is equal with mine is russophobic. speak russian, please”