Cholula, Puebla 2018... [Lazara Cardenas, Sanctorum, Puebla]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 31 May 2018
Cholula, Puebla 2018... [Lazara Cardenas, Sanctorum, Puebla]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 31 May 2018
Cholula, Puebla 2018... [Lazara Cardenas, Sanctorum, Puebla]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 31 May 2018
Cholula, Puebla 2018... [Lazara Cardenas, Sanctorum, Puebla]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 31 May 2018
Cholula, Puebla 2018... [Lazara Cardenas, Sanctorum, Puebla]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 31 May 2018
La venganza de Quetzalcóatl... Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018 [San Miguel Teotongo (secc Las Torr, Mexico City, Distrito Federal]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
La venganza de Quetzalcóatl... Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018 [San Miguel Teotongo (secc Las Torr, Mexico City, Distrito Federal]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
La venganza de Quetzalcóatl... Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018 [San Miguel Teotongo (secc Las Torr, Mexico City, Distrito Federal]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
A Honduran
asylum seeker carries her daughter, age 2, before being taken into
custody by Border Patrol agents near the US-Mexico border this week. #gettyimages #undocumented #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbMoorephoto, 16 June 2018
When the Government Takes Your Children: John Moore/Getty Images/FOTO, 14 June 2018
Night has fallen in McAllen, Texas, a bordertown of about 130,000 people, flanked by the Rio Grande River. A Honduran asylum seeker — all of 2 years old and dressed in a bright pink sweater — cries as her mother is searched by U.S. Border Patrol agents. The next stop on their arduous journey — one that began one month and some 1,500 miles earlier — will be a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center where they will be forcibly separated in keeping with President Trump's new zero-tolerance immigration policy.
John Moore, a Pulitzer Prize winner and photographer for Getty Images (which owns FOTO), has witnessed the struggles of illegal immigrants for the past decade, collecting his often heartbreaking pictures into the book "Undocumented: Immigration and the Militarization of the United States-Mexico Border." But nothing could prepare Moore for this administration's inhumane tactics of separating children from their parents while their cases are adjudicated — a process that can take months or even years.
"As a father myself, it was very difficult for me to see these families detained, knowing that they would soon be split up," Moore says of his recent ride-along with the Border Patrol. "I could see on their faces that they had no idea what was about to happen."
During the course of his June 12th visit, Moore photographed everything from asylum-seekers rafting over the border from Mexico to agents chasing immigrants through sugar cane fields. Here, he tells FOTO what he saw on the ground.
On April 6 Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new policy for an "escalated effort to prosecute those who decide to illegally cross our border." He also directed prosecutors to prioritize immigration cases. And though the policy does not explicitly call for the separation of parent and child, in practice, it does precisely that: While parents are taken to be prosecuted, their children are left with a sponsor or shelter. "I doubt many of these families knew about the Trump administration's recent policy on separating parents from children at the border," Moore says.
During a two-week period in May alone, some 650 children were separated from their parents as a direct result of the policy.
Many, if not
all, of the immigrants Moore photographed during his ride-along were
asylum seekers from Central America, fleeing their home country due to
fear of violence or even death. But a new ruling this week from Attorney General Sessions suddenly makes many previously valid asylum claims invalid.
John Moore: "Most of these families were scared, to various degrees," says Moore. "I doubt any of them had ever done anything like this before – flee their home countries with their children, traveling thousands of miles through dangerous conditions to seek political asylum in the United States, many arriving in the dead of night."
In one photo, a Border Patrol agent shines a spotlight on a terrified mother and son found in the woods.
"Late at the end of my visit with the Border Patrol this week, I stood in a secluded spot photographing rafts of immigrants coming across the Rio Grande, dropping off families on the U.S. side. As people made their way up the riverbank into the woods, I could hear branches breaking as they tried to find a pathway out," Moore tells FOTO. "A child, who sounded like a baby, started crying, as the group pushed through the underbrush. Later, when the agent and I made our way out, we found them walking along a dirt road. It wasn't a baby after all, but rather a 10-year-old Honduran boy with special needs. He was terrified. To try and calm him, I showed him some pictures of the river, which I displayed on the back of my camera. I then told him something that was natural to say in the moment, but that I immediately regretted. 'No te preocupas, todo va a estar bien,' I said. I told him not to worry, everything will be alright. I really wish I hadn't said that, because I'm not sure it's true."
"In the case of the 2-year-old Honduran girl, the mother told me they had been traveling for a full month and were exhausted. They were taken into custody with a group of about 20 immigrants, mostly women and children at about 11p.m.," Moore says. "Before transporting them to a processing center, transportation officers body searched everyone and the mother was one of the last. She was told to set the child down, while she was searched. The little girl immediately started crying. While it's not uncommon for toddlers to feel separation anxiety, this would have been stressful for any child. I took only a few photographs and was almost overcome with emotion myself. Then very quickly, they were in the van, and I stopped to take a few deep breaths."
A Honduran asylum seeker, 2, and her mother are taken into custody near the US-Mexico border. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy for undocumented immigrants calls for the separation of parents and children. #undocumented #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 13 June 2018
La niña que llora mientras arrestan a su madre: habla el fotógrafo que capturó la dura imagen: image via Univision @Univision, 15 June 2018
How do the
Border Patrol agents feel about the new policy? Moore describes their
mood as the same as it ever was, one of "resignation." "Generally
speaking, agents find the bureaucracy of processing so many asylum
seekers tedious," explains Moore. "Once families cross the Rio Grande
from Mexico into Texas, they seek out Border Patrol agents and then turn
themselves in. I'd say that many agents do have some compassion for
them, but they don't think that the U.S. should be responsible for
accepting them."
US Border Patrol agents take a Honduran boy and his father into custody in south Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” #immigration policy separates children from parents during asylum process. #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 14 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Coaxuscos, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Coaxuscos, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
US Border Patrol agents take Central American families into custody in south Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” #immigration policy separates children from parents during asylum process. #undocumented #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 15 June 2018
Nearly 2,000 kids have been separated from their families, according to new figures from DHS. They were separated from 1,940 adults, now facing charges for illegal entry, under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy.: tweet via Adolfo Flores @aflores, 15 June 2018
Mexico Symbols of migrant deaths are silent witnesses to the renovations on the US side of the border fence @AFPphoto by @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 15 June 2018
Night has fallen along the border. Things are quiet. In the broad river valley flats nocturnal animals have begun their rounds...
The Bloated Orange Cheet-Oh is not here in his actual physical human plasma meatsack
He has taken the Children of God hostage to his Tender Outer Boroughs Ego and holds them ransom in a Cutprice Tilted Flightdeck Hairpiece Abduction Scheme...
Ripping innocent babe from blameless maternal bosom, denying Nancy Pelosi's existence three times before dawn,
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico A family looks through the fence in Mexican side, of the Mexico-US border at Playas de Tijuana. Photo @ProyectoElCerco: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 April 2018
#haveaniceday #sunset on the Mexican side of the US - Mexico border fence, at Playas de Tijuana, northwestern Mexico. Photo @ProyectoElCerco: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 9 April 2018
#Italy A man walks in the Mondadori building before the show of fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna during the Men's Spring/Summer 2019 fashion shows in Milan Photo @MBer12 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 16 June 2018
#France Greater flamingos stand in an enclosure at Amneville Zoo in Amneville Photo @JCVerhaegen #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 16 June 2018
#Argentina A homeless person sleeps on the street in downtown Buenos Aires Photo @chatoeitan #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 16 June 2018
Perrunos en La Estrit. [Mariel, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Perrunos en La Estrit. [Mariel, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Mirto, Ixtapaluca, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Xólotl: Señor de la estrella de la tarde (Venus) ayuda a los muertos en su viaje al Mictlán, in cihuatl y la cruz… Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018...: photo by Fermin Guzman, 1 June 2018
Corazón de res... Chimalhuacán, EDOMEX 2018... [Barrio Vidrieros, Chimalhuacán, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 18 May 2018
Corazón de res... Chimalhuacán, EDOMEX 2018... [Barrio Vidrieros, Chimalhuacán, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 18 May 2018
Corazón de res... Chimalhuacán, EDOMEX 2018... [Barrio Vidrieros, Chimalhuacán, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 18 May 2018
Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead: Aztec, sculptor unknown; photo by Jamie Dwyer, 19 August 2008 (Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City)
John Moore: "Most of these families were scared, to various degrees," says Moore. "I doubt any of them had ever done anything like this before – flee their home countries with their children, traveling thousands of miles through dangerous conditions to seek political asylum in the United States, many arriving in the dead of night."
In one photo, a Border Patrol agent shines a spotlight on a terrified mother and son found in the woods.
A
US Border Patrol spotlight illuminates a fearful Honduran mother and
son, after they crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico and became lost in
the woods. They were taken into custody. Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy
splits families during asylum process. #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 13 June 2018
"Late at the end of my visit with the Border Patrol this week, I stood in a secluded spot photographing rafts of immigrants coming across the Rio Grande, dropping off families on the U.S. side. As people made their way up the riverbank into the woods, I could hear branches breaking as they tried to find a pathway out," Moore tells FOTO. "A child, who sounded like a baby, started crying, as the group pushed through the underbrush. Later, when the agent and I made our way out, we found them walking along a dirt road. It wasn't a baby after all, but rather a 10-year-old Honduran boy with special needs. He was terrified. To try and calm him, I showed him some pictures of the river, which I displayed on the back of my camera. I then told him something that was natural to say in the moment, but that I immediately regretted. 'No te preocupas, todo va a estar bien,' I said. I told him not to worry, everything will be alright. I really wish I hadn't said that, because I'm not sure it's true."
"In the case of the 2-year-old Honduran girl, the mother told me they had been traveling for a full month and were exhausted. They were taken into custody with a group of about 20 immigrants, mostly women and children at about 11p.m.," Moore says. "Before transporting them to a processing center, transportation officers body searched everyone and the mother was one of the last. She was told to set the child down, while she was searched. The little girl immediately started crying. While it's not uncommon for toddlers to feel separation anxiety, this would have been stressful for any child. I took only a few photographs and was almost overcome with emotion myself. Then very quickly, they were in the van, and I stopped to take a few deep breaths."
A
mother is searched and her 2-year-old daughter bursts into tears as
Border Patrol agents enforce the Trump administration's zero tolerance
policy near the U.S., Mexico border. Photo: @jbmoorephoto: image via Getty Images News @GettyImagesNews, 14 June 2018
A Honduran asylum seeker, 2, and her mother are taken into custody near the US-Mexico border. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy for undocumented immigrants calls for the separation of parents and children. #undocumented #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 13 June 2018
La niña que llora mientras arrestan a su madre: habla el fotógrafo que capturó la dura imagen: image via Univision @Univision, 15 June 2018
US Border Patrol agents take a Honduran boy and his father into custody in south Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” #immigration policy separates children from parents during asylum process. #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 14 June 2018
Central
American immigrants near the US-Mexico border this week. US AG Sessions
announced domestic and gang violence will no longer be grounds for
asylum seekers to gain entry to the United States. #undocumented #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 13 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Coaxuscos, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Coaxuscos, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Coaxuscos, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Coaxuscos, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
JH Almeida: "A single headed Beast..."
A single headed Beast, feckless
picador
Simple, thick and wet
Bulls are on Parade
No Shame
and Fences
everywhere proclaim *
A Triumph of The Wall
6. 16. 18
__
* - ghost ed. in tenebris noctis
A Triumph of The Wall
6. 16. 18
__
* - ghost ed. in tenebris noctis
US Border Patrol agents take Central American families into custody in south Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” #immigration policy separates children from parents during asylum process. #undocumented #immigration #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephoto, 15 June 2018
Nearly 2,000 kids have been separated from their families, according to new figures from DHS. They were separated from 1,940 adults, now facing charges for illegal entry, under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy.: tweet via Adolfo Flores @aflores, 15 June 2018
Mexico Symbols of migrant deaths are silent witnesses to the renovations on the US side of the border fence @AFPphoto by @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 15 June 2018
Spectre Jungle Emp-Lord Midgetbrain Tinyhands Holds Children Of God Hostage To Dwarf Grand Murican Ego-Need
Night has fallen along the border. Things are quiet. In the broad river valley flats nocturnal animals have begun their rounds...
The Bloated Orange Cheet-Oh is not here in his actual physical human plasma meatsack
But he is everywhere always now... an invisible pervasive presence like a bad sofa odor seeping into everything, the 8 million ton gorilla whose tantrums move
Earth's death needle closer inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter, across the dry gulch Leni Riefenstal Test Range...
He has taken the Children of God hostage to his Tender Outer Boroughs Ego and holds them ransom in a Cutprice Tilted Flightdeck Hairpiece Abduction Scheme...
Democratic enclaves have surrendered en masse all across Murica del Norte and are lining up to enlist
In his new White Patriotic Development And Rampant Reason Obliterating Stockmarket Extraction Party, A Party Which Will Always Have Your Aversion In Mind,
Dedicated to making Murica Grate on you more terribly than ever by nipping Immigration in the Bud, strangling it at the Root,
Ripping innocent babe from blameless maternal bosom, denying Nancy Pelosi's existence three times before dawn,
Renewing the Monroe Doctrine With a Double Lemon Twist, and other very biblical objectives.
But now the hour grows late and the air feels thick with hate and haste and traffic and internalized violence
Though that could be good in a way, a not having to face the music just yet kind of way, though it's not the Jazz Age, and
Something large and slow with gleaming varicolored scales overlapping in multi-ply sheath-plates across its dorsal regions
Though that could be good in a way, a not having to face the music just yet kind of way, though it's not the Jazz Age, and
Something large and slow with gleaming varicolored scales overlapping in multi-ply sheath-plates across its dorsal regions
Lumbers over the damp sand, moving away from the river and up the long bank toward shore...
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico Central American migrants travelling in the "Migrant Via Crucis" caravan reach US border @AFPphoto by Guillermo Arias @ProyectoElCerco: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 29 April 2018
#Mexico A family looks through the fence in Mexican side, of the Mexico-US border at Playas de Tijuana. Photo @ProyectoElCerco: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 6 April 2018
Cartoonist @RobRogers fired from @PittsburghPG after 25 years for being too hard on Trump. Maybe it was the lips?: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 16 June 2018
#haveaniceday #sunset on the Mexican side of the US - Mexico border fence, at Playas de Tijuana, northwestern Mexico. Photo @ProyectoElCerco: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 9 April 2018
#Italy A man walks in the Mondadori building before the show of fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna during the Men's Spring/Summer 2019 fashion shows in Milan Photo @MBer12 #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 16 June 2018
#France Greater flamingos stand in an enclosure at Amneville Zoo in Amneville Photo @JCVerhaegen #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 16 June 2018
#Argentina A homeless person sleeps on the street in downtown Buenos Aires Photo @chatoeitan #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffard, 16 June 2018
Perrunos en La Estrit. Según
la organización de protección animal, ADOPTARE, México ocupa el primer
lugar en Latinoamérica donde existen perros en condición de calle. Se
estima que en nuestro país existen aproximadamente 23 millones de
perros, de los cuales el 70% se encuentran en situación de calle. El
descuido, la irresponsabilidad, la indiferencia y muchos otros factores
más nos dan este deshonroso primer lugar. Nosotros como fotógrafos
callejeros, en nuestro andar, estamos acostumbrados a observar a esos
animalitos de la calle que se han convertido en parte del paisaje urbano
de las grandes ciudades y de la periferia del país. Casi siempre
aparecen de forma espontánea o los encontramos realizando cosas
extrañas, chuscas o interesantes y es cuando aprovechamos para
retratarlos. Lejos de querer
presumir que nosotros tenemos fotos de perros en situación de calle,
subimos estas imágenes para hacer un llamado a la población para que
sean responsables con sus perros: esterilizándolos y no echándolos a la
calle y sobre todo si alguno de ustedes se llega a topar con un peludo y
tienen la oportunidad de darle comida o agua no lo duden y ayúdenlos,
si pueden buscarle un hogar estaría súper mejor. Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Mariel, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Perrunos en La Estrit. [Mariel, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Perrunos en La Estrit. [Mariel, Los Reyes Acaquilpan, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Mirto, Ixtapaluca, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Mirto, Ixtapaluca, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Mirto, Ixtapaluca, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018... [Mirto, Ixtapaluca, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 6 June 2018
Xólotl: Señor de la estrella de la tarde (Venus) ayuda a los muertos en su viaje al Mictlán, in cihuatl y la cruz… Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018...: photo by Fermin Guzman, 1 June 2018
Xólotl: Señor de la estrella de la tarde (Venus) ayuda a los muertos en su viaje al Mictlán, in cihuatl y la cruz… Los Reyes La Paz, EDOMEX 2018...: photo by Fermin Guzman, 1 June 2018
Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead and king of Mictlan (Chicunauhmictlan), lowest and northernmost section of the underworld: Aztec, sculptor unknown, recovered during excavation of the House of Eagles in the Templo Mayor: photo by Thelmadatter, 23 March 2008 (Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City
Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead and king of Mictlan (Chicunauhmictlan), lowest and northernmost section of the underworld: Aztec, sculptor unknown, recovered during excavation of the House of Eagles in the Templo Mayor: photo by Thelmadatter, 23 March 2008 (Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City
... the desire incarnate in money offered a reward to the imagination,
as between two lovers; and that reward seemed at first to be guaranteed
by rare and beautiful metals, of whose inner nature and capacity men
could only dream. In time, that guarantee was unveiled as only the
projected authority of a community... It was the community that
authorised the wishes expressed in money or frustrated them. To use
money was to submit to the state, and when states disintegrated their
moneys vanished as completely as their laws...
James Buchan: from Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money, 1993
James Buchan: from Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money, 1993
Buying the whole fucking float
Money, far from being the harmless arena of human emulation as its apologists hold, is a great destroyer. Because money is eminent desire, there is no satisfaction in the external world unless it is conveyed in money, until the world is possessed in monetary garb -- like an Indian bride in her finery, hair reeking of attar of roses, eyes stinging with kohl -- ; because money is all power and potential, the external world is a poor thing and may be exploited and altered without compunction.
El mundo es poco. Columbus sucked a thousand years of gold from the Caribbean in two or three, and then extinguished all its human life. The Conquest he not so much inaugurated as carried to the New World now rages all over the globe, including its polar regions. Woods are paved, mountains mined, seas eaten, species annihilated. All the large land and sea animals of the earth, and most of its birds, are under sentence of extinction. They are being killed not by the rifle, but by a more lethal invention, money. Money is no longer, as Adam Smith thought in an excitable passage, 'a waggon-way through the air' that leaves the earth free for men, but is actually destroying it, in the sense of extirpating its most intimate and precious nature, as the cattle-money of the Masai is destroying the grasslands of East Africa. To say that human beings must accept these losses, and live among their parasites -- learn to love sparrows and magpies and no other birds, hold cockroaches to be the only insects -- in a world of perfect artifice is the final idolatry: that money is our ineluctable destiny, not merely our life, but our death as well. Schopenhauer watched the old men of his age barricade themselves behind money against the siege engines of death. Now all people do that. Humanity itself is transforming into the dragon of the Nibelungen, squatting in a filthy cave amid heaps of dusty treasure. The Ego is satisfied at last, surrounded by annihilating possessions.
James Buchan: from Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money, 1997
Money, far from being the harmless arena of human emulation as its apologists hold, is a great destroyer. Because money is eminent desire, there is no satisfaction in the external world unless it is conveyed in money, until the world is possessed in monetary garb -- like an Indian bride in her finery, hair reeking of attar of roses, eyes stinging with kohl -- ; because money is all power and potential, the external world is a poor thing and may be exploited and altered without compunction.
El mundo es poco. Columbus sucked a thousand years of gold from the Caribbean in two or three, and then extinguished all its human life. The Conquest he not so much inaugurated as carried to the New World now rages all over the globe, including its polar regions. Woods are paved, mountains mined, seas eaten, species annihilated. All the large land and sea animals of the earth, and most of its birds, are under sentence of extinction. They are being killed not by the rifle, but by a more lethal invention, money. Money is no longer, as Adam Smith thought in an excitable passage, 'a waggon-way through the air' that leaves the earth free for men, but is actually destroying it, in the sense of extirpating its most intimate and precious nature, as the cattle-money of the Masai is destroying the grasslands of East Africa. To say that human beings must accept these losses, and live among their parasites -- learn to love sparrows and magpies and no other birds, hold cockroaches to be the only insects -- in a world of perfect artifice is the final idolatry: that money is our ineluctable destiny, not merely our life, but our death as well. Schopenhauer watched the old men of his age barricade themselves behind money against the siege engines of death. Now all people do that. Humanity itself is transforming into the dragon of the Nibelungen, squatting in a filthy cave amid heaps of dusty treasure. The Ego is satisfied at last, surrounded by annihilating possessions.
James Buchan: from Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money, 1997
Corazón de res... Chimalhuacán, EDOMEX 2018... [Barrio Vidrieros, Chimalhuacán, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 18 May 2018
Corazón de res... Chimalhuacán, EDOMEX 2018... [Barrio Vidrieros, Chimalhuacán, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 18 May 2018
Corazón de res... Chimalhuacán, EDOMEX 2018... [Barrio Vidrieros, Chimalhuacán, Mexico]: photo by Fermin Guzman, 18 May 2018
Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead: Aztec, sculptor unknown; photo by Jamie Dwyer, 19 August 2008 (Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City)
1 comment:
Remember that tiresome little twit Stephen Miller? The obnoxious dweeb-boy racist toadie from Santa Monica who because he resented the less wealthy latino guys who got all the girls in high school "grew up" (one minute later) into the creative slime-mold who "crafted" that brilliant adornment of murican political history, the original Muslim travel ban?
Seems the family separation policy is lil Stevie's latest wonderful contribution to this nadir passage of the dying empire through its soulcrushed Now into its GREAT SELF DRIVING FUTURE.
You didn't really think Drumpfie actually made it up himself didja? No, "we" did it "as a people".
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