David Byrne, Alex Timbers, and Jo Lampert give an inside look into Jo’s journey to becoming Joan of Arc and the relevance of this historical story in today’s landscape.
JOAN OF ARC: INTO THE FIRE
Book, Music, and Lyrics by David Byrne
Choreography by Steven Hoggett
Directed by Alex Timbers
Video edited and shot by VaynerMedia.
In this book, Fathali Moghaddam presents his springboard model of dictatorship, derived from both a substantive analysis of the common structures underlying dictatorial regimes and his own personal experience of life in a modern dictatorship. He discusses the importance of psychological processes such as displacement of aggression, conformity, obedience, fear, and cognitive dissonance as tools that aid the development and maintenance of dictatorships, as well as the crucial role of ideology in cementing the allegiance of elites. Since even democracies contain an ever-shifting relationship between democratic and dictatorial tendencies, with elements that can pull democracies back to dictatorship, this book has important implications for citizens of all nations, even our own.
(Amazon.com)
What is democracy and where did it come from? Is it a new development or was it always present in human society? And perhaps the most important question: what can we do to preserve and strengthen democracy among the forces that oppose it?
In this book we explore trends throughout history that have brought democratic – and undemocratic – government to people wherever civilization exists. We discuss where democracy has been most, and least, successful and why. But our most important task is to clarify what each of us can do, as politicians or ordinary citizens, to bring the benefits of democracy more fully into the personal and political lives of those who cherish it.
(Amazon.com)
The “mass spell to bind Donald Trump” will be performed at midnight on every waning crescent moon beginning Friday, February 24, “until Donald Trump is removed from office,” the group’s website states.
The mass ritual will allegedly be repeated again March 26, April 24, May 23, June 21 (the summer solstice), July 21, and August 19.
The spell also invokes evil on “those who abet” Trump, which would seem to appear to cover his staff and political nominees, and perhaps the millions who voted for him as well.
The spell involves such items as an unflattering photo of Trump, a tower tarot card, a tiny stub of an orange candle, a pin or small nail, water, salt, a feather and an ashtray.
“Some lodges/covens are doing a variation of this as a group working, while a number of solitary practitioners are planning to connect and livestream via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media,” the site explains.
In reaction, a number of Christian groups and individuals have promised to pray for Mr. Trump, asking God’s blessings on his work and on the nation.
The witches’ spell involves a lengthy incantation, calling on spirits and “demons of the infernal realms” to bind Donald J. Trump so that “he may fail utterly, that he may do no harm.”
Calling on the spirits to work the same harm on “all those who enable his wickedness and those whose mouths speak his poisonous lies,” the hex beseeches the spirits to “bind them in chains, bind their tongues, bind their works, bind their wickedness.”
The climax of the spell involves a crescendo “with increasing passion” ending by blowing out the orange candle while “visualizing Trump blowing apart into dust or ash.”
