!H for horsemen
---
agk's diary
4 February 2022 @ 02:50
---
written on GPD Win 1 at kitchen table
during ice storm
---
I call this diary, "Where the horsemen hang their
hats." You're, of course, familiar with the horse-
men. Zechariah's horses were red, black, white,
dappled. Riders scouted and returned to report to
God. Black and white horse riders also comforted
people north of Jerusalem with God's spirit.
Horses rode again in John of Patmos' Revelation. He
remixed them with Ezekiel's catastrophic judgments.
Here's Ezekiel:
> When a country sins against me...and I...destroy
> its food supply by bringing on a FAMINE, wiping
> out humans and animals alike....
>
> Or, if I make WILD ANIMALS go through the country
> so that everyone has to leave and the country
> becomes wilderness and no one dares enter it any-
> more....
>
> Or, if I visit WAR on that country and give the
> order, 'Let the killing begin!' leaving both
> people and animals dead....
>
> Or, if I visit a deadly DISEASE on that country,
> pouring out my lethal anger, killing both people
> and animals, and Noah, Daniel, and Job happened
> to be alive...only these three would be delivered
> because of their righteousness.... Believe it or
> not, there'll be survivors.
These catastrophes are the special interests of
public health nerds, observers of catastrophe.
They're small founts of research funding, helpful
for paying modest mortgages. We sometimes raise
effective defenses but often just make powerpoints.
Ezekiel understands: even the most righteous guys
can't help anybody but themselves, as he tells it.
On gemini, gopher, and websites like lobste.rs,
Ezekiel 13 thrives. I love to read denunciations of
dark patterns by people paid to slap on whitewash
and sew soul-trapping devices---especially dark
patterns they know intimately, propagated by their
team in adtech, social media, binge-optimized
streaming, databases, or blockchain schemes.
I can't really make those denunciations myself. I
have no special knowledge of how mass denial and
despair are sown or structured. I'm an Ezekiel 14
girl. What I know is catastrophes and survivors.
Horsemen have been my companions for much of my
life.
John stages his horsemen with a careful observer's
nuance. His catastrophe-pattern is recognizable all
over the world.
In Syria the white horse of US, British, and Turkish
conquest arrived in 2010 and 2011. Internal warfare
followed between the foreign-backed Sunni profess-
ional and managerial class of the north, coastal
multiethnic/multireligious government forces, and
far-north Kurds.
Red and white horses rode together as all factions
entreprenerially accumulated foreign backing. Da'esh
and White Helmets marketed their wars to mainstream
atrocity-flick fans. American and Russian airstrikes
followed. Turkey invaded to ethnically cleanse Kurds.
The black horseman holds a scale; weighs money or
food. Food exists, but a day's wage buys a survival
ration for one---not enough to feed a family. Most
horrific famines were like this, from Victorian
holocausts in India and Ireland to the Biafran fam-
ine. Oil and wine flow free for the wealthy, but
the mass's ration is exported or fails to be impor-
ted, at least at a price the mass can afford.
Today in Syria, US-imposed sanctions cut off food.
The Lebanese banking collapse disposed of the rem-
aining middle class's money. Siege is the cruelest
form of mass killing. Almost everyone's hungry.
After the black horse, the rider on the sickly one
collects the dead. Life becomes hell for the living.
In Babylonian captivity, under Roman domination,
and Anglo-American empire in living memory, this is
the order of horsemen. Beneath their hooves, daily
life always continues. Prophetic critiques ring
through history to shake people who react with
denial ("Everything's NOT fine!"), and comfort those
who despair ("The catastrophe isn't the whole story;
you're sustained by people who need your love.")
At public health conferences I've looked at dozens
of powerpoints, thousands of posters quantifying
a horseman's deeds. Fuck that, though. Beneath,
despite hooves, people raise babies, raise fists,
raise Cain, and live ordinary lives together.
Psalm 20:
> Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but
> we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
The spirit of God's never far from ordinary life
lived together. No experience of catastrophe,
prophets bellow, is unredeemably meaningless.
