#'does it have anything to do with caving to fear on issues like nuclear power and immigration rather than showing real leadership?'

[tanadrin]

Der Spiegel has an article talking about whether the AfD should be banned outright, and it's like... I don't think you can ban a party that is currently polling at almost a quarter of the electorate for extremism, and pretend that you can just keep conducting politics as normal after that! They have like a third of the seats in the Saxon Landtag! Purely aside from the civil libertarian concerns (which are grave), your political leadership has clearly failed on a massive scale if your only response to that kind of reactionary wave in your politics is to ban the bad guys, and then pretend like mainstream politics is fine and nothing needs to change.

(And no, the answer is not, as Scholz and others seem to believe, to try to outflank them by becoming similarly reactionary on key issues like immigration. There are in fact options besides "ban the reactionaries" and "become the reactionaries"! But those other options might require confronting why the biggest parties in German politics are so sclerotic, and why people are so dissatisfied with them in the first place.)

[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Questions to Help World Build

I’ve realized I have a big problem with my writing. I am awful at world-building. Like, I just start writing without thinking about the world. And since I write fantasy. Well. That’s pretty no bueno and leads to all kinds of problems down the road. So I did some brainstorming with my friends and we created a list of over 100 questions to help think about our stories’ worlds and make them more concrete. Thanks to everyone who chimed in and gave me a hand! 

A traditional Japanese clock, wadokei, that counted hours from 9 to 4, starting from sunrise, and then starting once again from sunset. (1-3 were not used for religious purposes.) They’re super interesting and confusing. You should definitely check them out.

Temporal

Is your story set in the past, present, or future?

Specifically, what year(s), month(s), day(s)?

Are days 24 hours? Or does time pass differently in this world?

How many months are there in a year? Is it a seven day weekday? Does the concept of weekends exist?

Have most existing societies developed a timekeeping device?

Is there a way to communicate across long distances?

The concept of time zones is still relatively new to our world. Prior to the late nineteenth century, timekeeping was a purely local phenomenon. Each town would set their clocks to noon when the sun reached its zenith each day. Do standardized time zones exist across the world?

Geographical

From a planet perspective, is it Earth? If it is not Earth, or an alternative version of Earth, what is it like? Is gravity the same? Does it have a moon or multiple moons? Can you see other planets? Is it closer or further from the sun? If so, what impact does that have on the climate and passage of time?

What town, state, region, country, continent, planet does this story take place in? What are its bordering/nearest neighbors? Draw a world map if you want.

What kind of land is it? Landlocked? Mountainous? Along the sea? Desert? Tundra? Tropical forest? Plains? Agricultural? Industrial?

What kind of plants and animals are common to the area? Are there any that do not exist in the real world?

What are the most common crops and livestock in various regions? What geographic features influence certain regions ability to grow/raise their crops and livestock (positively and negatively)? Are the regions diets strongly influenced by what they are able to grow themselves, or do other circumstances (like strong international trade) allow them to have more varied selections? How does religion influence what is considered ‘normal’ to eat?

What, if any, natural disasters are common to the region? Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, monsoons, blizzards?

How many seasons does it have? Are any longer than others?

What is the typical weather like for those seasons?

Does the region have any unusual geographical features that set it apart? Perhaps there is some weird thing like Devil’s Tower just chilling out. Or hot springs because of volcanic activity?

Is it easy to travel from place to place within the area? Is it difficult to travel because of terrain/technology issues, or because travel is strictly regulated?

Main Locations: Cities

Many stories take place within one city. In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, a character remarks, “So, if a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams.” What personality does this city have? What soul does it have? What does it dream of when it slumbers? If your story takes place within a settlement, town, or city, give these questions some thought.

Exactly where is it located within the lands you conjured up in the above Geography questions? Does it have a bay? A river? Does it butt up against mountains? Draw a map of the city.

How big is the city? Is it compact, or sprawling?

How old is the city?

What is the history of the city? How did it come to be? What tumults and triumphs has it seen?

What is the population? Is it currently increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same?

Does the town have any claim to fame? Any tourist attractions? What are they? What’s the story behind them?

If it’s a big enough city, how many and what kind of districts does it have? Residential, Commercial, Industrial, etc. Where are they?

Are there any areas that are deemed unsafe? If so, where are they and why are they unsafe?

Is there public transportation? What kind, bus, tram, train, subway, monorail? Is it good?

How do people get around this city if not by public transportation?

Are the roads narrow or wide? Crisscrossing in a methodical grid or higgledy-piggledy?

What are the buildings like? What materials are they made of? If they’re wooden, are they new wood, old wood? If they’re painted, what colors? If they’re stone, what stone? If they’re brick, is it new red brick or blackened, crumbling brick? If they’re glass and metal, are they sparkling with new hope or dull and jaded?

Are there many skyscrapers? Or are most buildings 1-3 stories tall? What does the skyline look like?

Are there many parks?

How is the city powered? Coal? Hydroelectric? Wind? Nuclear? Has it always been so?

What is the city’s main source of revenue? Agriculture? Tourism? Manufacturing? Mining? Something else? A combination? Dive deeper into this. If it’s agriculture, what do they grow? Tourism–what is famous? etc. This will help to determine what a lot of people do for a living.

What are the demographics? Ethnicity, age distribution, distribution of upper, middle, and lower class, etc.

How many schools are there? Universities? Are any of them good? Do they specialize in anything? Do schools even exist? Perhaps there are clans that teach their children everything they need, for example, or education isn’t viewed as important.

Are there any particular landmarks within the city that standout?

How many and what kind of restaurants are there?

Are there supermarkets, open air markets, or both?

Where do young people go to spend time? What about adults?

Do people there bustle or do they amble?

What are the nights like? Does the city grow quiet, or does it grow rowdy?

What does the city smell like?

If you had to give your town a color, one that represented its personality, what color would it be?

Main Locations: Houses (or buildings, but mainly houses)

There are many stories that have a house or headquarters or hospital or some sort of building as their main setting. These questions will mostly be geared towards helping you figure out a house, but you can apply these to other buildings too probably.

Exactly where is the house located within the city or outside the city? How does your character usually get there? Draw a map. 

What year was the house built?

Was this house built by the current family or their ancestors? Who else lived in the house before the current dwellers? What were they like? Did they leave their mark on the house somehow?

What style is the house? Bungalow? Cabin? A shed? A cave? (makes the following questions mostly useless if so lol)

How many stories is it?

What is it made of? Wood? Brick? What color is it?

Does it have a lot of windows?

Are the curtains usually open or drawn? Are thee curtains at all?

What does the front door look like? 

Is there a porch?

You enter the front door. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you use the side door because the front door is for show or something. Anyways. You enter the house. What room do you step foot into?

Draw out the floor plans for each floor. How many rooms are there? Where are they? How big are they? How are they connected? What color are they? What style of decor?

Is there a basement? Is it used or is it just a home for spiders and darkness and unwanted things? How about an attic? Crawlspace?

How many bathrooms? 

Are there any rooms that only certain people are allowed to enter? If so, why? 

What is the flooring? Carpet? Wood? Tile? Linoleum? 

What does the house smell like?

Government/Military/Economy

In other words, “the boring stuff,” if you ask me. But this is a very important aspect of any world. 

What sort of government is in place? Democracy, oligarchy, etc? Is it a just or corrupt government?

How are goods exchanged? Bartering? Money? Coins and bills? Credit cards? A specific kind of sea shell? Lol

What are the police like? Strict? Lax? Is there a curfew?

Do taxes exist? If so, do the people feel as though they are heavily or unduly taxed?

Where is the intersection between theology and law? Is it common to have religious leaders in positions of power? Are laws based around religious ideology, or is there an effort to keep them separate?

Is there an organised structure devoted to halting criminal acts? Are they corrupt? Who runs the organisation? How does their reputation change based on demographic? What is the history of the organisation, and how does that history influence how it operates today?

Regarding potentially criminal acts, what is the elgality of prostitution, sex work, ect.?

What about drugs and other illicit substances? Alcohol, illicit drugs, recreational use. Legality, festivity, age limits, etc.

Underbelly. How prevalent is crime, what sort of crime (scaled from pickpocketing to human trafficking) is there? Are there areas that have bad reputations because of it?

Regarding war, are there currently conflicts in the world? Are they international or civil wars? How common is it to have an active war? What is the history of war? What does current warfare look like (Is it dudes in metal suits swinging swords? Have longbows been invented? Gunpowder? Tanks? Missiles?) Is military service mandatory or voluntary? How is the military seen? Is there a sense of patriotism for the military, or does the common man fear it?

Is there stigma around certain genders entering the military? Are come genders regarded as better recruits than others? Is it illegal for some genders to enter the military? Does a person's sexuality affect their ability to serve?

How has religion influenced war? Have there been holy wars in the past? Do any religious institutions hold their own military forces?

Cultural/Historical

I’ve put these together because events in history lead to cultural change. You can apply these questions not only to the world/country, but also the city or even the neighborhood, workplace, or school that your story takes place in.

What is the history of the region? Who was it settled by? Was another group of people displaced? After that, did any new cultures come in? Did they get along?

Were there ever any wars or serious conflicts in the region? What was the cause and what was the outcome of the war if there was one?

In our world, the internet, social media, and film/tv are massive cultural drivers. They determine the latest fashions, jokes, topics, and expressions. What are the big cultural drivers in your world? Books? Plays? Radio? Oral tradition?

Is it a collectivistic or individualistic society?

What languages are spoken by your characters? Is multilingualism common?

What sorts of cultures can be seen? Do any clash? Do any mesh?

What sort of foods are most common?

What superstitions do people hold? Is there a version of “knock on wood” or throwing salt over your shoulder after a funeral? What are the roots of these superstitions?

Are there religions? If so, what are they? Do any conflict with each other? Are zealots or extremists an issue?

Does slavery or indentured servitude exist?

Are there any class or caste systems? If so, what are they, and what does an average day look like for a member of each class/caste?

How does a person's appearance change from country to country? Do certain countries have very distinct fashions? If so, are the fashions influenced by religion, surrounding countries, the cultural majority or international trade partners?

How does a person's clothing relate to their social standing? Is it very easy to assume someone's roll by appearance alone? Are there punishments for dressing above or below your social standing?

Does the society place a great deal of importance on a person's presentation, or is the society more lenient on such things?

Is there an emphasis on conformity to a dress code, or is individuality encouraged? How strictly is clothing regulated by gender binary? Is it commonplace to see a man and a woman walking down the street in the same cut of clothes? Is there a social stigma when a person does not conform to the most common form of dress for their gender?

How are sexual rights viewed? Does the LGBTQ community have the same rights as people outside the community? How are sex acts between people of the same sex viewed? Is it legal? Taboo? Are there cultures that encourage those relationships in some circumstances (like how the romans were down with guys with guys in the military)?

Are there any groups of people that are victims of prejudice? If so, who are they, who holds these views against them, and what views specifically are they?

In regards to gender, do certain societies hold differing beliefs? Is there a commonly accepted number of gender identities or does it change regionally? Is the most common gender spectrum a binary, or do certain racial and cultural differences allow for a wider range to be seen as the baseline?

Are children raised by their biological parents or are children considered to be in the care of the wider community? Is it common/acceptable for extended family to raise children, such as parents needing to study, work, or serve time in the military? Is adoption a common thing in society? Is there a stigma around adoption/being adopted? Do cultural or religious views impact how adoption is seen by the wider community? What is adoption like for a single perspective parent? When adopting, is interracial adoption accepted/common, or is it seen in a negative light? Are some societies more open to adopting children outside of their own race?

How is sex and virginity viewed? Does religion influence it? What is the age of consent? What is appropriate on a first, second, third date? Is sex something that is talked about openly, or something taboo? Are you supposed to wait until marriage? Do couples stay monogamous while dating? Do some regions place higher importance on virginity than others? Do some place higher importance on one gender’s virginity than others?

How is marriage viewed? Are arranged marriages a big thing, or are people free to choose? Is monogamy common? How is a marriage symbolized? A wedding ring, or something different?

How is divorce viewed? What is the divorce rate? Can people remarry?

Magic and the Supernatural

If magic or spooky stuff doesn’t exist in your story, disregard this section.

Does magic exist? If so, who can use it? What are the limitations to their magic? What things are they capable of using their magic to do? What things are they incapable of doing?

Are there laws against what kind of magic can/cannot be used? What sort of laws? Who enforces them? What are the punishments for breaking said laws if they exist?

How does the existence of magic affect religion? Are there religious institutions that infuse magic into their worship? Are there religious sects that see magic as immoral and in direct opposition to their faith? Have there been conflicts in recent or ancient history between religion and the supernatural? Do some sects employ people to hunt and/or enforce law over the supernatural?

Assuming that magic does exist, is it taught? Are there different schools of magic? Is there a system of ranking for magic users based on their skill level?

Do non-magic users look towards magic users with respect or fear?

What role does magic play in this world? Has technology not advanced because magic solves many problems? Or has technology advanced and the use of some magics has become unnecessary?

Are there any mythological creatures/monsters, such as vampires, demons, skinwalkers, dragons, or other creatures of your own creation? Are they common? Do people believe in their existence? Do people worship them? Where can they be found? Do they interact with humans? Do humans fear them or try to put up with them as they do nature?

Do the dead continue to exist in some form, such as ghosts or zombies or the like? Can the dead be summoned or brought back to life?

Are there human/supernatural hybrids? Perhaps a half-demon half-human, for example? How are these people viewed by their peoples, and by society as a whole?

How has the supernatural influenced war? Do armies tend to have a mix of regular and supernatural soldiers/weapons? Have there been wars between the supernatural/magical and those without? How does magic influence a person standing in a mixed army? Is it more likely for a magical being to be promoted than a non-magical being? Conversely, are supernatural being forced into service and seen as pawns?

The End!

Please feel free to reblog and share, and add on any questions you think should be added!

[dalekofchaos]

Why Voldemort is a terrible villain and how I’d improve Voldemort as a villain

As much as I like Voldemort, when you look back on the books. Voldemort is a terrible villain. Yes he has the Horcruxes and has loyal followers...but that’s it. In this post I will be examining why Voldemort is a terrible villain in Harry Potter and how I would improve Voldemort as a villain.

Let’s look at Voldemort’s track record

No clear motivations. The movies do absolutely nothing to flesh out Voldemort, but that's understandable, they're the movies. But even in the books, there is no clear reason for Voldemort doing any of the things that he does. During the flashbacks in the Pensive, Tom is a disturbed child who has a tendency to torture animals, lure other children to creepy caves and steal stuff - all of this is bad, yes, but why? Why is Tom Riddle "evil"? I know the explanation that the canon somewhat provides: that Voldemort doesn't know love/friendship/connection because he was conceived under the trickery of a love potion, and his mother was abused But, even if you accept that explanation, that does not justify Tom Riddle being innately evil and monstrous. Why is he racist/supremacist? If he really is a natural genius with a detachment from human emotion, shouldn't he also be detached from things like blood supremacy, ancestry and mortality? Just because he's a sociopath doesn't mean he will automatically turn into Hitler.

Wages a Wizarding war, but couldn’t even conquer his own Wizarding Nation

He couldn’t become Minister Of Magic. Instead he dicked around in Borgins And Burkes and instead wanted to become Defense Against The Dark Arts Professor.....for reasons. He could’ve used his power as Minister Of Magic to gain followers, especially the fanatic pure blood families and the impressionable Slytherins and cover for his Horcrux murders. But nooo.

When Voldemort DOES take power by force during the second Wizarding War, he does barely anything with it. Voldemort owns the government and has an army of evil. Where does he plan to launch his attack on the world? At a god damn highschool. Yes I know he attacked Hogwarts because of the last Horcrux. Didn't need to get that far if he didn't act like the world's worst Bond villain and monologued for enough time to let Harry either escape or for the Deus ex machina to arrive on que. The first two times it happens, yeah I get it. You're a villain who is up himself, shit happens. But by book 5 when he is still doing dumb shit it's unforgivable. How hard is it to issue a kill on sight order to your hordes of evil? I mean FFS you have legit werewolves on your side, who can sniff out a drop of blood miles away and yet you do nothing with them? Not only do you fail to kill a defenseless baby but you can't evil kill the kid when he's locked up in your second in commands basement.

He isn't particularly charismatic or a decent leader. He does have tons of followers, for reasons. Seriously, except for fear and opportunism I can't understand why anybody would want to fight for him. I mean, I get that he is basically magic!Hitler, but actual Hitler could at least hold speeches. Actual Hitler had arguments why his rule would be good for the German people. Voldemort doesn't. Voldemort treats his followers like shit and tortures or kills them if they aren't useful any more.

He didn't do his homework and doesn't knows the magic lore good enough. He manages to kill himself two times because of lore he really should have known about. The first time he fails to see the magic love-charm, the second time he doesn't recognizes the arcane rules of wand ownership. Those are stupid, avoidable mistakes for somebody that is supposed to be the greatest dark mage of his time.

He isn't even a particularly good mage. He manages to get statemaled by Harry and defeated by Dumbledore. He never does anything truly remarkable with magic that we haven't seen other characters do the same or better (the cave in book six is pretty good, but that's already has best showing). All we see is “AVADA KEDAVA.” Cool, I’ve seen every damn villain use that stupid fucking spell and yes it is a terrible spell.

His plans are... well, they are shit. If your plans get permanently foiled by a bunch of meddeling kids, you should think about retirement, not world domination. The plan in "Goblet of fire" only works out because of dumb luck. "Orden of phoenix" works out because of Harrys incompetence. The plan to kill Dumbledore only worked cause Voldemort used logic and had one of his followers do the work for him. The rest of his plans fail gloriously.

Voldemort's goals. He... wants to be immortal, but why? Because he's afraid of death? Why is he afraid of death? He literally spent his childhood cutting open rabbits. He excelled in all fields of academia and is arguably very intelligent; intelligence tends to negate superstition. Okay, fine; let's assume he's afraid of death. But even if we look for another explanation: maybe he wants to live forever in order to stay in power.

Voldemort wants power...Why does he want power? Why does he want to, quite literally, take over the world? It makes no sense. He has no reason to care about any of that. Even if he's prejudiced against Muggles, what exactly gives him the willpower to actually gather followers, build a legion of darkdoom evil squad and kill everyone? His motivations are never explained, and he is introduced to the story as a 2-dimensional "bad guy". Even from the 4th book onward, Voldemort is never actually fleshed out. He simply goes from bad guy to "extremely bad guy/"super fucking evil". It's shallow. It's a bad character. He isn't even a character. He has no depth, nuance, relatability or layers to him. He's just a textbook douchebag who exists simply to give the protagonists something to do, because otherwise the stories would just be about magic school.

Let's look at the closest and most obvious reflection: Adolf Hitler. It's painfully obvious that Voldemort's movement is based on Nazism. But if you read Mein Kampf, Hitler actually believed what he was doing was justified, and provided reasons for it which he thought made sense. Even if it was objectively flawed, he believed it. That's what makes a good character in fiction; even if they're actually batshit fucking insane and critically evil, you can make them relatable if you go inside their head and show the audience why they're doing what they're doing. Even if the audience doesn't agree with the character, the audience understands why the character thinks this way. Unlike Hitler's diary, Voldemort has no level of self-introspection, no actual justifications. He's a walking plot device, and that's ridiculously bad for a 7-book-long story where he's the main antagonist. I don't remember a single interaction, scene or exchange where Voldemort is shown to have any degree of self-awareness. The youngest we ever see him is when Dumbledore visits him in the orphanage, and by that point he's already evil as balls, for seemingly no reason. Even when Harry is talking to him in their final fight, Voldemort only hisses and spits out superficial threats and a shallow understanding of the events around him, and actually has no idea who he is, or why he's doing what he does. . If he were a realistic character, this lack of self-awareness would build up over time, would create self-doubt in him, and he would go through a character arc where he "found himself" and learned what he really wanted. And then, maybe he comes back and does some crazy shit, but this time he does them with glorious conviction, and has no shame in admitting it. The audience knows him now, and he's a great villain. But that's not what we got. Remember the 13-odd years Voldemort spent floating around like a puff of gas, possessing rats and squatting in Quirrel's turban? Why did his character not develop? HE HAD THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS TO REFLECT ON HIMSELF. He literally had nothing else to do. He could've become such a complex character. Think about it: a bland, textbook villain gets cucked into infinity and now can't actually do anything but bide his time. It would clearly affect his personality, especially if it lasts 13 goddamn years. But when Voldemort is revived in book 4, he's still just "look how evil I am.exe". He had literally no character arc of any kind. That's actually impossible. No sentient human being can have the same personality, goals and motivations after over a decade of exile. He's a badly-written villain, plain and simple.

It seems like a very poor decision to make the antagonist of 7 thick books this unrelatable and bland. It also makes no sense because Rowling has written consistently excellent characters throughout the series. Why not make Voldemort a real character?

So here is how I would improve Voldemort as a villain

Motivation. So since it's universally accepted that Salazar was against Muggleorns because he grew up in a time where Wizards and Witches were being burned at the stake. What if Voldemort had similar intentions cause he grew up in a time during WWII and the Cold War and saw how powerful and dangerous the Muggles were becoming with their nuclear weapons and wanted to protect magic kind from the Muggles and viewed the Muggles invading a possibility. So he became Lord Voldemort and formed the Death Eaters to finish Salazar Slytherin’s work to protect magic kind against Muggles and Muggleborns. It could’ve started out as noble, but turned racist and evil in the end.  

As Tom Riddle, he becomes the Minister Of Magic or given a position of power secondary to the Minister Of Magic. The Lord Of Magic. It’s important that prior to becoming Lord Voldemort, he should hold a position of political power within the Ministry Of Magic. In Hogwarts, it is said as a student Tom was charismatic, charming and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So why not use all that for politics? He could use his charm and political power to turn the Ministry Of Magic against the Muggleborns and against the Muggles. He would write a book explaining in detail why he believes in what he believes and that gives him the following he needs. The Book in question would be called “Magic Is Might!” The old Pure Blood magical families and impressionable young Slytherins would follow him like moths to a flame.  He could use his newfound political power to research all forms of magic and even the dark arts. He could make Horcruxes in secret. As Voldemort he would gather allies who were rejected by society like Werewolves and Giants. But despite what the Horcruxes do to his face, he could use magic to keep up appearances. He wouldn’t just be seeking to wage war with the muggles and muggleborns. First Voldemort has to take over the Wizarding world. 

Treats his followers like allies. Voldemort does not use fear and the threat of death and torture on his most trusted allies. Tom Riddle’s the Knights of Walpurgis hold key positions in Tom Riddle’s administration and then the Death Eaters are born and Voldemort treats them with respect and admiration. In a sense, he treats the Death Eaters like family.

The First WIzarding War should have been about Voldemort waging war on the other Wizarding nations. This would truly show how terrifying and powerful Voldemort really is. Would also explain why the other nations did not interfere in the second war, cause they were that terrified of Voldemort. The Order Of Phoenix was barely able to win and drive Voldemort from power. 

Voldemort’s fall was because he was desperate. He was ousted from power and Dumbledore, the OOTP and Aurors are on his trail. His body is failing him, so he desperately needs to create a new Horcrux. So he kills The Potters. He fully knew that Lily used the love charm to shield Harry from him. So He saw a way out. Voldemort purposefully destroyed himself so he could gain a new Horcrux. 

Plus, we can have Voldemort hide the Horcruxes in the nations he conquered. So Voldemort can hide them in -Russia -Germany -America -Hogwarts -France Obviously Nagini would be by his side at all times and well Harry is the last one. For context of how Voldemort conquered these nations. Imperio, subterfuge, and mass hysteria. He took out the Wizarding governments and implanted them with his thrawls.

Make Voldemort as hated as Umbridge. Here’s how.

In my hypothetical scenario where Voldemort hides the Horcruxes in different Wizarding Nations, make 8 books. Book 7 ends with everyone graduating from Hogwarts and the fall of the Ministry. 

This way, after graduation, the Ministry has fallen and it ends with the Big Seven on the run. In Book 8 they are all on the hunt for the Horcruxes. Not just for Horcruxes, but international allies to unite the Wizarding world against Voldemort. It ends with the final confrontation being at the Ministry. Voldemort's endgame plan is not just to wipe out the Muggleborns, but wiping out the Muggles. He has the Magic equivalent to a Nuclear bomb. Voldemort wants to destroy the Muggles and recreate the world in his image. Magic Is Might! He plans on using it and Harry has to stop him before it's too late

Voldemort fails because the Horcruxes are failing him. It isn’t immortality, it is only temporarily longevity and every time one of his Horcruxes gets destroyed, his body breaks down and his soul is in an even worse shape.  When Nagini is destroyed, it is over. Voldemort thinks if he can kill Harry, he will live forever as the prophecy states “only one can live forever.” so he believes if he could just kill Harry, he can win. But Harry deflects his curses and sends it right back at him. Voldemort dies as he did in the book. Powerless, alone and human.

[falloutdialogue]

Codsworth Dialogue (Long Post

In the Chinese Submarine

[Doesn't like the idea of helping a Chinese Ghoul] Sir/Mum, I do hope you know what you're doing helping this... captain.

[impressed, but not too happy about it] An impressive bit of machinery... for communist wankers.

Hmph. I suppose the red bastards deserve some credit for the state of this submarine.

Cleaning

I can hardly believe a place like this actually exists. I don't even feel the urge to clean.

Watch your step, sir/mum. So much dirt and debris. I can't imagine how long it'd take to sweep this place out.

[Seeing an office with chairs arranged in a circle] I've the most incredible urge to rearrange those chairs in a more perfect circle.

This room's a sight for sore sensors. I wonder who's been keeping it up all this time.

Can it be? A residence untouched by time?

Hubris Comics

Looking for the next issue of Grognak, sir/mum?

[excited at first. Then a little less impressed - Finding the Silver Shroud sound stage] Why, it's the Silver Shroud sound stage. My, but it's... low budget.

USS Constitution

[USS Constitution] This ship looks quite the mystery. Run aground on a bank and not a scratch on her!

Oh yes. Nothing to see here but a ship stuck in a skyscraper.

Trinity Towers/Height

[At the top] Please tell me we're heading back down.

[At the top] Oh my. Mum, please tell me we're heading back down.

[Looking up at a tall building] Please tell me we aren't going to the top. I can't imagine what the years have done to this building's stability.

[Quarry is drained to reveal it’s very deep] Oh my, that was really quite deep.

[Looking up at a tall building] Please don't tell me we're going all the way up there, sir/mum? I can already feel my acrophobia taking hold.

I do hope this overpass holds out long enough for us to get back down... safely, I should say.

Have I mentioned I'm afraid of heights? Especially ones with ramshackle crumbly bits?

Seeing the Player’s Dead Spouse

Sir/Mum, I'm... I'm so sorry.

[Worried at first... Then realizes it's the body of the player's spouse] Oh dear, is that... sir/mum?

Combat Zone

[Behind the scenes in the combat zone] Quite the theatrical set up back here. I can only imagine the elaborate plays that were performed here.

A cage? How uncivilized.

Gwinnet Brewery

[Disgusted] I'd be very dubious of the quality here. Sanitation looks to be at an all time low.

[Jokingly at first, trails off into a bit of worry at the end] Up for a tour of the ol' brewery, sir/mum? I can't imagine they charge... although I can't vouch for the safety either.

Miscellaneous Nervous/Disgusted/Cautioning

I can't imagine anything friendly is hiding down here.

Quite disturbing down here, is it not?

By Jove!

[Looking at a pool filled with radioactive waste and spewing up small geysers] That's an unfortunate water feature for you.

Sir/Mum, I'm picking up the sounds of a fairly... large creature taking a snooze. Best be on the quiet side.

I'm guessing we won't find a welcome mat here.

What is it about empty tourist attractions that can be so haunting?

Moments like this make me thankful I've no stomach.

Looks like the "mystery meat" mystery has been solved... Just goes to show, some things are better left unanswered.

I say, Vault-Tec really does enjoy crossing the line, don't they? Watching these poor souls like animals in a lab.

[concerned more for himself then the player, near water] Heading in, are we, sir? Just... try not to fall overboard.

Sir/Mum, I'm picking up dangerously high levels of radiation. Best not linger here if you value your health.

[Seeing a raider stronghold at the end of a tunnel] Oh, this is where we turn around, right, sir/mum? 

[Seeing a large crater] Watch your step, sir/mum. Don't want to topple in unexpectedly.

[Inside an old water turbine] Sir/Mum, I do hope you're certain this turbine is no longer functional. The implications if it were to turn on are... not good.

Quite a novel idea, building a ramshackle town on an overpass. Especially if you hate yard work.

[Hearing a voice from a fridge] Sir/Mum, I do believe that fridge requires your attention.

Sir/Mum, no matter what may befall us, I hope suicide is never an answer you seek.

Sarcastic/Joking

Ah, another fine mess of a parking garage. I wonder what awaits us this time. 

If I'm not mistaken, and my database says I'm not, that's a pyramid.

Just another welcoming and friendly neighborhood in the Commonwealth.

Are we going in there, sir/mum? You know how much I love water.

[In a hospital]  Look, sir/mum, no wait. Medical miracles do exist.

[Looking at a settlement built in a nuke crater] Ah yes, the moment I see a nuclear crater, I think, "Home, sweet home."

Ah yes, nothing like cozying up to a barrel of nuclear waste for the night.

This place is just full of charm, isn't it?

[In an old bowling alley] Fancy a game, sir/mum? Something tells me the bumpers are no longer available.

[Seeing a crane you could walk on to reach an above highway] Feel like taking the high road? It appears that crane can get us there.

[In a sniper’s nest after killing the sniper.] With a view like this, it's a wonder we're still alive. Either that or our late friend here shouldn't have quit his day job.

Ah nothing like the warm glow of a fusion reactor, wouldn't you agree, sir/mum?

[Watching raiders and synths fight in a subway] Never a dull moment in the subway stations.

[Finding a lighthouse lit up by glowing ones] That's one way to light up your lighthouse.

At least radio is still alive these days. I wonder if they'll ever manage to revive the telly.

[At the bottom of an irradiated crater filled with feral ghouls] And of course the crater comes with its own welcoming party of Feral Ghouls.

Looks like these Raiders became quite the Feral feast.

[In the storage room of a blood bank] This must be the clinic's storage. Bloody impressive, wouldn't you say, sir/mum.

An ideal spot for some light camping, I'd say. Minus the mirelurks, of course.

[In a hidden room where a bomb was being made] That's one "do it yourself" project I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Up for a bit of sport, sir/mum? I could give you quite the run for your money.

[Looking up at a giant Mister Handy Statue] Ah General Atomics. Only the topmost quality in consumer robotics.

Ah a secret, underground base! Right out of the ol' spy novel, wouldn't you say, sir/mum?

[At an old car factory] Ah the Corvega. I like to think of it as a distant cousin.

[Encountering Super Mutants wearing sailor hats.] Who'd have thought Super Mutants fancied a bit of dress up.

Robot Racing

Ah the nerve center of this charade. Sir/Mum, I beg you to shut this place down.

I say! General Atomics' finest, reprogrammed as simple... race horses for bloody Raiders? Appalling!

[aion-rsa]

Monster Madness: Vote for Your Favorite Monsters

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Every season is monster season in our hearts. But this March is a particularly good time to celebrate our enormous, scaly, and/or hairy friends. In the film world, the long-awaited Godzilla v. Kong arrives on March 31. Meanwhile on television, the final season of behemoth anime Attack on Titan is in the midst of its final season right now. Given that many of us are already primed for bracketology in March, we decided to create a bracket of our 32 favorite monsters for you, the monster-lover, to vote on. 

In honor of Godzilla, Kong, and Attack on Titan’s many titans, we’re electing only to include kaiju-style monsters on this bracket. All of these monsters must A. be their own distinct individual (not a species like “cave trolls” or “aliens”) and B. be able to knock down a building (or at least cause catastrophic structural damage). That’s why you won’t see any Universal-style monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, et. al) on our list.

 If you’re unfamiliar with how a bracket works, never fear – each round we will present monster matchups one-by-one for you to vote on via our Twitter and within this post. The rules here are simple: peruse our list of 16 matchups and vote for your favorite monster. And whether “favorite” means “which monster would win in a fight” or “which monster I like the most” is up to you. 

You can vote over at Den of Geek‘s Twitter or within this post.

Whichever monster receives the most votes will advance to the next round to face another victorious monster. This will lead to five total rounds with round 1 featuring 32 monsters, round 2 having 16, round 3 having 8, round 4 having 4, and round 5 having 2. The full voting schedule will be as follows:

Round 1 (32 monsters) – Voting Opens March 15 (Closes March 16 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 2 (16 monsters) – Voting Opens March 18 (Closes March 19 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 3 (8 monsters) – Voting Opens March 22 (Closes March 23 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 4 (4 monsters) – Voting Opens March 25 (Closes March 26 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 5 (2 monsters) – Voting Opens March 29 (Closes March 30 at 12 p.m. ET)

Results – March 31

With the monster rules and arena set, let’s get into the round 1 matchups!

Godzilla Region

1. Godzilla vs. 8. The Blob

You know that saying “if you come at the king, you best not miss?” Well in this monster bracket, Godzilla is the king. The big lizard is the iconic kaiju, having appeared in over 30 films and countless other bits of media. Who dares challenge his monster supremacy? The Blob. The Blob is…well, a blob. Best of luck!

2. King Ghidorah vs. 7. Destoroyah

Though Godzilla may be the king of monsters, only one kaiju is bold enough to include “King” in its name. That would be King Ghidorah. This three-headed beast first appeared in the fittingly named 1964 film King Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. He’s appeared in multiple eras of Godzilla films as an enemy to Godzilla and Mothra. Opposing Ghidorah is Destoroyah, an unholy combination of crab, insect, and bat.

3. Biollante vs. 6. Colossal Titan (Attack on Titan)

Kaiju movies are happy to turn just about anything into a terrifying monster. Case in point is the plant monster Biollante. Despite its rosy origins, Biollante is a fearsome foe to all. Meanwhile the Colossal Titan can knock down just about any wall put in front of it. He’s not the most dangerous titan in Attack on Titan, but he’s unquestionably the most iconic. 

4. Yongary vs. 5. Quetzalcoatl (Q: The Winged Serpent)

Yongary looks quite a bit like Godzilla and that’s by design. The monster was introduced in 1967’s Yongary, Monster from the Deep to rival the success of the iconic monster. Suffice it to say, Yongary did not reach Godzilla heights, but he’s still pretty cool. Its opponent Quetzalcoalt comes from the 1982 film Q: The Winged Serpent. In some ways, Quetzalcoatl is the American answer to Godzilla, drawing from Aztec myth to create a winged beast. 

King Kong Region

1. King Kong vs. 8. El Blanco (Tremors)

Only one monster can challenge Godzilla’s claim to the monster throne. And that’s the MONKE. First appearing in the 1933 film bearing his name, King Kong pre-dates Godzilla by 20 years. He comes from a simpler time where monsters could exist naturally and not as a byproduct from man’s vile nuclear experiments. King Kong rules. Trying to take the gorilla down is El Blanco, a notable graboid from the Tremors film series.

2. Mechagodzilla vs. 7. Hedorah

What could possibly take a big nuclear lizard down? The answer is so simple it’s been staring us in the face all along: a ROBOT lizard. Mechagodzilla was first depicted as an alien in the 1974 film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Since then he’s frequently turned up as a mechanical creation from mankind to keep Godzilla in check. And he does a decent enough job to be considered Godzilla’s archenemy. In this matchup, Mechagodzilla is opposed by Hedorah – who is just a big ol’ pile of toxic sludge. 

3. Anguirus vs. 6. The Mind Flayer (Stranger Things)

Anguirus holds the honor of being the first monster to go toe-to-toe with Godzilla in battle. It didn’t go well for the massive Ankylosaurus but that didn’t keep him from becoming a mainstay in the Toho Godzilla movies. Meanwhile, Stranger Things isn’t hurting for notable monsters, with the Demogorgon being the most well-known. It’s only season 4’s The Mind Flayer, however, who has the strength and size to compete in this tournament. 

4. Kraken (Clash of the Titans) vs. 5. Clover (Cloverfield)

The Kraken has had quite an impressive pop culture run. Who could forget Davy Jones crying “release the kraken!” in Pirates of the Caribbean? The Clash of the Titans version of this monster (both in the 1981 film and its 2010 remake) is undoubtedly the most fearsome. Opposing the Kraken in this competitive 4-5 matchup is the unnamed monster (oft nicknamed “Clover”) from the 2008 found footage movie Cloverfield. Viewers don’t catch many glimpses of Clover but when they do it’s clear he’s among the biggest and most dangerous monsters in the film canon. 

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Mothra Region

1. Mothra vs. 8. King Caesar 

Mothra is undoubtedly the most famous monster to come out of Toho’s kaiju films aside from Godzilla himself. As her name implies, Mothra is an enormous flying insect inspired by the “imagos” of silkworms. While many of the monsters in this bracket are destructive and villainous by default, Mothra is actually pretty chill and at times darn near heroic. Furred weirdo King Caesar draws the unenviable task of taking Mothra down.

2. Slattern (Pacific Rim) vs. 7. Pateesa (Star Wars)

Aside from the sprawling Godzilla franchise, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim provides the most potential monster candidates for this list. Given that they’re all confined to one film, however (and make no mistake: there is only one Pacific Rim movie), we’ve opted to choose the most powerful PR kaiju to represent them all. That honor goes to Slattern, the biggest and baddest subterranean monster our heroes encounter. In the other corner is the Rancor (named Pateesa) from Star Wars – Return of the Jedi. Pateesa can be pretty fearsome…as long as there are no gate doors above him.

3. Cthulhu vs. 6. Monster X

H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu is one of the most terrifying monsters in all of literature. In fact, Cthulhu’s appearance is said to be incomprehensible and enough to drive men mad. Well, movies and television have had little issue depicting the Great Old One, with him frequently appearing as a squid monster in everything from 2020’s Underwater to a series of South Park episodes. Lovecraft’s version of Cthulhu would probably be unbeatable, but the film and TV version of him is a fair match. It’s up to Monster X, a skeletal kaiju from 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, to take Cthulhu down. 

4. Smaug (The Hobbit) vs. 5. Gwoemul (The Host)

Most of the monsters in this tournament fall a bit short of human intelligence. That is not the case for The Hobbit’s massive dragon Smaug. Smaug is a clever fire drake and possibly the last great dragon in Middle-Earth. He can cause some real destruction, if he can be bothered to leave his treasures unguarded. Meanwhile, Gwoemul is the creature from Bong Joon-ho’s 2006 The Host. It’s also quite smarter than any fish monster has a right to be. 

Rodan Region

1. Rodan vs. 8. Demon (Night of the Demon)

When it comes to Monster Madness battles, the ability to fly is never a bad thing. And that’s partially what makes Toho all-star Rodan so effective. Rodan is one of the Godzilla studio’s “big five” alongside Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla. That place of honor is well-earned for the irradiated Pteranodon. Rodan has the strength and the skill to go far in this tourney. The eight-seed that will try to stop him is the demon from 1957 British horror film Night of the Demon. Like the Cloverfield monster, this demon is little-scene but still quite powerful. 

2. Gamera vs. 7. Zigra

If you want a sleeper monster on this bracket, look no further than Gamera. This giant prehistoric turtle is a mainstay in kaiju movies and is often known as “The Friend of All Children” or “The Guardian of the Universe.” Alongside Mothra, he is one of the very few monsters willing to stick up for the little guy. His competition, Zigra, on the other hand is a total dirtbag. Gamera and Zigra’s matchups go way back to the 1971 film Gamera vs. Zigra. Gamera handled Zigra quite easily then. Can the loveable terrapin succeed again? 

3. Megalon vs. 6. Gyaos

Megalon is a mainstay of monster comics who has also enjoyed a couple of film appearances. He’s yet another insectoid-style kaiju but he also brings some awesome drill arms to the table. Opposing Megalon this round will be Gyaos. Gyaos is a bat-like kaiju who first got a shot at monster-stardom in 1967’s Gamera vs. Gyaos. He was treated quite shabbily in that but perhaps he has a shot against this new opponent. 

4. Gigan vs. 5. Reptilicus

This bracket already had some alien cyborg representation with Mechagodzilla but you know what they say “you can never have enough alien cyborgs.” Thankfully, Gigan is around. This red-eyed, be-chromed monster first appeared in the 1972 film Godzilla vs. Gigan. He’s since popped up in several more movies to give Godzilla a hard time. The monster that hopes to take Gigan down is Reptilicus, a sea serpent, who hails from a 1961 Danish-American movie bearing his name.

The post Monster Madness: Vote for Your Favorite Monsters appeared first on Den of Geek.

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The New Union Label: Female, Progressive and Very Anti-Trump

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The New Union Label: Female, Progressive and Very Anti-Trump

Sinjun Strom for Politico Magazine

On a clear eveningin Washington this past summer, Sara Nelson was in her element, waiting to speak to a revved-up crowd of union members at Reagan National Airport. Dressed in a navy flight attendants’ uniform, she stood out against the sea of jewel-toned business suits and union T-shirts.

If it intimidated Nelson that she was slotted to speak alongside two of the nation’s most notable progressives — Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — it didn’t show. Over the course of her seven-minute speech, Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, excoriated American Airlines executives for outsourcing catering jobs and driving down wages.

“We’re here to call bullshit on that scam!” Nelson roared into the microphone. “American Airlines is responsible — isresponsible —for the poverty wages in these kitchens!”

By the end, the crowd of several hundredwas cheering louder for Nelson than it had for Sanders. As she stepped away from the podium, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who was up later, leaned over and playfully whispered in her ear: “I fucking hate you.”

Coming from Brown, one of the labor movement’s most beloved politicians, the salty jab speaks to Nelson’s emerging public profile. Though she leads a union with nearly 50,000 members from 20 airlines (the other major flight attendants union has a membership of 28,000) few people outside corporate boardrooms and airplane galleys know Nelson’s name. In the male-dominated universe of the American labor movement, however, Nelson is gaining altitude with a pace that resembles the dramatic emergence of youthful female politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“She has come from — I don’t want to say nowhere — she has come from not being very well known to being a star in the labor movement,” Brown said in an interview later. “She’s just so good. She captures the crowd and you don’t want to speak after somebody like that.”

Nelson’s rise can be attributed to a potent mix of progressive politics and relentless self-promotion. More than anyone else in the labor movement, she has tapped into the energy on the new left and used the media to her advantage, ascending past a ruling class of older white men to become one of the most visible labor leaders in America. She has crisscrossed the country lamenting the evils of unchecked capitalism and taken on the president with the gusto of someone running to unseat him.

Nelson’s first major burst of publicity came earlier this year during the government shutdown when she called for a general strike, a seldom-used nuclear option in which union leaders incite widespread work stoppages across multiple industries. A general strike hasn’t occurred in earnest since 1946, when more than 100,000 workers in Oakland, California, shut down the city for three days. While Nelson’s proposition was legally dubious—federal workers face severe consequences for striking without authorization—less than a week later, air traffic controllers called in sick,snarling flights up and down the East Coast. President Donald Trump caved hours later, and the longest shutdown in American history ended.

It’s an accomplishment that Nelson proclaims in almost every speech. The fact that Nelson didn’t actuallydoanything tangible to end the shutdown—she was not in the room negotiating with Trump and has no direct influence over the air traffic controllers, who have a union of their own—is almost beside the point. What matters, in the eyes of more than a dozen people in the labor movement who spoke to me for this article, is that she said what an increasingly agitated swath of union supporters wanted to hear.

“She’s the closest thing to kind of a charismatic labor leader we’ve had since, you know, maybe Cesar Chavez,” said Peter Dreier, a union historian at Occidental College.

Nelson, 46, is now weighing a run to become first woman to lead the AFL-CIO, effectively the leader of organized labor in the United States, representing 12.5 million workers who still have the power to shape major legislation and swing elections. The election to replace the federation’s leader, Richard Trumka, who is expected to step aside, won’t happen until October 2021, well after a presidential contest that is shaping up as referendum on the nation’s tolerance for seismic left-wing change to the economy. Nelson has tied her candidacy to the same progressive ideas that are dominating the debate among the Democratic aspirants for the White House and wants to remake the labor federation as dramatically as candidates like Sanders and Warren hope to do from the White House. She rejects the current labor leadership’s moderate approach and unapologetically calls on labor to embrace a more liberal set of values as a way to reverse decades of systemic decline in membership and influence.

The labor movement is split—thanks to Trump, whose candidacy in 2016 created a schism in the labor vote that deeply embarrassed Trumka and probably helped deliver the White House to a president who openly despises unions. Nelson, however, is not interested in pulling the factions back together. She wants to repudiate Trump—and, implicitly, rank-and-file members of AFL-CIO unions who support him for his trade policies and broader war on establishment elites.

Nelson does not fit the classic profile of an American labor leader, at least not the cigar-chomping, pugnacious image enshrined in the public consciousness by the likes of George Meany and Jimmy Hoffa. Nelson, with her signature platinum blond hair, favors silk scarves, though she swears like a sailor. She grew up as a Christian Scientist, abstaining from medical treatment until her late 20s, but now advocates universal health care. Nelson is known for popping up on TV at all hours talking about workers issues, even those that don’t directly relate to flight attendants and has hired an outside media consultant to boost her public profile. It’s all asharp contrast with Trumka, who lives for deer hunting every fall at his Pennsylvania property and began his labor activism representing mine workers. Nelson began at 30,000 feet and would rather spend time with her young son, Jack.

Her likely candidacy also embodies the growing influence of women in the labor movement and the shift of unions away from the blue-collar manufacturing sector to more white-collar jobs in service industry and government. While union membership rates among men have fallen by more than half since the early 1980s, the percentage of women has dropped by just 4 percentage points over the same period; as of last year, the rates were nearly equal. And in public-sector unions—a sector that gained 132,000 members from 2018 to 2019 despite a Supreme Court ruling outlawing mandatory collective bargaining fees—women now outnumber men.

“Sara Nelson embodies the changing demography of the labor movement, which is now increasingly women and increasingly people of color,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Work, Labor, and Democracy center at the University of California Santa Barbara.

She matches the demographic shifts but she is by no means a lock to replace Trumka. She has acquired detractors throughout her career, many of whom were reluctant to criticize her on the record for fear of reprisal. They see her as less of a coalition builder than a flashy, self-involved promoter. Perhaps most significantly, she would have to outmaneuver Liz Shuler, the AFL-CIO’s well-liked secretary treasurer, who has also expressed interest in running and would be a natural successor to Trumka. But Nelson’s candidacy alone could pull unions to the left on a host of issues, according to labor scholars and activists who have followed her career trajectory.

“If you want to lead the labor movement, you have to think bigger,” Nelson told me in an interview earlier this summer at an upscale restaurant in downtown Washington. Relentlessly on message, she hardly touched her salmon and kale salad as she deftly avoided sounding eager to replace an incumbent who hasn’t retired yet.

“Whether or not I hold a position that is a title position,” Nelson added, “I want to do everything I can to make this labor movement strong and work for working people and totally change the rules of the game in this country.”

Which raises the central question: Can labor return to its radically progressive roots, or will Nelson’s left-wing candidacy further divide a movement that was long a mainstay of Democratic support?

Nelson became a flight attendant almost by accident.After graduating from a tiny Christian Science college in St. Louis in 1995, she was working four jobs, barely making ends meet. A friend called from Miami Beach in 1996 and told her about her salary and benefits as a flight attendant. The next day, Nelson drove 300 miles to Chicago and interviewed with United Airlines.

The glamour faded when her first paycheck didn’t arrive on time. Desperate and out of money, Nelson rode a jump seat from Boston to Chicago just to eat free plane food. When she landed back east she went to the airline desk, and was told her check still hadn’t arrived.

As she began to cry, a stranger tapped her on the shoulder. It was a fellow flight attendant who wrote her a check for $800 on the spot.

“She [said], number one, you’ve got to take care of yourself, and number two, call our union,” Nelson said. “I learned everything I needed to about our union and the labor movement in general.”

From her earliest days, Nelson saw the dark side of a profession that depended on women and devalued them in equal measure. Up until 1970, United flight attendants could not be married under company rules, and it was common for airlines to show flight attendants the door at 32. By the mid-1990s, when Nelson began flying, attendants had just finished waging war over policies that set body weight limits; in 1993, USAir required that a 5-foot-5-inch female attendant weigh no more than 138 pounds. Two of Nelson’s co-workers suffered from eating disorders promoted by years of shame from their employer. They died soon after.

“That was the product of those weigh-ins,” Nelson said, tears welling in her eyes. “Maybe they were prone to it or whatever, but the weigh-ins killed them. And I saw it firsthand.”

Then there was the sexual harassment.

“It wouldn’t have even crossed your mind to complain about any sexual advances by anyone—by passengers, by pilots, by anyone in the office,” Nelson said. “Most flight attendants thought we just had to deal with it. And we dealt with it by going internal, by building our union, and taking other actions … to gain respect for our roles.”

A week after the incident with her first paycheck, Nelson was recruited to do the union’s new-hire program and was soon named local communications chair. Six months later, the nationalunion presented members with a contract proposal with United “that I thought stunk,” Nelson said. She led a charge to get it voted down; it passed by 51 percent nationally but, she said, “I did a really good job in Boston because we voted it down by 80 percent.”

“Instead of giving up, I got more involved and was a dissident voice in the union,” Nelson said. “Not really to tear the union down but to challenge the union.”

Nelson was off on Sept. 11, 2001, and had planned to spend the day doing union work. At 9:03 a.m., one of her usual flights to Los Angeles, United 175, collided with the south tower of the World Trade Center. She knew the entire crew, as well as two customer service representatives who were going on vacation. The experience crystallized Nelson’s view of flight attendants as essential guardians of public safety. In an effort to keep spreading the message,she became the union’s national communications director for the United chapter in 2002, which served as a platform to become vice president in 2011 and then president in 2014.

Nelson is reluctant to talk about the way she became president of AFA, probably because it involved ousting the cancer-stricken incumbent.

The incident, which has not been previously reported, is a messy part of Nelson’s carefully curated image. In the wake of a merger between U.S. Airways and American Airlines, Nelson participated in a coup against Veda Shook, who had been president for three years. U.S. Airways, whose employees were represented by Nelson and Shook’s union, was disappearing; American had its own union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which was anticipated to represent the new combined unit.

Nelson objected fiercely, arguing that the new bargaining unit should be represented by AFA. It was an outlandish proposition, according to several people involved in the talks, given that the American union outnumbered the U.S. Airways flight attendants 2 to 1 and easily would have won a representation election.

In September 2013, the board passed a resolution that stripped Shook of her power to negotiate with the American Airlines union, effectively handing the reins to Nelson. The vote was unanimous, a board member at the time told me.

Shook, who is no longer involved in the union, was not eager to talk about her relationship with Nelson. “I was still working and undergoing chemotherapy and then all this other stuff happened,” Shook told me. “I didn’t see it coming until it was too late because I’d never met anyone like that before.”

According to Shook, Nelson convinced the board that Shook hadn’t fought hard enough for the U.S. Airways flight attendants. In the regularly scheduled election a few months later, Shook was defeated.

When I asked Nelson about this, she said other people put her up to it because Shook passed up an opportunity to get a better deal for the union. The AFA contract was better than the American Airlines union’s contract, Nelsonsaid, and could have been used as a bargaining chip to get a better deal for all of the flight attendants.

“The leverage that we had was squandered,” Nelson said. “There were a lot of things where we weren’t fighting like we should, so people asked me to step up and fight, and it was probably one of the most difficult times in my life, actually. Painful. Really painful.”

“I took massive personal attacks,” she said. “So, hey, I know what that’s like, and I lived through it.”

The former board member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, corroborated Nelson’s account, saying the board had “lost confidence” in Shook’s leadership.

Others who were involved in the negotiations challenge Nelson’s version of events.

“It would be very disingenuous for them to say that their contract was better,” said Lenny Aurigemma, one of the negotiators for the American Airlines union. “We felt we got the best of both contracts. … They never made the money that we’re making now. Never, not even close.”

“I like Sara. I also like Veda,” said a person who worked for another transportation union that was involved in the merger “And I think a lot of people felt that Veda got a bad deal.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to talk about Sara’s history without saying she became president by pushing out the predecessor, because she’s not shy about taking on people who are in these offices,” this person added. “That’s the moral of the story here.”

Nelson’s talent for spotlighting the power of her union on hot-button progressive topics that have as much to do with embarrassing Trump as they do with labor issues was on sharp display in March. A Mesa Airlines flight attendant, who was a beneficiary of the DACA immigration program, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on an inbound flight from Mexico and detained for six weeks. Nelson mobilized her publicity machine upon learning of her plight. Hillary Clinton retweeted her, setting off a social media storm. Nelson and Mesa Airlines CEO Jonathan Ornstein, who knew each other from prior contract negotiations, spoke on the phone.

“It was like, you call the Democrats, I’ll call the Republicans, and let’s fix this,” said Ornstein.

The flight attendant was released within a day.

Ornstein and Nelson should be enemies. But behind closed doors, Nelson proved to be a skilled deal-maker, Ornstein said, and he gained respect for her at the outset when the two were able to finalize contract negotiations in a single meeting in 2017.

“You look at the labor movement right now and you’ve got what, 6 percent of the [private-sector] workforce now organized?” Ornstein said. “To me, that kind of creativity is what’s needed. The model needs to change, and I think Sara is the kind of person that could do that.”

Nelson’s opportunity to reshape the national movementis due in large part to the political wound Trump dealt to union leadership, specifically Trumka.

Three years ago, Trumka suffered embarrassment when portions of his membership—white workers galvanized by Trump’s protectionist trade message and promises of reviving manufacuturing—ignored the federation’s endorsement of Clinton and voted for Trump, rewarding the man accused of not paying his own workerswith the largest percentage of union-household votes to a Republican since Ronald Reagan.

Trumka’s struggle to marshal the disparate factions of his coalition and present a unified voice has come at a precarious moment for unions, whose membershiphas declined inexorably in recent years. Last year, private and public sector unions represented 10.5 percent of the American workforce, down from their peak of 35 percent in 1954. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court also dealt a major blow to unions in 2018 when it ruled that public-sector unions may not charge members mandatory collective bargaining fees on the grounds that such fees violated members’ First Amendment rights.

Even the good news for the labor movement has come with a reminder of leadership’s weakening grip. More workers participated in major work stoppages in 2018 than in any year since 1986. But much of that increase came from the teachers strikes over pay and classroom fundingin West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona. And those strikes — in deeply red states — were driven not by national unions but by grassroots Facebook groups created by local teachers.

Just who is in charge of the labor movement has forced a debate over what labor’s role should be in defeating Trump, or whether it should play any role at all. Trumka has said the AFL-CIO will evaluate all the candidates, including Trump, acknowledging that the president’s performance has been mixed for unions—good on trade, but bad on health care and wages.

Democrats want to step into that breach and rebuild the fabled “blue wall” in Midwestern swing states. But there is little agreement on how to accomplish that. Presidential candidates like Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who dropped out in October, have suggested that Democrats are ignoring unions by embracing far-left policy ideas like “Medicare for All.” Trumka—reflecting a divide in his membership—has said that the country “ultimately” needs to move to a single-payer system but that the value of union-won health care plans shouldn’t be lost in the process.

Nelson, by contrast, embodies a growing cross-section of union-minded Democrats who believe labor needs to stop apologizing for being liberal. Unions would have more success, she argues, if they embraced their activist roots.

Speaking to the Chicago Democratic Socialists in May—a speaking invitation it’s hard to imagine Trumka ever accepting—Nelson extolled radical labor leaders of yore. She spoke of A. Philip Randolph, the founder of the first black union, and his protégé, Bayard Rustin, who in 1963 organized 250,000 people for Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, and Lucy Gonzales Parsons, who was thrust into activism after her husband was executed on false charges that he had carried out an attack at a labor demonstration in 1886.

“They were shot down at Homestead, Pennsylvania and in the hills of West Virginia,” Nelson said. “They were hanged for the Haymarket Affair in Chicago and beaten on an overpass near Detroit. … These activists thought it was important enough to stand up against all odds. … Today it’s our turn.”

“Our task,” Nelson added, “is to build a labor movement that sees itself truly as a labor movement — not just a collection of separate unions.”

“For years we outsourced our power while the bosses were outsourcing our jobs. We spent too much time trying to cut deals with the boss or build favor with politicians and too little time organizing members to fight for what we deserve. People think power is a limited resource, but using power builds power.”

This emboldened vision of union influence, say some labor activists, is not a breakaway faction—it’s actually a return to the mainstream of the movement.

“The new whitewashed idea that the labor movement is moderate—it’s not that,” said Amaya Smith, a former AFL-CIO communications director who now works for the National Partnership for Women and Families. “It’s a big family … You’re part of a historic movement that literally worked to fight against capitalism. It doesn’t get any more progressive than that.”

In that spirit, a growing number of progressives believe unions should do more to inject themselves into national conversations such as health care, climate change and immigration.

“I believe in a labor movement that leads the entire country, not just sits at a bargaining table advocating for the members of a particular union,” said Representative Andy Levin, a freshman Democrat from suburban Detroit.

That Democrats like Levin (who replaced his father, Representative Sander Levin, when he retired in 2018) agree with the progressive left on environmental issues and health care is significant, though he is careful to make clear he has not endorsed a possible successor for Trumka. In addition to representing a large swath of union auto workers, Levin is also a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“Climate change is a pants-on-fire crisis of such proportions and such immediacy that you literally can’t overstate how fast and how comprehensively we’ve got to deal with it,” Levin said. “If we do it fast and if we do it right, it’s going to create a tremendous number of jobs. And if we do it right it can be a lever to re-unionize America.”

Nelson knows that such policies—with their sky-high price tags—draw plenty of fire from political centrists who fear that anything that smacks of tax and spend socialism is simply playing into Trump’s hands. But Nelson is determined to reframe how unions look at issues like Medicare for All, which calls for abolishing private insurance in favor of a government program. Initially, Medicare for All was seen risky for the 2020 candidates to support because it could alienate union voters who had negotiated plans through collective bargaining. “You’ve worked like hell, you gave up wages for it,” former Vice President Joe Biden told the Iowa Federation of Labor convention this past summer, bashing the concept.

After former Maryland Rep. John Delaney argued that supporting Medicare for All would “get Trump reelected,” Nelson swooped in to back Sanders and Warren, two of its most prominent advocates. Government health care, she said, would allow unions to spend their time bargaining for higher wages and other benefits.

“It’s a huge drag on our bargaining,” Nelson told POLITICO in August. “So our message is: Get it off the table.”

Her pronouncement made the rounds online. Splinter, the now defunct liberal news site, proclaimed that “Not Every Union is Buying Into the Lies About Medicare For All.” Weeks later, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO passed a resolution to require that any candidate it endorses support Medicare for All, breaking with the national leadership.

Given the tepid support she enjoys from more conservative members of the AFL-CIO—particularly the building trades, where concern over eliminating oil and gas jobs runs deep—its hard to imagine Nelson ultimately succeeding Trumka. And even if she were to win, observers say Nelson would find it difficult to enact some of the controversial policies she supports. The AFL-CIO president has the unenviable task of managing a diverse array of 55 unions and developing positions that, in practice, are often a compromise.

“Historically, the AFL-CIO actions are taken around issues of the least common denominator because any union or group of unions can block a Green New Deal or Medicare for All from becoming adopted,” said Andy Stern, the former Service Employees International Union president who split with the labor federation in 2005. “So the AFL-CIO ends up being for building windmills because the building trades like building windmills and environmentalists like building windmills. That’s very different than supporting the candidates’ environmental plans or the Green New Deal.”

But winning Trumka’s seat might not be the only measure of success for Nelson. If she can link her wing of the labor movement to the political growndswell that is animating the 2020 contest—who knows? It might just topple a president.

“There are people who understand you can’t extract a social movement from an economic movement,” Nelson said. “They go together.”

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[thesoulpatch-blog1]

The Muslim Ban

It was a statement of Trump’s campaign that struck both fear and excitement around the nation in December 2015: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.” The statement was altered and clarified many different ways before Trump was elected, but what seemed clear throughout the process was that we had an eventual president calling to ban an entire region of people based on their religion. It was all on the grounds of making America “safe again.” Even Mike Pence, the Vice fucking President, condemned this idea when it was first proposed. Americans are quick to be fearful of the Muslim people because of the “radical Islamic terrorism” which endangers each and every one of us every day. Right? A lot of people like to talk about this topic without a full understanding of all the variables in the equation. So let’s dig into the justification of this Muslim ban, which has recently been deemed illegal by federal judges and overturned, at least for now. And it is a Muslim ban, because that’s what it was called through the entire campaign, and that’s what Trump asked his advisers how to implement legally. Don’t let recent statements persuade you to believe it is anything else. He called it a Muslim ban up until he couldn’t do so legally anymore. On that note, let’s talk about the Middle-East. 

There are 7 countries affected by Trump’s anti-immigration executive order. Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya make up the lucky bunch. This list includes some of the poorest and most oppressed nations in the world. The most heartbreaking member of the list must be Syria. Syria has been continuously demolished by its own civil war for years now. There are a wide range of estimates, but it seems there have been anywhere from 400,000-500,000 civilian deaths in Syria, possibly even more. This is just the body count of the innocent. This does not take into account the soldiers who have fought and died for either side. Here in America, it’s difficult to imagine the real emotional toll of living in your apartment with all your kids one day and then having it collapse on top of you, killing everyone you love the next. We still cry because two buildings fell down fifteen years ago. But issues like this are what the Syrian people are facing every day. It’s easy to toss this out of our minds and go to work every day when we attribute this violence to the bad people who live in caves and praise Allah, but in Syria, that is so far from the case. These killings are not religious, they are political. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is not the only person terrorizing these civilian areas. They are facing just as much wrath from Russian and American bombings. We are terrorists to these people, and they’re the ones who actually live in danger of ISIS. But ISIS doesn’t come close to being the biggest problem. 

Syria is not alone. All seven nations included in the ban are under their own threat of violent terrorism, and it’s not all radical Islam doing the killing. The U.S. dropped somewhere around 3 bombs a day in 2016, sprawled out all over that part of the world. Under Obama, many of these bombs were being shot from drones, his weapon of choice. The Intercept released ‘The Drone Papers’ in 2015, revealing the process the government must go through to justify and go through with a drone strike. Unfortunately, it’s about as simple as that last sentence. They identify a target, sending a portfolio on the potential target up through the chain of command, eventually to be seen by the president. When speaking publicly about these strikes, the Obama administration has stated that they are only used in the case of an imminent threat. There is no clear legislature that defines what an “imminent threat” or even an “assassination” is, so there is no one checking the executive branch on the grounds of these killings to ensure their legality. Once the president has approved a strike, it is my understanding that the military has 60 days to conduct it. Then onto step two: blow the motherfucker up. Now let’s use some common sense here. Bombs don’t just kill one person. But all the justification we need to drop a bomb is that it will kill one target whom one branch of government has deemed imminently dangerous to our nation. The victims of this drone policy, or rather this assassination policy, were found to be about 90% innocent civilians. A November 2014 study revealed that in targeting 41 “imminent threats”, drone strikes killed 1,147 people, and didn’t even take out all 41 targets. Many dead innocents were children. This policy is encompassing of how the U.S. approaches our issues in the Middle-East. We are able to brush off human lives as “collateral damage,” even if we don’t achieve our primary goal.

Trump’s first military move as president was a raid in Yemen. There is a flood of inconsistency with this story, as the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge that they didn’t kill the guy they went for, and has done everything they can to deny and repress reports of innocent death. At first, it was reported to be wildly successful; killing targets, finding intel, and at the expense of only one Navy SEAL. This was what was included in CNN’s initial report. We came to find that as many as 30 civilians were killed, many of them children. One was an 8 year-old girl that I’m sure you’ve heard about by now, Nawar al-Awlaki. She was shot through the neck and bled out over the course of two hours. Imagine living like that. We put on North Face jackets to leave our precisely 69 degree houses and bitch about the cold to everyone we come in contact with that day. That little girl got shot in the fucking neck and got left there for two hours to die. She wasn’t even the only child to suffer a deadly fate that day. That’s life for millions of people around the globe, and we are perpetuating that way of life in the Middle-East every day. Tell me again about how sad you are, emo kids. Americans know nothing about struggle. I would expect a Muslim from one of these travel-banned nations to be offended and enraged by an American just talking about how to handle the problems in their home country. We don’t know anything about what it’s like to live like these people we look down upon. We’re so entitled and airheaded that we consider computer documents that might tell us something about al-Qaeda to be more important than the lives of those children and our own soldier. Trump denies that this mission was anything but a success. We have no right to tell them they can’t flee here because some Americans might get hurt by a terrorist who slips through the cracks.

So how did we get to be so ignorant and hateful toward an entire people, who think, breathe, and consciously exist just like the rest of us? We sold our souls to the devil (the devil, of course, being Dick Cheney). Let’s get this 9/11 thing out of the way; you can call it conspiracy, an inside job, Bush did it, whatever, but the facts are that the government was uncomfortably selective in what the 9/11 Commission could report to the public, a lot of FBI and CIA data was destroyed, and the official government report does not address dozens and dozens of issues that contradict what the 9/11 Commission says happened. I don’t know what the hell happened, but America absolutely needed it to happen to convince the public that we needed to invade. It wouldn’t be our first staged terrorist attack to advance a political or economic agenda. Check out Part Two of the first Zeitgeist movie if you really need convinced. You should probably just watch the whole thing; it might (and should) change your life. 

Americans were petrified by 9/11. It was the first “foreign attack” on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, and al-Qaeda isn’t a nation that we can just declare war on. But we sure tried. This is a tactic that Bush would not be the first to use. All over the world and all throughout history, leaders have stricken fear into their people in order to reduce their freedoms (see Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, etc.) Bush created or reorganized 263 government organizations geared toward protecting us from terrorism, all with a disturbing amount of power to overstep boundaries of privacy on the grounds that you may be a terrorist. It’s the same tactic as McCarthyism from the 50’s. Terrorism is the new Communism.

We went to war with Iraq because Bush convinced the public that Sadaam had weapons of mass destruction, and because he was sympathizing with terrorists, and neither of these things were entirely true. Dick Cheney once said in reference to Iraq’s imaginary WMDs, “If there is even a 1% chance … we must treat it as an absolute certainty.” This is a crucial ideological difference we should all have with this douchebag. You don’t murder millions of innocent people on a 1% chance that their leaders might kill millions of innocent people. Remember, we are the only country in the world to ever actually use a nuclear weapon. We are hypocrites. The government estimate is that we killed about 1 million Iraqis. Independent organizations have estimates ranging all the way up to 12 million. America is a terrorist nation. A War on Terrorism is a war on ourselves. Even Barrack Obama, the liberals’ knight in shining armor, doubled down and continued Bush’s intrusive national security policies, wreaking havoc on the same innocent groups of people. We are living in dystopia, and it’s time to get pissed off and stand up for these people. They are our brothers and sisters, no matter what they believe. A crucial element of the War on Terrorism is that the American people stay behind it, blind to what they’re actually fighting. 

Trump’s current foreign policies are the most clearly fear-tactical since Bush’s 9/11 aftermath, as he has needed absolutely no concrete evidence to support them. This Muslim Ban has been justified by the current administration as necessary for the safety of Americans. “… THE SAFETY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE,” tweeted the president after judges reversed the executive order. The reason wars between real nations are possible is because they organize armies of thousands of people and put them on a battlefield against each other. Terrorism is not organized in such a way. Terrorism is stealthy and secretive. Terrorism is a tactic, and you cannot declare war on a tactic. If we were truly interested in stopping worldwide terrorism, we wouldn’t be tallying 90% civilian deaths in our drone strikes. These are human beings we’re talking about. Have you ever met a human being that wouldn’t vow to destroy the people who killed their entire family, regardless of how they justify it? These people aren’t thinking, “It’s alright that so many of my friends and neighbors are dead, because they killed a man who posed a real threat to many more people.” Most of the time, we have no way to be sure if these men we’re targeting will ever be successful in killing people at all. These people see their civilization be destroyed by bombs, killing their families, ruining their lives, and when they have nothing left because we took it from them, they have no choice but to turn against us. On the anniversary of Sadaam Hussein’s execution in December, I read some takes from Iraqi citizens reflecting on that day. No one expressed support of Sadaam, all were willing to acknowledge that he was a corrupt, evil, tyrannical dictator. But most of them still preferred life under his rule to life in Iraq now. Even normal, non-radical citizens concede that America destabilized their country, and created more problems than it solved. They expressed feelings like despair and anger from watching him die. Under Sadaam, you were probably poor, but always safe so long as you didn’t speak out against him. Now, there is constant violence and the closest thing to a functioning government in Iraq is ISIS. 

This isn’t to say there aren’t some grave dangers to the world in the Middle-East. In the beheading videos of American journalists, ISIS members relayed the message that these executions were the fault of the American people and our president for continuing our onslaught in their home nations. This holds weight, and those men probably would not have been killed if the bombings had stopped. ISIS had one simple request: stop all military operations in the area. Withdraw all forces. This is too easy a solution though, because we should also have a moral issue with stepping back and allowing a radical religious group (of any denomination, doesn’t matter that they’re Muslim) to take over and force their ideals upon people at the threat of death. Christians will make a point to say that Islam is a violent and unforgiving religion, and the reason these groups are like this is simply because they’re Muslim, but that’s a load of shit. Read the Old Testament; it’s pretty fucking brutal. These people aren’t violent because they want to be. They’re violent because we’ve created an incredibly dangerous environment for them to grow up and live in. They know nothing but brutality and pain. Americans are hateful when their Wendy’s order gets messed up. You bet your ass they’d be violent if they lived in Iraq.

The solution for peace in the Middle-East seems it will have to be mostly political, but there will be fighting from outside forces. Hell, peace isn’t coming until at least a while after we’ve invaded Iran, which two former U.S. security officials have recently deemed “highly likely” to occur in 2017. Unfortunately, I am not the mastermind who can devise such a solution. It’s going to take many great minds working together and acknowledging all the facts, and our current world diplomats aren’t yet willing to make that happen. You may know that the Middle-East is the richest place in the world when it comes to oil. You may also know that U.S. businesses and elected officials have made some good money off of the oil we’ve obtained from these countries in which we’re fighting terrorism. Some of the great oil empires of the world lie in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. We’ve already helped to completely derail and destabilize two of those three nations, and the third is only a matter of time if we stay this ignorant. We’re putting profit above the lives of foreigners. We’re putting it before the freedom of our own citizens. But it stops working if we look over there and see what’s really happening. 

Ultimately, we’re far from finding the answers to solve these problems. All we can do right now is point out the issues to the people around us. These people don’t kill because they’re Islamic. The only difference that matters between Americans and the people of the Middle-East is that we’ve created a violent way of life for them. They have no choice but to take part in violence. We now have a president that advocated killing the families of terrorists while on the campaign trail. We don’t get to be surprised that he’s doing exactly that, especially when it’s been easy for the past two presidents to do the same with little to no public backlash. We can be disgusted. But we should first be disgusted with ourselves for not caring more for others. 

Most of us live in a bubblegum fantasy here in America. We are so self-involved that minor inconveniences trigger emotions that should be reserved for when our families get blown up. For that reason, it’s impossible for us to imagine our families actually being blown up, and thus impossible to empathize with the people our nation terrorizes. Just like the people of the Middle-East, we are a product of our surroundings. From 2003 to 2014, 80 Americans were killed by radical Islamic terrorism, 36 of those on U.S. soil. In that time, it’s nearly impossible to accurately count the millions of Middle-Eastern people killed by our activities and the resulting chains of events. Things like the Syrian Civil War are not entirely our fault, but implementing a policy to ban refugees from Syria and surrounding countries contributes to the hatred of America and the rise of more violent radicals. Not to mention the deaths of innocent people that could’ve been saved. These are people, just like us, and they want to live in a safe place without constant fear of death, just like us. The vetting processes are much more extensive than Trump will allow us to believe, and from 1975 to 2015, with over 300 million entries of refugees and immigrants from these 7 nations, three individuals associated with terrorism have entered. They killed no one. The argument that these people coming in may be dangerous is poorly grounded, but even if it was valid, does that matter? Do 80 American lives hold the same value as millions of others? Are we truly more important simply because we’re American? If you can really believe that, then I think your soul is already dead. 

We must awaken to the tyranny of our leaders. Public opinion does overwhelmingly oppose Trump’s ban, and that is reassuring. But I don’t think many of us are ready to open up to really addressing the problems the Middle-Eastern people face. If you want the suffering to end for these people, you must make changes to stop perpetuating the violence. Political activism is a great first step. Learn everything you can about the issues important to you. Get out and tell others about them. Go vote in every election. Pay attention to congressmen and track their records. Be aware of who it is you’re voting for, no matter the office for which they’re running. Chuck Schumer, a democratic senator from New York, publicly cried during a speech addressing the ban and called on Trump and his fellow Republicans to bring an end to this. Chuck Schumer voted in favor of the Iraq War. Chuck Schumer raised no questions during the Obama administration’s dirty dealings in these countries. Chuck Schumer is crying now without acknowledging that there’s blood on his hands, and that seems very representative of what the American people do every day. Our country is only a terrorist nation because we allow it to be. The government is only empowered because we allow it to be. Our leaders have created a society where mass murder can be justified, and that is precisely the reason The Spirit is dead. The People must now stand up to this, and I hope that something you’ve read here can inspire you to take part.