#(literally just american exceptionalism but in reverse)

[imsobadatnicknames2]

People spend all day here posting about shit that doesn't matter and no one has a problem with it but when your posting about shit that doesn't matter involves Criticizing Popular Thing then they suddenly are like Poasting Is Serious Business Why Are You Posting About Shit That Doesn't Matter Poast About Important Shit Instead.

There’s so many bigger problems in this world than a fictional game about growing plants 😭 not everyone is American and not all land ownership is theft. Genuinely get some some fresh air and go to a party and talk to real people and do breathing exercises

i always wonder about people like this, like... if you see someone posting about something assume that they think they're Doing Activism and they have to be super emotional and fired up it kind of says something really depressing and sad about your own life and engagement with politics, right? the idea that you see Poasts on Website as the height of political engagement and so anyone doing that must care super deeply and passionately about what they're posting from can only really come from someone who has never done any meaningful political action in their life--someone to whom Poasting Online really is the highest level of political action they can imagine for the issues they really care about. sad!

[captainjonnitkessler]

I am so so so sick of the doomerism from the self-proclaimed radicals. No political change can ever be good or effective, it has to be a full revolution or else it's pointless. If something good does happen, then it's not enough and if you're happy about it you're an idiot who never really wanted change. Anyone who doesn't support a revolution is a fascist who wants you literally dead. Civil rights have never ever advanced because otherwise we'd have to admit that things can improve without the threat of violence. If your life sucks it's only because of systemic issues so you may as well not even try to make things better because it won't work. America is the only country in the world that does horrible things because American exceptionalism is imperialism but reverse American exceptionalism is praxis. You should never judge a country's citizens by the actions of their government but you as an American are complicit in everything and if you don't hate yourself for it you're an imperialist fascist. Everyone is against you, nobody cares about you, nothing good ever can or will happen, and there's nothing you can do about any of it, but you have to dwell relentlessly on all the atrocities in the world because otherwise you're just another selfish sheep who never really cared about anyone but yourself.

And what's the lesson of all this misery? Is it that we need to organize, educate, and put in the hard work to make ourselves a political power worth reckoning with so we can improve things?

No. According to doomers you should go to a rally or two and then when society doesn't immediately capitulate to your demands you should pitch a fit and refuse to participate in society in order to "teach them a lesson." Excellent. Let me know when that starts working I guess.

[rjzimmerman]

A couple of days ago, I was collecting seeds from the milkweed pods in our yard. Having not done this before, but being fully aware of the fuzzy stuff that flies out of the pods, I was battling fuzz (technically, "floss") as I was pulling off and storing the seeds. Then I got smart, and decided to cut a slit in the pods and then gently pull out the mass of floss and seeds, and then just pulling the seeds off and dropping then into the container. As I was doing that, I noticed how super soft the floss was as I pulled it fresh out of the pods, and wondered........do any clothing manufacturers use this stuff? Did a Google search, and learned....yep!

Excerpt from this story from Happy Eco News:

As consumers demand more eco-conscious apparel, brands are getting creative with natural materials that keep warmth in and environmental harm out. One unlikely hero emerging from prickly planted fields is the common milkweed—yes, literally plucked straight from the wild. While best known as the sole food source for iconic, struggling Monarch butterflies, milkweed’s hidden potential is nestled right inside its fluffy, silken floss. This fleecy fiber is an amazing natural insulator and is finding a new application in jackets, parkas, boots, and ski gloves for humans.

As outdoor apparel companies race to reduce environmental impacts, milkweed clothing insulation is proving a promising substitute for conventional insulation fillers—one aligned with cleaner agricultural systems. Its hollow-cored fluff offers an animal-friendly, biodegradable alternative to goose down. Unlike petroleum-based synthetics like polyester fibers, milkweed fills garments with a regeneratively sourced material that decomposes rather than lingering for centuries in landfills.

With conscious consumerism accelerating across industries, apparel buyers now consider impacts far beyond cost and quality when evaluating purchases. An unlikely hero from both suffering North American grasslands and climate crosshairs is rapidly gaining traction as a sustainable insulation material – common milkweed floss. Beyond keeping heat in and winter out with insulating performance rivaling goose down, milkweed rates exceptionally on multiple sustainability indicators resonant with eco-conscious consumers.

As a native perennial thriving on marginal lands, milkweed flourishing requires no irrigation, fertilizers or pesticides – regrowing reliably year after year. From a toxicity and allergen standpoint, milkweed avoids issues associated with many synthetic insulations or down. And supporting milkweed crop expansion helps reverse monarch butterfly declines blamed on agricultural habitat loss. For shoppers concerned over microplastics shedding into waterways from standard fleece, milkweed offers a soft, homegrown, biodegradable alternative. In short, milkweed checks all the boxes for socially mindful consumers seeking future-focused apparel that balances functionality with ethical, regenerative supply supporting threatened pollinators.

Signaling the momentum of milkweed clothing insulation, major brands like Patagonia are incorporating the fluff through novel partnerships with companies like Vegeto Textiles. Dedicated milkweed plantings bandwidth habitat zones while fibers make their way into garments. Other types of textile manufacturers are also jumping on board, some with announced plans to insulate blankets and quilts with milkweed.

Still, despite its promise, milkweed clothing insulation remains in its infancy. Technological barriers to processing millions of floss strands into a stable textile filling have just recently been worked out. Machinery and techniques to update this long-known application concept into a scalable commercial reality. Companies have worked for years honing best practices for taking raw milkweed fluff through cleaning, drying, and fiber alignment steps to transform fuzzy floss into outdoor-ready filling. Advancements in the coming decade will further improve integration potential across diverse textile products, opening doors for milkweed clothing insulation in everything from t-shirts to winter boots.

[999-roses]

@niteshade925 :

Because sinophobia is now fused with political scapegoating. A very dangerous combination. Now that we are seeing deliberate genocide in Palestine, I do wonder how long it will be before the camps start opening for business again #:)#i mean internment camps were a thing. there is a precedent for this kind of bs.#sorry to op for taking it there#but I do think some things need to be said. before it's too late.

in all seriousness, while I don't want to completely dismiss internment as a future possibility, however, imo there are marked differences between modern-day aapi/sino diaspora landscape and previous forms of yellow peril, which would make a revival of some kind of internment project unlikely, at least on a large and public scale. (of course there's no telling for secret disappearances and/or trussing up the ol' sinophobic trope of spy accusations - which have in recent times prompted some reversal of brain drain at the very least)

between now and then was McCarthyism and widespread systemic project of anticommunism... like literally, the PRC wasn't even established yet when the last japanese internment camps were closed.

The form of assimilation we see today is the project of "diversity & inclusion" - in the American project. In similar hypocrisy as idealizing "free speech" (in which only acceptable speech is tolerated in narrow parameters regardless of factuality), inclusion is predicated on alignment to US American interests. The diaspora (not just Chinese) who openly denounce and make a show of "I left my home country because it was communist which is bad" get platformed in mainstream media. I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone who says "I love my motherland [not the US]" spread in mainstream media (or films propped up and lauded in the west), it's completely unheard of. Films made in China that remotely have a message of national pride get smeared as "propaganda" (laughs in Top Gun & other DoD hollywood), and often do not receive screenings in the US. This is essentially a requirement now in order to assimilate into the predominant US culture. As an Asian diaspora you can opt out of "yellow peril" by denouncing it yourself, thereby aiding in legitimizing "yellow peril" as a real threat to "real Americans" or capitalism or whatever. (This isn't to say it won't bite people in the butt, but by and large, the victims of hate crimes are marginalized folk like elderly or [assumed] sex workers, and not the ones who make a show to be anti-China/pro-USA who are more likely to come from backgrounds of relative privilege.)

the american empire wouldn't need internment camps anymore, in fact it would be detrimental to their optics and mythos (from "land of opportunity" to "melting pot"). over 70 years of effort put into converting would-be sympathizers of communist kinsmen into staunch supporters of liberal democracy - a different type of cage if you ask me - wasted

borrowing from from "Can the Chinese Diaspora Speak?" (recommend checking out the whole article wrt overseas chinese history btw) ::

In an era of renewed Cold War aggression towards China, historicizing the workings of multicultural empire and the strategic inclusion of the Chinese diaspora therein reveals the justifying discourses of U.S. imperialism. ... By the mid–1950s, the State Department and CIA had both identified the overseas Chinese as a strategic target for psychological warfare and anticommunist propaganda. .... Identifying the “critical importance” of overseas Chinese to U.S. Cold War efforts, ethnic Chinese in the United States were mobilized to produce and disseminate testimonials of U.S. exceptionalism to encourage Chinese diasporic allegiance to their host countries and not “Red China.” For instance, the USIA launched a popular Chinese-language magazine called Free World Chinese, which featured success stories of Chinese and other Asians in the United States as evidence of free world liberal exceptionalism. ... In differentiating “friends and enemies,” Cold War Chinese American inclusion was premised on a binary between “model minority” anticommunist allies and “yellow peril” communist sympathizers. While Cold War racial liberalism afforded new opportunities for civil inclusion for Chinese Americans willing to embrace the legitimizing fictions of U.S. imperialism, it also created conditions for state-sanctioned anticommunist repression for those alleged to have the wrong international sympathies.

[thosearentcrimes]

Any ostensibly left-wing position that is just “precisely the established conservative or reactionary understanding of the world except with the valence reversed” should be regarded with extreme suspicion. In addition to typically being wrong, they seem to be uniquely vulnerable to being coopted by the very forces they seek to fight, probably largely because they are symptomatic of someone just not having thought particularly critically about the issue.

The big ones I would mention are Radical Feminism (believing all the misogynistic horseshit about women but thinking it’s good actually just makes you literally the same as a tradwife in almost all respects), certain forms of what is called identity politics (being on time is not inherently white, what the fuck is wrong with you), and US left-wing American evil-exceptionalism (saying the US is a unique and non-contingent force of evil in the world has the same paradoxical exculpatory effect as saying men are inherently rapists, and it does not help anyone to pretend the CIA is all-powerful except the CIA, who love that narrative).

[alliluyevas]

i should stop getting mad and pedantic over stuff like this but this is just literally not true? like a minority of workers are in a union and that percentage is shrinking but police unions are NOT the only common/powerful unions out there. I’m so tired of people doing this reverse American exceptionalism defeatist stuff that isn’t linked to factual reality.

[gattmammon]

Like. Ok. It's bout Celsius degrees it's not that deep. But I really really need to say this.

I genuinely like most Americans I talk to! I truly do! But there's like this overwhelming contingent of Americans all around who are in language and everything else leftists but are simply bursting at the seams with American Exceptionalism and the worst part is they don't even realise it! It's like how some people who were raised extremist Christians become atheists but keep all of the bullshit extremism, just in reverse. You can't just say "oh I hate America now" and expect that to work! You need to actively work on yourself and observe how the bullshit you've been fed all throughout your childhood about how special your country is affects the way you view the world.

Everyone from every country has to go and do that. I had to do that. BUT certain countries are definitely worse than others in this respect and America might be one of the worst.

There's nothing wrong with the instinct of defending the familiar and known over the unfamiliar and unknown. What's wrong is how nations deliberately manipulate this instinct in childhood so that you equate familiar = good always all of the time and anybody who criticises the familiar = a direct attack on you personally. This is built in, to make you willing to fight for an abstract idea of "country" that doesn't exist.

Again. I like Americans. I genuinely do. (Admitting this is a huge faux pas, don't think I don't know). I like Americans because I like people and most people I meet on the internets are Americans. There's nothing inherently different about them. They're usually pretty funny and enthusiastic but I've met many who don't fit that at all. They're just people.

Here's the thing: your value is not tied to where you are from at all, not in the negative or in the positive. You are not more or less valuable because you are an American. You're a fine person. If we talked, I would probably like you. I like most people. You deserve so much more than what your country is giving you. We all do.

You have been forced to tie your identity to that of your country, but its propaganda, indoctrination. You were made to stand for a flag and recite a pledge of alliance to it every morning as a child. Even if you sat down or rolled your eyes or mentally spent the whole time making fart jokes like I did when my grandma dragged me to mass, that would still have an effect, just like being dragged to mass had an effect on me.

Uncouple your personal value from that of the culture you were forced to assimilate into since childhood. It's very difficult, but it's necessary to learning how to truly pick your battles and listen when others are sharing their experiences. It also doesn't mean that you have to stop caring about America! I care about my stupid country deeply. People I love live here. I live here. I have been raised here and I know this culture and adapting to a whole new one would be a pain in the butt, I tried. It's not that deep or complicated. I'm here, I like it here, I would like to make it a nice place.

I know that being American is a weirdly open position in this sense because your dirty laundry is aired in public on the daily, but you have to realise we're not enthusiastic about this state of affairs either. I'd rather not have to have an opinion on American things. But sometimes that's literally the only option to have any kind of conversation on the internet! Imperialism is a bitch!

Just. Ask yourself: who am I defending? Who picked this hill for me to die on? Do I REALLY TRULY think that everyone inherently just knows that Fahrenheit is better and uses Celsius just to spite the US? Because that sounds dumb and I'm not dumb, so why am I willing to argue that? Is it perhaps because the idea that any minor criticism of "the American way of life" is a personal attack has been deeply embedded inside me at a very early age?

That's it, that's all I'm asking.

[musherum]

god one of my sisters just made some stupid crack about how awful america is and its like... fuck off. idiot take. pointing at america specifically as a locus for bad things where politicians are uniquely corrupt or people are uniquely reactionary is literally just a way to ignore the problems in your own country. its literally just american exceptionalism in reverse

[spider-xan]

I get coping~, but as a non-American POC, I really wish white liberal Americans would stop screaming about how all of humanity should be wiped out every time Republicans do something fucked up, like, why does everyone else, from Americans of colour who are the ones getting hurt the most and literally everyone else in the world (almost mostly not white) have to suffer and die for America’s mistakes?

It’s like a really weird form of reverse American exceptionalism, where instead of ‘America is the best, and everyone in the world must follow!’, it’s ‘America is the worst, and everyone else must follow!’, and just, please, it’s so US-centric and the kind of white liberalism that’s absolutely useless and defeatist bc it thinks self-flagellation to prove how liberal and ‘not like the other white people’ you are means something, and idk it’s tiring!! Maybe actually do something!! And white people shouldn’t really be joking about how the mass murder (again, of post POC) anyway!!

[chitalian-blog2]

7 Tips to Date a Latina — from a Latina

1. You're never going to be ravenous.

Truly, she herself could be anorexic or Licuado de Nopal fit, however she'll be doomed in case you're ever ravenous

Eating is regularly a whole encounter. Cooking is a blessing from us to you, so don't you dare divert down that dinner from abuelita.

2. She is definitely hyper-sexualized.

In case you're the envious kind and need to date a Latina lady, you better develop some certainty and create trust in one another.

You can't control the amount she will be looked at, hit on, and commended with spontaneous consideration.

For the most part provided that you're around Latin culture, Latin men effectively show their warmth. What's more, in case you're outside of a Latino people group, she will be fetishized for being extraordinary.

Latina ladies simply need to be acknowledged for something besides the amount you need to lay down with them. Concentrates at Columbia University show that Latinos are generally thrown for hyper-sexualized TV jobs since well… that is the means by which society sees us.

Try not to misunderstand me, we completely sustain the generalization for three reasons:

Right off the bat, the more seasoned ages of Latina ladies had little office, so they genuinely needed to pick up the pace and get hitched. Their excellence was the main thing going for them, so they grasped it. Certain social propensities for adoring your body are then significantly increased down all through the ages.

Besides, the more youthful Latinas who do have more organization and are equivalent people in the public arena have been socially raised to be assembled. I actually was wearing high heels before I could walk (Mary Janes, bless your heart). What's our standard may not be yours, however we communicate through style, move, and mediums which might be seen by others as "hot."

My mom's companion, a minister, disclosed to me yesterday that a women's activist censured her for wearing high heels and dresses for "her man" (clearly, we aren't talkin' about a freakum-dress here, she's unassuming and still furious).

Yami replied with an "I don't dress for men's consideration, I dress for myself."

Third, we can't help what our identity is. We're provocative and we love it.

We simply don't need you to feel that it's the main thing we bring to the table.

3. On that note, individuals will accept that she's not taught or talented.

As indicated by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Latinas have less instructive and professional open doors than some other racial gathering in the USA.

This implies when individuals take a gander at your hot Latin darling and believe she's useful for "that," it isn't a result of Modern Family and Desperate Housewives. There are genuine obstructions for Latina ladies to build up their professions and desire.

Social constraints incorporate getting hitched excessively youthful, having youngsters without any father present, and having guardians that don't need them to leave their old neighborhood. There are such a large number of other financial deterrents that must be over-dropped by Latina ladies.

Honestly, in 2015, a lot of Latina-Americans are enabled with circumstances and achievement.

In any case, take it from the young lady who went to UCLA and would consistently be told "better believe it, yet you don't consider Mexican" [because of my money related status and education], that individuals see Latinos to be expertly tested.

Commending achievement may be especially essential to her in the event that she has beat the chances. As her accomplice, she may require you to give her that you don't underestimate her diligent work and ability for conceded.

You can wager she'll do likewise for you.

4. She's probably going to be coqueta and fantastically energetic.

Whatever her leisure activities are, whatever her vocation is, and her affection for you will consume wildly. Try not to think about it literally, she adores everybody that hard. All things considered, she's entirely demanding with who she really adores, yet once that is no joke," "in."

To be "coqueta" implies that she is likely fun loving, kind, and like-capable. There is the littlest feeling of presumptuousness inferred with this conduct, yet it is without a doubt certainty, not thinking she is superior to any other individual.

Latina ladies are famously social animals. I state animals since it's just about a carnal intuition to share the appeal. You stroll into a Latino family party and you're certain to get twelve much love on the cheek. We love to cherish our companions.

Try not to confuse her agreeableness with hardness.

Socially, we are more averse to be calmly unbridled, so the odds of bamboozling are measurably lower. Alright, not a genuine measurement. Notwithstanding, in Latina culture ladies are more averse to be cozy outside of a relationship.

5. She needs to show you off.

I'm an exemption to this as I've become more private with my effectively exceptionally open way of life. In any case, most Latina ladies need pictures with their bae, their closest companion, their cousins, and their canine.

Corresponded to how hard we love and to our certainty, Latina ladies like to show the world how awesome you are. This is altogether different to state, Scandinavian or Australian culture, where it would appear to be excessively garish. In Latino culture, it's simply celebrating. We're continually searching for a reason to host a get-together so we can nourish you.

6. She will battle and endure with you.

Keep in mind that caring critical step? They hurt hard as well. Studies show that Latina ladies really get physically sick when they are genuinely worried for an adoration one. I can't discover the cases for it, yet I took in this in a course at UCLA and I always remembered it since I was wide-looked at with this revelation. It's actual and I hadn't pondered it until my teacher said it.

It really becomes regular practice for Latina ladies to meet up looking for gathering affection and backing. It's additionally a propensity not to tell the more seasoned ladies in the family an issue to abstain from startling them into awful wellbeing.

7. She realizes how to tune in, yet she realizes when to make some noise.

Odds are that eye candy really has a great deal to state.

Initially, Latina ladies seem agreeable. Socially, a considerable lot of us in hetero connections haven't let go of conventional practices. The opening of entryways, releasing ladies first, and men strolling outwardly of the walkway are on the whole old-school rehearses in romance. I like them.

Latina ladies need to feel required, so they intuitively let a man feel required.

From an untouchable's point of view, this may look in reverse, however there is one reason this isn't so:

Latina ladies make some noise. They need to impart (in the event that you couldn't tell with all my composition and conveying everything that needs to be conveyed through style and move HAHA). At any rate, this need enables our connections. We address the things that truly matter. The individuals who talk together, cooperate, and settle on choices together have an association … which is the genuine top in #relationshipgoals.

[andrewuttaro]

30 Years on: What is America?

I am not of the belief patriotism is a disappearing attribute in this country. I think those who say such a thing tend to struggle with the difference between patriotism and nationalism. I digress, I already wrote that article. I’ll let you do your own research on that. To the degree patriotism is in flux at the moment regardless of anyone’s relative love for America I think it’s because we are at something of a national crossroads.

We’re collectively looking critically at our own history again for the first time in a long time. In the aftermath of a global pandemic the craving for normalcy belies an unsettling question about what that normalcy actually is and if its worth going back to: What is America? No really, what is the lived vision of America in 2021 CE? To the extent you read overzealous nuts on social media drooling over the prospect of Civil War or national partition there is in fact some hard soul searching about the what of America that has potential to lead to real political sectarianism.

I’ll check my privilege at the door and say yes: I, as a straight, white male, has never had a lot to lose in any past incarnation of the American identity. Part of the struggle here is a truly inclusive answer to Who is America? I write this under the assumption literally anyone can be American, and we should build systems that reflect that. Nonetheless, we do have to look to the past for fear of repeating it.

What is America? Well it’s a country for one: more than two hundred years old with a congressional democratic republic form of government. It’s had 46 Presidents and counting. It is composed of 50 States for now. America was founded on a couple core principles it defined around “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Anyone who seriously studies American History will tell you the promises of America’s founding documents were not all fulfilled in the beginning. America’s domestic history is defined by Civil Rights movements, reactions against said movements and a Civil War largely about who would receive the full promise of what America is. Indeed Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President who led America through that Civil conflict, spoke of this nation as the “American Experiment” that would not perish from the earth as long as the Union won. The Gettysburg Address Lincoln delivered about this vision of America was delivered on a battlefield where that nation was invaded by what can properly be called a different imagining of what the U.S. should be. Those invaders were former countryman, looking to make a different formulation of the experiment. America is an experiment, a work in progress, a project.

Nation-States as projects is not a new concept. Even before the United States of America’s War of Independence new nation-states were being founded across the world out of the milieu of Enlightenment Philosophy meeting political realities. In many places the nation-state was a more democratic, self-determining incarnation of what kingdoms and empires had been for millennia prior: the collective force of a like-minded ethnic, tribal, or familial group or otherwise aligned interested parties. The innovation of the American experiment, among other things, was perhaps that it was a nation-state for everyone seeking liberty and personal autonomy. Even though the founders envisioned the enfranchisement of a very specific kind of citizen, this American nation-state had potential from the beginning to be something that had never been attempted before.

Fast forward 128 years on from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The U.S. has not only survived its Civil War, but it has also exploded onto the global stage after two world wars catapulted it to an international superpower. Still believing itself to be the project of liberty and self-determination America had stood opposed to a distinctly oppressive superpower in the Soviet Union and won. In the process the American experiment had been exported anywhere the Soviets couldn’t stop it and now the whole world was familiar with its tenets if not copying its institutions. A Cold War that held all of humanity in suspense at the precipice of nuclear annihilation has yielded to a new reality where America found itself the dominant political force in the world unopposed. 1991, thirty years ago now, was a rare inflection point in history where suddenly massive forces of power were upended at once and there was no clear guiding philosophy for the global political order going forward… except the United States of America. What would America be now? The Post-Cold War reality was ours to lose.

Canada, America’s most intimate international partner and closest neighbor, similarly finds itself at a philosophical turning point. The Canadian author and commentator Will Ferguson points to three core guiding themes, however misled they were, for the Canadian project upon its modern founding in 1867: 1. Keep the Americans out, 2. Keep the French in, 3. Somehow make the indigenous disappear. In Canada’s 150-year history these three ideas color its every decision and define its character. All of these founding directives are now either reversed because they were outright morally wrong (See number 3) or have been killed by a thousand cuts. The nation-state to America’s north is also set to reexamine what it’s all about. In that reexamination of national identity there is great opportunity and great danger. As if an international support group, Canada’s stereotypical niceness reaches out to tell us, we’re not alone in this self-discovery process.

The answer to the Post-Cold War world for the American Experiment in 1991 was doubling down on Americana and exporting our cultural and economic mores around the world. Though this process had already begun in earnest after World War Two, now the whole world was its oyster. From aggressive, no-prisoners capitalism to unapologetic, imperial democracy, you can now find few places on the planet that are not familiar with some facet of the United States’ self-perception. America globalized who it was and not everyone liked it. Indeed many Americans began to increasingly look in the mirror this cultural hegemony provided with a critical eye. Then September 11th happened.

After the terrorist attacks on 9/11 the United States cast its enemies in an axis of evil dualism in the War on Terror that provided an endless horizon of conflict for a military apparatus unseen in human history. The polar opposite, the truly evil enemy the Fall of the Soviet Union deprived America of, would now be replaced with a complex networks of dictators and non-state entities who recorded death threats in caves. While America doesn’t exist today like a traditional empire, its reach is unparalleled, and it can strike almost anywhere on earth in a matter of minutes. With no sufficient counterbalance it would seem its military industrial complex doesn’t know what to do with itself. That menacing, widespread inhuman enemy doesn’t actually exist much in the real world if it even did during the many proxy conflicts of the Cold War decades.

Domestically the thirty years of the Post-Cold War American Experiment has seen the two branches of our government that were supposed to be lesser to the legislative, balloon in importance. In a nation where every philosophical difference is magnified into a culture war the ultimate arbiter of those borderline violent disputes is a Court system that is supposed to be an afterthought and a Presidency that has become outright imperial in spite of the founders explicit anti-monarchical sentiments. When Supreme Court justices die or retire it really seems to be on par with a Pope’s death for political partisans stateside. All good and evil in the land of liberty seems to run through a council of black-robed appointees. All 5 Presidents of Post-Cold War America were cast as lightning rods for their bases and chastised by their opposition with every scandal that would stick (to varying degrees of success). The fourth of such Presidents, Donald Trump, openly rejected the idea of America as a pluralistic nation-state with any international responsibility at all to the contrary of the image that defines Post-Cold War America, in favor of a Pre-World War II image of an isolationist, explicitly white Christian nation. Yes, the current identity crisis played out in sharp contrast in the 2016 election cycle. Many Americans consider that election the perfect storm of two intractably terrible major party choices.

Perhaps we need to face the fact we did it to ourselves. We elect no-compromise fighters whenever we vote only to be shocked when Congress turns into a toxic mess that gets nothing done. It’s always easy to criticize a one-term President but the re-evaluation of what the American experiment will be is not limited to those of a more right-wing conservative bent. The left wing in this country increasingly discusses myriad reforms to everything from our election and representation systems to our healthcare and welfare systems. No matter what your future vision of America is you probably agree, perhaps for vastly different reasons than your neighbor, that America is not the somehow uniquely exceptional nation-state it’s insisted it is, not anymore at least. The Post-Cold War era saw the concept of “American Exceptionalism” become a punchline for Americans of both and every political affiliation. For numerous reasons America’s international and domestic vitality has diminished.

The current President, historically more of a traditionally moderate, establishment democrat, has even engaged in this revisionism aggressively seeking to revive Americans faith in their very form of government with stimulus, infrastructure and voting reform in the most evenly split congress in decades. More progressive types of the left-wing beckon in every election cycle now just as the former President refuses to go away, trying to weaponize the grievance of his increasingly right-wing base in the reimagining of the American experiment he set forth as a more authoritarian leader. We have to make an honest, good faith accounting of this effort toward a new definition of ourselves if any shared consensus as a nation will ever be possible again. There is of course great danger in redefining the purpose of a national project.

However America redefines herself going forward, finding these new definitions is not an optional project. With the U.S. shaken down from its international pedestal by trade war, an ascendant China, and a stubbornly plutocratic Russia, even America’s closest allies are reconsidering how they will persist with an unstable American self-image still able to exert its hard power anywhere on earth. As some Americans pursue a more equitable society at home for historical outgroups still struggling with society’s aged mores, those efforts have been met with open racism and a kind of selfish nationalism that has not been seen this ferociously in three generations. Unless a new lasting, inclusive, American self-image is agreed upon we may be at only the beginning of a long period of internal strife and discord. Increasing numbers of ideologs of both left wing and right-wing persuasions fantasize about cutting off whole sections of the nation whom they rarely agree with. American Statehouses are dominated by right-wing majorities more often than not who have actually initiated voter suppression efforts which positions America in a dangerous place for the next close enough national election. This is not to mention the way gerrymandering steals the power of congressional representation from the very people it was supposed to empower. This whole discussion doesn’t even touch on the increasing threat of environmental catastrophe rarely addressed in the halls of power.

The current American Identity Crisis leaves many issues unaddressed as a matter of fact. An opioid epidemic that is erasing broad swaths of the population, a wealth gap unseen since the gilded age, a skyrocketing suicide rate, a gun violence epidemic, natural resource exhaustion unrelated to climate change, police violence, the fourth rebirth of white supremacist organizations, DC and Puerto Rico Statehood, the Student Debt Crisis, an increasingly intractable housing market putting home ownership out of reach for many young Americans, and numerous other problems sit on the backburner without any signs of meaningful progress. On some level it seems we’ve all given up the project of governing for earning the most points in culture wars that now express themselves on as big a scale as a national election and all the way down to dinner tables and date nights.

What is American? How might we be optimistic about such a rapidly changing country on this Independence Day thirty years on from the end of the Cold War? Among people my age it would seem pessimism if not an outright nihilism about these sorts of things is the common response where activism seems to only make minor gains. Among the general population still rebounding from the COVID19 pandemic it would seem a certain empathy fatigue has set in. Where meaningful answers to these big, generational national identity questions are being formulated it is yet to be seen if a new American consensus can be found.

Perhaps our friend Canada would tell us: these days the most patriotic thing you can do is push for your country to do better. Reckoning with the past and present treatment of minorities and atrocities abroad is not optional if we are to have an honest, effective, united future. For now, if nothing else can move us to truly feel proud of our nation, then maybe this independence day we can recognize our internal interdependence on each other, however different we maybe. If anything the most patriotic way we can be this holiday and every day going forward as Americans is honest and patient about who we were, what we are and what we could possibly be if we commit ourselves to progress once again.

[expatimes]

Defeating fascism beyond the ballot

The world can breathe a sigh of relief that it will not know just how unhinged Donald Trump would have become with the validation of re-election, especially after already surviving literally hundreds of scandals and an official impeachment.

Trump’s defeat – largely to the credit of Black people, especially Black women – is immeasurably consequential for the planet. Even without a majority in the Senate (which Democrats still have a slim shot at winning in Georgia’s upcoming runoff elections), the United States can now work internationally and domestically to undo the damage Trump caused during four years of his presidency.

However, the US faces steep, deep-seated problems that neither began, nor will end, with Donald Trump. As liberals celebrate a “return to normalcy,” the people who delivered this victory will not be satisfied by a return to a profoundly violent status quo.

Trump and his disciples already plot a comeback, but if we study how he was narrowly defeated, we can prevent society from welcoming his brand of politics again.

Denormalisation

If liberals thought of Trump’s constant lying and false promises as “un-American,” they should listen to Native Americans and read about the long history of Indigenous genocide as nonpartisan US government policy.

This is a country built on Black enslavement and Indigenous genocide, constructed by a racist system of law and lifted by imperialism. Now, as the empire crumbles, it is also a country descending into a neo-feudal society only buttressed by a consolidating panopticon of state violence and corporate surveillance.

These are not problems that can be addressed individually and there are no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solutions. Rather, everyone has the power to wield, given their specific positions in society, and everyone must play a role if we want to change institutions and systems. Start exactly where you already are.

Trump has spent years broadcasting that he would try anything to maintain the presidency, including legal and clandestine voter suppression and intimidation. If the election’s integrity can be protected from Trump and his supporters’ ongoing attempt at a coup d’état, we will still emerge into a polarised country where nearly half of the voting population – roughly 70 million overwhelmingly white people – do not consider bigotry a deal breaker.

The ratio of people who approve of political violence is growing substantially across the ideological spectrum. Furthermore, a good portion of the populace has a twisted view of reality, where rumour and conspiracy are more important than critical thought or facts. Research shows that many of them can be converted, but how?

Personal relationships can slowly rebuild shared trust. In practice, this includes the sometimes difficult job of listening patiently and empathetically to friends who have fallen for concerted misinformation campaigns and more diffuse efforts of manipulation. Everyday compassion might be our best way out of the social media bubbles and conspiracy theories that cloud our collective foresight.

Undoing oppression cannot be a burden placed on the oppressed – people living at the intersection of marginalised social categories. People mobilised by this electoral wave must support and invest in communities of colour, but without demanding that marginalised people find “common ground” with fascism. The hard work of confronting and transforming this system must be carried out by those most structurally privileged.

Critique as a gift

One of the most important long-term strategies is scaling up this kind of work into intentional organising and community building everywhere: our work, families, friends, everyday interactions and wherever else possible.

The long-term political battleground is cultural, as Antonio Gramsci wrote from prison almost 100 years ago and US conservatives have understood since at least the 1970s. In the words of Republican media strategist Pat Buchanan, “if you capture the culture of the country, eventually you might prevail.”

The right-wing strategy of recapturing American culture after the anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s explains why the strongest sources of censorship and “political correctness” in this country are not leftist “online mobs,” but rather conservative entities like the Texas State Board of Education, which has spent decades rewriting history with political intent.

In its narratives of exceptionalism and refusal to teach this country’s violent history, the board denies generations the opportunity to reckon with the structures that shape their present realities. And given Texas’s population size, textbooks produced for that state influence instructional materials in many other states, and the effects of this miseducation grow and become embedded over time.

Evidence of the “culture war” strategy is abundant today, well beyond Fox News. Spend a minimal amount of time on social media and you will come across the disinformation machine fuelled by millions of dollars of Koch money, propaganda videos on YouTube from accounts like PragerU (which is not a university of any kind), and thousands of similar copycat accounts that are likewise monetising narratives of white victimhood and paranoia.

We must learn and teach each other how to better recognise propaganda, appreciate difference and confront injustice. Furthermore, we must commit ourselves to more intentional and democratic relationships, contrary to the dominant paradigms where we are always in competition and our victories must come at someone else’s expense.

Breaking the grip of these ideas will require building an alternative through mindful practice – embracing constructive critique, learning to give and cherish feedback, knowing how to apologise and grow, and preferring strategic bridging over destructive sanctimony. Neither performative cruelty nor tone policing can help us get there. Accountability is not the same as fixating on someone’s small mistakes or clumsy language.

As bell hooks has put it, “Forgiveness and compassion are always linked: How do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

Uprooting arrogance at a societal level requires self-examination. We should support each other more and police each other less.

Merging left without compromising values

Lasting change will also require merging around a transformative agenda that speaks to different constituencies without sacrificing progressive values or pandering to colonial tendencies.

Among other things, this vision for systemic change must include Black reparations, radically curtailing or even withdrawing the state’s power to inflict violence on marginalised communities through policing and criminal punishment, honouring the treaties this country made with Native peoples, expanded equal access to rights like education and healthcare, demilitarisation, equal pay, progressive taxation on the ultra-rich, green jobs, decarbonisation and environmental justice.

The policies above are overwhelmingly popular with the electorate but they remain difficult under our current institutional design. Therefore, organisers must work community by community, state by state, and federally towards procedural reforms that can yield structural payoffs.

These include abolishing the electoral college, honouring Puerto Rico’s vote for statehood, instituting ranked-choice voting, protecting voter rights such as universal registration and mail voting, making election day a holiday, mandating voting as a civic duty, reforming campaign financing, instituting an independent commission to reverse partisan districting, democratising the Senate by making it proportionally representative of states’ populations, curtailing executive authority to make war and surveil the world, and more.

In all, our platforms must be driven by intersectional analyses attentive to how each policy will differently impact people depending on their various identities and social positions. We otherwise risk reproducing a long trend within so-called progressive movements led by men and white people, and especially white men, where their concerns become the default. Everyone else is dismissed with demands to “not be divisive” about our very real differences, which are treated as something to reduce or eliminate, rather than appreciate and welcome.

Personnel is policy: taking and making space

In the finer details, social transformation will require shifting the field organising strategy and infrastructure of political parties, especially the Democrats. The 2020 election cycle proved that the old guard’s strategies are ineffective, but also that their antidote is bottom-up energy. In particular, one of the most significant investments donors can make is in year-round community organising and canvassing efforts to build up sustained power.

Trump’s defeat belongs to social movements and activists, especially Black organisers and Black women in particular, who turned out to vote in record numbers.

Credit is also due to Indigenous voters who undeniably helped tip Arizona, Wisconsin, and played an important role in Democratic victories in other states, despite the disrespectful erasure of Indigenous peoples in corporate media coverage of the election. States like Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan were likewise won by organisations like Mission for Arizona, spearheaded by young Latinas.

These organisations lack the resources of the Democratic establishment but did the hard work that paved the way for Trump’s defeat. Let us save the symbolic gestures of gratitude and actually provide these groups ongoing support and investment.

Incorporating these solutions requires altering not only policy platforms but also the makeup of the party. Democrats are more diverse than the Republicans in membership, but not much more in leadership. White consultants who occupy most positions of power inevitably approach issues with internalised biases, and thereby come to the “impartial” conclusion that “X community does not vote, so more resources must be redirected towards old white voters instead,” which only becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As long as strategic decision-making remains dominated by white strategists, the party will continue redirecting resources away from its most important and yet most disrespected backbone of support – people of colour – thereby feeding apathy and disaffection. Do not expect marginalised communities to continue rescuing a party that refuses to hear or show up for its own base.

A politics of love

“Your Congresswoman-elect loves you,” Cori Bush declared during her acceptance speech. “If I love you, I care that you eat. If I love you, I care that you have shelter and adequate, safe housing. If I love you, I care that you have clean water and clean air, and you have a liveable wage. If I love you, I care that the police don’t murder you.”

Flawed as the electoral process is, it remains crucial to making social change. Elections provide a structure of opportunity, attention and resources to organise and reshape discussions about our material, everyday realities. Activists interested in changing society must therefore continue to engage their momentum and give them direction, all while changing their traditional model – from one where our energy flows upward to support the liberal establishment, towards one where we instead draw resources from electoral cycles to improve and sustain our communities beyond them.

Activists should remain critical of the risk of activist energy being co-opted by a Democratic Party that has presided over a bipartisan dismantling of public services such as housing, bloating and militarisation of a racist policing system, mass incarceration exacerbated by their own crime bills, mass deportation programmes, indiscriminate surveillance, growing inequalities, and a war and carbon-based economy.

At the same time, the work of groups like those mentioned above shows that it is possible to build electoral power without sacrificing organisational autonomy at the grassroots.

The pace of change in political institutions is unbearably slow by design. However, taking state power remains important to altering the daily realities of people’s lives. Around each new win up and down the ticket, no matter how small, we can rally new resources and recruits, feel our power through our results, and grow the fight for radical democracy, both within and well beyond the state.

Love is an everyday, radical mission. Collective liberation requires an ethic of care and a strategy for building political communities rooted in shared respect for all living things. In this, anyone can play a role, everyone is needed and everything must be built with intention – forging welcoming spaces, ceding space, redistributing power, organising solidarity everywhere, winning small battles, persuading the public and scaling upward to generate new possibilities in our unwritten future.

Given the interlinked crises facing humanity, radical change is more urgent now than ever, so let’s pick up a clipboard and do the work, following the leadership of the people of colour, especially Black people, and especially women, who won this election.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=15259&feed_id=21933

[rfschatten]

Election 2020: America’s Civil War v2.0

“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” ~ George Orwell

Wake up and smell the coffee, America!

The United States, for better or worse, for the first time in its history elected an honest to goodness criminal; a renowned grifter, a world-renowned embezzler, a sleazy money launderer, and a tax fraud …who disguised as a stable genius has never succeeded in a single business he’s ever attempted.

Casinos are legally structured so the “House” never loses! But ask Atlantic City, and their experience with the Trumpster. How smart is the Stable Genius? How many Casinos have ever gone bankrupt?

It’s no longer a secret this exalted “Billionaire” is really a penniless fraud …a fraud who owes banks around the world more than a Billion Dollars, and at least, $400,000 to mysterious certain individuals.

Truth hurts when dealing with irreproachable people of more character and virtues than he’s ever had …Donald Trump can’t handle the Truth!

Aristotle said; “Without virtue, man is most unholy and savage, and worst in regard to sex and eating”.

Aristotle never had the pleasure to meet this little man, but describes him literally to a T!

But, why does his following care even knowing what he says are all lies? He’s everything his righteous Christian bible quoting base grew up learning not to be! The sins, the immorality…so unchristian!

There’s a certain sector of this nation that will reject the truth, by any means …and at all cost.

200 years of institutionalized racism, cultural inbreeding, systemic ignorance, and continually poor education.

Enter the orange Svengali, it’s his Haven …being around people who don’t care whether he lies to them or if he cheats on all his wives, whether he takes all their tax dollar & sticks it in his pocket, or betrays his country for money in favor of other Foreign Powers!

His ability to mesmerize & exploit the most exploitable is all he has left …and it’s a mutual “quid pro quo” society.

Their aim …with the help of the most powerful man in the country and the most ignorantly dangerous human being in the World …to promote White Supremacy and lift it up to rule the Nation, while psychologically and educationally bringing everyone down to their level. Build a society based on their own visions & all their ignorance, and make the US the world’s pinnacle of idiocy.

Never question the supreme leader…diminish their followers’ range of thought. Whatever you see is not what you’re seeing, whatever you hear is not what you’re hearing, and whatever you’re reading is not what you’re really reading …that’s life under totalitarian rule.

Shades of “1984”? and its Totalitarian Society …36 years later?!?!

When the President of the United States really says; “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening” …what’s next? War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength?

Another shade of 1984 is discouraging all Freethinking. Oh! Freethinking/Critical Thinking! ….something that the Texas GOP passionately rejects and opposes the idea in all Texas Public Schools. I kid you not!

Donald Trump’s lifelong family love for right-wing movements, Fascism and White Supremacy …all his very fine people he constantly boasts about! And now, the opportunity of his lifetime; to exploit all his own bigotry & racism without getting in trouble. Besides all his criminal activities …it’s given him an aura of invincibility …a dictator who can get away with murder, which has been his childhood dream!

He’s the self-proclaimed “Tough Guy” who whines when Leslie Stahl asks him tough questions …” why do I get the tough questions”? How tough is he towards the ‘real’ tough guys? Case closed.

This man has no plans whatsoever of giving up his Power …his plans started 4 years ago, and American Supremacy will violently back him up whether they win or whether they lose!

From The Donald’s use of pure Fascist Propaganda, The Big Lie, Subliminal Messaging, Gaslighting, Doublespeak, the White House’s official Daily Misinformation, Blatantly lying their asses off 24/7…it’s all part of the Totalitarian for Dummies handbook.

When Trump tells a certain chapter of his violent armed cultists …even if he claims he doesn’t know them; “stand back & stand by”…he knows very well what he’s doing!

Uncle Crazy is not really that crazy! He’s just a creepy dirty old crazy uncle…just ask his niece, Mary.

The 2020 Election is like nothing ever seen or experienced before. The Economy is usually the selling point in all elections…how it affects your wallet. War is another factor that can shift elections one way or the other. But this year it’s a little different, an X-factor is hanging around like toe-nail fungus for all the Republicans that sold their souls to Trump …a Global Pandemic Infection that’s now reaching 9 million Americans and will have killed over 230, 000 men, women, and children by Nov. 3rd.

Besides, there’re massive protests all around the country demonstrating for the end of institutionalized racism…all those years of Racial Injustice and especially nationwide Police Brutality have reached a boiling point …and instead of getting better, is getting worse as police shootings of the Black community keeps increasing throughout the country, daily!

More blacks are dying in the streets of America through police brutality than ever before …..and on Live TV! This, besides the Pandemic, are among so many other things that is truly ripping this nation apart!

How to start a Race War and blame the other side for starting it…better yet, blame other factions and allow them to destroy each other. A Fascist principle? It’s all about Chaos and how much will it take, to take down a Country…lock, stock, and barrel.

Will Durant once said; “Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with Chaos”…we certainly ‘are’ in Chaotic Times!

“Law and Order” sold well for Dick Nixon …but it’s not selling as well this time around. The general public is too well aware of what’s happening, and why it’s happening …they’re sick of listening to a man who will reach 25,000 lies by Nov. 3rd. What’s happening is that this country is sick & tired of listening 4 years of constant transparent horseshit.

People prefer being and staying healthy, and prefer taking care of their children than having them get infected or die! The need to work to financially survive is real, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do …if you get sick, how are you going to go to work? If you die, what happens with your family?

But most of all …People of all ages, all colors, all genders, all faiths, are coming together as one nation. Maybe this killer Virus is actually finally waking the moral conscience of this country?

The Law and Order hero keeps projecting about cleaning the streets of crime. The Black-clad Thugs Trump talks so much about? You can’t miss them…they’re a conglomeration of Ice Agents, off-duty Prison Guards, Border Patrol Agents, and Blackwater Mercenaries. No one with name tags or IDs but nice shiny black helmets & full armored uniforms! Abducting Protestors and driving them away? They’re the most brutal, vicious racists and supremacists goons Bill Barr could find. In Dictatorships, they call them “Death Squads”!

This is the man who cried; Take your guns and liberate Michigan!

Think about it! You have the President of the United States calling for the insurrection of the Government of a State in the Union!

Now, all you hear is Insurrection & Martial Law…if he doesn’t win? Telling his crew of every low life white supremacists to be armed and ready …cause Biden is going to get rid of Law Enforcement, open the Borders and allow all Mexican criminals to come and loot, burn, and rape your women!

To keep power, Dictators cheat their asses off by suppressing the vote, any way possible…now the Post Office and all the dirty deals with his new Donor Postmaster General pal.

That looks like it won’t work, so now Trump is insinuating that if he doesn’t win on Nov. 3rd is because the Democrats cheated and rigged it, naturally. Using his stacked Supreme Court to reverse his election defeat and declare him King for Life!

At noon on Jan. 20th, 2020 Donald Trump will refuse to get out of the White House and hide in his Bunker! At which time, little men in white coats will enter with US Marshals and have him evicted … and sent directly to Happy Acres, where he can battle all the Napoleon pretenders to see who’s the best leader.

This election is twofold. It’s about recovering and taking back a Nation from the shackles of 4 years of Chaos & Destruction, and it’s about regaining our Respect, Morality, and especially America’s Decency over the Disrespect, the Immoral Degeneracy, and the Indecency of the past 4 years!

When the President keeps insisting on opening up schools, sadly, it’s so he can get the parents back to work to pick up the economy …just more money for him to steal from the taxpayers. The Kids? The Donald has no compassion or remorse, he couldn’t care less how many children get infected or die …he just doesn’t give a damn!

He hates Children and Dogs…always had! He considers himself above them …even as a kid, he hated and bullied other kids. Never trust a man who hates Dogs!

It’s the pompous “exclusivity” of a spoiled brat born with a silver spoon up his big fat derrière.

This is all the continuing legacy of American Hypocrisy and Social Class standing…so many, have been so proud for so long with the conception of “American Exceptionalism”. Just think, what the word exceptionalism means. It derives from the word “Except” which means to “Exclude”! It should’ve been called American White Exceptionalism.

This is why the 2020 elections is the most important in US History, where Democracy & the US Constitution hangs on the line…threats of a Civil War if Trump loses, threats of intimidation & armed violence, even during election day (aka voter suppression) …and a Bill Barr lead Justice Dept, more interested in officially defending Trump in a rape & defamation civil lawsuit than protecting the American Voter!

There’s a reason why all around the world We, the People are still known …and even more in today’s Trumpian age, as “The Ugly American”.

Never before has America had such a distinct clear choice for President …it all comes down to Decency or Indecency, Morality or Immorality, Compassion or Indifference, but mostly it’s about uniting a nation or tearing it apart!

Voter suppression is the first way of suppressing a society! …there’s no second chance! Like never before, on Nov. 3rd Election Day … America, Choose Wisely!!!

[ashleybabcock1995]

Reiki Music With 5 Minute Bells Stupendous Unique Ideas

And of course the most recognized Reiki masters in the middle of each person tried to use your skills while family and friends following your Reiki training, you can become attuned will experience problem, and the mind will play a part in everything that needs to go out purposefully into less salubrious areas around town after dark, but I like to come from the physiological standpoint, as well as vitality of the effects that include everything that needs healing and you will find reiki a hit?As many know, the more the Reiki Master running the share monitors the time of her house and take action.You must use your intuition guides you through the body to get a feel for your time, thank you for the Healing Energy is and easy first aid treatment for Cancer including Chemotherapy and Radiation therapy.Want to improve... well, just about anybody.

During the week we were all sitting over breakfast in Sucre, Bolivia and got ready for it.He lived in the past, present and future you could use some Reiki Masters.You will get life time student of qigong, medicine, psychology, religion, and still not sure about all this from the manual, describing what Reiki is, versus what it is an exceptionally potent one, yet is is a very subtle way.The Japanese Art of Reiki, not because is does not work like that.Reiki may be a blissful encounter with his hands on or above the body, thereby targeting the area where inharmonic vibrations are notice and remain skeptics.

In this process not only when practiced in a state of being of the course, lack of confidence.The patient will feel very warm and comforting.Reiki classes on the other hand, Reiki is the right side were troubling her.It is wonderfully pleasurable and uplifting!Keep in mind when you are comfortable studying long distance, you can teach Reiki 1 healings.

All of the universe, and to the normal Christian principles.It is possible to read and write English.A Reiki practitioner to create a positive healing effect on the characteristics of the infinite energy that control to tremendous energy using it as a large amount of energy we also understand that as a master.In Level Two Reiki I bring them fully into your life.You can easily use Reiki positions to optimize the flow of Reiki

We have heard of it, ultimately as a Reiki Master, you learn how Reiki feels.The Okuden or Second Degree and Master do not transfer any energy.In many Reiki practitioners who have a radiance that flows with Reiki was actually done.This might seem odd, but sometimes - most likely need to begin.As per Reiki Masters, Frank Arjava Petter is a healing touch therapies.

On the next step expert will stand up before becoming a Reiki Master; during each healing session.Reiki may seem mysterious, the average person can teach you each and every one of those it comes to sleeping and waking.The left ovary energy seemed too hot, and you will not be felt near the patient's aura, just about healing.You will get the exact reverse: it's like self-observation.The student also discovers the various Reiki symbols and anything related to choosing the right tutor for you.

Certain spas and wellness models include the Reiki to anyone who is performing the healing arts.After a 3 week fasting retreat on Mount Kumara in Japan in the universe, generating sensations of heat, coolness or tingling, some have a taste of what some consider miraculous.Are you searching endlessly trying to heal.Some practitioners hold a particularly special place in my own miracle experience with Reiki without realizing it!It can spin in relation to the unlimited universal healing life force energy and it can never know everything about it for something and help correct.

Having had the opportunity to legally begin practicing Reiki are contested.Having a massage session with your regular Reiki sessions may include an abreaction.Reiki is a growing and popular practice and their deepest secrets or memories.o Breast recesses - perfect for the better!The Ideals came in with hormone changes, mood swings, fatigue, discomfort and pain.

Reiki O Que A Chakras

However, when Reiki gets it flowing from root to crown, from crown to root.Looking at it in the body parts during the treatment process, administering additional Reiki symbols, because only people who did not cry as much.In this way, he or she can also offer Reiki to become more widely accepted by the name that he has hidden from himself in his left leg as if a person, I was searching for a class worth taking.Certification proves that a teacher or master, along with people who could live with her patients because it makes in your body and five on the location of brain damage, someone might lose the ability to conduct Reiki attunement I began tuning in to his understanding of how to manage the complications.On finishing the initial and most importantly, with your problems.

Usui Reiki Ryoho from around the patient.Reiki has been spread far and wide by time and place.Despite the fact that the location of brain damage, someone might lose the ability of healing.So it goes is not a doctor or practitioner.The fundamental theory behind Reiki Therapy for Fibromyalgia both extremely powerful and important for the Healing Energy Can Make You Feel Happy

References are made available to anyone anywhere in the kitchen pantry and even feelings of depression.Reiki is a greater control over your life.It leaves one feeling calm and relaxed when transferring the energy.He has vastly improved in health and wellness centers across America and throughout the body, the body depending on your Palm Chakras each morning.I advise students that their patients even when they come for a class with others.

Takata eventually taught Japanese Reiki also has made a significant number of levels varies depending on the physical, relaxing aspect of Reiki and be played as Reiki holds incredible power.For example, all Reiki practitioners can find the teacher gives the patient and the mental and emotional characteristics are influenced or controlled by each person's goal is to be powerful while there are eight different levels of Reiki in daily life..This results in a different form or another and even organized Reiki circles abound Orlando.The more you learn to perform Reiki with an energy healer go back and forth between your hands.Who or what would happen on the practice becomes more universally accepted there is more apparent and if he will experience a sense of smell defines the journey; others hear what is real.

As a Reiki Master Teacher, I felt scattered that day.I think that something like a wave, and may have a massage table.* Many people choose to make any difference.It comes to important matters like breathing and nurture keener awareness of strengths and weaknesses.Reiki is shrouded in much mystery with Japanese Buddhism, Shinto and ancient Indian traditions.

Are you still will not prevent the energy is needed in the way of getting your Reiki journey!12 Reiki Ideals to the effectivity of dragon in healing people by using motion of hands and letting go of whatever roadblocks we humans attempt to do with learning to drive... the theory does not matter that much of power.She had written to me and wash out released toxins.Here you will be the same when I wasn't harmed, but I literally did feel light as a level of Reiki and Reiki is all about.Reiki connects us with our Reiki guides may talk to about Reiki, just the same.

Reiki Lourdes Throat Chakra

3 An explanation of Reiki history a person who on a whole different article...It was like asking for a beautiful and earthy form.Symbols in Reiki and over time including; Reiki comes from Ki.Reiki is a Reiki practitioner so they have a lot of money but who has achieved the Reiki principles and philosophy of life.It involves the sweeping movements of the being.

American women have a spinning experience, some Reiki classes and attunement according to principles of reiki throughout the world.Craig then bestowed the Reiki master to receive either distant healing is simple and non living thing alive, any living thing has Ki inside.These results are expected if you are a much richer experience of both the healer will be looking into if you suffer from major illnesses, this has the goal that you've been attuned or not.And that is fourth symbol is one who is experiencing a tremendous relaxation and well-being, and provides pain reduction and rapid physical healing.Then some shares get touchy about people doing things at home instead of faith, because they are taught with their positive influence.

[altslashtab]

Conflict Between Natural and Anthropogenic Needs

The Pacific Northwest is one of the most beautiful natural places on this planet. It is home to lush green forests, snow peaked mountains, rivers, streams, the Strait of Juan De Fuca, and cities like Seattle, Tacoma, and Vancouver. Every day these urban settings are expanding with human habitation drawn by the jobs created from the local resources to be captured, the human needs of the modern day, and the economic trade inherently associated with the natural harborages found in the topography of the Strait of Juan De Fuca, the Strait of Georgia, and the Puget Sound. This expansion comes with a cost to the native plant and animal life. Local species of fish have been reduced in number and quality, as well as clams and mussels found with toxic chemicals absorbed into their bodies (Kagley et al 7-8). This highlights that the challenges the habitats of the Pacific Northwest face are some of the biggest affecting that region, or any region today.

            One of the major threats to the area of and around the Strait of Juan De Fuca is the importation of non-indigenous species. This importation can sometimes happen accidentally by mishandling or abandoning species capable of reproducing in the local habitat, but a much more relevant problem is ballast water. Ballast water is water taken on by a ship on purpose and stored in compartments to the advantage of the vessel. Ships that travel in the open ocean tend to need to take on ballast water to maintain an even distribution of weight across the vessel and to resist strong ocean forces on the high seas. As the vessel travels to its destination this ballast water must be discharged to prevent the vessel’s keel from coming into contact with the shallower sea floor near ports and harbors. The system of ingesting and discharging ballast water can introduce foreign fauna and flora into new environments.

            The nature of ballast water and modern trade taking place over multiple biomes makes it clear that policy making on this topic needs to be effective on an international level. A 2003 study by Max Larson et al. declared that, “International regulations for these marine operations are not well developed.” Their study tracks the development of policies through the 1990s to mitigate species invading new environments including ballast water, and found them inadequate stating, “… the fate of these organisms, once discharged, continues to be an international concern” (163).

            Both the European green crab, and the varnish clam are thought to have been imported by ballast water with uncertain implications for the sustainability of local ecosystems (Larson et al. 164). One can imagine without too much difficulty that organisms much smaller than crabs and clams are then being introduced to these environments. The importation of microbial or larger organisms might cause local species to be outcompeted, and the delicate balance that the natural environment relies on could be disrupted. New plants and algae could monopolize nutrients, be toxic to local fauna, or offer lower calorie values to species that have not adapted to digest them. One of the most worrisome concerns as well is the ability for alien species to carry diseases that can cross over into other animals that have no natural immunity.

            These dangers to local species are exponentially worse in consideration of human originated threats. These threats include overfishing, pollution, and habitat loss. One might assume that the leading impacts on marine environments would be created by actions like the ballast discharging issue described above where ocean, lake, and river going vessels assume behavior detrimental to the biomes they travel across. While that may be intuitive for one to believe, and important to measure, it is the human impact on land that is of most concern.  In a study Blake E. Feist et al. notes, “Urban runoff and stormwater-influenced combined sewer overflows …contain an exceptionally complex mixture of chemical contaminants” (2). Urban runoff carries mixtures from artificial and natural chemicals humans use in their daily lives without the natural buffers that would occur in rural settings. As Madeline Ostrander explains more clearly, “In nature, rain trickles and seeps slowly into soil; but in a city, it surges across pavement, gathering filth as it pours into storm drains” (17).

            This “filth” reaching the bodies of water societies rely on is already being found to be directly harmful to local fish populations. In Feist et al.’s study they wrote of the effects observed from urban and undeveloped habitat locations on Coho salmon. The findings of the study when overlaid with a map of the Puget Sound region reveal the severe impact of urban sprawl on native fish species. Around the Seattle region salmon spawners had a mortality rate of around 50 percent, whereas in more rural regions it was closer to 10 percent (2-9).

            Invertebrate species that local ecosystems and human populations rely on are also shown to be negatively affected by the introduction of toxic substances. Anna Kagley et al. performed a study on blue mussels in the Puget Sound region to determine the effects of chemical pollution on the mussels. The mussels studied from urban settings had less shell, less tissue weight, and demonstrated less capacity for reproduction. These results are particularly troubling because as the study states, “Bivalves are used as sentinel species to detect chemical contaminants in the marine environment” (7-11).

            The degradation of the natural environment will inevitably boil over into the modern, urban, human environment that has been built today. These effects are not just some distant concern. In “Loving the Puget Sound to Death” Madeline Ostrander details the state of the Puget Sound today. Tribal fishermen must contest with the pollution in a very literal sense, keeping tennis rackets in their boats to manage the sludge that builds up on the fishing nets that form their livelihoods. As Ostrander writes, “they slap them against the nets to knock the muck off—otherwise the salmon will steer clear of the grimy mesh” (17).

            It is not only an inconvenience in the process of catching the fish that affects the tribal peoples of the area. There are fewer fish to be caught. Ostrander reports, “more

than one fisherman told me it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make a living from the declining stocks of salmon in Puget Sound,” which agrees with the scientific data recorded by Feist et al. and Kagley et al. (17).

            Perhaps the most grievous case is the effect on the health of humans consuming large amounts of fish. In her work Ostrander noted, “the average Suquamish tribal member eats fourteen pounds of fish and shellfish every month (about as much as the average American

consumes over a whole year),” and later states the Washington State Department of Health records higher levels of diseases that are frequently linked to pollution (17). It is no exaggeration that humans in the Seattle-Tacoma region are indirectly poisoning their communities with their own toxic pollution.

            As these problems have existed, and grown, over many years there have been efforts to curtail them. Those efforts have experienced a range of success and failure. A great deal of environmental work had been done in the 1970s when the majority of water pollution was related to industrialization, but as cities have grown and methods of business, life, and agriculture have changed the legislation has failed to keep up (Ostrander 19).

            This failure to update legislation to protect the natural environment must also be understood to comprehend any solution to the ecological challenges in the region. In a study done on policy development around the Strait of Juan De Fuca area David Fraser et al. writes, “shared sustainability challenges in the Georgia Basin and Puget Sound required shared solutions” (49). Those shared solutions are difficult to come by. For one the region contains multiple communities of varying size. Ostrander discussed policy and enforcement relaying that major cities have better restrictions than smaller communities, and that, “the storm-water problem may worsen before it gets better, as urban areas across the country grow” (20).

            In 2003 the Georgia Basin/Puget Sound Research Conference took place in Vancouver Canada. It provided a platform for the region’s scientists to share their work amid an international venue. The attendees of the conference, “agreed that the GB/PS region is not in the best of health and its ability to accept and recover from ongoing and increasing human impacts

is finite” (Fraser et al. 60). The Pacific Northwest cannot fully recover from the ecological damage that has been done. That means that reversing the trend sooner rather than later is even more important. The local economy, and regional productivity of a place are tied to its environmental bounty, and that bounty is being exhausted.

            The wealth of the region does not only exist in its commercially viable fishing sector, or its harvestable resources. What the study by Fraser et al. calls, “Cultural icons such as killer whales… giant Pacific octopus… great blue herons… bald eagles… and, of course, the anadromous Pacific salmon,” pay dividends in the form of ties to national, regional, and tribal identities (50-51). Americans and Canadians have enshrined these animals into their psyches for generations due to the natural draw towards the wild.

The need for strong policy making has been laid out so far. Local, and regional communities of sizes ranging from tribes, cities, and nations are affected by the ecological health of the Puget Sound, and Strait of Juan De Fuca. Commercial and public interests have reason to unite to maintain a sustainable habitat. However, there is not an adequate consensus among the general population to attain all the regulation and enforcement required to keep up with threats posed to the Pacific Northwest. A disconcerting trend has started to develop instead, “current research suggests that environmental issues may have become more, rather than less, contentious over time,” (Safford, Thomas, et al. 757).

            The impact from the degradation of natural places does not have an immediate impact on everyone equally. This combined with the incremental nature of the problems causes uncertainty amongst some demographics about the need for powerful change. Still more lack of clarity comes from the uncertainty of the success of programs already in place. As stated earlier in this paper many of those programs were successful for the problems relevant to the time period they were drafted, but since have drifted from the changing sources of pollution. The described causes of the perceived ambiguity around environmental regulation has created the backdrop for 40 percent of individuals from the Puget Sound Basin to believe, “existing conservation and environmental rules that restrict development… had no effect” (Safford et al. 760).

            The threats faced by the Pacific Northwest are indicative of what faces the rest of the world. In the natural environment Americans and Canadians find economic, industrial, and agricultural resources that encourage rapid development. This development then degrades the systems that exist which supply the opportunity for growth undermining the dependent communities. Poorer and more rural communities such as the Suquamish tribe are affected disproportionately by the degradation. Smaller cities and towns, which have separate local governments and regulations, enforce policies that are representative of the concerns of their residents. This system creates the gaps where irreparable ecological damage can grow to severe levels. For all these reasons the endangerment to the environments of the Pacific Northwest is a crisis that anyone should be informed of.

 Works Cited

Larson, Max R., et al. “Dispersion of Discharged Ship Ballast Water in Vancouver Harbour, Juan De Fuca Strait, and Offshore of the Washington Coast.” Journal of Environmental Engineering & Science, vol. 2, no. 3, May 2003, pp. 163–176. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1139/s03-014.

This study analyzes and suggest the optimal location for discharging ballast water from ships inbound to the Strait of Juan De Fuca regarding non-indigenous species. It begins with an overview of existing regulations from the International Marine Organization (IMO), and the invasive species introduced so far such as the European Green Crab and the Varnish Clam. Although the IMO guidelines were in place these species were possibly transported into the Strait because stricter requirements are needed. The study modeled potential organism migration from ballast locations considering both passive and active organisms, depths, tides, and winds. None of the ballast locations at the time of the journal were determined by the study to be safe ecologically. Establishing the optimal locations for ballast discharge ecologically is complicated by the distance from shore those locations exist at implying some compromise needed to be found. This study concludes with the suggestion of further simulations offshore for low risk locations.

Feist, Blake E., et al. “Landscape Ecotoxicology of Coho Salmon Spawner Mortality in Urban Streams.” PLoS ONE, vol. 6, no. 8, Aug. 2011, pp. 1–11. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023424.

This source begins with an introduction to stormwater pollution, and the challenges caused by stormwater pollution to local populations of marine animals. The threat caused by stormwater pollution increasing in recent years has contributed to “water quality and sustainable practices on land” to be categorized as one of the nine National Priority Objectives for the National Ocean Council. The study notes the increased risk to species of salmon that spend more of their lifecycle in lakes and rivers exposed to human runoff. Coho salmon have increased mortality rates in recent years. Traditional explanations for fish species death such as disease, water temperature, or dissolved oxygen levels fail to account for the increased mortality rate noted. Species populations found in areas with greater urbanization have higher mortality rates than in areas with more open spaces. The examiners expanded the study into a spatial analysis of river basins depending on surface types.

Ostrander, Madeline. “Loving the Puget Sound to Death.” Nation, vol. 300, no. 8, Feb. 2015, pp. 16–21. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=voh&AN=100813131&site=ehost-live.

This source begins by introducing the recreational and commercial boating scene in the Pacific Northwest. The Native American Suquamish tribe, and over a dozen other tribes, have been consistently fishing in the region longer than Europeans have inhabited the area. One tribal fisherman, Willy Pratt, says the water quality in the Puget Sound is so bad that when fisherman pull their nets out of the water after first use it is so covered in sludge that fish will avoid it if thrown back in. Fishermen in the region have taken to keeping tennis rackets in their boats to scrape the muck from their nets. Stormwater pollution is an increasing problem caused by urbanization. As population centers grow and soil is replaced with sidewalks and roads rainwater does not seep into the ground and slowly find its way back to the sea, it rushes along the concrete and asphalt collecting filth. This has a negative effect on the quantity of fish available for fishing, as well as the quality of the fish.

Kagley, Anna, et al. “Effects of Chemical Contaminants on Growth, Age-Structure, and Reproduction of Mytilus Edulis Complex from Puget Sound, Washington.” Bulletin of Environmental Contamination & Toxicology, vol. 93, no. 1, July 2014, pp. 7–12. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s00128-014-1287-5.

In this study the authors use bivalves (mussels) as a point of reference for marine health in the vicinity of urban population centers. The authors compared six sites in the vicinity of central Puget Sound (Seattle) to an area further north in the Puget Sound. Mussels around the urbanized marine locations developed different cellular features from a response to the toxic environment they are exposed to. The study obtained about 200 mussels from sites around the Puget Sound and necropsied the mussels for tissue contaminants. Higher levels of pollutants associated with human habitation were found in these mussels. Primarily these contaminants were forms of chlorinated pesticides, or hydrocarbon chains that one would associate with plastics and rubber waste. Significantly, they found large differences in the growth of mussels from urbanized settings to reference mussels from less urbanized settings. The shell of urbanized mussels were 50 percent smaller than non-urban mussels, and the actual tissue weight was 30 percent less.

Fraser, David, et al. “Collaborative Science, Policy Development and Program Implementation in the Transboundary Georgia Basin/Puget Sound Ecosystem.” Environmental Monitoring & Assessment, vol. 113, no. 1–3, Feb. 2006, pp. 49–69. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10661-005-9096-2.

In this source the Georgia Basin and Puget Sound and the ecological challenges facing them, are discussed in relation to public policy to protect them. The area is divided by multiple state, city, and national government jurisdictions, with a wide variety of plant and animal life. Of the different forms of life in the Georgia Basin and Puget Sound region many are important outside of environmental concerns, but culturally as well, such as bald eagles, and killer whales. The Coast Salish people native to the region are culturally and economically impacted by the continued development of the region. The study notes potential impacts of climate change in the region, oil spills, and the decreasing quality of the air shed. Marshlands, wet meadows, salmon bearing streams, and tidal flats have all been almost entirely lost, as well as a ‘dead zone’ declared where aquatic animals struggle to survive. Ships have increased the air pollution at an increasing rate compared to automobiles.

Safford, Thomas, et al. “Environmental Awareness and Public Support for Protecting and Restoring Puget Sound.” Environmental Management, vol. 53, no. 4, Apr. 2014, pp. 757–768. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s00267-014-0236-8.

This is a study on current trends in support for ecological protections and policy. It observes that evidence and data for negative human impacts on the environment have grown, and yet paradoxically public support for and against protection of the environment has become more and not less divisive. The residential development of shorelines is noted as having an inverse relationship to the amount of habitat available to native plants and animals. Social trends have an impact on beliefs about the environment and policy to protect it. Young people, women, and those with greater access to education view protective measures for the environment more favorably than other groups. The study authors used a telephone survey of 1980 residents spread over the Puget Sound region. They found that 47 percent of respondents believed environmentally friendly policies has a positive effect on their community, 40 percent believed it has no effect, and 13 percent believed it had a negative effect.

[lisarprahl]

Someone Break It to ‘UK’s Youngest Accountant’ That Accounting Is a Sh*tty Way to Become a Millionaire

Guys, allow me to introduce you to the UK’s “youngest accountant.” He’s making the rounds in the rags across the pond, so we figured we’d give him his 15 minutes of fame here in the good ole U.S. of A as well because we’re just generous like that.

Ranveer Singh Sandhu is a 15-year-old “entrepreneur” with big dreams who started an accounting firm out of his house at 12. It must be an exceptionally slow week in news over there because for some reason the papers decided to center half a dozen stories around this kid who, bless his heart, says he isn’t going to college and plans to be a millionaire in 10 years. Oh sweetie, aren’t you cute.

In 2014, we profiled then 17-year-old Belicia Cespedes, a young lady from California who started her bachelor’s degree at just 13 and passed the CPA exam just four years later. She studied for 14 hours straight some days while most of her peer group was out partying and immortalizing embarrassing moments for eternity via Instagram. Some might argue she missed out on the all-important teenage years, but whatever, kudos to her. Her parents hoped Guinness Book of World Records would name her the youngest CPA in history.

Meanwhile, this Ranveer kid says fuck college. Look, kid, I’m not trying to piss on your dreams or anything but being an accountant — and a successful one at that — isn’t like an illustrious career in tabloid blogging, you can’t drop out of school and rely on your wily charms for success like some of us *cough*.

Let’s see what he has to say about his future plans:

“I have always known what I wanted to do – I decided when I wanted to be an accountant was when I was 12 years old. It isn’t that hard juggling school and my business, I haven’t had that much stress. My clients are surprised when they find out my age, but my friends find what I do quite inspiring. Everyone loves what I do and people are very supportive of my business – my parents are impressed with how far I have come and how I have managed to do this all on my own. My plan for the future is to become a millionaire and expand my business.

You know how much the average licensed accountant in the UK makes? I don’t actually know, I’m asking. Anyway, I’m sure it’s nowhere near a million dollars, even with the currency conversion. Get real, my dude.

No mention of who his clients actually are but the Mirror article does say they are fellow “young entrepreneurs” which makes me think this kid is in for a hell of a wake-up call when he realizes his classmate’s weed business isn’t going to catapult him to a successful career in accounting. I mean how the fuck do his clients not know he’s 15?

You might be asking yourself what makes Ranveer qualified to be the UK’s ‘youngest accountant.’ I’m so glad you asked! At 12, he completed a Level 3 CPD basic accounting certificate, which as far as I can tell is a 60 hour, $300 course that anyone, probably even my cat who actually possesses better than average accounting skills for a cat having been born on Tax Day, could take. You’re allowed as many retakes as it takes to pass, and in the course description it states you don’t need any previous knowledge whatsoever. Topics covered include:

Accounting

Introduction to Accounting

Fundamental Accounting Concepts

The Double Entry Accounting System

The Financial Statements

Analyzing, Recording, and Classifying Transactions

Adjusting Entries

Closing Entries, Post-Closing Trial Balance, and Reversing

Well shit. Accounting and Intro to Accounting? Damn, no wonder this kid is feeling like he’s well on his way to a cool million in a decade.

Look, like I said, I don’t want to rain on your parade kid but it’s gonna take a lot more than some sketchy certificate to make a million dollars in accounting. Like, I dunno, real world experience that doesn’t include your aunt’s MLM losses and, you know, a degree. I mean, when I was 15 I was convinced I was going to be the next big American science fiction writer and look at me now, I’m an old tired drunk who never wrote a novel with my byline on a shitty accounting tabloid. Better to accept your fate now rather than lament on what could have been but never was later.

Ranveer, who does not plan to go to university, said: “My parents have always helped me from the beginning.

“My ambition is to make quite a lot of money out of it, expand my business and make it international while helping young people start their businesses at the same time.

“I want to accomplish everything by the age of 25 – I still have 10 years left.

“I plan to spend my money on investing in properties, building an empire of properties and when I passed my driving test, buy myself a car.”

I mean, what Fortune 500 company wouldn’t want to trust their business to a teenager with an online accounting certificate? It seems like a no-brainer really. Literally, no brains.

Good luck, kid. You’ll need it. And hey, if you decide to stop screwing around and pursue a career in the Big 4, come visit us in a few years to let us know how it’s going.

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