#2000 events candids

[tina-aumont]

Beautiful photo taken in June 2000 showing Tina Aumont and her friends Ivan Galietti and Ramón. They are pictured in Paris, near Georges Pompidou Art Centre. 🌟Very special thanks to @74paris, published with kind permission.🌟

[bringbackmyteenageyears]

Happy belated birthday to the Olsen twins (June 13th)!!! They turned 37.

[mariacallous]

Glad people are finally finding out that these Pro Palestine protestors are ratfuckers-by-design at best (and Republicans at worst) and that's why they support Trump:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/dnc-palestinian-gaza-protests/679524/

One month ago, an NBC News headline reported:

Protesters made a tiny footprint at the RNC in Milwaukee. Other than a modest daytime march on Monday afternoon, the first day of the Republican National Convention, there were virtually no protests over the event’s four days and nights.

Obviously, the story from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago is already proving different.

This is part of a pattern. Gather any large number of Democrats together, in almost any city or state, whether at rallies, fundraisers, or presidential appearances, and pro-Palestinian protesters will try to wreck the event. These actions have been building to threats of outright violence. Pro-Trump and Republican events, meanwhile, are almost always left in peace.

Of the two big parties, the Democrats are more emotionally sympathetic to Palestinian suffering. The Biden administration is working to negotiate the cease-fire that the pro-Palestinian camp claims to want. The administration has provided hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza. President Joe Biden’s terms for ending the fighting in Gaza envision a rapid movement to full Palestinian statehood.

By contrast, former President Donald Trump uses Palestinian as an insult. His administration moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. In 2016, Trump campaigned on a complete shutdown of travel by Muslims into the United States; Trump now speaks of deporting campus anti-Israel protesters. He has pledged to block Gaza refugees from entering the United States.

Trump wants to tell the story that he and his party will enforce public order. He alleges that Democrats cannot or will not protect Americans against chaos spread by extremist elements. The pro-Palestinian movement works every day to create images that support Trump’s argument. As a visibly annoyed Vice President Kamala Harris asked protesters in Detroit earlier this month: Do they want to elect Donald Trump?

Not all pro-Palestinian demonstrators are thinking about the election. Many seem driven by moral outrage or ideological passion. But for those who are thinking strategically, the answer is obvious: Yes, they want to elect Trump. Of course they want to elect Trump. Electing Trump is their best—and maybe only—hope.

To understand why, cast your mind back a quarter century.

In the election of 2000, Vice President Al Gore faced Texas Governor George W. Bush. Gore probably would have won in a straight two-way contest. But that same year, the progressive advocate Ralph Nader entered the race as a third-party challenger—and he pulled just enough of the vote to tip the Electoral College and the presidency toward Bush.

Nader later professed regret for running as a third-party candidate. But at the time, Nader understood exactly what he was doing. Defeating Gore and electing Bush was the intended and declared purpose of Nader’s candidacy. Nader detailed his logic in many speeches, including this one to the summer-2000 convention of the NAACP:

If you ever wondered why the right wing and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party has so much more power over that party than the progressive wing, it’s because the right wing and the corporate wing have somewhere to go: It’s called the Republican Party. And so they’re catered to and they’re regaled—like the Democratic Leadership Council, they’re catered to and they’re regaled. But if you look at the progressive wing … they have nowhere to go. And you know when you’re told that you have nowhere to go, you get taken for granted. And when you get taken for granted, you get taken.

To paraphrase his argument even more bluntly: If progressives caused the Democrats to lose the presidency in the election of 2000, then Democrats would take progressives more seriously in all the elections that followed.

Nader’s logic was not altogether wrong. In many ways, the post-2000 Democratic Party has shifted well to the left of where the party was in the 1980s and ’90s. But catering to the party’s left has cost Democrats winnable races, and with them, key priorities: The Iraq War and 20 years of inaction on climate change head the list of progressive disappointments since the 2000 election, and the list extends from there. Whether or not the shift was worth the price, Nader was neither ignorant nor deceived. He identified his goal and willingly accepted the risks for himself and his movement.

So it is now with the pro-Palestinian demonstrators of 2024.

They start with a fundamental political problem: Their cause is not popular. Solid majorities of Americans accept Israel’s war in Gaza as valid and fiercely condemn the Hamas terrorist attacks as unacceptable. The exact margin varies from poll to poll depending on how the question is asked, but when presented with a binary choice between Israel and the Palestinians, Americans prefer Israel by a factor of at least two to one.

The brute fact of those numbers makes it very difficult for pro-Palestinian activists to win elections. In this cycle, despite all the emotion stirred by the Gaza war, two of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress lost their primaries to pro-Israel challengers.

From the point of view of any practical politician: If a cause is so unpopular that it cannot help its friends, why listen to its advocates?

The only answer to that question, again from the practical point of view, is the message of the protesters in Chicago: Maybe we can’t help you if you do listen to us, but we can hurt you if you don’t!

Think of it another way. Since the bloody attack by Hamas on October 7 and the Israeli response, pro-Palestinian protesters have marched and agitated all over the United States. They have occupied college campuses. They have impeded access to Jewish schools, businesses, and places of worship. They have posted impassioned words and images on social media.

Yet all of their militant action has barely budged U.S. policy. Arms, intelligence, and economic assistance continue to flow from the United States to Israel. U.S. military forces cooperate with Israel against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Yemen. Although the U.S. has imposed restraint on some Israeli operations, Israel has mostly been allowed to fight its own war in its own way.

These were President Biden’s decisions, not Vice President Harris’s. But she was the second-highest-ranking member of the administration. If Biden’s deputy inherits Biden’s office, the message is clear: His administration’s record of support for Israel carried no meaningful political price. All of those street demonstrations and campus occupations will have amounted to so much empty noise. All of those articles arguing that Gaza explained Biden’s troubles with young voters would be exposed as ideological wishcasting.

If Harris wins, the pro-Palestinian movement will have lost.

If Harris loses, however, pro-Palestinian protesters can claim that they were responsible for her defeat. That claim might not be true—in fact it probably would not be true—but try disproving it. The pro-Palestinian movement would have at least some basis to argue: You lost because you alienated us.

If Harris wins, she may want to do something about the pro-Palestinian cause—for humanitarian reasons, for reasons of diplomacy and geopolitics, for reasons of Democratic-constituency management in particular congressional districts. But she won’t have to do it. She’ll know that the protesters tried to beat her, and they failed.

If Harris loses, however, future Democratic candidates will tread more carefully on Israeli-Palestinian terrain. Even if they privately doubt that the party’s position on Gaza explains anything truly important, they will be worried by advisers and donors who will believe it or who will want to believe it.

But what about Trump? Why aren’t the pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Chicago more fearful of Trump’s possible return to the presidency?

Although the pro-Palestine cause attracts support from progressives, it is not exactly a progressive cause. Americans associate progressivism with secularism, feminism, and gay-rights advocacy, among other causes. The Palestinian national movement, especially now that Hamas has effectively replaced the Palestine Liberation Organization as leader of “the resistance,” has become markedly religious, patriarchal, and socially reactionary. But it is also a movement fiercely opposed to American global hegemony—and that is its “anti-imperialist” appeal to Western progressives.

If you oppose American global hegemony, Trump is your candidate (as a long list of anti-American dictators have already figured out). Trump fiercely opposes the alliances and trade agreements that magnify American power and make the U.S. the center of a huge network of democratic, market-oriented countries. Trump’s “America First” bluster is actually a pathway to American isolation and weakness that will further remove American power from the world.

If you wish America ill, of course you wish Trump well. The far left and far right of U.S. politics may disagree on much, but they agree on that.

The protesters in the streets of Chicago are not acting aimlessly or randomly. The people on the receiving end of their protests would benefit from equal clarity. The protesters want chaos and even violence in order to defeat Harris and elect Trump. They are not ill-informed or excessively idealistic or sadly misled. They are not overzealous allies. They are purposeful adversaries.

The Chicago-convention delegates should recognize that truth, and act accordingly.

[qqueenofhades]

I just read an article on The Conversation that states: "Today, most data has Trump narrowly beating Biden in the national popular vote, albeit within the statistical margin of error." (Source for that data: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/)

In your opinion, is that true? How can that be possible after everything Trump has done? After the Insurrection? I'm terrified 😕

(For reference, the original article can be found at https://theconversation.com/five-reasons-why-trumps-republican-opponents-were-never-going-to-beat-him-223288?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202888329325&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202888329325+CID_fceedfd21410eb8a7b6fd6e1124d9d54&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=five%20reasons)

Short answer: no, I don't think it's true.

Long answer: no, I really don't think it's true. Here's why.

Broader context. A Republican has won the popular presidential vote only twice in the 21st century, and in the first of those occasions -- 2000 -- I use "won" very advisedly. We all know, or at least we should, about all the fuckery that went down in Florida with Bush vs. Gore and SCOTUS stepping in to stop the recount (which almost surely would have gone to Gore) and handing Florida, and thus the presidency, to George Dubya Bush by a mere 537 votes. Dubya then did win re-election and the popular vote/EC in 2004, in the throes of patriotic war fervor and the GOP's Swiftboating of John Kerry (who was a pretty terrible candidate to start with). Other than that? None. Zip. Nada. None. Even in 2016 when Trump squeaked out a win (and thus the presidency) in the Electoral College, he lost nationwide to HRC by over 3 million votes. He lost to Biden by 7 million votes nationwide last time. Also, the reason the GOP loves the antidemocratic Electoral College is that it always works in their favor, and because red states with relatively scant population are given the same power in the Senate. That's why California, with 40+ million people, gets two (Democratic) senators, and Wyoming, with 400,000 people, gets two (Republican) senators. There is just no way that red states can get the actual raw numbers to win the popular vote against heavily blue urban population centers. The only one that comes close is Texas, and while it's something of a white whale for Democrats who think fondly that it'll surely turn blue this election cycle (and then it doesn't), it's not giving all its votes popular-vote-wise to Republicans. So yeah. The numbers aren't there. Biden is about 99% certain to win the popular vote, but because this is America, the question is whether the EC will follow.

(Although, I gotta say. In the deeply unlikely event that Biden loses the popular vote but wins the Electoral College -- i.e. the exact same thing Trump did in 2016 -- the right wing would lose their fucking minds and it would be incredibly hilarious. Also, we might finally get some red states willing to sign up to the National Popular Vote Compact, which is just a few ratifications away from going into effect. As noted, the Republicans will cling onto the Electoral College with their last dying breath because it's the only thing that makes them competitive in nationwide elections. If it fucked Trump, they might finally listen to ideas about changing it.)

The media are incredibly biased, and so is Nate Silver. Silver first rose to prominence as an independent geeky Data Guy elections whiz-kid, and was relatively good at being unbiased. That is not the case anymore. He's now affiliated with the New York Times and has started echoing the smugly anti-Biden framework of both that paper and the mainstream media in general. I'm not necessarily saying his data is total bunk, but he's extremely eager to frame, narrate, and explain it in ways that artificially disadvantage Biden (in the same way the NYT itself is all in on "BUT HIS AGEEEEE," just as they were with "BUT HER EEEEEEMAILS" in 2016) And that's a problem, because:

The polls are shit. Like, really, really shit. Didn't we just go through this in 2022, where everyone howled about how All The Data pointed to a Red Wave and then were /shocked pikachu face when this was nothing more than a Red Dribble of Piss (and frankly, the best midterm election result for the ruling party since like, the 1930s?) We've also had major, real-time proof that the polls are showing a consistent pro-Trump bias of 10 or more points, which is a huge error and keeps getting corrected whenever people actually vote, but the media will never admit that, because TRUMP IS WINNING WE ARE ALL DOOMZED!! We heard about how Biden might lose New Hampshire because he wasn't even on the ballot and that would be a critical embarrassment for him. He cruised easily with 68% (all write-in votes and FAR more than any other Democratic "candidate.") Meanwhile, Trump won New Hampshire by about 15% under what the polls had predicted for him (after doing the same and barely squeaking over 50% in Iowa, one of the whitest, most rural, most Trump-loving states in the nation). The number ballparked for Biden in the NV Democratic primary was something like 75%; he got over 90% (and twice as many votes as any candidate in the Republican Primary/Caucus/Whatever That Mess Was). The number for what he was supposed to get in the SC primary was in the high 60% (driven by the media's other favorite "Black voters are abandoning Biden" canard); he absolutely crushed it at 97% statewide. When Biden is winning by whopping margins and Trump is underperforming badly, in both cases by gaps of ten percent or more, it means the polls are simply not showing us an accurate state of the race. This could be because of media bias, bad data, selective polling, inability to actually connect with voters (especially young voters, who are about as likely to eat a live scorpion as to pick up an unsolicited phone call from an unknown number). This also shows up in:

Special elections. We've heard tons of Very Smart Punditry (derogatory) about how Democrats kicking ass in pretty much every competitive election since Roe was overturned in 2022 totally means nothing for the general election. (Of course, if the situation was reversed and Republicans were cleaning up at the same rate, we would be hearing nothing except how we're all destined for Eternal Trumpocracy... wait. no... we're still only hearing this. Weird.) In the last special election in early February, Democrat Tom Suozzi won back his old U.S House seat (NY-03) by over eight points, after polls had given him at most a two- or three-point edge. (Funnily, once again a Democrat did far better than the media is determined to insist, so Politico hilariously called a thumping eight-point win "edging it out.") This represents almost a 16-point blue swing from even just 2022, when The Congressman Possibly Known as George Santos won it by 7 points. On that same night, a Democratic candidate in a Trump +26 district in deep, deep red Oklahoma only lost by 5 points, marking another massive pro-blue swing. This has been the case in every special election since Roe went down. Apparently blah blah This Won't Translate to the General Election, because the media is very smart. Even when Democrats (historically hard to motivate and muster in off-year election cycles, or you know in general) are turning up in elections that don't involve Trump to punish terrible Trumpist policies, we're supposed to think they won't be motivated to actually vote against the guy himself? And not just them, because:

Trump is a terrible candidate. Which we know, and have always known, but now it's really true. We've had up to half of Haley voters stating they will vote for Biden over Trump if that is the November matchup (which it will be). Haley, amusingly, actually outraised Trump in January, because it turns out that the Trump Crime Family's open promise to send every single donor or RNC dollar to pay El Trumpo's legal fees hasn't been a terribly effective message. We had Republicans in NY-03 telling CNN that they voted for the Democrat Suozzi because they're so fed up with the GOP clown show in the House and don't think Republicans can govern (which uh. Yeah. Welcome to reality, we all knew that ages ago too). We have had up to a third of Republican voters saying they won't vote for Trump if he's convicted of a felony before the election (and technically he already has been, but we're still hoping for the January 6 trial to go ahead). Now, yes, Republicans are a notoriously cliquey bunch and might change their minds, but for all the endless bullshit BIDEN SHOULD STEP DOWN BECAUSE DEMOCRATS ARE DISUNITED narrative the media has been pushing like their kidnapped grandmothers' lives depend on it, Democrats aren't actually disunited at all. Instead, Trump is in chaos, the GOP is in chaos, sizeable chunks of Republican voters are ready to vote for someone else and in some cases have already done so, and yet, do we hear a peep about how Trump should step down? Nah. In related news, did you hear that Biden is old?!?! Why isn't anyone writing about this?!?!

Now, I want to make it clear: Trump's chances of winning are not zero, and they are not inconsiderable. We need to face that fact and deal with it accordingly. Large chunks of the country are still willing to vote for white Christian nationalist fascism. Trump still has plenty of diehard cultists and the entire establishment Republican party in his pocket, and it's been made very clear that Putin is bringing the full force of his malevolent Russian fascist machine to bear on this election as well. Case in point: we spent four years hearing about HUNTER BIDEN HUNTER BIDEN SECRET CORRUPTION GIANT SECRET BUSINESS SCANDAL, and it turns out that the GOP's "star informant" has been actively working with Russian spies the whole time and fed them complete bullshit disinformation, which they were eager to repeat so long as it might hurt Joe Biden. (And it would hurt Ukraine, so, twofer! I cannot emphasize enough how much it was all a deliberate collaboration by some of the worst people on earth.)

In 2016, people naively assumed that Trump could never win, and so they were especially willing to throw away, spoil, or otherwise not exercise their vote, or throw purity hissy fits over HRC (likewise fed at the toxic teat of Russian disinformation). That was exactly what allowed Trump to squeak out a win in the EC and put us in the mess we are currently in. If people act in the same way in 2024 that they did in 2016, Trump's chances of winning are drastically increased. So once again, as I keep saying, it's up to us. If we all vote blue, and we get our networks to vote blue, Biden is very likely to win. If we don't, he won't, and Trump will win. It's that simple. We had better decide what we're doing. The end.

[tanadrin]

This series of four videos on Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is very interesting. The first is basically just a narrative political history of Ukraine from about 2000 to 2014, talking about different political factions that were relevant in the country in the period, and how different internal and external pressures shaped politics. It's very helpful for understanding the Ukrainian political context, including just how recent and just how shallow the supposed tensions between monolingual Russian and bilingual Ukrainian-Russian speakers was in 2014.

The second video is an overview of the Donbass war from 2014-2022, which you might have been vaguely paying attention to at the time. But it's very helpful to have it all laid out in chronological order with the benefit of hindsight, especially due to the obfuscation of Russian operations at the time that made it hard to work out what, exactly, was going on. It's a combination of a good old 19th century-style filibuster (the military expedition, not the parliamentary maneuver), Fox News-style propaganda, and some (rather badly failed) attempts at astroturfing civil unrest--why Russia thought that would work becomes important in Part 4.

Part 3 is just an extended argument that NATO expansion is not relevant to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and while I already agreed with that assessment, it's nice to have it laid out in detail. The very very short version is that by NATO's own public criteria, Ukraine was simply not a candidate to join NATO, and had given up on joining NATO, and that had been painfully obvious since at least the Obama administration. Even more frustratingly, there were multiple points where Russia had an offramp to escalation, where it had gotten everything it could have possibly wanted from the conflict in Donbass, and it refused them all.

Part 4 is the author's attempt to explain why it refused them. The very short explanation is that Russia's government is led by idiots, who are very enamored of a flavor of conspiracy theory that has its origins in the LaRouche movement, and which has been bubbling in both left-wing and right-wing circles since 2000. In this worldview, the US government acting through the CIA (or the British royal family, or George Soros, or Jewish bankers, or whoever your bogeyman of choice is) has an almost supernatural ability to overthrow any government on earth by funding performance art groups (seriously), civil society NGOs, and protestors, and that almost every revolution, actual or so-called, since 1989 has been their direct work, from the post-Soviet revolutions, to Euromaidan, to the Arab Spring.

This belief, in its more overt or fragmentary forms, is incredibly popular, spurred on no doubt by historical instances of CIA malfeasance and actual aggressive wars waged by the Bush administration. But the problem is, it's bunk. During Russia's initial moves against Ukraine in 2014, they tried essentially the same playbook in the Donbass, and of course it failed miserably--you cannot actually astroturf a popular uprising. (The CIA has preferred to stage coups and assassinations, which are a different animal from color revolutions.) The separatists in the Donbass eventually had to be supported by a few thousand Russian troops and direct military aid.

But Putin, driven by his own paranoid misunderstanding of world events, the clique of yes-men he has embedded himself in, and his fear of gay Nazi Jewish CIA agents, simply got Russia in over its head. There is no offramp because Russia cannot articulate what its goals are, and because "stop trying to use George Soros to overthrow the Russian government" is not something the US can agree to, since they are not doing it. The only thing that might have prevented Putin fucking with Ukraine in the first place was maybe if rigging the parliamentary election in 2011 hadn't resulted in protests, in which Putin saw the specter of the hand of the CIA--but of course the US and NATO and the EU had nothing to do with that!

And to cap it all off, since the 2010s the LaRouche movement and its theory of color revolutions has been making inroads in China, so we have that to look forward to in coming decades.

[dailyanarchistposts]

In mid-August, a three year-old lawsuit charging that environmentalist groups were religious extremists comparable to some of the more violent, intolerant, ultra-orthodox Islamic sects collapsed when the attorney failed to meet a re-filing deadline with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The suit had been brought against the Forest Guardians, the Superior Wilderness Action Network, and the U.S. Forest Service by the 125 companies that make up the Associated Contract Loggers (A.C.L.) of northern Minnesota. The loggers were asking for $600,000 in damages and permission to plunder timber from the Superior National Forest.

Lawyers for the A.C.L. argued that deep ecology was actually a religion, and so by extension, environmental groups that espoused its philosophies were cults, and by outlawing timber cutting on so-called “federal land,” the Forest Service was favoring a particular set of religious doctrines and was therefore violating the guarantee of neutrality in matters of religion purportedly vouchsafed in the U.S. Constitution.

According to theological scholars at the logging company syndicate like former executive director, Larry Jones, Deep Ecology is an “earth-centered religion,” a “belief system” that holds that “trees and Man [sic] are equal.” Anti-logging activists who extol the virtues of forested spaces over industry profit and environmental degradation are spiritual zealots, and the government functionaries who are swayed by their proselytizing may turn out to be fanatical closet druids themselves.

Stephen Young, the A.C.L. lawyer and a former Republican Party senatorial candidate, explained his legal action on such esteemed venues as Rush Limbaugh’s radio show by saying that clear-cutting in national forests had been restricted by the Forest Service for no reason other than reverebce for some fringe New Age religion.

A U.S. District Court judge in Minnesota dismissed the case as “frivolous” in February 2000, but the A.C.L. petitioned the Supreme Court last year after reports that Wahabi Islamic extremists were responsible for the blitzkrieg attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“The doctrine of Deep Ecology is the very worldview that gave rise to eco-terrorism. We feel that after the events of September 11, it’s an obligation of the Supreme Court to keep religious fanaticism in check,” Young said. “Just as devout faith in the literal words of various Hadith of Mohammad gave the Taliban license to impose through state power harsh conditions on the women of Afghanistan, so Deep Ecology gives license to its adherents to take extreme actions against those who would live by different beliefs.”

Perhaps the less said about this sleazy episode the better, which is just as well, since it is so hard to get a firm analytic grasp on it because it is sad and sick on so many different levels. For instance, likening the plight of women in Afghanistan to that of lumber barons in northern Minnesota is staggering in its shamelessness, as it has been my experience that women living near industrial logging camps are subjected to at least the same sort of abuse, derision, and masculinist domination as women who had been living in Taliban-controlled Kandahar.

And we all know that if the U.S. government was serious about keeping homicidal religious terrorism in check, then John Ashcroft and the Army of God anti-abortionists would be in the Guantanamo Bay gulag. It was all obviously just a miserable attempt to slander and jam up anti-logging activists with legal action, and it failed.

But I can’t help thinking about the broader philosophical implications of who supported it. I have no idea as to whether or not there are Deep Ecologists involved in Forest Guardians or the Superior Wilderness Action Network (and I suspect that none are to be found among the Forest Service feds), but in demonizing Deep Ecology as an alien fanatical religious practice in this lawsuit, we can see once again how tighly Christianity is bound to capitalist exploitation and ecological destruction.

Deep ecology is not a single doctrine, but rather an ethical sensibility informed by a variety of perspectives on the relationship of hummankind to the whole of nature’s systems. We can oversimplifydeep ecology by saying that its fundamentals include a belief in the intrinsic value of all forms of life as well as the holistic diversity of those life forms. The economic, technological, and ideological beliefs that prop up Western civilization antagonistically threaten the existence and diversity of natural life systems.

Individuals who adhere to the ideas of Deep Ecology are obligated to work towards radically changing those deadly attitudes and social structures. Deep ecology challenges the long-held anthropocentrist notion which entitles humans to take advantage of and destroy wilderness at will and for private profit, a view obviously held sacred by the A.C.L. timber industrialists.

Anthropocentrism derives from core Judeo-Christian values that have been part of the settler-capitalist catechism on this continent since the early seventeenth-century. Consider, for example, the preaching of Puritan minister, John Cotton. In his popular pamphlet of the 1630’s, “God’s Promise to His Plantation,” Cotton claimed that God desired colonists to “take possesion” of land in New England, saying that whosoever “bestoweth culture and husbandry upon it” has an inviolable divine right to it.

The Native Americans, dying in large numbers from exposure to European diseases was proff that God wanted to wipe the slate clean for the Puritans and thereby better facilitate His decree in the Book of Genesis that humans aggresively “subdue” the earth. Christians were the center of the universe, exclusively licensed by Almighty God to dominate the land, eradicate wild nature, and replace it with the purity of civilization. “All the world out of the Church is as wilderness, or at best, a wild field where all manner of unclean and wild beasts live and feed,” Cotton proclaimed in 1642.

There were many others during the period who were at least as enthusiastic about Christ, colonization, and commercial cultivation as Cotton was, and these ideas, linked to distinctly Judeo-Christian models of linear (rather than seasonally cyclical) time, became ingrained in the settler psyche, especially during the era of westward expansion some two centuries later. Justified by the Calvinist capitalism of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations — complete with its fallacious notions about the ennobling “civilizing” powers of wealth, marlets, and economic growth — the implications of Puritan repugnance for the wilderness and wildness on the North American continent becomes depressingly clear.

As inheritors of Puritan fanaticism that have erected the violent, intolerant faith of capitalism, it is individuals and organizations like the A.C.L. who hold a worldview that advances a five hundred year-old campaign of terrorism against entire bioregions and “empowers its adherents to take extreme action against those who would live by different beliefs.”

[isolated-r0b0t]

The Incompetence of the FIA

FIA's Safety Shortcomings: A Critical Overview of Formula 1

In the high-stakes world of Formula 1, the recent history of crashes and fatalities has brought the FIA's (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) commitment to driver safety into serious question. Below, I present a concise analysis of notable incidents and the inadequacies in FIA's responses.

Historical Context of Safety Incidents in F1

Tragic statistics: Since its inception in 1950, Formula 1 has witnessed 52 drivers tragically lose their lives in various incidents throughout races, practice sessions, and even non-championship events.

This grim tally reflects an ongoing concern over driver safety.Some key incidents include:-

Ayrton Senna (1994): The loss of this racing icon at the San Marino Grand Prix due to a steering failure prompted a critical reevaluation of safety protocols.-

Jules Bianchi (2015): Following severe injuries sustained in a crash during the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, pivotal safety innovations such as the Virtual Safety Car and the Halo device were introduced.

A Decade Without Losses:

The 2000s marked a notable achievement: a decade without driver fatalities. This was not mere luck but rather a direct result of the FIA's implementation of rigorous safety measures.

Evaluating FIA's Safety Efforts:

Inadequate Response to Concerns:

The FIA has consistently lagged behind in addressing safety issues raised by drivers and teams. A case in point is the 2021 Miami Grand Prix, where drivers voiced concerns over unsafe barriers following several accidents. The FIA's response? A lack of action that left many frustrated.

Preparedness Lapses:

The tragic incident at the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix, which resulted in Roger Williamson's death due to inadequate safety protocols and missing equipment, exemplifies the FIA’s failure to maintain a proactive safety strategy. It raises the question: Why are fundamental safety measures not being prioritized?

Recent Developments and Safety Challenges

Alonso's Candid Critique:

Fernando Alonso has openly criticized the FIA stewards, emphasizing their perceived lack of professionalism and failure to address critical safety concerns. His comments highlight how driver safetyissues often go unheard, particularly regarding the absence of protective barriers at key corners—an unacceptable oversight.

Drivers Unite for Enhanced Safety:

The Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) is now advocating for heightened safety standards and better communication with the FIA. They demand acknowledgment and respect for their concerns regarding their safety on the track.In conclusion, the FIA's track record on safety is becoming increasingly untenable.

It's time for significant improvements in their approach to ensure the well-being of drivers.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Tait at The Guardian:

Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has called for the electoral college system of electing US presidents to be abolished and replaced with a popular vote principle, as operates in most democracies. His comments – to an audience of party fundraisers – chime with the sentiments of a majority of American voters but risk destabilising the campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, who has not adopted a position on the matter, despite having previously voiced similar views. “I think all of us know, the electoral college needs to go,” Walz told donors at a gathering at the home of the California governor, Gavin Newsom. “We need a national popular vote. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, and win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win.” He had earlier made similar remarks at a separate event in Seattle, where he called himself “a national popular vote guy”, while qualifying it by saying, “that’s not the world we live in.” The statements refer to the apparent democratic anomaly whereby US presidential polls are decided not by who wins the most votes nationwide but instead by which candidate captures a majority of 538 electoral votes across the 50 states, plus Washington DC.

The votes are distributed broadly reflective of each state’s population size, so populous California, for example, has 54 electoral college votes, while tiny Rhode Island has just four. However, rare cases of US presidents winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote tally do happen, notably in recent times George W Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016. The concerns over the electoral college system crystallise the reality that next month’s contest between Harris and Trump, the Republican nominee, will come down to the outcomes in a small number of battleground states, where polls show them running neck-and-neck. Most surveys indicate Harris having a small but consistent nationwide lead. Yet even if these are borne out on polling day, Trump could still return to the White House by winning enough swing states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed.

That scenario is feared by Democrats since it would repeat the outcome of the 2016 election, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton thanks to the electoral college despite winning nearly 3m fewer votes across the nation. Walz’s comments are eye-catching because he was chosen as Harris’s running mate because his homely, plain-speaking style was judged as appealing to working-class voters in three of the most important battleground states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. It is not the first time that Walz, the Minnesota governor, has advocated ditching the electoral college. Last year, he signed legislation that added Minnesota to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would force states to award their electors to the national popular vote winner if enough of them agreed to do so.

Minnesota Gov. and VP candidate Tim Walz (D)’s call to abolish the Electoral College is so based.

[soul-our-punk]

Everyone who cares even the smallest bit about the climate should watch this (and all of Climate Town's channel), especially if you are undecided or thinking about not voting.

In it, Rollie Williams reviews the events of the Gore V. Bush election in 2000, discusses the climate policy of Project 2025, and presents projections from Evergreen Action.

Watch it and see why you need to make sure you are registered ( vote.gov , vote.org ), why your vote does count, why we need to make sure it's a landslide for the candidate that is more favorable to climate policy (among many other important matters), and

VOTE

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇱🇺🇲 🚨

BIG FAT CRYING ISRAELI BABY BEGS UNCLE SAM FOR MORE BOMBS, LESS RESTRICTIONS

In bizarre series of events on Thursday, when the Israeli entity's psychotic Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the Neocon administration of Genocide Joe Biden of imposing unfair restrictions, bottlenecking munitions deliveries, and slow rolling arms sales for the Zionist occupation army.

The accusations seem to have been made out of a desire for speeding up the genocide in the Gaza Strip, because murdering nearly 40'000 Palestinians in 9 months doesn't seem to be resulting in the rapid ethnic cleansing of Gaza the Zionist Prime Minister was hoping for.

Netanyahu began his toddler fit with false praise for the Genocide Joe administration, telling reporters in English that “When Secretary Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. I said I deeply appreciated the support the US has given Israel from the beginning of the war."

Almost immediately, Netanyahu's praise became a backhanded complement when he added, “But I also said something else, I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel..."

"Israel," he said again in faux disbelief, "America’s closest ally, fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies.”

"Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks,” the crying man-baby-in-chief continued, adding that “I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case.”

But Netanyahu didn't stop there, the Psychopathic-man-baby-in-Chief reportedly accused the Genocide Joe administration of playing into the hands of Iran and its "proxies in the region", including Hamas and Hezbollah, by slowing munitions deliveries.

Asked about the man-baby's breakdown, US Secretary of Murder at the State Department, Antony Blinken, suggested the Zionist occupation's leader was exaggerating, and insisted only a single delivery has been held up.

The top war-mongering diplomat in the State Department went on, pointing to the one shipment the self-propelled grandpa mentioned in a press conference in Washington over a month ago.

"We are continuing to review one shipment that President [Genocide Joe] Biden has talked about with regard to 2000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah. That remains under review,” Blinken said of the shipment.

"But everything else is moving as it normally would move… with the perspective of making sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against this multiplicity of challenges [it faces],” the Chief State Department war profiteer added.

When pressed about the issue in a later press conference, the blood-soaked-White-House spokeswoman and terrible-at-her-job-of-being-an-expert-liar, Karine Jean-Pierre, added that "We genuinely do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t."

Clearly uncomfortable and aware that many of Genocide Joe's voters reject the Zionist genocide in Gaza, but equally conscious of the psychopathic and maniacal flippancy of her counterparts in the Israeli entity, Karine Jean-Pierre added that "There was one particular shipment of munitions that was paused, and you’ve heard us talk about that many times."

"We continue to have constructive conversations with the Israelis for the release of that particular shipment and don’t have any updates on that. There are no other pauses or holds in place… Everything else is moving in due process."

But it's clear from the behavior and words of the crying Israeli man-baby, Zionist Murderer-in-Chief Netanyahu, that his concern lies with wrapping up the genocide as quickly as possible, noting in his earlier statement that increasing the flow of American weapons would "help him finish the war more rapidly."

In his typically over-aggrandizing style, like a 13-year-old girl in a middle school Drama class, the man-baby said “During World War II, [UK leader Winston] Churchill (another historical psychopath) told the United States, ‘Give us the tools, we’ll do the job,'" going to add, "and I say, give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.”

According to unsourced reporting in the Hebrew media earlier on Thursday, the Top war-mongerer Antony Blinken promised the man-baby Netanyahu that he would remove any and all restrictions on US weapons transfers to the Zionist entity in the coming days. Information that was likely leaked by the man-baby or his administration themselves.

Despite the crocodile tears, it's become clear Genocide Joe and his administration are not serious about preventing the use of American weapons to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including thousands of women and children, and will continue funding and arming the destruction of innocents despite the ever escalating concerns from International institutions like the ICJ that were built by the United States itself, along with its closest allies.

In just the latest example of the Genocide Joe administration's ever escalating foreign policy, The Times of Israel, citing the Washington Post, says the Biden administration pressured two lawmakers with a hint of a conscience, Rep. Gregory Meeks and Sen. Ben Cardin, who were holding up a single delivery of 50 F15 fighter jets for several months, into accepting the arms transfer.

Times of Israel:

"Rep. Gregory Meeks and Sen. Ben Cardin have signed off on the deal under heavy pressure from the Biden administration after the two lawmakers had for months held up the sale, the [Washington] Post reported."

The pressuring of lawmakers, the odd relationships leading to bizarre comments from their Israeli counterparts, and the holding up of a single symbolic arms delivery all come together to expose the Biden administration's greatest contradiction: its dedication to Neoconservative foreign policy and US Imperialist domination, while at the same time offering up the occasional virtue-signaling public comments to its base of more peace-prefering voters who, at the very least, don't want to watch a live-streamed genocide occur right before their eyes, funded by their tax dollars.

These contradictions continue to play themselves out before the eyes of the entire world as crying babies and manipulative political figures continue to take advantage of this contradiction, seeing it for the weakness it is and using it, and other weaknesses, to manipulate the Genocide Joe administration into endlessly backing the maniacal and psychopathic Israeli occupation as it forever escalates with its adversaries, hoping the drag the United States into another two decades of war in West Asia.

#source1

#source2

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[steelbluehome]

Hell yeah! A politician finally said it! The electoral college is bullshit! Every vote should count!

(Of course he isn't talking about this election, but if they win, maybe every election from now on!)

The Guardian

Tim Walz calls for scrapping of electoral college to decide US presidential race

Kamala Harris’s running mate urges popular vote system but campaign says issue is not part of Democrats’ agenda

Robert Tait in Washington

Wed 9 Oct 2024

Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has called for the electoral college system of electing US presidents to be abolished and replaced with a popular vote principle, as operates in most democracies.

His comments – to an audience of party fundraisers – chime with the sentiments of a majority of American voters but risk destabilising the campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, who has not adopted a position on the matter, despite having previously voiced similar views.

“I think all of us know, the electoral college needs to go,” Walz told donors at a gathering at the home of the California governor, Gavin Newsom. “We need a national popular vote. We need to be able to go into York, Pennsylvania, and win. We need to be in western Wisconsin and win. We need to be in Reno, Nevada, and win.”

He had earlier made similar remarks at a separate event in Seattle, where he called himself “a national popular vote guy”, while qualifying it by saying, “that’s not the world we live in.”

The statements refer to the apparent democratic anomaly whereby US presidential polls are decided not by who wins the most votes nationwide but instead by which candidate captures a majority of 538 electoral votes across the 50 states, plus Washington DC.

The votes are distributed broadly reflective of each state’s population size, so populous California, for example, has 54 electoral college votes, while tiny Rhode Island has just four. However, rare cases of US presidents winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote tally do happen, notably in recent times George W Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016

The concerns over the electoral college system crystallise the reality that next month’s contest between Harris and Trump, the Republican nominee, will come down to the outcomes in a small number of battleground states, where polls show them running neck-and-neck.

Most surveys indicate Harris having a small but consistent nationwide lead. Yet even if these are borne out on polling day, Trump could still return to the White House by winning enough swing states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed.

That scenario is feared by Democrats since it would repeat the outcome of the 2016 election, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton thanks to the electoral college despite winning nearly 3m fewer votes across the nation.

Walz’s comments are eye-catching because he was chosen as Harris’s running mate because his homely, plain-speaking style was judged as appealing to working-class voters in three of the most important battleground states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

It is not the first time that Walz, the Minnesota governor, has advocated ditching the electoral college.

Last year, he signed legislation that added Minnesota to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would force states to award their electors to the national popular vote winner if enough of them agreed to do so.

In the absence of that, only a constitutional amendment could alter the current electoral system.

Harris-Walz campaign officials stressed that abolishing the electoral college was not part of its agenda.

“Governor Walz believes that every vote matters in the electoral college and he is honored to be traveling the country and battleground states working to earn support for the Harris-Walz ticket,” Teddy Tschann, a spokesman for Walz, told the New York Times.

The comments were seized on gleefully by Trump’s campaign, which is generally believed to have an advantage in the present system.

“Why does Tampon Tim [Trump’s derisive nickname for Walz] hate the Constitution so much?,” the Trump campaign posted on its official X account.

The comment overlooked the fact that Trump himself has been accused of calling for “terminating the constitution” in support of his lie that Joe Biden and the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election.

Research published last month by Pew showed 63% of American voters favouring electing the president by the popular vote, although support was greatest among Democrats, while a small majority of Republicans favoured keeping the electoral college.

Harris said in a 2019 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live that she was “open to the discussion” of changing the current system, saying the popular vote had been “diminished”. But she has avoided more categorical statements on the subject.

In a 60 Minutes interview on CBS that aired on Monday, the vice-president said she had recently told Walz that “you need to be a little more careful on how you say things.”

[tina-aumont]

Photo of Tina Aumont and Ramón taken in June 2000. They both met in 2000 after Ramón left a book about Maria Montez at her grave. Photo published in 2002 Cine Zine Zone magazine. Very special thanks to @74paris for sending me this photo and for the information given.

[thedetectiveinthephonebooth]

A Message to Fellow Voters

I don’t often post original content but today on the eve of the next Presidential election I wanted to share my story. Picture this if you can the year is 2016 (the year of dabbing Squidward, here come dat boi, and Damn Daniel) I was a freshman in college well into the fall semester. It was exciting to finally be able to vote in a presidential election and it was a sign to myself that I was becoming an adult. Bernie Sanders was gaining attention among the Millennials/oldest Gen Z. Ted Cruz was being accused of being the Zodiac killer. I remember having a watch party for debates leading up to the election and there was a feeling of surprise when the candidate announced for the Republican Party would be Donald Trump the guy I had known from his early 2000’s show The Apprentice. We looked at each other and laughed at how ridiculous he was as the months counted down to Election Day. It was….. strange to seemingly watch the events that would follow. The red hats starting to appear on walks through campus. The flags starting to go up around local neighborhoods. On a day my friends and I had planned to go to the island and enjoy the last warm days of the season we ended up stopped in bumper to bumper traffic as the traffic sign announced not construction but delays from a rally being hosted at an amphitheater that was known for hosting music festivals and college graduations. We were again annoyed but there was no way he could win. It was crazy, he didn’t have the experience and he seemed to say more insane rhetoric every day. As Election Day approached I finally received my absentee ballot for my home state and began filling it out, my anxiety had begun to peak and the angry shouts of random people seemingly continued to multiply. The night of the election I gathered with friends with bated breath although she was not my first choice for candidate there was an opportunity for history to be made. A woman for president? That meant something to me and I hadn’t even realized how special that was until that moment. The votes came in, the states declared, as the previously confident poll forecast was proven wrong the feeling in the air changed into one of somber horror. The next morning solidified the results and created confusion from an outcome I had no clue could be achieved. A candidate had won the popular vote and yet had failed to secure the electoral. The following days created hushed conversation and feeling on unease. I found myself joining local efforts to speak up against the rhetoric that had seemingly approved the right to spew hate. The following years showcased that whatever norm we previously had was gone and the future was in fact uncertain. The 2020 election I found created a sense of distress that seemingly never ended. I saw people that once were civil with one another turn on a dime to resent and hate the opposing party. In a world being rocked by a pandemic that had effectively brought our lives to a halt it seemed as if we had reached a new level of insanity. I didn’t want to vote for the candidate selected for the Democratic Party but I knew the importance of this election and what this meant for my country. I remember becoming physically ill to the point I couldn’t stand moving. I went to bed hoping that my vote made a difference and that others would agree that this new “normal” was not the opinion of the majority. The next morning was a sense of relief but also one of hesitation as conspiracy theories began spreading like rapid fire. January 6th was the day I was convinced that my country may fall. Mobs storming the steps of the capitol and seemingly uncaring for what this building stood for. This country is by no means perfect, but it is my home. I have seen this country do amazing things and I have seen it fail. Despite all of this I have hope for our future. We have ideas and dreams that show that we do care for the world around us and in most cases would rather help the person next to us then shun them away. So I ask this Election Day please use your voice and vote to protect our democracy.

[d3d9]

Official Akira Pre-movie Timeline

Character childhoods, historical events etc.

hiiii Akira tumblr, I haven't been around here much but here's a translation I did. I've never seen this full timeline translated anywhere, so maybe it'll be of interest !😳

(I did a condensed version on Twitter a while ago, but I figure it's easier to follow in its original format .)

(Long post under the cut)

Source is the book Poster & Graphic Akira released in 1988. Also a special thank you to my old friend Shina-san for the photos from the book, I don't yet own a copy myself !!

1970

Nezu's birth - Born in Chiba as the third son of farmers.

1976

Colonel's birth - Has an older sister and an older brother. His father served in the Japan Defense Agency, JGSDF major.

1977

Nezu age 7 - Started elementary school.

1982

Nezu age 12 - Started middle school. Excellent grades.

1985

Nezu age 15 - Started high school.

1988

Nezu age 18 - Started law school. The disaster of Akira’s awakening occurred. In the chaos of the next 3 years, he studied life as a black marketeer. During that time he became acquainted with the people of this underworld.

Colonel age 12 - His father died to Akira’s first awakening. (He was on a special mission, suspected to be related to the Akira Project). After the world war (which ended after 3 weeks), until he was 15 he spent the next years of chaos with his mother and siblings. These events would profoundly shape his later development. (Until 1991, Japan lacked a governing body and was controlled by the US)

1992

Colonel age 16 - Started night school. Studied while working.

1993

Colonel age 17 - Having regained autonomy, Japan emulates the US and establishes an American-style military.

1994

Nezu age 24 - As university resumed operation, he returned to school.

1995

Nezu age 25 - Graduated. Passed the bar exam, and became a lawyer.

1996

Colonel age 20 - Graduated night school. Enrolled in the newly established military academy (National Defense Academy).

1999

Colonel age 23 - Graduated military academy with excellent grades. Admitted to Officer Candidate School on recommendation.

2000

Nezu age 30 - From around this time he begins to appear in politics.

Colonel age 24 - Graduates from Officer Candidate School. Enlists in the Army as a First Lieutenant.

2001

Colonel age 25 - Studies abroad at the US Department of Defense.

2002

Nezu age 32 - Hears about Miyako-sama, and becomes a devoted believer.

Colonel age 26 - Returns to Japan. Establishes the Army Special Forces. Becomes its commander. Promoted to Major.  Dispatched in the Soviet-DPRK War, which had been ongoing since 1996. He is awarded a decoration for his service.  

2003

Colonel age 27 - Through matchmaking by his superior officer, he gets married.

Kei - Born in April. Her father, born 1967 (age 36), is a teacher. She has an older brother. They're 14 years apart.

2004

Kaneda - born in September (at this time, schools would have September enrollment and August graduation). His father born 1977 (age 27). His mother born 1978 (age 26).

Yamagata - born in November. His father is a Yakuza.

Colonel age 28 - By creating a new unification of land, sea, and air defense systems, he successfully allows Japan to gain independence from the US protective defense system.

2005

Nezu age 35 - He trains diligently under Miyako, and establishes himself. From around this time he separates under a new sect of Miyako's religion, and starts a political organization, becoming its president. Behind the scenes he is backing anti-government activists at the same time.

Kai - Born in January. His father works in the construction industry. He is blessed with a good home environment.

Tetsuo - Born in July. His father born 1980 (age 25). His mother born 1981 (age 24). In 1984, as part of the Akira Project, experiments were conducted on children around the age of 10, and genetic manipulation was (secretly) performed on newly born children. The effects of this skipped a generation and manifested in Tetsuo… and are gradually beginning to show in other children.(His grandfather was a genetic engineer. He participated in the Project. He died during Akira's awakening in 1988)

Colonel age 29 - He and his wife separate. They have no children.

2006

Yamagata age 2 - His father is arrested. He will serve 25 years. His mother makes a living as a hostess.

2008

Kaneda age 4 - His little brother is born. His parents open a laundry service. His little brother is born with a disability, and goes between home and treatment centers since the time he's 2 years old.

Yamagata age 4 - His mother gets a boyfriend. A little brother is born.

Kei age 5 - Her father dies. (Illness)

Tetsuo age 3 - His father (a graduate student), who's been sickly since birth, develops pneumonia from the common cold, and dies. His parents were never officially married, so as his father's child born out of wedlock, he's poorly received by his mother's side of the family.

Colonel age 32 - He is appointed commander of the nation's top secret 'Akira Plan' as Colonel. (The 'Akira Plan' began 3 years after Akira's awakening in 1988, when the US began investigating, and in 1996 it was turned over to the Japanese government. Since then, despite organization of records and repeated experiments, there hasn't been much progress. This may be why the US let go of it….) The heads of government began to feel threatened by the Colonel's excessively growing power, so even though it was a top national secret, they appointed him to this do-nothing position to force him to withdraw from the front lines, as a means of dismissal. …As for why the Colonel resigned himself to this sinecure, perhaps it's because he was seeking answers about his father's death, or trying to fulfill his father's dying wish, or maybe he himself saw potential in this investigation…. There are various possibilities, but one can only speculate.

2009

Yamagata age 5 - His mother gets another boyfriend. A little sister is born.

Kei age 6 - Starts elementary school. Her older brother is 21. He's already a student activist while also supporting the family.

Tetsuo age 4 - His mother remarries. Tetsuo is adopted by another family. But he can't get used to his new home and is gradually shunned as a gloomy child.

2010

Kaneda age 6 - Starts elementary school. Due to the fatigue of nursing his younger brother, his father collapses.

Yamagata age 6 - Starts elementary school. Another little brother is born.

2011

Kai age 7 - Starts private elementary school. Gets excellent grades.

Tetsuo age 6 - Starts elementary school. At this time he starts repeatedly running away from home.

2012

Kaneda age 8 - Changes schools due to his little brother changing treatment centers. His mother runs off. They live off of government assistance. His father shows a distinct turn towards alcoholism. 

2013

Kaneda age 9 - His father is deemed unfit to take care of the children, so Kaneda is sent to an orphanage. His little brother is kept at a hospital. Half a year later, Tetsuo comes to the orphanage.

Tetsuo age 8 - His parents try to return him, but his birth mother won't accept him, so he's sent to an orphanage. He then meets Kaneda.

2014

Kei age 11 - Starts middle school.

2015

Kaneda age 11 - Graduates from the orphanage and goes to a boarding middle school. He's separated from Tetsuo.

Yamagata age 11 - Starts middle school. His mother continues to have children, both boys and girls. She also keeps changing boyfriends.

Kei age 12 - Her older brother is arrested as a suspect in a major incident. (Something like the Mikawashima train crash). There are rumors that it was a US plot against the organization her older brother was connected to. Following this, Kei's family was supported by donations from her brother's group, organized by her brother's junior, Ryusaku.

2016

Kaneda age 12 - His defiant attitude stands out in school.

Yamagata age 12 - Caught by the police for shoplifting. He was stealing sweets for his little siblings.

Kai age 12 - Goes to the same private academy for middle school.

Tetsuo age 11 - He's adopted again by another family. He then starts middle school.

2017

Nezu age 46 - He may be doing it to spread the religion's ideals, or he may be using the religion for his own desires, or perhaps both….?

Kaneda age 13 - A complete juvenile delinquent. His grades are above average.

Yamagata age 13 - His mother joins a new religion. He leaves home.

Kei age 14 - Her older brother dies in prison. The authorities claim it was a suicide, but it's suspected that he was tortured. Kei leaves home and asks Ryusaku if she can become an activist too.

Tetsuo age 12 - Becomes truant. Frequently runs away from home.

Colonel age 41

2018

Kaneda age 14 - Expelled after a brush with the law. Starts at vocational school.

Yamagata age 14 - Starts at vocational school.

Kai age 13 - His father runs away from home. They find him. His father confesses: "I'm gay, and have been deceiving our family this whole time…." 

Kei age 15

Tetsuo age 13 - Due to misconduct with an elementary school student, he gets in trouble with the police. From this point forward he stops going to school.

2019

Kaneda age 15 - Forms a motorcycle team at the vocational school.

Tetsuo enrolls.

Kai age 14 - As junior representative, he reads an essay titled 'Is Life A Joke' to the graduating seniors, and is suspended. One week later, he turns in his notice to withdraw, and enrolls in vocational school himself.

Tetsuo age 14 - His parents convince him to go to vocational school. He reunites with Kaneda, and is admitted. There, he joins the motorcycle team.

[crookedghosts]

casually making myself cry while creating Esperanza Valdez' (highly inaccurate idk) political career in the rwrb au bc escapism... only so much of this will be featured, frankly, bc this is a story about Leo/Piper/Jason and it's the only reason they need a backstory made but I adore it anyway so I'm gonna share lol:

(Pre-Early-AU) Tristan McLean is born into an affluent family in California, where his family is involved in philanthropy and Indigenous historical preservation. He's charming and easily a star in California politics, advocating for Indigenous people and the environment. Piper's mother passes early in her life, leaving Tristan as a single father, deeply devoted to raising Piper while managing the demands of his political career.

As Tristan works his time as a U.S. Senator from California, his priorities begin to shift as he struggles with balancing raising Piper with his growing political role. There is work to be done as the Aeneas/Chiron campaign pushes for BIPOC voices to be heard and represented in the late 2000s, and he is on the trail with them.

Meanwhile, Esperanza Valdez is born into a working-class Mexican-American family in a small Texas town. Her father (Leo’s grandfather) works as a skilled mechanic and runs a small auto repair shop. Esperanza grows up witnessing her father’s dedication and the tight-knit community he serves. She became known for her sharp mind and strong voice, often advocating for fair treatment and opportunities for local workers. Her natural leadership and willingness to speak up make her a community figure, even before she considers a formal career in politics.

With time, Esperanza graduates college and becomes involved in community advocacy and organizing, focusing on education access and labor rights. When she has Leo, she begins actively organizing for women's rights, particularly women's reproductive rights in Texas, as someone who is very publicly pro choice and pro family (not mutually exclusive things). Leo's abuelo is the best father figure he could ask for growing up.

2008 (Aeneas/Chiron Administration): As Esperanza gains recognition for her effective grassroots efforts, she is encouraged to run for the Texas state legislature during the Aneas/Chiron wave. Initially hesitant, she agrees, driven by the chance to make broader change in the 2010 midterms.

2012 (Aeneas/Chiron 2nd Term): Esperanza runs for Congress and wins, and her reputation grows as she fights for working-class families and educational reform while representing a diverse district in her home state of Texas. Leo, now 7, is a part of her public story (her little helper). Her career steadily grows 2012-2016.

2013-2014 : Esperanza meets Tristan McLean, a career politician known for his early success but disillusioned by the limits of the system and pivoting careers. Realizing he can be more effective in non-political advocacy, he shifts focus. They meet during initiatives promoting educational reform and child welfare. Leo and Piper, both around 8-9 and often with their parents for events, develop a quick bond.

2015: Tristan and Esperanza are married, driven by their shared values. Esperanza has been in congress for 3 years and Tristan has taken his step back to focus on family and philanthropy for the last 5. Piper gains a strong female role model in Esperanza, and Leo, 10, becomes Piper’s new stepbrother. While Tristan supports Esperanza’s career, he is cautious about Piper being too involved in politics, creating a complex family dynamic as Piper looks up to her stepmother and becomes drawn to her causes.

2016 (Kronos v Creon): Kronos wins the presidency in the race against Helene Creon, the first female identifying presidential candidate who fought a tight race that the Valdez-McLean family fully supported. Esperanza, now a Congresswoman, becomes one of the leading progressive voices in the fight against regressive policies.

2016-2020: As Esperanza’s political career accelerates, Tristan supports her from the sidelines, using his experience to guide her through challenges but maintaining his wish for Piper to have options outside of politics. The Kronos years are in Leo and Piper's early teenage years, from age 11-15.

2018 Midterm Elections: Esperanza leads significant efforts in the 2018 midterm elections, advocating for progressive candidates and policies. At 13, Leo and Piper begin making more appearances and volunteering publicly, despite Tristan’s concerns. Esperanza’s work in the midterm campaigns pays off when she becomes the House Minority Leader, bringing her national prominence and solidifies her as a key contender for future higher office.

2020 (Chiron/Valdez vs Kronos/Typhon): Former Vice President Joe Chiron selects Esperanza as his running mate for the presidential election. She becomes Vice President after their victory, making history as the first Latina to hold the office. The family dynamic shifts as the Valdez-McLean family moves into an even bigger spotlight. Tristan takes on a quieter public profile but remains active in philanthropy, focusing on arts and environmental causes while encouraging the kids through high school, which they are finishing as the family enters the 2024 race.

2024 (Valdez/Chase vs Kronos/Typhon): Kronos can't lose enough, but the Valdez/Chase administration wins with President-Elect Esperanza Valdez as the first woman of color to hold the office. Leo and Piper, freshly starting University, become the First Son and First Daughter of the US, forming a White House Trio with Annabeth Chase, the Vice President's niece.

2027-2028 (present day in the Valgrace RWRB AU): Leo and Piper are both 23ish, finishing uni, with Annabeth already a year out and deep in the world of political analysis. The Valdez/Chase administration is running the country while running a campaign against an unknown Repu blican ticket, and shenanigans ensues.

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #85: The Old Guard, but make it Assassin's Creed

My brother has always been a big fan of Assassin's Creed, but I never gave the games a shot until recently, when it seemed a natural progression from all the Crusades research I've been doing for The Old Guard fic I want to write but probably never will. Once I realized Isu bullshit could be a perfect explanation for TOG immortality, this (incredibly self-indulgent) crossover was born.

Or: What if Merrick Pharmaceuticals was a competitor of Abstergo Industries?

Just imagine it:

Pharmaceutical research is an expensive, cut-throat business. Viagra is a $2 billion dollar a year industry. Humira, the blockbuster drug of 2018, sold nearly $20 billion in the US alone. So I imagine if you're a pharmaceutical CEO of limited morals and great ambition, it might seem like a better idea to steal ideas from your competitor who seems to hit it out of the ballpark every time instead of pouring billions of dollars into what may turn out to be an unfruitful venture.

Enter Hugh Merrick, father of Steve Merrick and founder of Merrick Pharmaceuticals. Needing a blockbuster and desperate to get one over on Abstergo, he hires a hacker to slip into Abstergo's servers and find him the ripest, juiciest plum they can sometime in the early 2000s, before the (modern) events of the games or the 2019 TOG movie.

The hacker comes back with the schematics for the Animus.

The idea of genetic memories seems absurd, but Hugh figures that if Abstergo has been using the Animus since the 1980s to get ahead, there's no reason he can't do it too - all he needs is a single Piece of Eden and all his problems are solved.

Hugh builds the Animus and has the hacker go back into Abstergo's systems looking for a candidate to put into it. But finding someone with Assassin blood seems dangerous - they're likely to be an assassin too and could be dangerous if they try to escape, plus the Templars killed off nearly all of them. Templar descendants are out because most are Templars themselves and if Hugh's plan is to succeed he heeds to stay off their radar for as long as possible.

The hacker returns with Abstergo's list of people who may be useful if all other avenues fail. It contains a list of people who were peripherally involved during the invents that interest them - mainly high-ranking courtiers close to Popes Alexander VI and Julius II - and their descendants. They might know things about events of Ezio's time.

Enter Joe and Nicky.

For the past few hundred years, their primary cover identities involve being the children or grandchildren of their previous cover story, all the way back to their first deaths. There are fewer questions and you get to "inherit" all your old stuff.

This method has worked quite well for them - until Merrick learns that their "ancestors" were part of the court of Pope Julius II from 1497 (when he was still Bishop of Ostia) until his death in 1513. Nicky was his private secretary, Joe was a court painter, and contemporary sources suggest they were highly placed enough to know whatever Pope Julius II knew about Ezio's apple. Such as where Ezio might have hidden it.

It's not an unreasonable plan, except for the pesky fact of Joe and Nicky's immortality. After all, the animus is designed to draw on genetic memory, not the subject's own memories. And even if it can be used to view memories laid down in their own genes 500 years ago - which is doubtful, - there's a high likelihood of it killing them - and if Hugh were to learn of their immortality, things would only get worse for them. But they have little choice once they're captured and brought to Hugh's secret research bunker somewhere north of Inverness.

What follows is a largely self-indulgent stroll through the more interesting episodes of Joe and Nicky's life together.

Nicky's first go in the animus is a jumbled, confused mess as Hugh's tech minion learns the ropes as she goes. Nicky ends up hopscotching through his early memories - for instance, a memory where he's learning how to use a sword as a young squire jumps to him using the same move during the Siege of Jerusalem. That strand of memory continues on for a bit until another interaction gets him sent into the memory of another battle/training session/conversation with the person in question and so on.

Joe's first time in the animus goes a little better, as Hugh realizes that his minion needs to learn how to program the animus before they put their most valuable subject into it, and so let's her learn with Joe. Hugh's minion (who is really beginning to regret taking this job) succeeds, pulling Joe into the genetic memory of one of his ancestors: al-Kahina, an Amazigh religious and military leader who led indigenous resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. There should be suggestions of a Sword of Eden somewhere in events, but since they don't share Precursor knowledge, Hugh's not interested in letting the memory play out.

Nicky's second session gets them to the time period they want, but his memories have next to nothing to do with the PoE. The same holds true for Joe, when his second session puts him through his POV of that time period. And though Hugh has his minion take them up and down every memory of that time period searching for the smallest hint of anything that might point them in the right direction, there's nothing to find.

Or, rather: Nicky and Joe did meet Ezio once or twice, in waiting rooms or reception areas or the like, but they spent that time talking about art, or the weather, or philosophy - nothing about politics, or Ezio's travels, or PoEs at all.

Otherwise, most of Nicky and Joe's memories of early 16th century Rome involve Joe's rivalry with Michelangelo, who among other things persisted in flirting with Nicky even after he made it clear he wasn't interested. (Joe was, among other things, responsible for getting Michelangelo the commission for David in Florence to get him out of Rome and away from Nicky.)

There's some Vatican politics as well - Nicky's part in organizing the Swiss Guard, Joe's in organizing the Vatican Museums, and the removal of the Borgias from power - and some global politics - the 1503 dispensation for Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, etc. But most of their memories are largely Joe and Nicky being Joe and Nicky in the High Renaissance (and rather hating their jobs, as neither of them particularly like working for Julius II but were blackmailed into it to avoid being labeled as Ottoman spies.)

This goes on for several days until Hugh orders his minion to start looking for the memories of other "ancestors" - essentially, to refine the animus and her technique while he gets his hacker to find better candidates for the animus. And if this accidentally destroys Joe and Nicky's minds in the process? So be it. The plan was always to kill them at the end of their usefulness anyway.

Hugh's minion spends a day doing as asked - there's a few tantalizing glimpses of Joe and Nicky at the court of Kublai Khan in the 1270s - before she has an opportunity to act on the guilty conscious that's come to plague her.

The minion helps them escape - destroying the animus, wiping the records, and blowing the place sky high to cover the bloody swath they have to cut to get out of the secret research bunker. Amongst the casualties is Hugh Merrick, propelling his son Steve into position as youngest CEO in Pharma.

Joe and Nicky rejoin Andy and Booker - who'd been doing their best to cut their own bloody swath through anyone tangentially related to the mercenaries who kidnapped their brothers - and decide to turn their attention to tracking down PoE and destroying animus technology wherever it can be found, believing there are no peaceful uses for either. As a glad you escaped present, Booker tanks Merrick Pharmaceutical's stocks so badly the company never recovers, eventually going bankrupt.

As for the minion? Maybe she's a young Rebecca Crane prior to her recruitment by the Assassins and it’s her experiences with Hugh's animus that get her recruited by the Assassin Order. Maybe she's just a random OC who sets herself up with a new identity halfway around the world and watches gleefully as Merrick Pharmaceuticals and Abstergo Industries both eventually crash and burn.

Bonuses include: 1) Joe and Nicky being the most passive aggressive kidnapees in the history of kidnappings - on the face of things, going along with exactly what Hugh asks of them, but doing their best to focus on innocuous memories and figuring out how to purposefully make memories "skip" between similar episodes without Hugh ever noticing the glitch. Also, playing up the Bleeding Effect so that by day three they're only speaking in Medieval Italian; 2) Hugh being a better class of villain than his son. Immoral? Unethical? Yes, but in a sophisticated businessman way, not a jacket and hoodie, stab a man with a letter opener type way. For some reason I'm imagining him as Jean-Luc Picard, if Picard ever had a Mirror Universe alternate; and 3) Interludes of Andy and Booker searching for Joe and Nicky after they've been kidnapped. This should be part action-thriller along the lines of Taken, part buddy comedy, and involve an arc wherein Andy learns of Booker's deep unhappiness with his immortality and helps him come to terms with the feelings that would have otherwise eventually led to the events of the 2019 movie.

And that is surprisingly more than I thought I would have had. As always, feel free to adopt this bun, just link back if you decide to do anything with it.

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