#DISREGARDING THAT HE HIMSELF ENABLES MY BROTHERS BEHAVIOR.

[testudoaubrei-blog]

“I’m loyal, that’s my whole thing.” - Scorpia, Season 4 Episode 6, Princess Scorpia

“Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless” - Lonnie, Season 4 Episode 5, Protocol

Rewatching Season 4, I just finished Princess Scorpia. This is an episode that has always stuck with me, especially the A plot of Scorpia realizing how badly Catra has treated her and everyone else and deciding to leave. One thing I’ve been thinking about since I finished the series, though, is what this episode is telling us on a larger level. Looking beyond the character arcs and more at this show’s larger themes and message. Because this show is very much a show that says things, made by people who believe them. That earnestness and depth is one reason I keep coming back to it.

In the pull-quote above, and throughout the episode and before it, Scorpia defines herself in terms of loyalty. It is her identity - as she says, that’s what Scorpions do, they’re loyal. Her actions for three and a half seasons bear this out. When she first shows up, she tries to position herself as Catra’s new best friend, the one who won’t leave her and will stick by her no matter what. And that’s what she does, until this episode. She sticks by Catra through Catra’s increasingly villainous plots and erratic behavior. But she doesn’t just stick around. Until the portal, she barely contradicts Catra, and even afterwards, does so only furtively and immediately backs away as soon as Catra pushes back. For more than a year of show time, Scorpia has not just stood by Catra, or supported her, she’s actively assisted her in her most villainous and destructive acts. Scorpia is fighting by Catra’s side, eagerly carrying out her orders, and doing her utmost to see that Catra succeeds. But her loyalty goes beyond this practical help. Because for all that Catra loudly declares that she doesn’t need a new best friend, she consistently seeks out connection throughout the show, even when she’s at her most isolated in season 4. She needs moral support, and connection, and to know that she isn’t alone. Scorpia provides that, and keeps Catra going. Though Scropia isn’t initiating Catra’s various misdeeds, she’s assisting and supporting Catra throughout. On a personal, psychological level, the only word that seems adequate for this is ‘ennabling’ - Scorpia, sweet as she is, is Catra’s enabler. We see in the next few episodes what happens when Catra doesn’t have Scorpia’s support - she breaks down, and realizes that her actions really do have consequences, and that the affection she took for granted for so many years is something she can’t live without. But as long as Scorpia’s still around, Catra can’t make that realization.

Now I’m not going to say that Scorpia is morally culpable for Catra’s own actions. She’s not. Catra is solely responsible for her various betrayals, manipulations, violent outbursts and assorted murder attempts against...most of the rest of the cast (though being raised by Shadow Weaver sure as shit is a mitigating factor). But while Catra is obviously being a bad friend to Scorpia throughout, Scorpia isn’t actually being as supportive or helpful to Catra as she thinks, because Catra doesn’t actually need unconditional support, she needs people to be honest with her and express to her how she’s hurting them. She needs people who will stand up for themselves just as she needs to take responsibility for her own actions. This is part of why she and Adora have such a healthy dynamic in season 5 - Adora doesn’t take her crap, and Catra takes responsibility for her crap.

However, Scorpia -is- responsible for her own actions. And as I said above, she’s been with Catra every step of the way as Catra has attacked just about everyone and made war on Etheria. On a larger, political level, Scorpia is a willing participant in upholding the Horde’s oppressive system, and executing a war of aggression and colonization against innocent people. Speaking of colonization, perversely, she’s loyal to the very organization that dispossessed her and literally stole her birthright, then discarded it like a useless trinket when it was no longer useful to them. No one ever suggests ‘why don’t we let Scorpia connect with ~her runestone~’ until Glimmer does (and Glimmer’s motivations and arguments aren’t exactly forthright). Scorpia’s loyalty makes her an accomplice in her own oppression (like a bunch of the themes in this show there’s some interesting post-colonial stuff that the show doesn’t fully explore, probably because Noelle and the crew felt self-conscious about telling a post colonial story, or just didn’t know where to go with it). Interestingly, Scorpia’s loyalty to the Horde here parallels her loyalty to Catra, which has made her completely disregard her own wellbeing, which is the most obvious take away from the episode.

But I would argue that everything above shows that for Scorpia loyalty has been a way of avoiding developing her own moral compass. Scorpia repeatedly shoves aside questions of right or wrong in favor of being loyal to her friends and to the Horde. Loyalty has made Scorpia not only willing to accept her own mistreatment, but to willingly mistreat others, and to keep herself from asking any hard questions about what she’s doing or why. This is despite the fact that Scorpia is, by inclination, an incredibly gentle, kind and compassionate person. She’s willing to silence the best parts of her nature out of loyalty to Catra and the Horde. In the end, she also commits acts of violence and perpetuates the oppression of Etheria. And this is so insightful, because we see this sort of thing in our world all the time. So many oppressive institutions depend upon the loyalty of their members to keep them ‘just following orders’; so many abusive systems depend upon loyalty to stifle dissent and silence potential whistleblowers before they even speak. We see this in some of the most oppressive institutions and the worst scandals in our own society, and looking back through human history we see it in some of our nation’s and our species' most infamous crimes.

And when we look at the Horde as a system that Hordak has built in imitation of his elder brother’s empire, we see just how central loyalty is an ethos. Hordak himself is motivated entirely by loyalty to Prime - being a former clone, he spends the entire series not fully capable of accepting himself as an autonomous being (even when he acts like one and enjoys it, there’s some fucked up religious shit there that I won’t get into). He seems to have instilled this in his followers. The Horde Trio, Catra and Scorpia all hold loyalty as one of their highest values. Catra clings to it as her biggest accusation against Adora - that she was disloyal, as expressed in Catra’s perception that Adora broke her promise and abandoned her. Loyalty keeps the Horde Trio together and fighting for the Horde, and Scorpia with Catra. I think we can read between the lines and say the Horde runs on loyalty (as well as fear) and this is a very insightful portrayal of oppressive military and paramilitary institutions like armies of conquest and occupation and other instruments of state violence.

There’s another, related way of looking at how a sole reliance on loyalty as a moral framework has stunted Scorpia’s moral growth, and I think that brings together both the ways that it makes Scorpia willing to accept her mistreatment and participate in the mistreatment of others. Namely, loyalty in the Horde style isn’t just sticking with someone or something, but subsuming your own will into theirs. Following orders. Supporting your friend in what they do no matter what. Whatever you call it, it’s about turning off your own self - your self preservation, your self respect, your conscience, whatever other things you value - and just going along with what the person or institution you are loyal to wants you to do. And this is where Horde loyalty goes full circle, back to its origin - Horde Prime, the narcissistic self-made god who wishes to control or destroy everything that is not himself. Loyalty as Hordak conceived of it and as the Horde believes in it is a reflection of Prime's absolute control over all his domain.

In a way, self-determination is one of this show’s highest values (together with love). It’s at the heart of Adora’s 5-season, 3 year struggle to become her own woman and her own hero as she shrugs off one imposed destiny and then another and finally embraces what she wants. In a more negative form, it’s at the heart of Catra’s arc, as she finally accepts responsibility for her own actions and their consequences and starts working to make a world that she actually wants to live in, as well as admit to herself that what she really wants is love. And I could go on. This self-determination is existentially, obviously threatened by Prime chipping people, but it is also stunted by horde-style loyalty that demands unquestioning support and obedience.

Both the Horde Trio and Scorpia reject the Horde’s ideal of loyalty and walk away, but I think it’s interesting how they do it. Neither rejects loyalty entirely (not on the way Adora does) - the Trio, realistically, remain loyal to each other and simply walk away and walk out of the war (this might save their lives), joining the other disillusioned cynics in the Crimson Wastes. They reject loyalty to the horde and embrace a more supportive and respectful form of loyalty to each other. Scorpia leaves, but she actually comes to her crisis and makes her decision out of loyalty, and because it’s clear that her loyalty isn’t returned. The immediate situation - loyalty to Emily and Entrapta’s memory on one hand and Catra’s orders on the others - creates the conflict between loyalties that forces Scorpia to actually make her own choice rather than deferring to Catra. But she also reflects how Catra betrayed her loyalty to Entrapta, and thus how all of her friends’ loyalty to Catra is not returned.This is another point about horde-style loyalty - it’s one way - Hordak or Catra will demand your loyalty, but they feel no obligation to return it, which reflects Prime’s view of every other being in the universe as disposable. It’s only when she’s with the Princesses that Scorpia starts to find a new moral center, though sticking up for and protecting her friends remains important to her. In neither case, though, are these kinds of loyalty coming at the cost of either the Trio or Scorpia’s autonomy or ability to make moral choices of their own. In the very next episode, she says she wants to 'be A good friend' which is how the Princesses typically describe sticking together, which is a much more active and holistic concept than 'loyalty'. Scorpia confesses that she doesn't even know how, but she wants to learn and thinks the princesses can teach her.

There's another interesting counterexample to Horde Loyalty. Adora repeatedly breaks with the people around her to do what is right. First she leaves the Horde, then walks away from Catra by stages when it is clear that Catra is going to continue to harm other people and Etheria. Then she walks away from Glimmer, defies Light Hope and breaks loyalty with her supposed destiny and purposes as well as loyalty to the homelans she has never known. By season 5, Adora is loyal only to herself and the people she cares about, but she isn't constraining her will to anyone else's. For all that she seems like a rule follower Adora has a rebellious streak a mile wide, and she will do what is right, no matter what. This is what allows her to save the universe 3 times.

So the show’s argument is that loyalty is not a good moral framework to base all of our actions around. I don’t think it goes so far as saying that loyalty has no place in our ethics (being a good friend, which is such a huge part of the show, certainly includes loyalty, especially sticking with people when the going gets tough), but the show stresses time and again that being loyal to something or someone shouldn’t make you disregard yourself and what you think is right. Because it’s only by living out our own values and taking responsibility for our own actions that we can come into our own as moral beings. Moreover, if we insist on maintaining loyalty to institutions that oppress us and others, we can’t dismantle the systems of oppression that are holding us and other people down. (Yes, this is a pretty radical message, but I suspect that Noelle is some kind of anarchist? Anyway, it’s a thing.)

Okay, so that’s what I, a 35 year old, get from this kids show. I think it’s also worth pointing out that this lesson applies to younger viewers too, in their most immediate lives. Younger viewers will have had friends who didn’t treat them well, or might not have treated other people well, and who might have pressured them into participating in the mistreatment of others (this is kind of how bullying works a lot of the time). I think it’s important that younger viewers see how being a good friend never means disrespecting yourself or other people and it means a lot to me that She-Ra shows this in such a nuanced and realistic way.

[narcissismechoapologetics]

My late brother’s 40th birthday was this time of year fourteen years ago. He died three years prior to his 40th birthday, allegedly dragged 85 feet down I-35. He was allegedly attempting to cross the interstate on foot (being chased by multiple perpetrators based on my understanding from loved one at that time), drugged undoubtedly, too, when he was allegedly struck by a full size white SUV, traveling southbound in the inside lane, that allegedly struck his in the back with their mirror, allegedly piercing his aorta, killing him instantly, thrusting him to the pavement in the outside lane, where at that very moment a second vehicle was passing the first, running over him, and dragging him 85 feet down the interstate. Some of the news report referenced him as “she” rather than “he,” based on his first legal name, Gail. The following year the freaks (and by “freaks” I do not mean the good kind, or innocent people who are just marching to the beat of a different drum) in Lenexa, Johnson County, Kansas referred to my late brother as “road runner.” Recall the commentary during the drugging and kidnapping on or about May 23, 2104, while holding up a long silver tow chain, “This is the way we usually do it,” received as both a murder confession and a death threat.

In 2016, I requested via U.S Mail and electronically, the unredacted police and coroner’s reports surrounding his death, but have yet to receive any cooperative, legitimate response from Kansas City Missouri Police Department. However, I have received quite a bit of harassment, some quite overt. The report provided were excessively redacted so as to render them useless. The location of impact and death was first stated to be barely inside KCMO jurisdiction from Claycomo, Missouri, at that mile marker, which I no longer know off the top of my head without looking. I wanted to say 10 for example, but was then changed to allegedly being two mile markers further into the KCMO jurisdiction, south on Interstate 35.

The body was taken to Independence, Missouri, and I have been unable to even get a response as to whether that is standard operating procedure, as opposed to Downtown KCMO. A look at the incident with a critical eye could cause it to appear they went around Downtown KCMO, who was initially given every benefit of the doubt. However, based on their behavior since that time, they are no longer given such benefit of the doubt. Recall that I grew up around cops, and have been with a cop or two as an adult, with no prior “attitude.” So, the current disposition has been vigorously earned by multiple jurisdictions in recent years.

This behavior has been articulated in recent years, including being mobbed and threatened on an old deserted country road, in the dark and the cold, by multiple uniformed officers, into an unneeded ambulance for high spectrum gaslighting, forced to St. Luke’s Northland, where medical attention was immediately refused, and a prior mobbing by four white male, (who were out of their jurisdiction, stalking me, I believe it was approximately 2 in the morning upon arrival at Perkin’s where police lied and threatened me with trespassing charges should I return, when the establishment had just invited me the evening prior to plan on every Monday night. When you are #fangrocked out of your home and life, due in the first place to their enduring incompetence and corruption, it is the police who attempt to make certain you also freeze to death, are “taken (the rest of the way) down,” involuntarily committed,  become ill or terminally ill, etc., seriously. When you are stalked out of your home, be it from overt stalking campaigns, or the string of perpetrators who they then try to maneuver you into positions with them having power over you, you are then to exist nowhere quietly and gratefully, according to these lying freaks. The police have absolutely been much worse than just worthless in the situation, but appear to jump up there to “show off” should the freaks get stuck anywhere along the way with their schemes.

Police have not only consistently displayed blatant disregard for the live and health of innocent victims, but vigorously assisted the criminals), under 40 uniformed officers in Gladstone, MO Perkin’s, (Bo worked at the Smokehouse BBQ right next door, in (Gladstone), and lived with us in my townhouse in KCMO clear back in the 1980′s, and was getting lined out, when he went to the hospital due to touching shrimp allegedly. Perpetrators in Lenexa, Johnson County, Kansas and elsewhere this many years later, have referenced him as “shrimp.”) with directed conversation, “You f****d him,” (referencing an alleged drugging and raping video while breaking into our Overland Park, Johnson County, Kansas home in 2005, resulting in the freak finding a surrogate for a harvested embryo, drugging, and deceptive adoption, without knowledge, at Stinson, but appearing to be due to slander based on being drugged, when I have never even smoked pot in my entire life, a child I want returned with the rest of the children taken from our bodies by any means, meaning my child and I’s bodies. This maneuver does not in any way appear to be limited to myself, and my child) following by a loud, abusive, disparaging scene outside by three white uniformed Gladstone police officers, one female and two male, also forcing me to St. Luke’s Northland, where medical attention was immediately refused. On the second occasion, it was inquired as to whether they would treat my physical injuries rather than gaslighting me, to which the response was, “no.”

It certainly appears these police departments have perpetrated against me, at least in part, due to their past involvement in unethical or criminal knowledge and/or behavior, including but not limited to myself, my child (also in Gladstone shortly prior to leaving for Slidell in July 2006, with my then toddler grandson) and my late brother, as well as my grandchild, Mercedes potentially, passing from a “rare disease” at the tender age of 23. She was Bo’s firstborn, who lived in Sedalia all of her life, until marrying, moving to KCMO, I believe, then passing, Roberto and Alfi lived in Olathe, Johnson County, Kansas years ago, and Toni (DoES - Daughter of the Eastern Star, and Sunday school teacher at their local church, of course) lived with her first husband Chris Kowolski in Sedalia, where her current in-laws still live to the best of my knowledge, and also in Lenexa and Olathe, Bonner Springs, and worked in North Kansas City, MO, and others, such as numerous concerns about those on America Online in the Kansas City Over 40 Chatroom.

It appears Bo, who intended to become a (true Christian, not a pretender) pastor when he was young, was targeted from the age of 19 until his death at 39 years of age, resulting in no known charges against any aggressor, but at one point at least, was on Kansas City’s Most Wanted himself (based solely on my recollection, primarily due to assault charges, undoubtedly from being provoked, (for example, getting in a fight when with my date, Buzz and I, due to some guy grabbing my behind, while with my date and I, Rod, too, the establishment, The Ol’ Firehouse, apologizing for kicking the three of us out) as I myself in recent years, not being a violent person, and middle aged rather than an outraged teenager or young adult, an outraged middle aged, also injured women (Bo returned from Wichita, Kansas with two dislocated shoulders allegedly from falling between a dock while a volunteer fire fighter, I have serious spinal and other injuries, with commentary that “I heard you have a mean right hook.”) could easily have punched several aggressors in the mouth myself. What appears to have caused this targeting at the age of 19? Bo had the wisdom to see the truth, and the backbone to stand up for it, against an alcoholic pedophile and his enabler, or what may have been more accurately at the time coined his conspirator (and pedophilia, as well as other sexual perversion and violation, appears to be quite the theme in all of this).

Also note this discrediting, and even public disparaging, is something that has even entered my mind regarding prior Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association President, Werkin’s situation, due to double binds, infuriating, outrageous criminal activity, etc). This appears consistent with knowledge both of Bo’s live, having lived with me six or seven times in our twenties, having gotten Bo out of jail repeatedly, most specifically in Sedalia, Pettis County, Missouri, as well as my own personal experience with law enforcement in recent years, having been a member of the local legal community for half of my life, a KU Law School graduate, mother, grandmother, and lifelong resident of the area.

There have been no known charges against any of aggressors either, but I was the one charged with trespassing, repeatedly jailed for brief periods of time, arrested, not arrested, but taken into custody, handcuffed, my things gone through, publicly disparaged repeatedly during their displays, harassed, threatened (KCMOPD did not want me to “fall and bust my head open,” and if I did not get in the unneeded ambulance, with two more white males, they would physically put me in it). Again, I am completely mentally healthy, even having been told by a licensed therapist, that I am one of the mentally healthiest people she knows, even. (Recall that 23 years ago in 1997, JDK was literally begging me to marry him, while simultaneously telling his psychologist neighbor he was helping some crazy woman, and that he stated he was going to “go talk to Manny (male from India, living in Olathe, Johnson County, Kansas, and business owner, employing teenagers, later including my child at Oak Park Mall, in Overland Park, Johnson County, Kansas, openly stating the business was started with money from our government upon moving to the US from India, Lirpaloof (April Fool backwards, he stated at an age approaching 40, was a 15 year old he was in love with) on America Online, Kansas City Over 40 Chatroom), whom he had no legitimate way of even knowing). Manny’s wife, Jay, was experienced as a nice, but exhausted and overworked lady from India, a registered nurse. Around 1999, Manny called me from Manny’s the restaurant in KCMO, stated he had drank too much and needed ride home. I left my child and I’s Lenexa, Johnson County, Kansas apartment at The Crossings, to pick him up, and told him I was going to let him out of the car if he did not stop trying to kiss me. He did, and I took him to his Olathe, Johnson County, Kansas home, he shared with his wife and child. Manny had parties at Manny’s, but only about three people ever showed up to the best of my knowledge, including the quite young at the time, Susan, “Honeyboner,“ on AOL, who has since been suffering from a rare disease, since her teenage years, I believe, now in approximately her late thirties, Sherry’s (some variation of “Trouble” was her screen name, also a registered nurse). Sherry dated Lewis, a self-proclaimed 32rd or 33rd degree Mason and Shriner, approximately 25 years ago, after the death of her husband. Their lives appear to have become a downward spiral over all of these years, as well, last known to be in the God awful City of Gladstone, Missouri, as I recall the house appearing to be such a good deal had a mold issue, as did the house Roberto and Alfi rented from Lewis in Claycomo, MO. Recall that black mold collects is the lungs, and stays there. Mold itself is a little echo, the hackers in 2016 kept changing to “mole” on my articulation. Similarly, years later in approximately 2006/7, Susie, who appeared to be a scapegoated childhood sexual abuse survivor, had to move out of a house full of mold not too far from The Kansas City Funeral Directors, there off of I-635, and I believe it was after that, ended up in a little place behind Overland Park Police Department. She has been signified by perps with her little sports car, the make and model escapes me at the moment, even though I recognize it when presented. Susie stated her abusive father is a Mason.

Then, of course, you have the asbestos situation, the FEMA asbestos trailers, including my children, which includes grandchildren having to move due to all of their belongings being covered in mold, the rental property in Mobile, AL in 2009, while beginning to volunteer at the Mobile Bar Association, regarding mold cases, while renting a room from a black lady in a house filled with black mold, 2009, I believe. The substance crammed down my throat on my own Overland Park, Johnson County, Kansas bed, during the 2005 workplace mobbing and multiple perpetrator stalking, while employed at Stinson, with a chest x-ray and medical commentary that my “esophagus” had been “moved over,” hence, they were trying to get it into my lungs, and it appears cause me to chock to death on my own bed, with small roughly squares of it left on my comforter, while passed out drugged, believed to be asbestos, as well as anally inserted during the drugging and kidnapping (not legally defined) on or about May 23, 2014, permanent damage to my colon and rectum resulting, among many other serious injuries. There was also the skull and bones warning sign across the street from Stinson’s Downtown KCMO offices in 2005, warning of asbestos, The Jones Store building had standing water allegedly, etc. The black dust in the ventilation at Westbrooke Glen, a Signature Community, based out of New York City, Art and Linda. Nancy’s Madison suffers from a rare disease, with Nancy stating her ex-husband is a Masonic lawyer. Perpetrators in many instances are murderers, and the police are HELPING them.

As we have repeatedly stated, it is our belief that there should not be found even one secret society or cult member on the police force, not anymore than there should be found a Klansman.

Trespassing Echo: Originated at Shawnee Community Center, by Sylvia, my late friend Evelyn’s daughter, who had an attitude with me from the moment I met her mother, who had given me her (Evelyn) personal cell phone number due to Sylvia lying about her not being there and not letting me talk to her. whom I was concerned about, and finally walked, due to loss of automobile during perpetrator crimes, from Mission to Shawnee, last seeing Evelyn with pink cheeks, looking dazed and confused, shortly prior to her death, with Sylvia stating she was in charge now, not to ever go around her again, and that if I return she will call the police and have me charged with trespassing, 2015. May Evelyn rest in peace. Her absence will undoubtedly be, and has been, severely missed, and her child is certainly no replacement, even with her white male sidekick.

This echo was received by Carew at The Maples in Mission, Johnson County,Kansas, threatening me with calling the police, and calling the police, because I was noticing the plunder truck being gone at all hours, among other things. Two uniformed Mission Police officers responded, one went in to talk to Carew, and the other, believed to be “Mr. Smiley,” took my DL out of my sight (it appears this is a slick little maneuver by some police, too, switching your identification out while requesting it in a series. Then you have the responsibility that also appears to be falling on the average innocent citizen of distinguishing whether the uniformed officer standing in front of you is an imperfect human being trying their best to do their job sincerely, a network, cult, secret society, bought, dishonest, etc., officer, or some psycho allowed to run around in police uniform impersonating an officer, or perhaps an officer in uniform outside their own jurisdiction, or allegedly threatened, even though I have yet to note any body language from a uniformed officer matching that claim, quite the contrary.

Note: One would hope the police signed up for their duty, the average innocent man, woman or child did not.), accused me of “stealing bicycles” (it was so annoying at the time. Does it look to you like I have a bicycle in my back pocket? I have not even owned a bicycle since my twenties. It was a metaphor later translated as preventing childhood sexual abuse, beginning from the fact that on my 9th birthday as a child, I got a lot of presents, including a bicycle (which perps used (bicycles,) to reference childhood sexual abuse, as well as my signification of “blueberry” for male childhood sexual abuse and “strawberry” for female, due to references in the Merriam, Johnson County, Kansas (a city historically known for having many pedophiles) QuikTrip (donuts advertisement, in the FT way (see historic Mission, Johnson County, Kansas McDonald’s commentary regarding pictures on the wall) echo to Dollar General, regarding strawberry), the year the childhood sexual abuse began, conveying a message perpetrators attempted to inflict, regarding self-worth, money, etc. There were not charges at this time, only harassment. Note the sexual predators mangle Scripture to claim, “they don’t judge one another.” Not judging criminal activity puts innocent lives at risk, and is yet another gross misapplication of doctrine, not unlike their using the law against the spirit of the law.

This echo was received by Carew (it was claimed it could have been his brother from Colorado, but Carew himself was snarling at me on the street outside The Maples, firing a ball into his ball glove, playing ball later with a Dollar General employee who had given me the additional 50 cents to purchase cigarettes, not seen since that period of time. Also recall that the large and tall black female in police uniform during the May 23, 2014 ordeal, was of the same build as a then Mission Dollar General employee, laughing the next time she rang up my order in the store, then leaving their employment apparently.) at Mission Hills Country Club, with the orchestrated confrontation, arrest at Stateline Road (Carew reference, the road he claimed in 2005 that he took to work every day), by Prairie Village Police Department, where Toni worked in 1997, followed by the overnight ordeal in the Johnson County, Kansas Jail, previously articulated, occurring May 4, 2016. Stopped by police more in the last five years that the rest of my life combined, “Tom” invariably comes over the police radio, and the police know damn good and well.

This echo bounced to Kansas City International Airport with Kansas City Missouri Police Department, Gladstone Police Department in the Perkin’s that had just invited me to plan on being there every Monday night, lying, and gaslighting.

The three, two being for one occurrence with the officer (one white female and one white male) just throwing the second one at me while in custody for the first one, charges from KCI Airport Police were dropped after about one year of returning to court, also resulting in brief jail time in KCMO, as previously articulated. The average citizen should be alarmed by the state of KCI Airport, including police, janitors, TSA, and employees, the perpetration and directed conversation, with the TSA agents appearing to be both perpetrating, as well as some of them appearing targeted. No Miranda was echoed to the really awful personnel at the Motel 6 in Lenexa (an area Lenexa police told me to stay away from (they do not like it when you are noticing their activities)), in the perpetrating manner of “punishing” victims for defending themselves, etc, first with an employee by that name who claimed some idiotic reason I could not rent a room, (which is in the manner of the FTs, meaning the names or name tags of perps).

This situation has been articulated online for years now, and all of the pages containing the articulation have been hijacked, “gone away” (Google), very much manipulated, but if one has been able to objectively follow the situation it should have been exceedingly clear several years ago now.

[ladystylestores]

Israeli leader’s son takes center stage in corruption sagas

JERUSALEM (AP) — As scandal-plagued Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands trial for corruption, his 28-year-old son has emerged as a driving force in a counterattack against critics and the state institutions prosecuting the longtime Israeli leader.

A favorite of the prime minister’s nationalistic base and far right leaders around the world, Yair Netanyahu has become a fixture in the news, clashing with journalists on social media, threatening lawsuits against his father’s adversaries and posting online content deemed so offensive that Facebook briefly suspended his account.

In the past month alone, he has called to banish minorities from Tel Aviv, tweeted a discredited conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and intimated that a critical Israeli broadcast journalist slept her way up to her coveted job.

But his toughest broadsides have been directed at the Israeli media, judiciary and law enforcement for conducting what he has called a leftist, ideological crusade to topple his father. He’s called for the attorney general to be investigated for his “crimes,” compared the police chief to fictional mob boss Tony Soprano and described investigators as the Stasi, Gestapo and “the political police of the Israeli junta.”

It’s part of a campaign, echoed to a lesser degree by his father, that critics warn is eroding public faith in Israel’s democratic institutions.

“We would love to just disregard him as a curiosity, as this difficult kid who keeps embarrassing his father. But the truth is there is evidence that he is very influential,” said Raviv Drucker, a well-respected investigative TV reporter and favorite target of the Netanyahus, whom both father and son recently tweeted they would like to see imprisoned. “He holds very extreme positions and it affects the prime minister’s actions.”

Though he holds no official position, Yair Netanyahu is considered a key adviser and the mastermind of his father’s increasingly confrontational social media strategy.

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Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of corruption cases stemming from ties to wealthy friends. He denies the charges, which follow years of scandals swirling around the family.

For years, it was his wife, Sara, who drew most of the fire because of her extravagant tastes, misuse of state funds and alleged abuse of her staff. But recently, his eldest son has taken center stage. He’s figured prominently in various scandals while earning a reputation of living a life of privilege at taxpayers’ expense.

Australian billionaire James Packer, one of the figures in the prime minister’s corruption indictments, reportedly gave the younger Netanyahu gifts that included stays at luxury hotels in Tel Aviv, New York and Aspen, Colorado, as well as the use of his private jet and dozens of tickets for concerts by Packer’s former fiancée, Mariah Carey. Nir Hefetz, a former Netanyahu aide turned state witness against him, told police that Yair Netanyahu was the major instigator of the bribery case against his father.

Yair Netanyahu has also sparked controversy by posting an anti-Semitic caricature aimed at his father’s critics, vulgarly confronting a woman who told him to pick up after his dog at a park, and tweeting that he hoped elderly leftist protesters would die of COVID-19.

The prime minister has been forced to denounce some of his son’s behavior, like a particularly lewd outing to a strip club with wealthy friends. But generally, he staunchly defends his son.

Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist for the Haaretz daily and author of a recent biography of the prime minister, said Yair Netanyahu enables his father to test boundaries of what the public will accept.

“If he goes too far, they can say it’s only Yair,” he said. “It gives him deniability, creates a gray area and blurs the lines on what the prime minister is saying on record.”

Yair Netanyahu was only 4 when his father first became prime minister in 1996 and has grown up in the limelight. During his compulsory army service, he was assigned as a liaison to foreign media. He was once court-marshaled for taking an unauthorized furlough.

He’s volunteered for local animal welfare organizations and briefly worked as a social media director for an Israeli NGO providing legal services to victims of Palestinian attacks. But he was put on leave after attacking Israel’s figurehead president for advocating Jewish-Arab coexistence.

As a private citizen, Yair Netanyahu has published op-eds for Breitbart, gone on U.S. and European speaking tours and voiced support for right-wing extremists in the U.S. and Europe. He has earned their praise in return.

Supporters claim he is a victim of the same people targeting his father. But the media have largely ignored his older half-sister Noa and his younger brother Avner, an unassuming 26-year-old university student who generally keeps to himself.

Yair Netanyahu, who still lives with his parents and declined to comment, claims to have no political aspirations. In his lone interview to Israeli media, he lamented last year to the pro-Netanyahu Channel 20 about the cost his family pays for their status. He said the three years his father was out of politics in the early 2000s were their happiest ever.

“My father decided to put the good life he had aside and get back into all this mud because of his calling,” he said. “My only political involvement is what you see on my private Facebook and Twitter.”

On Twitter, where he has more than 80,000 followers, he lashes out dozens of times a day and his feed often dictates the following news cycle. Facebook blocked his account for 24 hours in 2018 for sharing banned content and writing that he would prefer an Israel without Muslims.

His brand of provocation has proven irresistible to politicians, journalists and commentators alike, many of whom have been drawn into bouts of mud-slinging with him. Even so, at least a half dozen of his former targets refused to comment, citing his unofficial role and litigious nature.

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Follow Aron Heller on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aronhellerap

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[bountyofbeads]

The R. Kelly Story Is Bigger Than Most People Know

Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning elaborates on well-known allegations from last year’s documentary. It also incorporates, and interrogates, the assertions of the singer’s defenders.

By Spencer Kornhaber | Published January 2, 2020 1:01 PM ET | The Atlantic | Posted January 2, 2020 |

The first episode of Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning features two women who, unlike most of the women in the Surviving R. Kelly documentaries, are not reporting abuse by the star. Nor are they social commentators pondering why Kelly has gotten away with his alleged behavior for so long. They are, rather, R. Kelly’s former assistants, and they have thoughts on the first Surviving R. Kelly installments that aired a year ago. “The women I saw in the docuseries were the type of women that Robert would have picked,” says Lindsey Perryman-Dunn, who worked for Kelly from 1999 to 2007. “And you know what they’re upset about? That they didn’t get the limelight until they were on Lifetime television.” She closes her eyes and purses her lips: a face of sorry not sorry.

It’s a shocking moment. Last year’s Surviving R. Kelly vividly highlighted the names, faces, and stories of numerous women who say they were abused by Kelly, resulting in such accusations being taken more seriously by the public, the media, and even law enforcement. The singer is now in jail and awaiting trial on charges that include child pornography and witness tampering. And yet the follow-up to Kelly’s takedown gives airtime to people who believe his denial of all allegations against him. Perryman-Dunn’s twin sister, Jen Emrich, who also briefly worked for Kelly, speaks as well, to praise the social-media campaign that has harassed and posted private information about Kelly’s accusers. Perryman-Dunn then says this:

I feel that a victim of any crime needs to call 911. If you have been raped or victimized, you need to go to the emergency room immediately. You need to seek medical help. You need to see a psychologist. You need get an attorney involved. You need to sue. You need to take action. I believe in the American justice system. I do not believe in the justice system which is going on right now, which is just the public justice system.

That statement might make some sense on its face, but—as the documentary goes on to demonstrate—it’s incoherent in the context of the nearly three-decade Kelly scandal. In five episodes airing over three nights (starting tonight), Part II elaborates on known allegations, brings new ones to the forefront, unpacks the cultural context for abuse, and describes the reception to the documentary’s first edition. Moreover, it demonstrates that any “limelight” alleged victims receive is dangerous, that the American justice system often proves insufficient to stop serial abusers, and that no amount of evidence will lead certain people to condemn a culturally prominent predator.

Like its predecessor, the documentary is a piece of workmanlike TV that relies on restless editing, conspicuous background music, and repetition, with talking heads providing both sharp insight and familiar platitudes. Some of the alleged victims who participated in the first documentary have declined to sit for the second one and have alleged behind-the-scenes insensitivity by Lifetime’s team. Many of R. Kelly’s accusers, though, do return. There’s no denying the force of the material here nor of the ambitious, decades-spanning, multi-angle tale that the series tells.

One of the most wrenching anecdotes is that of Lanita Carter, who worked as Kelly’s hair braider in the early 2000s. The gig didn’t pay well and made great demands of her time, but Kelly’s celebrity was a currency of sorts. “I gained the respect of many people for doing his hair,” she says. “My family, they let me finish sentences when normally they didn’t really care what I had to say.” As she braided his hair, Kelly offered her praise and life advice, encouraging her to dream big and respect herself. She thought of him as a brother, she says. Then one day, according to Carter, Kelly demanded oral sex—and, when she resisted, he forced himself on her.

Carter describes the attack in painstaking, moving, and tearful detail. She affords the same level of attention and emotion to what happened next. She called a cousin of hers and asked him to beat up Kelly, but he told her that Kelly was too famous for such vigilante justice. So Carter called the police. An investigation resulted, but after a brutal round of questioning for Carter from the grand jury, the prosecutor assigned to the case suggested she seek a settlement. With what she says was reluctance, Carter followed that advice. She is now breaking the nondisclosure agreement she signed with Kelly because “money does not heal you,” she says. “Money does not cover up what you feel.”

Carter’s case, which occupies much of the show’s third episode, affords the documentary the chance to break down a host of issues that have enabled Kelly to continue operating despite allegations dating back to the early ’90s. Confidentiality agreements, settlement-hungry lawyers, the hesitation in the black community to involve law enforcement, the vagaries of the legal system, the way in which survivors of abuse are made to feel complicit, the way fame can lure vulnerable people: All of these issues get dissected by commentators and advocates whose interviews are interspersed among Carter’s. It’s notable, too, that Carter was 24 years old when she met Kelly and describes a very straightforward case of sexual assault. Her story thus defies the notion that Kelly only targets underage women (something he himself has suggested he has become more careful about doing over the years) or that he engages in unconventional-but-consensual relationships of dominance (the defense for his ongoing arrangements with Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary, whose families say they have been brainwashed).

Indeed, Part II portrays Kelly as an omnidirectional creep: accused of many disparate offenses that are united by a disregard for the humanity of those who he considers to be his playthings. Other allegations from the documentary include that Kelly made one of his so-called girlfriends sign a suicide pact with him in case he was ever jailed, and that he surreptitiously filmed his own brother having sex with a woman at his compound. But the larger point is about systems and culture. The first episode, the one featuring Perryman-Dunn and Emrich, might even strike some as strangely sympathetic to Kelly as it details the sexual abuse he himself suffered in childhood. It does so not to exculpate him but rather to show how sexual assault is a problem capable of multiplying itself over generations.

Substantial portions of the documentary also recount the fallout from the first Surviving R. Kelly: a gun threat at a screening attended by the alleged victims, online and physical harassment of the film’s participants, and Kelly’s public attempts at image rehabilitation even as police in multiple states filed new charges against him. The picture painted is of advocates, journalists, and newly empowered survivors of abuse pushing the culture in the direction of justice—but only haltingly, and with great resistance. “This is not about women finding our voices; we have always had our voices,” the #MeToo founder Tarana Burke says at one point. “This is about people’s ability to hear. We’ve just finally found a frequency that people can hear us.” That’s a precious achievement, clearly, but also a fragile one.

[onewhodresses-blog]

Week In Review

The Week In Review is a roundup of interesting, inspiring or thought-provoking things I've read this week. "How are you to imagine anything if the images are always provided for you? To defend ourselves...we must learn to read. To stimulate our own imagination, to cultivate our own consciousness, our own belief system. We all need these skills to defend, to preserve, our own minds." -- Adrien Brody  

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I'm so sorry things have been quiet around here! There's a bit [ok, a lot] of change in the air in my life and I'm eager to tell you about it in the days to come...until then, here's the week in review.

  Fashion

Hypernormalisation and the Cult of Prada | Olivia Singer, AnOther Magazine

“I didn’t want to do the 70s… but it came out naturally,” [Miuccia Prada] said backstage. “It was an important moment for protest, for humanity. Now, protest is very necessary.” It would be too easy for Prada’s current sentiment to refer simply to the right-wing bent of contemporary politics. In fact, the liberal left finds itself, presently, in a particularly strange situation, fractured by competing discourses and isolated within digital echo chambers...

Here, Mrs Prada seemed to be reminding us of those activists who once determined the personal to be political and sought revolution through action rather than Facebook status; of the importance of authentic, human reality during a time when detachment is bearing particularly frightening consequences.

 Trump is obsessed with what his staff wears. Don’t let their costumes distract you. | Robin Givhan, The Washington Post

Appearance matters, particularly at the White House. In some small way, the unruly, inartful, messy nature of politics is tempered by the dignity and solemnity of the place. There is something laudable about dressing in a manner that shows respect for everything that the White House represents. President George W. Bush understood that when he decreed jackets and ties for men entering the Oval Office. And in 2009, when President Obama loosened those rules, it caused a stir in official Washington. It also makes sense that if one wants to be taken seriously by a wildly diverse populace, it helps to embrace the universal style markers of professionalism, seriousness and authority. People also tend to stand up straighter and be more focused when their attire is more formal and elegant...But image is always secondary to substance. It may briefly distract from a narrative or add to it. But surely, it can’t change it.

 As Trump pushes for U.S. manufacturing, 'Made in America' is losing its luster in the fashion world | David Pierson, Los Angeles Times

Long before Trump campaigned on the promise of reviving domestic manufacturing, time-tested labels such as Gitman Bros., Filson and Red Wing Shoes were touting their “Made in USA” roots and encouraging customers to buy American menswear at a time when competitors had long fled to cheaper countries. They rode a wave of popularity in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis as trendsetters began rejecting fast-fashion brands like H&M and embracing traditionally stodgy ones like Brooks Bros. — an acknowledgment that it was better to buy pieces that lasted than support wasteful fads...

Now, some of those same companies, as well as more recently established ones, are wondering what the “Made in USA” label will mean under the new administration. Will it continue to stand for craftsmanship and style, or amount to an endorsement of Trump’s policies — or even the president himself?...“Is ‘Made in USA’ in danger of becoming ‘Make Made in USA Great Again’?” said Jonathan Wilde, editor of GQ.com...

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Politics

Donald Trump, the refugee ban, and the triumph of cruelty | Dylan Matthews, Vox

...what is uniquely repulsive about Trump’s travel restrictions and refugee ban. It’s not just that they’re dumb, or wrong-headed, or unjustified. They’re cruel...Public cruelty, the cruelty of governments and the men and women who run them, has an end; it is meant to achieve something, whether that be racial purity and national rebirth, or a classless industrialized society, or more modest goals, like satisfying nativist urges to preserve the racial and religious character of the nation, or at least not let it change too much. And this kind of goal-oriented cruelty is enabled by the unique and vast ability of governments to instill fear in those over which they wield power.

It is easier to be cruel as a public official, because it is easier to see one’s victims as an abstraction.

 All the times Republicans expressed moral outrage at Donald Trump’s threats to bar Muslims from the US | Dan Kopf, Quartz

Republican leaders vehemently condemned the suggestion from the billionaire upstart who was then leading in the GOP primary race. “Offensive and unconstitutional,” were the words of Mike Pence—before he joined Trump’s ticket as his vice president. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said it was “not conservatism.” Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called it “completely inconsistent” with American values. Even former vice president Dick Cheney said it “goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”

...Still, since Trump signed yesterday’s executive order, no major Republican leader has yet spoken out against Trump’s order. 

 The Economist’ Just Downgraded the US From a ‘Full Democracy’ to a ‘Flawed Democracy’ | John Nichols, The Nation

A country must maintain an 8.00 rating (on measures of the electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture). The US rating was 8.05 last year. It is now 7.98; and index ranking for the US has fallen to number 21—just behind Japan, just ahead of the Republic of Cabo Verde. The United States is not ranked with the world’s authoritarian states; it’s in the company of Bulgaria, France, India, and Mongolia. But the US is no longer ranked in the “full democracy” category with Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. And it is ranked well below social democracies such as Norway (#1 on the 2016 Democracy Index), Iceland (#2), and Sweden (#3).

For small-d democrats who are worried about Trump and Trumpism, the latest Democracy Index provides vital perspective. The new president is a bad player. He disrespects and disregards democratic values, encourages distrust of democratic infrastructure, and expresses disdain for the essential source of information in a democracy: a free and skeptical and questioning press that is willing to speak truth to power.

But even before Trump entered the presidential race, the crisis was real, and it was metastasizing...the combination of big-money politics; lobbying abuses that tip the balance of power to corporate interests; underfunded and dysfunctional media; assaults on labor rights; the gutting of voting rights; and the manipulation of election systems by partisans was undermining the infrastructure of democracy.

 West Africa - from dictators' club to upholder of democracy | BBC News

And as one democracy stumbles, others rise.

For a long time, [the political situation in West Africa] was an all-male club and members called each other "my brother president". Indeed they still do, even though there have been two female interlopers in the past decade. Members did not care very much how "the brothers" came to be heads of state. You could be elected to the position in dodgy elections, or in fairly conducted elections and then change the rules, you could assume the position through a coup d'etat. For as long as you could show you had firm control over your country, you were a "brother president"...It is difficult to determine exactly when things began to change but gradually fortunes changed for the personalities who had appeared to be perpetual opposition figures.

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Environment & Humanity

How A Hollywood Prop Artist Could Help Stop Poaching At Its Source | Jason G. Goldman, Good Magazine

Though the nation’s indigenous cultures have eaten sea turtle eggs for centuries, illegal poaching has drastically reduced populations...Yet a poacher is just one cog in a massive criminal enterprise: Arrest one and he or she will quickly be replaced. Addressing the problem means identifying middlemen who transfer eggs into the global marketplace, as well as their transportation routes and storage facilities. To stop this crime before sea turtles and their eggs disappear forever, wildlife rangers will need to trick thieves into revealing their networks. 

Biologist Kim Williams-Guillén, who directs scientific research for conservation group Paso Pacífico, is working with Hollywood prop stylist Lauren Wilde to test a creative solution: a handcrafted decoy called the “InvestEGGator.” A poacher who swipes one will unwittingly help map out a vast criminal system via GPS and a trail leading authorities and conservationists to a potential bust.   

 How Bucking the Climate Change Accord Would Hinder the Fight Against HIV/AIDS | Brian King via Truthout

While there have been remarkable improvements in combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Global South, managed HIV faces other challenges beyond accessing lifesaving drugs. Food production and food security, which are tied to shifting climate dynamics, place additional burdens upon social and natural environments in resource-scarce settings.

Managed HIV is survival, and this survival depends not just on access to antiretroviral drugs but also on a gamut of social and environmental resources that have become necessary to meet health needs in the era of global climate change.

 Our New Age of Contempt | Karen Stohr, The New York Times 

It may seem as though the best response to Trump’s contempt is to return it in kind, treating him the same way he treats others. The trouble, though, is that contempt toward Trump does not function in the same way that his contempt toward others functions. Even if we grant that Trump deserves contempt for his attitudes and behaviors, his powerful social position insulates him from the worst of contempt’s effects. It is simply not possible to disregard or diminish the agency of the president of the United States. This means that contempt is not a particularly useful weapon in the battle against bigotry or misogyny. The socially vulnerable cannot wield it effectively precisely because of their social vulnerability.

The better strategy for those who are already disempowered is to reject contempt on its face. Returning contempt for contempt legitimizes its presence in the public sphere. The only ones who benefit from this legitimacy are the people powerful enough to use contempt to draw the boundaries of the political community as they see fit. Socially vulnerable people cannot win the battle for respect by using contempt as a way to demand it.

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What did you read this week?

 Feature image: A family of immigrants arrive at Ellis Island, courtesy the National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Museum