#How many people that disenfranchises and removes from communities

[miraphoenix]

Right off the bean, this is not a callout post. I'd talk to the person this is about 1-on-1, but a) he's had me blocked for 4 years, and b) it's mutual. This is me venting on my personal blog, something that he decided to vague about me doing back when I had my first blog.

With that out of the way. I'm really fucking tired of people stealing from Valenth/Revecroir, and from its creator.

Years and years ago, when they were a literal child, my bff/queer life partner--for the purpose of this post, their name is Leupai--made lizard-critters with hands on their tongues and called them leupaks. Eventually, they ended up splitting off from Subeta where they worked at the time, making an affiliated petsite called Valenth where the leupaks featured quite prominently as creatures in a fantasy-meets-steampunk world.

Unfortunately, their boss was a piece of work, and following a rather large kerfluffle involving another petsite lifting other elements of my partner's work (namely, a dragon concept and a companion concept), my partner was fired by the Subeta head boss. The leupaks were renamed into leupai, and Valenth expanded into Revecroir. This was in 2014, give or take a few months.

Through about half of the Valenth era and into the Revecroir era, Leupai was dating someone else, who went by Sixar at the time, later Kismeti, and the two had a long-distance open relationship. Kismeti also did a fair amount of site art for Valenth, and described himself as Leupai's biggest fan; when he'd met Leupai originally, his username referenced leupaks, he had a bunch of leupak characters, and a leupak sona. I met both of them in 2013-2014, right around the close of Valenth, and started chatting with them both. Leupai was more responsive, Kismeti was more reserved, but I did the best I could.

Over the years, I kept trying to reach out to Kismeti, but found that Leupai was honestly more willing to talk with me, so I did become better friends with them. Note that I was friends with Leupai, and trying to be friends with Kismeti. We chatted, we sent memes, we played World of Warcraft, I bought folks pizza across the Pacific Ocean, you know the drill.

Through this, I became really familiar with Leupai's world, at that point named Revecroir. I got to know their lore, their worldbuilding, their current projects, and the leupai creatures themselves.

The leupai were--and are!--still fat lizards with paws on their tongues, who can open portals between worlds with acid in their claws, who transfer their consciousnesses to other bodies if one is destroyed, and whose strength comes from the realm of dreams and creativity. In the early days, in lore that wasn't publicized, leupai were roaming around to find a world to live on after Valenth. This was a project that was supposed to be worked on with Kismeti, but nothing really ever came of it. Eventually, Leupai kind of moved on from that storyline to write more about Revecroir itself.

At the same time, I tried asking Kismeti about his worldbuilding, because he had characters and allegedly a world of his own, but didn't really get a lot in the way of answers. I saw a lot of Sonic fanart, I saw a lot of homestuck, I saw a lot of MLP:FiM, I saw a lot of Captain Planet. Eventually, I kind of... Gave up asking? And that's on me, but frankly, if you ask someone to share their stuff and they don't share their stuff, I figure that's the signal to stop asking.

As time went on, though, I was seeing some cracks forming in the 10-year relationship between the two, and I was helping Leupai through a lot. I watched as he yelled at my best friend for not responding to messages fast enough. I watched as he made plans with Leupai and then fucked off to do other things for hours, leaving Leupai in the lurch and worried about his physical safety. I watched as he gaslit Leupai about their ability to use a computer. On one memorable instance, when Leupai's internet was unstable while we were all playing WoW together, Leupai left the voice call to go reset the router, and Kismeti decided that it was a great time to shit-talk Leupai's intelligence to me. For a half hour straight. Until Leupai rejoined the call.

Eventually, I visited Leupai in person and watched as they were broken down to tears by Kismeti failing to respect their boundaries for literal hours, until Leupai caved to Kismeti's preferences. That was a rough night, and I remember wondering why the fuck my best friend's partner was treating them so badly.

About a month and a half after I visited Leupai, they decided to break up with Kismeti, because they'd had enough of him verbally berating them for not responding fast enough to memes sent over instant message, among so many other things. He, to put it mildly, lost his shit.

(For the record, I know what went down, because Leupai had me read the messages sent back and forth, to make sure they were grounded, and were reading things right. I've seen logs going back 10 years. His original vague accused me of not knowing what I was talking about, but boy howdy I was either there, or have read the raw logs.)

Anyway, he begged for Leupai back. Leupai gave him a chance that he fucked up within a day. Leupai said goodbye and blocked him. He then started messaging me about this on discord, clearly trying to use me as a go-between to get to Leupai.

At the time, I was going through some Complex Feelings about my own abuse by various people in my life, triggered by his behavior, so was reblogging a lot of support stuff on my original blog. I guess he decided this was vaguing about him, because he made a vaguepost accusing me of not knowing all the details (unbeknownst to him, I'd read everything) and finally blocked me.

I figured this chapter in my life was done at this point, and moved the fuck on. Made a new blog because I didn't feel like getting all his shit off my old one, moved across the country, got a new job, the whole shebang. Leupai and I entered our odd QPP/partners/bffs/???? phase, and I genuinely didn't think much about him, unless I was helping listen to Leupai talk about stuff they'd gone through with him.

Until this year. When I saw some comment of his break containment and end up on my dash, under the name "riftclaw". I had a bit of an inkling, so I broke my "don't look" rule and looked at the linked toyhouse to confirm it was really him.

Turns out, riftclaws are... Lizard creatures. Who open portals between worlds with acid in their claws. Who are looking for a new world to call their own. And who have some divine properties, that may involve body switching.

And all of Kismeti/riftclaw's old leupai characters are now riftclaws.

Oh, and he was planning to make them into a closed species. To make money off them.

Now, leupai were decently popular back in the day. I still have leupai characters, and make some periodically from time to time. There's a tag on tumblr and everything; if you're reading this, there's a decent chance you remember Vee yourself, as a fair number of my followers were there too. People still talk about Valenth from time to time. Leupai still has a folder of old fanart from back in the day with some 800 pieces of art in it. They were, by all accounts, successful until they weren't.

But the height of popularity was back when Vee was still around, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only new stuff in the tags is from an archive blog of old Vee assets.

Despite that, though. And I know this from messages between the pair, I know that Kismeti tore into Leupai repeatedly for "being more popular" and "having more eyes on their work". Even though "those eyes" didn't keep Leupai fed or housed, or really give them any income. Even though "those eyes" meant getting 50 notes on a tumblr post as opposed to 20. Even though "those eyes" just increased thievery and the constant pressure to be a Content Creator(tm), and were a major part of what drove Leupai off the internet entirely starting in 2018.

So imagine. Imagine for a moment. Being so hungry for clout and attention. That you steal your ex-partner's species concept that they've had since they were literally 8 years old, barely file off the serial numbers, and then make that your entire online persona four full years after your partner broke up with your ass twice for being an abusive piece of shit over a 10-year timeframe.

To borrow my own tags from this post, which got me thinking about all of this again?

#This is all to say; if you're jealous of someone else's success? Fine. Go have your emotion. But don't lift their shit.#Your emotions are valid; your actions aren't.

(Oh, and this is the smallest thing in the world, the least important piece of this? Riftclaws are already a thing from a game released in 2016 called Grim Dawn.)

[drdemonprince]

This is kind of late re: the culture conversation but I feel like I have a kind of weird perspective on this general idea of cultural appropriation re:embodiment. I’m Italian American, and indigenous South American but I was born in the US and when we immigrated to the US my South American ethnic group is so small and my parents were in Japan so long they culturally assimilated and I was raised in the Japanese immigrant community and literally went to Japanese day school.

This tension between who is “allowed” to participate in a culture or identity has always been deeply fraught for me in a way that has kind of bulldozed my understanding of cultural ownership. Not being “ethnically” Japanese has led to many people deciding for me what the appropriateness of my cultural participation is. And being indigenous South American complicates my relationship to standard cultural alignment with latinidad more broadly.

I have a lot of friends who are white USAmericans who are progressive but also deeply concerned about the boundaries between themselves and the cultures they studied in college and the countries they taught English in as migrant workers. I had a conversation with one of my friends who worked in China and he was talking about how he didn’t mind being legally disenfranchised because he was a white American migrant and didn’t feel it was necessary for him to have the same legal rights as Chinese citizens. And I had to point out that he was living in the same disenfranchised conditions as any other immigrant and there was no reason for him to downplay it. I don’t think it’s disingenuous or appropriative for him to have Chinese art in his house or cook Chinese food or participate in Chinese culture. Not because he lived there or had a complicated legal status in the country or somehow crossed some imaginary threshold of true and genuine cultural appreciation but just because culture is what you do its not a given fact of who you are. It’s a seamless part of his life and just because he sought it out doesn’t make it less genuine to me.

I think because of my complicated upbringing I have spent a lot of time with people between cultures, reconnecting, adopting new ones and feel very strongly that if there is no biological tie to culture people can incorporate whatever they want into their lives and it’s a VERY US American perspective to be so self critical and political about it.

And this isn’t to say cultural exploitation doesn’t exist but when it does happen it’s usually underpinned by a capital motivation to sell an idea of a culture and not a weird white guy who got really into Buddhism or a several generations totally removed Italian American incorporating Panettone into their Christmas celebrations. When people cross the line it’s cringe and inauthentic but it rarely goes beyond that.

When I was in college I had a professor who studied my indigenous ethnic group and I took a couple of his classes. Once I brought my grandmother and mom to campus to speak with him in our indigenous language, and my grandmother spoke to him for three hours straight. He was a white man from Michigan but also one of my only connections to my culture, a person to practice and share my language with, to connect with my family. And all because he thought South American indigenous groups were interesting and got a job with Amnesty International to investigate the dictatorship to get down there. He is the kind of man people wag their finger at and he was one of the most important cultural elders I had.

This is a long way to say basically I just really believe we are allowed to make our lives whatever we want and make ourselves whatever we want. The phenomenon of white Americans in search of culture exists for the reasons you listed below and outside of these political discussions about its appropriateness and its moral boundaries there are just people doing and embodying that cultural fluidity and exchange for a million different reasons that aren’t worth litigating. The small town gay kids who move to big cities and hang out in the leather scene, getting into punk or hardcore or goth scenes, even converting to a new religion function under the same mechanism of the kind of cultural immersion that gives you access to the community and membership in the culture that weebs who immigrate to Japan to teach English, or international students coming to America, or inter cultural or inter faith partnerships undergo.

Anyways thanks for listening to my treatise. So to whoever’s reading this take the dance class or the traditional craft class or learn a new language or learn to cook new kinds of food make all different types of friends and make new traditions out of old ones or old traditions out of new perspectives. Culture isn’t a sacred part of who we are it’s a sacred form of the things we do and embody and connect with others through :-) <3

this is an incredible, wise, compassionate message. Thank you so much for sending it. You've said so much here about the problems of tying cultural identity to a race, ethnicity, or blood, or to regard it as static or isolated. And how much the standard racist American conceptions of racial and ethnic identity make structural discussions about disenfranchisement worldwide hard to have. Said so so much far better than I could, thank you!!

[bigshoeswamp]

"In 1897, a group of soldiers returned to their hometown of Rio de Janeiro after months in the battlefield. Poor, unemployed, and lacking any kind of government assistance, they settled in one of the city’s poorest areas, then called “Morro da Providência” (Providence Hill). Not long after, due to the overwhelming presence of those destitute soldiers who fought for the Republican Army, the area lost this name and earned a new epithet. Years later its name became a worldwide synonym for disenfranchised urban communities, which it retains until today: Morro da Favela (Favela Hill). Favela or faveleira is a plant common to Brazil’s semiarid regions. Its existence became nationally known as thousands of army personnel – together with cannons, machine guns, and other industrial weaponry – were sent to fight and destroy a backland town in Bahia between 1896 and 1897. Surrounded by these favela plants, the town of Canudos was the stage for one of the bloodiest episodes in Latin American history, which historians reckon left some thirty thousand dead. At the end of the war, newspapers celebrated the progressive forces of the Republic for ridding the country of an unwelcome community of thousands of backland free poor, indigenous people, and the so-called “May 13th” (a derogatory term for formerly enslaved persons who had become free when Brazil passed the emancipation law on May 13, 1888). However, unable to explain how the rebels were able to put up a formidable fight against the country’s official army, many – from contemporaries such as the journalist Euclides da Cunha to twentieth-century academic historians – chose to explain the rebels’ endurance and brave resistance as the effect of a messianic movement. Ignorant and gullible – so the story goes – the poor inhabitants of Bahia’s backlands had become blind followers of a charismatic leader, Antonio Conselheiro, who supposedly had promised them heaven on earth. Such a simplistic explanation, though, not only fails to account for the hazardous impacts of decades-long liberal policies – from land encroachment to criminalizing laws – but also for poor peoples’ ability to understand and resist them. Unwilling to conform, the Canudos rebels were labeled as fanatics and denied a place in modern society. Exclusion in this case, as in many others throughout Latin American history, literally meant demise. The violence of the War of Canudos extended beyond the slaughtering of Bahia’s rebel poor. The very soldiers who committed this massacre returned home to encounter nothing but poverty and exclusion: They became the inhabitants of the Morro da Favela. As it happened so many times in nineteenth-century Latin America, the poor killed one another to further the projects of visionaries who could not care less about the welfare of ordinary men and women. Those who survived the wars the elite had created encountered poverty and exclusion at every turn. But the elites were more than satisfied: Another obstacle – another alternative way of life – had been removed from the path to political and economic 'progress.''"

Monica Dantas; Roberto Saba. Contestations and Exclusions In: The Cambridge History of Latin American Law in Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2024.

[gascon-en-exil]

a non-FE question from a person with a tenuous familial connection to quebec (anglo father adopted by a québécois couple) who's always curious about the different francophone experiences: my dad spent a lot of time in new orleans and loved it, but how do the new orleans francophones generally regard the québécois? are there any particular culture clashes?

Unfortunately there aren't many actual culture clashes because there's so little contact. Louisiana and Québec are separated by thousands of kilometers and a national border, and everything from vastly different climates to separate experience with resisting forced assimilation has caused us to diverge from one another quite substantially. I'm glad that I've made friends in Québec, and it seems like every week we're discovering some point of commonality we share in spite of everything that divides us, but that's an entirely personal connection that I sought out myself. Just a few days ago for example a few of them were sharing this post on Facebook:

and they asked me to tell them more about Louisiana king cakes, our spin on the traditional French galettes des rois which are still prepared in Québec apparently just as they are in France.

But let's see if I can condense our biggest differences to some bullet points.

Language: Québec is well known for being a majority French-speaking province, whereas Louisiana is...not. Practically all of the Louisianais are fluent English speakers, because starting from the 1870s French in Louisiana was stigmatized and systemically excluded from education, business, and politics. In recent decades there have been attempts at reviving the language, but they've been slow to take root without a foundation in the home to build upon. Both the Louisianais and Québécois practice code switching (the linguistic term for switching between languages in casual conversation), albeit in opposite ways. The Québécois speak mostly French but will include occasional English words and phrases in their speech, whereas as mentioned the Louisianais primarily communicate in English but use a variety of French terms and names as well as direct English translations of French not used in standard English (ex. "making groceries," a literal translation of faire les courses). This stark contrast is because of...

Population and politics: I won't pretend to understand the Québécois political system in any real depth. I do get however that a large part of the reason that they've been able to maintain a limited degree of autonomy as well as preserve their language is that ethnic French people vastly outnumber Anglos in Québec, and Québec constitutes a much larger percentage of Canada's population and economy than Louisiana does the US's, even back in the 19th century when New Orleans was a much larger city relative to the rest of the US than it is today. Beginning shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, Anglo-Americans began moving into northern and central Louisiana, establishing settlements and slowly pushing southward toward and even into New Orleans. This combined with various political maneuvers that progressively weakened Creole control in the area - splitting what are now coastal Mississippi and Alabama, which had initially been settled by the French, off from Louisiana, moving the capital from New Orleans to a then-barely-inhabited upriver border fort: Baton Rouge, which is mostly Anglo-populated despite the name - resulted in the Louisianais having far less control over our own state than what the Québécois have. Compound that with the aforementioned stigmatization of the French language, and many of the Louisianais have been left feeling disenfranchised and unwilling to participate in national politics. Louisiana is a "red state," in US political parlance, because its biggest voting demographic consists of the very same sort of people that make up the surrounding Bible Belt. Speaking of...

Religion: Québec had its Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, largely removing the presence of the Catholic Church and moving closer to France's model of laïcité/secularism. By contrast, Catholicism is still a highly visible element of life and culture in southern Louisiana, and Catholic education continues to be the standard in New Orleans. This is down to several factors, ranging from the poor quality of public services (not helped, surely, by the voters of northern Louisiana who like US conservatives in general recoil in horror from anything that might be dubbed socialism) to a matter of cultural preservation. The Bible Belt is an aggressively Protestant region, dominated by denominations that have historically held Catholics in poor regard. The US at large also has a long history of anti-Catholic discrimination, particularly in large cities like Boston and Chicago where Catholic immigrants formed a large percentage of the working classes. Southern Louisiana, however, has been majority Catholic since the colony's founding over three centuries ago, and presided over by specifically Latin Catholics in spirit if not in actual practice for all that time. The Louisianais have used that to make allies of other Catholic populations who've moved here, mostly the Spanish and Italians but also more recent immigrants like the Vietnamese. While I wouldn't describe most of us as religious in the sense that the US conceives of that term (I'm certainly not), Catholicism is still a crucial part of our heritage and the preservation of this region as a cultural enclave. I've had trolls calling me a conservative religious nut job because I call myself a Catholic, and yet ironically here we associate the Church with the city's decadent and libertine atmosphere. The focus on visual aesthetics, the relaxed attitude toward alcohol and sex and even sin itself...it's all in sharp contrast to the austerity of Bible Belt Protestants who descend upon New Orleans at regular intervals to protest Mardi Gras and Decadence and call us the new Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. And finally...

Climate: I said it before and it's a comparatively much more straightforward issue, but it really does make a difference. When we're in the height of our social season courtesy of mild subtropical winters, Québec is buried under snow. The reverse is true in summer, which in Louisiana is long and lethally hot and humid and plagued by disease-bearing insects and the ever-present threat of hurricanes. This has also affected our cuisine. Louisiana has a rich and internationally-recognized culinary tradition that builds upon a French foundation with a wealth of local innovations based on crops that thrive in this climate as well as the bounty of the Gulf of Mexico. Québec has...poutine. Obviously I'm joking a bit there, but it's telling that there are multiple Louisiana-themed eateries in Montréal - but the reverse is not true. I've always heard that hot weather climates produce richer and more diverse cuisines than cold weather climates, and I suppose that in this case at least it's true.

[bootsykitty]

Repost from Substack

Also some topics I plan on covering at one point or another…

Discussion of Attribution Theory and its real world consequences.

How Capitalists are bad at doing capitalism and frequently shoot themselves in the face with regards to long term viability and profits.

Related, short term vs long term thinking. So much of our society is rushed and as a result much of our “solutions” come from reactive ways of thinking and viewing problems, rather than more long term thinking both in the past and into the future and addressing our issues in a proactive way.

Scarcity mindset driving “pick me” mentality among people suffering at the hands of capitalism in its myriad of forms. It as a form of assimilation or safeguarding oneself, often at the peril of the remainder of the community one belongs to.

A basic concept that has been discussed before, but the reality that everything is made up. We only stick with it because everyone else does and it’s easier to go along than risk being ostracized by groups who would find change uncomfortable to say the least.

Most of us don’t know how to think because we haven’t been taught robust ways to think. Instead we’ve been taught broken ways of thinking that will never let most of us get back to the core problems that we are suffering from.

Socialization is a tool of oppression. From marketing to the indoctrination many receive through religion, the very real risk of ostracization and the rewards and punishments that keep us in line. And that these can come from a myriad of sources; family, friends, marketing, and just broader society which we engage with every day.

Our way of being socialized to deify the rich and demonize the poor. And the myriad of psychological impacts that ensure this stays in place, from the notion that we may wish to escape our circumstances and see wealth as a path out, to the fear inherent in a society that might no longer care about and messaging that says those who suffer such a fate deserve it and the psychological break we must have in order to feel like that surely could never be us…that we aren’t bad so it can’t happen to us.

Community vs Isolation (Individualism). The notion of bootstraps pulling as the only way to survive capitalism. It’s a convenient way to separate us from each other and put an undue burden on ourselves…of surviving without community, despite that not being reflected in our evolutionary history. And because people can’t make this untenable solution work, they are left to conclude that the failure is their own. All of this is to stifle the ability to organize among workers, family, friends, as everyone has their issues no matter how much they may try to deny it, and everyone needs help from time to time, and acting otherwise is unnatural and self-defeating. It also has the effect of separating families before they should be. Driving generations apart and removing the learning aspect from elders at much too early of an age. Leaving young folks even more bereft of a healthy knowledge base that could make their lives easier. This further drives other paranoia like the concept of white erasure, where birth rates among white folks are lower. But it s capitalism that is removing familial support. Capitalism that is not paying enough to afford a family. Capitalism that is driving toxic masculinity among disaffected white boys, who then have an unhealthy outlook on what they should expect from a spouse and what is expected from them.

Next is the concept of desperation as a way of driving distraction and fear. Similar to individuality removing familial and community supports…people who are desperate don’t look for help until it’s too late if at all. And these same people, so put upon by their situations, often don’t look to a political system that disenfranchises them as a way to solve it. They don’t have community, and often suffer from loneliness, and often just want an escape. And they are provided such an escape through the myriad of shallow distractions to keep all of us bought into the system and away from critical analysis through shallow tv and movies that even if containing deeper analysis, are never explored as we are largely taught as a society… (cont)

[ojiilemon]

I say this unsarcastically and in earnest: it sounds to me like the only way we can have a world, like *at all*, is, AT BEST, complete political disenfranchisement of the conservative population. No idea how it can be achieved, and I know it would be undemocratic as hell. But Christ alive, I don't see another better choice. People who oppose climate action and believe God has ordained that climate change must kill us all, or who don't want kids to be educated or saved from a viral pandemic... simply cannot be allowed to wield political power. At all. They have completely abandoned empirical reality and insist on dragging everyone down in their suicidal madness. It's existentially unacceptable, and we can't survive their continued political engagement. They should be fed, housed, afforded the same rights we demand for ourselves, but I don't see how they can be included in the political process without us revisiting this situation every generation. And this is the best solution I can come up, the most humane.

The less humane one is just... rock to head. Reason clearly fails to deal with these people, I don't think reeducation can work at the scale of the conservative population, so it really just becomes a matter of how much force must be employed to remove them from power.

im only half joking when I say we should bring banishment back. Like give them all a flotilla of cruise ships or let them pick some land to make their weird ass version of jonestown on. Unfortunately, as appealing as this is, it’s too complicated and 1/3 of the american population has been indoctrinated so our society would collectively collapse.

I wish there was a clean cut solution to this but we’ve let it fester for so long and in every tissue fiber of our society that it’s akin to necrosis. At this point I think we just have to stop it from getting worse and stop it from spreading to Gen Alpha as much as we can. It all starts in childhood.

I know a lot of people want a revolution but we’re not organized or unified enough for that. The left has too many factions and absolutely will not be able to agree on one course of action to take. So we wont be able to face this head on unless things collapse or there’s a violent collective attack on us first (which is unlikely. fascism is a slow drip and that’s why it’s so effective).

I think what will end up happening is that we’ll have to weather the storm in the long term and hopefully the damage won’t be so bad that it leads to our extinction. The planet is going to be here for a long time and other creatures in the wild have an easier time adjusting to adverse conditions than humans do.

Who knows. Mayne dogs will evolve to be the apex beings of earth or something. Who can say. I’m at a point where all I can do is support my community and my close people and hope for the best. Im trying to accept that I don’t have control and that it’s not my job or responsibility to come up with a blanket solution if the people in charge refuse to. I won’t feel guilty anymore for being unable to enact that change because it has been systematically and deliberately taken from me. All I can do is hope that the suffering happening right now eventually gets balanced out.

[talkingpointsusa]

Ben Shapiro tackles the real issues facing Americans today....like "Woke Kindergarten"

And where does that leave you Ben? (Source; The Ben Shapiro Show on Daily Wire)

Ben Shapiro is one of those people that is deeply ridiculous and yet is very good at concealing how deeply ridiculous they are. Since we last covered him he has unhitched his wagon from Israel-Palestine and hitched it to immigration. He is also a terrible rapper now so that's great. Anyway, he has thoughts on woke kindergarten and the nature of reality so let’s get into it.

00:00, Ben Shapiro: "One of the beauties of life is the simple fact that no matter how stupid things get, reality always wins."

I mean, kind of. I feel like the Daily Wires success kind of runs counter to that given how many times I've shown on this blog that very little of their coverage is based in reality .

00:41, Ben Shapiro: "One of those dumb ideas that has obviously taken center stage as of late has been the dumb idea of woke, woke is a foolish idea."

Yeah, "wokeness" is something that these guys like to complain about. Dave Rubin also talks about it a lot. It's basically a right-wing outrage based catch all term for "ideas that I don't like". However I'll give Ben this, unlike most of these guys he actually tries to define what "woke" means. Too bad he is completely incorrect.

00:46, Ben Shapiro: "Now what exactly is wokeness? We've defined it before on the show. Wokeness is the basic idea that if there is any sort of disparity between group outcome in American life, that somehow that group disparity is due to discrimination and the only corrective is therefor reverse discrimination. Some form of discrimination that is going to equalize the outcomes of the various groups."

That's not even what "wokeness" means. The term woke essentially means that you are aware of social issues. Also, this makes absolutely no sense. Can Ben name an example of reverse discrimination? Is it that thing about less white people being in movies that Matt Walsh was whining about a while back? Who knows! Like a lot of what Ben talks about, this is super unclear and vague.

01:19, Ben Shapiro: "The reality is the vast majority of group gaps are either inborn or they are the result of culture and environment."

So, if that's the case I can't wait for Ben Shapiro to use his platform to advocate for a greater focus on education reform in disenfranchised communities or helping to improve job prospects for minorities.

Also, is he trying to say that minorities are naturally less intelligent than white people? Because I am trying to understand how saying that group gaps being "inborn" could lead to any other conclusion.

01:28, Ben Shapiro: "That does not mean that every result is the result of inborn differences. For example, differences in outcome intellectually very often are about educational differences or cultural differences as opposed to say, IQ."

Ah, good save. Again, I guess Ben Shapiro is for education reform now. How very non-conservative of him.

01:45, Ben Shapiro: "This sort of stuff happens throughout life and looking at the rationales for why things are different in terms of outcomes between groups is a good way of crafting good policy but we have basically thrown that all out in favor of stupidity and now we are going to educate our children in that stupidity."

Uh Ben...I hate to tell you buddy, but the left are the ones making all those good policies you are talking about and your team is actively fighting against those policies. Also, Ben would just call any of those good policies "woke" if he covered them on his show.

02:04, Ben Shapiro: "According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 'A Hayward elementary school struggling to boost low test scores and dismal student attendance is spending $250,000 in federal money for an organization called Woke Kindergarten to train teachers to confront white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression and remove those barriers to learning. The Woke Kindergarten sessions train teachers on concepts and curriculum that’s available to use in classrooms with any of Glassbrook Elementary’s 474 students. The sessions are funded through a federal program meant to help the country’s lowest-performing schools boost student achievement.'"

Yeah, I looked into this organization and they seem like a total scam to me. The name "Woke Kindergarten" alone raises red flags, but the fact that the press was met with an automated email saying that the person who teaches the sessions was conveniently recovering from surgeries should say it all. If they aren't a scam, they are on the most extreme end of left-wing educational organizations and don't represent more reasonable left-wing educational policy.

Also, if you want to talk about political indoctrination in our schools, the Daily Wire owns PragerU which is currently pushing its PragerU Kids videos into public schools. If Ben were to argue against this honestly, he would have to be against PragerU Kids content in elementary schools as well. But he isn't because that hurts the grift.

02:35, Ben Shapiro: "And again, the basic theory behind this program is that if you just teach kids self-esteem they will magically become smarter and better performing. If you teach them about the radical injustices about the life they lead in the freest country in the history of the world, then magically they will perform better. Only one problem, it fails cause reality always wins."

Again, the views of this for-profit contractor that is probably a grift of some sort do not represent the left as a whole. I would personally think that we should put way less focus on outside contractors and way more focus on increasing teacher salaries as well as funding schools in disenfranchised areas. I'm sure most people on the left want that as well.

Also, while I don't think it should be the sole force driving the curriculum, yeah we should devote some time to teaching kids self-esteem. Mental health is important and teaching children the skills required to protect it is important as well.

02:54, Ben Shapiro: "According, again to the San Francisco Chronicle; 'Two years into the three year contract with Woke Kindergarten, a for profit company, student achievement at Glassbrook has now fallen prompting some teachers to question whether the money was well spent given the needs of students who are predominantly low income. Two-thirds of the students are English learners and more than 80% are Hispanic/Latino. English and math scores hit new lows last spring, with less than 4% of students proficient in math and just under 12% at grade level in English — a decline of about 4 percentage points in each category. Efforts to reach the organization were not successful."

Lets think about this critically for a minute. This is the only school I could find online that employed this company in the past, the website is super vague and doesn't really have any success stories or testimony, their founder Akiea Gross seems to have mostly done coaching stuff in the past and it seems like she hasn't actually fully implemented this program anywhere else, the fact that it seems like the school district was lied to about the success of the program, and the curriculum they created was ridiculously stereotypical and seemed to be only filtered through the bizarre conservative outrage version of the left.

I personally think Israel should be defunded but it shouldn't be taught in schools. This is mainly because kids in elementary school will not give a shit nor will ever give a shit about international politics and I don't expect them to.

I disagree with this program (if it is even a legitimate educational effort and not a grift) but I also disagree with the way Ben frames it in this episode. This thing feels more like a caricature of the left brought forward by guys like Ben instead of anything even close to actual left-wing politics. And there's way more evidence of a conservative effort to propagandize education than a left-wing one. They tried some educational method out, it failed and nobody will ever use it again. Problem solved, can we move on to actually important stuff now?

NOPE!

03:28, Ben Shapiro: "Now again, that is not a particular shock because again, woke kindergarten is a stupid idea. Teaching kids terrible ideas is likely to make them perform worse not better."

It's not that you are teaching kids "terrible ideas", it's that you are teaching kids ideas that are way too advanced for them to even grasp. Plenty of people are taught leftist ideas in universities and come out perfectly intelligent.

03:53, Ben Shapiro: "One of the most amazing things about the nonprofit world, and this is true virtually across the board, is that nonprofits are constantly exacerbating the problems they are supposed to fight so they can raise money to fight those problems. This happens all the time in nonprofit land."

OK, remember when I said that Ben Shapiro is a more serious commentator compared to other people in the griftosphere? I take it back because it seems like Ben forgot that Woke Kindergarten is a for profit company literally a minute after saying that it's a for profit company. This is not the kind of thing that a serious person who is interested in reporting the news truthfully does.

Also, can I get some evidence or data on that claim about nonprofits?

04:06, Ben Shapiro: "And when you talk about companies like Woke Kindergarten, if all of a sudden achievement rose based on you know, actual metrics of performance, the need for Woke Kindergarten would disappear."

This makes absolutely no bloody sense. I would argue that this whole fiasco in California has insured that absolutely nobody will ever hire Woke Kindergarten again. Since Woke Kindergarten is a for profit company, which Ben seems to either have forgotten about or is willfully ignoring, they are dependent on school districts hiring them to make changes to the curriculum. Since their curriculum has been proven to be a failure, nobody else is going to hire them.

If their program was extremely successful compared to other educational methods, the need for Woke Kindergarten would actually increase because that educational method would become well known as an example of what to do in schools. They would be in high demand amongst school boards across the country. This is the worst thing that could possibly happen to Woke Kindergarten and that's even assuming that they aren't some kind of grift.

04:16, Ben Shapiro: "One of the jobs of politically motivated people on the left is to exacerbate inequalities so as to claim inequity. That is the goal because if at any point those inequalities actually narrowed as a result of freedom and good incentive structures, then what would they do for a living?"

Ben, your team has been "exacerbating inequalities" enough for every political party under the sun. Also, freedom and good incentive structures don't combat inequality, policy does. And since Ben is against policy that helps combat inequality, he is as a result helping to exacerbate inequalities.

Anyway, Ben reads some of the curriculum that Woke Kindergarten was putting forward. Again, I think trying to teach first graders about international politics and foreign policy is an extremely stupid endeavor but I don't agree with Ben's bizarre assessment that this for-profit non-profit is using this curriculum to exacerbate equalities and as a result bolster their business by doing something that logically would destroy their business.

05:52, Ben Shapiro: "You have to understand that Woke Kindergarten is just the stupidest boiling down of what is in fact an extraordinary amount of educational theory. There is a theorist of education who is very often quoted in these terms named Paulo Freire. Paulo Freire was talked about by James Lindsey who we've had on the Sunday special before. He was a Brazilian educator who talked about what he called the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the basic idea was that you were supposed to inculcate in students not knowledge or wisdom or even ways of solving problems, you were supposed to impose in students a revolutionary ideology. That was the entire goal."

That's a pretty stupid way of interpreting the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. For starters, the educational theory he posed wasn't called the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that was the name of his book. The theory he discussed in his book was actually called Problem-posing education. The basic idea behind Problem-Posing education is that the current model of education primes students towards indoctrination at the hands of oppressive systems. Freire referred to traditional education as the banking model where teachers "deposit" information into students who as a result are predisposed towards ignorance and uncreative thinking.

Problem-Posing education on the other hand is more focused on engaging the student. Freire proposed that instead of "depositing" information into students, instructors should instead attempt to think and collaborate with their students in order to help students, particularly oppressed ones, gain greater critical development.

It's certainly an interesting thing to think about and is way more complex than the 2-D caricature version that Ben has presented to his audience.

06:57, Ben Shapiro: "Their goal is not to increase the math scores, their goal is not to increase the English scores. The goal of these educators is to exacerbate, again, inequities. It is to present America as a terrible place that must be overthrown. That is the generalized goal of the system."

Who is them? The founder of Woke Kindergarten? Again, assuming that she's not some grifter who took the school board for a ride, she's just one person. I have met many educators who lean left who keep it out of the classroom. More than can be said for PragerU Kids videos by the way.

She did say that America has no right to exist which I agree with to a point in of that no government necessarily has the right to exist. People have rights, governments do not. Again, what would the elite (or "them") stand from the overthrow of America? They'd lose all their power. Also, we still haven't acknowledged that Woke Kindergarten is a for-profit company. I'm just gonna assume that Ben doesn't realize that despite having said it on his show. That alone gets him a D- at best.

Ad pivot and then he plays that clip of her saying that Israel and America have no right to exist.

09:21, Ben Shapiro: "If she does not believe in America as a country and believes that anyone who is not originally on this continent needs to be thrown off the continent, what the Hell is she doing here?"

She didn't say that she thinks that anyone who is not originally on the continent needs to be thrown off the continent by the way.

This is something Ben does a lot. He makes up a version of his opponents argument that sounds unreasonable and then argues that version instead of what his opponent is actually saying.

09:33, Ben Shapiro: "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the way kids are being taught in public schools."

So, because one school hired an organization that taught something that is mildly similar to the ideas expressed in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, every single public school in America is adopting the ideas of Freire in teaching. If you read that little breakdown I wrote about Freire's ideas, you would know that this argument makes zero sense.

Really, this is just Ben justifying America's poor education system to his audience using absolutely ridiculous arguments. "No, this isn't the fault of conservatives who are basically waging a war on education, it's the fault of too many schools adopting the ideas of Paulo Freire.

God, I feel so sorry for the teachers and principals who are going to have to deal with parents regurgitating Ben's bullshit.

10:21, Ben Shapiro: "Meanwhile reality is setting in at an enormous number of American institutions. So Dartmouth actually got rid of the SAT during COVID and now they've decided to put it back in."

Yeah, getting rid of the SAT had nothing to do with social justice and everything to do with the fact that there was a pandemic going on. The pandemic was causing people massive amounts of stress that would lead to them potentially submitting tests that aren't representative of their academic potential. On top of that, it is pretty hard to conduct SAT's remotely without running the risk of students cheating.

10:35, Ben Shapiro: "Why are they using the SAT again?"

Because we've more or less returned back to normal and pretty much all classes are in person again? The reason they gave was because of research showing that SAT's help to predict college performance.

10:37, Ben Shapiro: "Because originally, again these equity fools have been suggesting that because there are disparate outcomes with regard to the SAT. That for example, black students do less well on the SAT than say white students and white students do less well on the SATs by the way than Asian students but they don't mention that part. Whenever they say there are group disparities in SAT outcomes, they claim the test itself is racist."

That's kind of one of the criticisms of SATs. I say kind of because it's a complete backwards-ass misrepresentation of the actual criticism. The actual criticism is less about race and more about affluence. One of the concerns regarding SATs is that they can be very easily passed by wealthy people who have access to resources that less wealthy people don't have such as private coaches and tutors. Some highly intelligent people don't do well on SATs but do well with their grades and assignments.

Here's the thing, I am a Canadian university student. We do not have to take SATs here. The country has yet to fall into ruin.

12:08, Ben Shapiro: "They adopted it in 2020 not as a result of COVID but as a result of the quote-on-quote 'social justice' protests surrounding the death of George Floyd. Because a lifelong criminal and drug addict died and this rejiggered all of American life up to and including whether you have to take an SAT in order to get into Dartmouth."

That's a really funny way of saying "He was murdered by the police". Also, a lot of universities opted for standardized optional policies during COVID. Dartmouth even says it was because of COVID. It was because of COVID.

12:49, Ben Shapiro: "In fact the simple fact of the matter is an excellent way for people who are in bad neighborhoods to get ahead is testing. Testing is a pathway out. If you're a really smart kid and you were stuck in a crappy public school in a bad system and you didn't perform in that crappy public school and bad system because you were surrounded by bad influences but you score high on the SAT, that's a great way of overcoming that particular burden actually."

This is a deeply deeply stupid argument to make.

There are some people who are naturally more intelligent than others (although intelligence is kind of hard to define but for the sake of argument lets use memorization and processing speed as the characteristics that define "intelligence"), the knowledge required to pass SAT's isn't something that just naturally pops into the brains of people being tested because they are intelligent. They need the resources and if they are in, as Ben so eloquently put, a "crappy system" they most likely don't have easy access to those resources.

Also, all the data shows that kids from lower-income families score lower on SATs than kids from wealthy families so this argument is complete bunk. It ignores all the data in favor of a seven year old's idea of both intelligence and education. I'd be impressed in a nine year old walked up to me and made this argument but to see a guy who many regard as an "intellectual" making it is absolutely painful.

Ben does an ad pivot. Ben decides to talk about the police.

14:36, Ben Shapiro: "Eventually we are going to have to make a choice in this country between whether we actually want police officers to be able to do their job or whether we don't want police officers period. There is no third option where police officers are magical dispensers of justice who never make mistakes and everything looks pretty on camera. That's not the job of cops."

Increased scrutiny of the police so they don't murder minorities isn't asking them to be "magical dispensers of justice", it's holding their actions to account so that they don't abuse their power and murder minorities.

15:10, Ben Shapiro: "All the people on the left who watch a police officer tackle somebody and say 'Oh my gosh, that looks so rough' 'Oh my gosh, that looks so terrible' Are you the one policing for drugs? What is it that you do?"

It's not "tackling" that I'm pissed off about, it's unjust murder. For goodness sakes, it's fine to make an argument but at least base it in reality. For a guy who titled his episode "reality always wins", Ben is extremely detached from reality.

15:20, Ben Shapiro: "And the reason I ask that is not because cops don't do things wrong. There are certain times where cops absolutely do things wrong and when they violate the rules then obviously there should be punishment for that. But instead what you have typically is people who don't like the fact that the police have to do rough things to rough people to maintain the police."

If Ben thinks that there should be punishment for cops who do bad things, why does he routinely defend cops who do bad things? I am seriously questioning what Ben Shapiro views as crossing the line for a cop.

Ben reads a little bit of an article that Heather Mac Donald wrote over at the conservative magazine City Journal. The first policy that Ben talks about is the "How Many Stops Act" in New York City. At this point I am kind of fact checking Heather's article through Ben so lets cut through Ben's bullshit for the time being and look at the excerpts from Heathers article that he used;

"On January 30, the New York City Council passed the How Many Stops Act, over the veto of Mayor Eric Adams. The law requires New York police officers to fill out a form nearly every time they interact with a civilian. If, for example, an officer asks a potential bystander to a shooting if he had witnessed that shooting, the officer will have to complete a form listing the bystander’s race, sex, and age. Are there other potential witnesses in the area who urgently need to be contacted before they disperse? Too bad. Identity-based paperwork comes first. (If an officer waits to the end of his shift to finish filling out the forms, he will still likely need to have made some contemporaneous record of his encounters.)"

This is incorrect. The How Many Stops Act is mostly about something called "consent searches". Consent searches are essentially searches that a police officer asks a civilian on the street to consent to based on a "suspicion" of criminal activity. These are referred to as level two stops. Level one stops, for clarity, are the cops approaching someone on the street and asking them to present identification as well as pointed questions (ie: Where are you going?) due to the suspicion of criminal activity. The How Many Stops Act forces members of the NYPD to document level one and level two stops. This is to help combat racial profiling and it has absolutely nothing to do with witnesses to a shooting.

"The How Many Stops Act is innocuous, however, compared with California’s data-collection requirements for police officers. New reporting obligations under the Racial & Identity Profiling Act require California officers to fill out an eight-page form (up from four pages last year) with nearly 200 fields when they make what is known as a custodial stop (meaning the civilian is not free to walk away). The form, generated by the California Department of Justice, comes straight from race- and gender-studies classrooms. The officer first documents whether he, the officer, is a “cisgender man, cisgender woman, transgender man, transgender woman, or nonbinary person.” To avoid placing a retrogressive “gender” straitjacket on the state’s public servants, the form allows an officer to check both “Nonbinary person” and one of the other categories, such as “Cisgender woman.”.

Then the officer documents the civilian’s “perceived sexual orientation: LGB+ or Straight/Heterosexual” and the civilian’s “perceived gender: Cisgender man/boy, Cisgender woman/girl, Transgender man/boy, transgender woman/girl, or nonbinary person.” Here, too, the discerning officer is allowed to surmise that the person stopped is both a “Transgender man/boy” and a “Nonbinary person.”

The operative word is perceived sexual orientation. The officer doesn't have to stand there and ask the person they've stopped what their sexual orientation is. Here's the protocol list that I found on the LAPD's website. One thing that you will notice is that there is a lofty list of exceptions that cover the things that Ben and Heather are concerned about such as shootings. It also says that if you are dealing with somebody with a warrant on them, you don't need to fill out an AFDR (automated field data report). It's also not written, it's electronic and a lot of the things such as the officers name are auto generated upon the entry of the officers serial number. It can probably be done quite quickly if you are between stops and have nothing better to do.

The fact of the matter is that these kinds of things are necessary to combat racial profiling. Black people are disproportionately killed in traffic stops. Now back to Ben.

18:10, Ben Shapiro: "The predictable result of this is why the hell would you join up as a cop?"

It's a part of the job. I guess the conservative where you aren't supposed to complain about your job do not apply to cops.

18:23, Ben Shapiro: "They are scared to death of being on the street. Not because they are scared of the bad guys but because they are afraid that if they deal with the bad guys and there's a bystander with a camera and there are a bunch of morons watching NBC that the officer will spend the rest of his life in jail."

Again, the only way that would happen is if the officer in question did something extremely serious such as say murdering somebody. This really just feels like Ben justifying police brutality.

19:02, Ben Shapiro: "In July 2023 the New York Post reported the number of people interested in taking the NYPD exam is cratering, likely hitting a new low as the city struggles to fill positions left vacant by senior officers leaving in droves."

I'll give Ben this, a lot of senior police officers are leaving the force due to the increased measures in the wake of George Floyd. The police are recruiting more people compared to previous years however they're losing faster than they can hire. However many have argued that this leads to a net positive of hiring qualified candidates that are prepared to handle policing in a less aggressive and more community oriented way.

In my opinion, a more community focused form of policing and a focus on reducing police brutality incidents to a minute number would help fix the reputational problems the police are facing and as a result more people would be willing to apply. The unfortunate thing is that that takes time. Loosening regulation meant to protect minorities is not the answer as increased police brutality will only worsen the perception of the police and lead to even less recruits.

Ben does an ad pivot. He then plays a recruitment ad from the Detroit PD. The woman in the ad mentions that they have programs for people with outstanding warrants (such as traffic tickets) and exercise programs so that people can pass the exam. A lot of cops take desk jobs and some take lower level positions like parking enforcement so I'd imagine that a lot of people in that stream would be assigned to that sort of position.

More importantly, the Detroit PD isn't deeply desperate as recruitment actually went up last year. Anyway, Ben plays more stuff regarding police recruitment numbers going down and it's basically more of the same.

Ben's next segment is about how Joe Biden is currently poling low. While I am not the biggest Biden fan in the universe (although he is better than the alternative), I think there are a lot of factors that need to be considered when you think of Biden's poll numbers. It's a contentious election between two contentious people and a large amount of the public thinks that Biden stole the election from Trump. This is not a normal election and Trump is poling only slightly better than Biden (and only in certain states). The rest of the episode is just polling talk and it's relatively useless to cover.

Conclusion;

Well, Ben is a lot more annoying than I remember. I feel like him arguing about a for profit company as if it were a nonprofit speaks volumes about the way he argues. Ben Shapiro is still definitely the most sane of all of the Daily Wire grifters but that's certainly not saying much.

Cheers and I'll see you in the next one.

[deadstuffguy]

How about instead of “drugs should be fine in this case but still illegal in this case which if you look at it from the perspective of how police would handle the situation would actually just make it easier for the privileged to get off Scott free and the disenfranchised to get punished more harshly” we say “drug addiction is a complicated problem that does real harm and should be solved by treating the underlying causes instead of punishing those who fall into any of the many societal traps that lead to drug use and abuse”

Maybe? Just maybe? Perhaps???

“Well I don’t blame people who are addicted to pain meds because they suffer from untreated health problems” how about “healthcare should be free so that health problems can be caught and treated before they turn into bigger problems and there needs to be massive change made in how healthcare professionals are trained to reduce stigma and bias within the industry”

“Many homeless people turn to drugs to cope with the wretched reality of being stuck in a negative feedback loop of struggle and punishment” how about “our society should consider the idea of someone going without food or shelter to be unacceptable and there should be systems in place to ensure basic human needs are always met such as free housing programs, free access to safe water, and programs to provide free meals to anyone who needs it”

“Mental health problems can lead to drug addiction” how about “mental health is health and just like healthcare should be free mental healthcare including therapy, psychiatry, and addiction recovery services should be free”

“But what if people do drugs anyway and the drugs make them do crime!” it should be obvious that making drugs legal doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want on them. Coffee is legal but robbing a bank after drinking a cup of coffee is still illegal. Drugs don’t make people do crime, the same shitty social structures that can lead people to drug use can lead people to crime so all the above is really a several dozen birds with like 4 stones type deal. Also we could consider a justice system that is built around support and reform instead of punishment. Prison doesn’t help people, it hurts them. Community service, court ordered therapy or addiction recovery, half way house type programs, all good ways to reform people. Removing people from society should be a last resort and it should still be done with compassion if it needs to happen.

Lotta people on tumblr are progressive until you bring up drugs. Then they turn into authoritarian fucking nightmares who Ronald Reagan would adore.

If your progressive values disappear the second a human being does drugs, you aren't as progressive as you fucking think.

[letterboxd]

Wigging Out.

Choreographer and director Jonathan Butterell tells Gemma Gracewood about stepping behind the camera for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, his love for Sheffield, and making sure queer history is kept alive. Richard E. Grant weighs in on tolerance and Thatcher.

Of 2021’s many conundrums, one for musical lovers is why the narratively problematic Dear Evan Hansen gets a TIFF premiere and theatrical release this month, while the joyously awaited Everybody’s Talking About Jamie went straight to Amazon Prime.

And yet, as the show’s lyrics go, life keeps you guessing, along came a blessing. There’s something about the film streaming onto young people’s home screens, with its moments of fourth-wall breaking where Jamie speaks straight to the viewer, that feels so important, given the content: a gay teen whose drag-queen destiny sits at odds with the less ambitious expectations of his working-class town.

Director and choreographer Jonathan Butterell, who also helmed the stage production (itself inspired by Jenny Popplewell’s 2011 BBC documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16) agrees that the worldwide Amazon release is a very good silver lining. “I made the film for the cinema but, in 250 territories across the world, this is going to have a reach that—don’t get me wrong, cinema, cinema, cinema, collective experience, collective experience, collective experience—but it will get to people that it might not have got to before.

Jonathan Butterell on set with star Max Harwood, as Jamie.

“It feels as niche a story as you could possibly be. But also for me, I wanted it to feel like a universal story, that it didn’t matter where on any spectrum you found yourself, you could understand a young person wanting to take their place in the world freely, openly and safely.”

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, with screenplay and lyrics by Tom MacRae and songs by Dan Gillespie Sells, sits neatly among a series of very specific feel-good British films about the working class experience, such as Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots and Pride. The film adds some historical weight to the story with a new song, ‘This Was Me’, which allows Jamie’s mentor, Hugo (played by Richard E. Grant), to take us into England’s recent past—the dark days of the discriminatory Section 28 laws, at a time when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still ravaging the community.

Hugo’s drag persona Loco Chanelle (played in the flashback by the stage musical’s original Jamie—John McCrea from Cruella and God’s Own Country), sports a wig that looks suspiciously like the Iron Lady’s unmistakable head of hair. Grant confirms that was Hugo’s intention. “His heyday was in the 1980s, so as a ‘fuck you’ to Mrs Thatcher, what better than to be dressed up like that, at six-foot-eight, with a wig that could bring down the Taj Mahal!”

Richard E. Grant as Hugo, getting to work on Jamie’s contours.

In light of the current pandemic, and the fact that the 1967 legalization of homosexuality in Britain is only “an historical blink away”, Grant’s hope is for more tolerance in the world. “Maybe Covid gives people some sense of what that was like, but with Covid there’s not the prejudice against you, whereas AIDS, for the most part in my understanding, was [seen as] a ‘gay disease’, and there were many people across the globe who thought that this was, you know, whatever god they believe in, was their way of punishing something that they thought was unacceptable.

“The message of this movie is of inclusivity, diversity, and more than ever, tolerance. My god, we could do with a dose of that right now.”

Read on for our Q&A with Jonathan Butterell about the filmic influences behind Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

Hugo in a reverie, surrounded by his drag menagerie.

Can we talk about the new song, ‘This Was Me’, and the way you directed it in the film? It’s a show-stopper, with Richard E. Grant singing in that beautiful high register, and then moving into Holly Johnson’s singing, as you go back in time to show that deeply devastating and important history. Jonathan Butterell: It felt inevitable, the shift, and necessary. Myself, Dan Gillespie Sells, the composer, and Tom MacRae, the screenwriter, we created this piece together, the three of us, and it’s a film by the three of us. We lived through that time, we went on those marches. Actually, in one of those marches [shown in flashback], Dan’s mum—actual mum—is in a wheelchair, by a young boy who was holding a plaque saying “my mum’s a lesbian and I love her”.

That is Dan with his mum back in the day, and it all speaks to our stories and it moves me, I can see it’s moving you. It moves me because I lived through that time, and it was a complex time for a young person. It was a time that you felt you had to be empowered in order to fight, and you felt very vulnerable because of the need to fight. And because of that disease, because HIV was prevalent and we lost people—we lost close people—it was a difficult time. I wanted to make sure that that story kept being told and was passed on to the next generation.

It’s so important isn’t it, to walk into the future facing backwards? It still exists, that need to fight still exists. The conversation, yes, has moved on, has changed, but not for all people and not in all communities.

What would be your go-to movie musical song at a karaoke night? My goodness. There’d be so many.

I mean, is it going to be a Cabaret, a Chicago showstopper, or something more Mary Poppins, something from Rent? I think what I would go to, which is what I remember as a little boy, is Curly singing ‘Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’. It’s such a kind of perfect, beautiful, simple song. That, and ‘The Lonely Goatherd’, because I just want to yodel. It would be epic. Trust me.

What is the best film featuring posing and why is it Paris Is Burning? It’s always Paris Is Burning. Back in the day, I was obsessed with Paris Is Burning, I was obsessed with that world. In fact, at one moment I even met [director] Jennie Livingston in trying to make a theater piece inspired by that. I lived in New York for eleven years and I met Willi Ninja. I just adored everything about him, and he would tell me stories. And again, it was so removed from the boy from Sheffield, I mean so far. That New York ballroom scene was so removed from my world, but I got it. Those two boys at the top of the film, I just wanted to be one of those boys who just hung out outside the club.

Harwood and Butterell on set, with Lauren Patel (right) as Jamie’s bestie Pritti Pasha.

What films did you and Tom and Dan look at to get a feeling for how to present the musical numbers? Actually, a lot of pop videos, from present day to past. There’s an homage, in the black-and-white sequences, to a little ‘Vogue’ Madonna moment. Pop is very central to me in this story because pop is what a working-class kid from a working-class community will be listening to. That’s in his phone, that’s in his ears. Not that many young people listen to much radio at this moment in time, but that’s what will be on Margaret’s radio, that’s what’s coming into the kitchen. And that was central to the storytelling for me.

Bob Fosse also really influenced me, and particularly All That Jazz and where his flights of imagination take him. I felt that was so appropriate for Jamie, and again in a very, very different way, but I could see how Jamie’s imagination could spark something so fantastical that would lead him to dance, lead him to walk on the most amazing catwalk, lead into being in the most fabulous, fabulous nightclub with the most amazing creatures you’ve ever met in your life.

For me personally, the film that most inspired me was Ken Loach’s Kes, because that is my community. Both the world in which Jamie exists—Parsons Cross council estate, is my world, is my community—and the world of that young boy, finding his place in the world with his kestrel friend, I remember identifying with that boy so clearly. He was very different from me, very different. But I got him, and I felt like Ken Loach got me through him.

Ken Loach made a few films set in Sheffield, didn’t he? But also, Sheffield is a setting and an influence on The Full Monty, The History Boys, Funny Cow and that brilliant Pulp documentary. So Jamie feels like a natural successor. It absolutely does. Sheffield’s where I grew up, it’s my hometown. Although I moved away from it, I always return. To have a chance to celebrate my community, and particularly that community in Parsons Cross council estate. If you’re in Sheffield and you’re in a taxi and you said, “Take me to Parsons Cross,” they’d say, “Well, I’ll drop you there, but I’m not staying.” Because again there’s a blinkered view of that community. And I know that community to be proud, glorious and beautiful.

And yes, that community, particularly through the ’80s, really suffered because some of that community would serve the steelworks and had three generations of unemployment, so they became disenfranchised because of that. But the community I grew up in, my Auntie Joan, who lived on that road, literally on that road, was a proud, working class, glorious woman who served chips at school.

Aside from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, what would be the most important queer British cinematic story to you? (And how do you choose between My Beautiful Laundrette and God’s Own Country?!) You can’t. My Beautiful Laundrette influenced me so much because, one, Daniel Day Lewis was extraordinary in that film, and two, because of the cross-cultural aspect of it. I went, “I know this world”, because again I grew up in that world. And it affirmed something in me, which is the power and the radicalness of who I could be and what I could be.

With God’s Own Country, when I saw that film—and that was Francis’ first film, which I thought was extraordinary for a first-time filmmaker—I knew he knew that world from the inside, from the absolute inside. And I know what that rural community was like. I read that script, because we share agents, and I was blown away by it—again, because of the two cultures coming together.

Jamie Campbell, the film’s real-life inspiration, with screen-Jamie Max Harwood.

Richard E. Grant’s character, Hugo, is such a pivotal mentor for Jamie. What did you need to hear from a mentor when you were sixteen? Don’t let yourself hold yourself back, because I think it was me who put some limitations on myself. And of course I came from a working-class community. I was a queer kid in a tough British comprehensive school. And did I experience tough times? Yes I did. And did I deal with those tough times? Yes I did. But the song that speaks to me mostly in this is ‘Wall in my Head’, in which Jamie takes some responsibility for the continuation of those thoughts, continuations of the sorts of shame, and that’s a sophisticated thing for a sixteen-year-old boy to tackle.

I also was lucky enough to have a mother like Margaret—and a dad like Margaret as well, just to be clear! And I remember my mum, at seventeen when I left home, just leaving a little note on my bed. It was quite a long letter. She said, Jonathan, you’ve probably chosen to walk a rocky path, but don’t stray from it, don’t steer away from it. That’s the path you've chosen, there may be rock-throwers along the way, but you’ll find your way through it. That stayed with me and I think that’s what resonates with me. And when I saw that documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, I felt that that sparked the need for me to tell that story.

Sarah Lancashire as Jamie’s mum, Margaret New.

We need more mums and dads like Margaret, don’t we? We do, we do. And the wonderful thing is, Margaret Campbell will say it and I think Margaret New in the film will say it: she’s not a Saint, she’s an ordinary mum. And she has to play catch up and she doesn’t understand in many ways, and she gets things wrong and she overprotects. But she comes from one place and that is a mum’s love of her child and wanting them to take their place safely in the world and to be fully and totally themselves.

Related content

Eternal Alien’s list of films Made in Sheffield

Letterboxd’s Camp Showdown

Persephon’s list of films recommended by drag queens

Passion’s list of films mentioned by Jaymes Mansfield in her Drag Herstory YouTube series

Follow Gemma on Letterboxd

‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

[sebastianshaw]

House of M fic

( @sammysdewysensitiveeyes  @the-home-kvetch Toad has a cameo in the second section and Pyro in the third. They basically disappear after that, though, then reappear at the very end for a brief but heroic mention , so if you only want to read those parts I shan’t be offended! I read a lot of stuff only for my own faves and then tap out, lol! The Gai are not Marvel canon. I needed some Generic Alien Invaders, so that’s what I came up with!) “So, now that you’ve seen what A.I.M. can truly do. . . can I count on your continued support?” Dr. Monica Rappaccini knew that she had taken a big risk bring a civilian to their Australian base and revealing so much of their operation here. But this civilian, a Ms. Radha Dastoor, given the moniker “Haven” years ago for her good deeds, had the same goals as her---human liberation from the boot of mutantkind. And what set Haven apart from so many other “sapiens” who wished the same was her resources; the woman was ridiculously rich. She’d already been a generous donator to A.I.M’s more. .  .legitimate faces, mainly concerning supplying disenfranchised human communities with medicine, clean water, and access to education. And some of her gifts had gone to these, as had been promised, but many had actually been funneled to A.I.M itself for its more. . .radical usage. Indeed, Monica was willing to bet a fair few pieces in this very facility were purchased indirectly by the unwitting Ms. Dastoor. But she wasn’t unwitting anymore. Monica’s agents had been easing her into more and more illicit aspects of their activism. While she didn’t seem ready to condone violence, she had expressed that she did not condemn it in an oppressed people either, just has she not condemned mutantkind for the same before the world’s tables had turned. Monica felt in this woman a kindred spirit, someone who wanted to even the balance, to help the helpless, and who, despite her pacifist demeanor, understood more deeply than she let on that breaking--or blowing up---a few eggs was a necessary ingredient in that omelette. She just couldn’t say so publicly, or the Red Guard would have her head in a second. Even her peaceful, benign activism surely had her on a few watchlists just because of how prominent she was. But here, she could speak freely. And Monica thought she knew what she would say. Monica thought wrong. Now, if Haven had had something affecting her mind, say a demonic entity of evil and chaos speaking to her at the most vulnerable moment of her life, Monica might have more than likely swayed her. But being in a stable mental state — “I am truly sorry, Dr. Rappaccini,” she said, and to her credit she did look it, “But I cannot be party to this methods. I understand the desperation that has driven you to them, and I even admire the---” “How can you say that?” Monica demanded, “After all I have shown you?!” “It is because you have shown me, Dr. Rappaccini, that I--” Haven was cut off again---this time by the klaxon alarm blaring throughout the building. ***

The Red Guard was storming the base. The technological hurdles had been considerable to get over, but once those were overcome by the tech division---S.H.I.E.L.D’S mutant technopaths helped considerably with that---the sheer physical power of the agents was practically bulldozing the poor A.I.M guards. Agent “Toad” Toynbee used his agility to spring off the walls and land on the agents shoulders, jumping from on to the other, knocking them off balance with each landing, allowing his fellow agents to hit them while they were distracted. His comrade and friend Agent “Nightcrawler” Darkholme used his teleportation to scout ahead, Agent “Marrow” Rushman punctured organs and blocked guns by firing bone spikes right up the weaponry barrels, while Agent “Rogue” Darkholme and Agent “Diamond Lil” Crawley simply barreled and brawled their way through every body in their path like the bruisers they were.  “Too easy!” Crawley bragged as she slugged one of the guards, who had practically been propelled into her fist by the thrust of Toad’s feet.  “Precisely”, concurred Director Shaw gruffly, and he grabbed the nearest scientist before the cowering woman could flee. They were deep in enough that the brains the operation were starting to be sighted between the garish yellow A.I.M. suits. And unlike those suits, the white coats over office casual clothes worn by the scientists exposed skin. Just hands and faces, the occasional legs from beneath a mid-length sensible skirt, but that was more than enough. “Agent Darkholme,” he said, and though he did not specify WHICH Darkholme he meant, Rogue knew it was her. She removed a glove and brushed a single finger against the woman’s whimpering face for the briefest of moments. If Shaw wasn’t telling her to dig deep, that meant she didn’t have to, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to go sucking someone’s whole psyche into hers just for fun. But she got enough to confirm what Shaw was suspecting---a trap. “We gotta get out, y’all!” she exclaimed, the whites of her eyes widening, “If someone gets past the guards, there’s orders to blow the place to kingdom co---” *** The clearing that had once been green and dotted with trees was now scorched black, dotted with flaming wreckage of what had once been the AIM base and the bloodied, moaning remains of what had once been its members. “Save any survivors you can!” Shaw barked, “We need them for interrogation! And Allerdyce, get out here and get the fires under control! This is potoroo country!” Shaw, Rogue, and Crawley all possessed mutations that allowed them to survive the blast, allowing Nightcrawler to only need to get Toad, Marrow, and Pyro out, which he could do in one trip, albeit an exhausting one, and on to the safety of their jet. Thus, they were all safe, though Darkholme was winded and done for the day. Hearing Shaw’s command over his earpiece, Agent St. John “Pyro” Allerdyce made a swift thanks to his teammate and ran out to push the flames back from touching the rest of the forest. Potoroos were a protected species, and their safety was of utmost importance in the House of M! Meanwhile, Rogue and Crawley dug through the wreckage, the former tossing car-sized hunks of metal aside like pillows and the latter just punching a path through it, as Marrow pinned down anyone who attempted to flee using bone spears---through their clothes, since Shaw insisted on them alive—and Toad tripped them up with his tongue before pulling them back so their leader could place them in cuffs. “That’s all of them!” the amphibious mutant proclaimed proudly as the last yellow-suited AIM member—the last MOVING one, anyway---was hauled into the jet. “Clear out then” Shaw ordered, surveying the scene a final time. Something caught his eye. “Wait---Allerdyce! Those flames there, in the center---get them somewhere else, there’s someone caught in the center!” “Get them somewhere else, he says, like I can just freaking teleport them or some shit,” Pyro muttered, but he cleared the flames, revealing indeed something who had been surrounded by them. It was a wonder that her long hair and salwar kameez---yes, Pyro know the term for it, thank you---hadn’t been caught alight, but more miraculous by far was the way the wreckage encased her in such a way that she had been protected from harm. She just also couldn’t get out. Not on her own, anyway. Shaw strode towards her, flanked by the flames that Pyro had pushed aside Moses-style. He took the cage apart carefully, knowing that pulling out the wrong piece could bring the whole thing crashing down on the woman inside. It wouldn’t have mattered much to him if this had just been another AIM flunkie; they had more than enough for the Psy Division to scan for intel. But this woman. . . he recognized her, and he didn’t know what she was doing here---though he had a hunch---and he wasn’t about to let her be hurt. Not until he had the full story. “Don’t try anything, dirtbag!” Marrow hollered, coming to Shaw’s side as the last of the metal prison was removed from the soon-to-be prisoner, bones ready to hurl should she make one move that the mutants didn’t like. “That won’t be necessary, Agent Rushman,” said Shaw calmly, not looking away from the woman, to whom he reached out a hand, “Can you stand? Please, let me help you. There we are. Lean on me. We’ll have you treated for any injuries immediately. And. . . Radha Dastoor, it is my duty to inform you, that you are under arrest.” *** The AIM prisoners had been brought in, read their rights---such as their were---and the charges brought against them, given their prison jumpsuits, and put in holding awaiting prosecution after the Psi Division got through them. That was what counted for interrogation these days. The crude, ineffective ways of sapien grilling and guesswork were over. But Director Shaw still speaking with one of them personally. Just one. “Our telepaths confirm your story, Ms. Dastoor,” he said. The pair of them were seated on either side of a table. Shaw was still in his uniform. . . Haven, in her newly issued one. Orange was a good color on her, though perhaps not fitting in this amount. She was cuffed as per protocol, and while Shaw did things by the book, his eye twitched slightly at the sheer absurdity of it. But he did not remove them. He didn’t get where he was by making exceptions.  “We know you were not knowingly in league with Dr. Rappaccini,” he continued, “But we also know that you did knowingly aid and abet several illicit activities.” “Yes,” Haven replied calmly, with neither coldness nor defiance, but nor any submission or remorse, “I did.” It was matter of fact, and perfectly polite.  “Your forthcomingness strengthens the decision I’ve made,” he said, his own voice also matter of fact, though his was more frank and detached, “To advocate for leniency in your case. You have been cooperative, you have denied nothing---as some people do even when faced with their own memories as evidence---and, as noted, you were not involved in Rappaccini or AIM’s terrorist activities. Your crimes, rather, have been more along the lines of providing funds, food, and medicines to, say, illegal protestors. Given your history, I am inclined to believe you will not escalate to more extreme measures, and should not be considered a public threat.” “I appreciate that, Director Shaw.” “It’s not a gift, Ms. Dastoor. Merely my professional opinion.” “Nonetheless, I do.” “I do have to ask you now, because you will be asked on the stand---once you have served your time and are duly released, will you cease in all such activities?” “No, Director Shaw.” There was a long, grim silence. “Ms. Dastoor, I cannot give you my recommendation for a reduced sentence if I believe that you will re-offend.” “It would be very disrespectful of me to lie to you now, Director Shaw, just to help myself, after you have shown me such goodwill.” “There will be no goodwill, Ms. Dastoor, if you do not.” The conversation didn’t last long after that. He soon escorted her back to her cell. A private one, to protect her from the AIM prisoners. “You can ask the guards from anything within reason and it will be provided to you if possible. if you feel you have been mistreated in any way, get word to me and something will be done about it if your claim proves true. Shaw wasn’t bending any rules for her. None of this was outside the law, or even a gray area. It just wasn’t something he had ever told any prisoner short of the occasional foreign royal who had fucked up but still had to be handled with care to avoid political disaster.  As Haven started to thank him for the courtesy, an alarmed voice called over the intercom, ”Director Shaw---the AIM prisoners! They’re all dead!” *** The one person that hadn’t been recovered from the base was the real prize---Monica Rappaccini herself. The assumption of SHIELD was that she had escaped before setting off the blast; the idea she’d simply been blown to pieces was too optimistic.  In fact, neither was the case. Monica had a much safer plan than escaping the building---she’d stayed in it. More specifically, in a blast-proof container specifically survived to withstand it, which dropped down a shoot far underground where the bomb wouldn’t reach it anyway, and she wouldn’t be found by the accursed Red Guard. The fools---they hadn’t brought a psychic to sweep for any minds missing, but it wouldn’t have mattered, the tech was telepath-proof too. If only they could do that for the entire place, but alas, it was difficult, tricky, tended to only work on a small scale. But that was enough for her. Once the danger had passed, Monica emerged and got in contact with her best agent---Thasanee Rapaccini, aka the Scorpion. Monica’s daughter. In another world, her name was Carmilla Black and she worked for SHIELD, against her own mother! But in this world, Monica had raised her, and raised her well. She was a (mostly, usually, except for a hiccup) loyal agent to AIM and mommy dearest, and she wanted to see the mutant tyranny she’d grown up under fall as much as Monica did.  But, like all teenagers, she could be a bit rebellions. Like questioning her mother. Something Monica would never have allowed her to do and survive if she hadn’t been her own preciously bio-engineered flesh and blood. ”Is that really necessary, mother?” Thasanee asked when given her new mission, ”They’ve already psy-scanned all the agents by now for sure anyway. What are they going to get from that lady’s mouth that they didn’t get from our guy’s brains?” ”It’s not about containing information,” Monica explained, ”It’s about public opinion. Haven can do more damage to us now than Magneto himself. She’s well-respected by the rest of the humans rights activist movement and even by many mutants. If she publicly denounces our cause, it will rob us of countless new recruits, funding, everything. She’s the most dangerous threat of all---a moderate. Do you see now? They’ll offer her a deal--leniency for collaborating with us, so long as she denounces A.I.M and everything we stand for. And people, even those who share our goals, our beliefs, will listen.” ”You really think she would?” Thasanee asked “I mean, all that good stuff she did for humans. . . maybe she’s just not cut out for our work. You’ve said yourself not everyone is. But that doesn’t mean she’d hang us out to dry.” ”I wish I had your faith in people,” Monica sighed, and it was true. She certainly wished she could be certain that Radha Dastoor wouldn’t do exactly that. But, she’d been so sure that Haven, who shared her cause, would join her and begin providing direct funding, and she couldn’t have been more wrong about that. So she couldn’t take a chance on Radha here either. ”And listen,” Thasanee continued, “If you’re worried about us looking bad, won’t we look WORSE if we kill her? I think that’s what REALLY would get people mad at us! Our own allies too! ”Thasanee,” Monica’s voice turned sweet, cajoling, truly motherly, as she put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and looked loving into the girl’s green eyes, ”My beloved child. I know this is difficult to understand. But Radha Dastoor dying mysteriously while in S.H.I.E.L.D custody would be very, very good for our cause. A peaceful activist, a nonviolent offender, a model moderate. . .and after her arrest by the Red Guard, who claim such a person was in cahoots with a terrorist organization, she dies while in their hands, and they try to blame that same organization? My dear. . .connect the dots the way the Average Joe would, and see what conclusion it brings you. The kind that makes the opposition look like the monsters we know they are.” Thasanee was a clever child, and she clearly got exactly what her mother was saying. Her conflict was clear on her face, her lip twisting in thought, her eyes flitting doubtfully downwards. But she reached the right answer, as Monica knew she would. ”I’ll do it, mother. You can count on me.” *** ”So what happened to them?” Jessica Drew asked as Agent Darkholme---Mystique, who had not been on the earlier mission---returned from attending to the matter of the AIM agents dropping dead. ”Chemical implant,” Mystique replied, “Rappaccini must have put it in them when they joined up with AIM. Probably to “motivate” them if they ever get cold feet. Or, in this case, fail her by getting captured.” ”G’awful way t’go,” Rogue shuddered. Whenever she had any doubts about what the Red Guard did, people like AIM reminded her who the good guys were. ”What I wanna know,” said Agent Crawley, “is who is this Dastoor broad, that she gets the royal treatment from Sebastian Stick-Up-His-Ass Shaw?” ”No idea,” Rogue said, putting her cooling coffee to her lips. “Before your time, daughter,” Mystique explained, ”Back when mutants were actively oppressed by humanity, before the rise of Emperor Magnus, Radha “Haven” Dastoor was one of the few sapiens on our side.” ”Our side?” Rogue looked intrigued. ”A sapien?” Crawley looked doubtful.  ”Oh, she didn’t go all out for us, not by a long shot,” Mystique scoffed, “Don’t get the wrong idea---she was a peaceful protester. Didn’t get anything done. But. . .she did reach a lot of her own kind, or try. And ran with a very upscale crowd, so there was. . . influence, I suppose. Ran some shelters and such.” The blue-skinned woman sniffed slightly, torn between wanting to give credit where credit was due, but also not wanting to oversell the woman as a saint when she’d barely done the bare minimum in Raven’s view. ”Anyway. Now that the tables have turned, so has she. She’s all about her OWN kind’s rights now. As if things are as bad for them as it was for us. Ha! Not even on our best day back then, were we ever treated with the grace that Magnus has granted THEM. But trust a human to not even be able to stomach a DILUTED taste of their own medicine. She shrugged her azure shoulders, “But since Director Shaw is old enough to remember her work---such as it was---I suppose he thinks she’s earned some professional courtesy. And he is, after all, nothing if not professional.” *** As promised, Haven was well treated while she was held at the Australian S.H.I.E.L.D base. She would be taken to Genosha to stand trial tomorrow, but in the meantime. . .  In the meantime, Thasanee Rappaccini had spent all evening infiltrating the base successfully without setting off any alarm to her presence. It was no mean feat, as one might imagine, but she had been trained for this from birth. Not infiltration specifically, but anything and everything relevant to taking down Magnus’s mutant-supremascist empire. And, much like how many unlucky souls never noticed a scorpion in their shoe before it was too late, this Scorpion had creeped in subtle as a shadow, unheard and unseen and undetected by man, mutant, or machine. And now. . .now she had a clear shot with her Stinger, as she called her left arm from which she fired energy bolts containing concentrated toxins. Like the Rappccini’s daughter of myth, Thasanee was literally poisonous. Yeah, she was pretty sure her mother hadn’t been born with that surname.   Haven didn’t even notice as the slim girl slid into the room. She was busy tending to a flower in a pot, to Thasanee’s surprise. Who had given her that? Scorpion had expected to find the captive in chains, not--- BOOM! CRASH! The entire base rocked as Scorpion’s eardrums rang, and it wasn’t just shock that made it difficult for her to keep her balance.  Thas had a clear shot, not for any gun but her Stinger; the name she had given her left arm, from which she fired the accumulation of toxins and poisons her naturally immune body stored in her left lymph node. Then crash that rattled entire base. A klaxon began to sound, reminding her unpleasantly of the one that had blared throughout the AIM base before its destruction. Yells, shouts, and more smashes reached her ears through the alarm as well. Thasanee had just enough time to wonder if her mother had sent Adaptoids to attack the place before one of the hulking culprits burst through the wall, sending Thasanee leaping into the hiding among the dust and debris; she could hear Haven cough from the same, but, she noted, the woman never screamed. Odd. Maybe she was too petrified too. She’d seemed like such a refined ladylike priss, Thas would have thought--- The Gai. That’s what was causing all this. Thas had encountered them a few times before. They were alien invaders, huge and monstrous, looked part insect and part reptile with a turtle-like shell from which their six limbs extended. Some wore additional hi-tech battle armor but this one was bare. All of them were the same thought; they didn’t care who they killed, only that they killed everyone. Human or mutant, warrior or prisoner, all Earthlings were the same to them. Something to be wiped out. Why, no one knew yet; telepaths couldn’t get in their heads and they were seldom in the mood to talk, though Haven seemed to be trying as the beast advanced. Thas was about to--- BONK! It was an almost comical sound, followed by a crack, as the force from Director Shaw’s fist collided with the stone-like shell of the Gai and, a moment after impact, splintered it.  Where did he come from?! Scorpion wondered, then saw he must have rushed in after it through the hole it left, then leaped on to its back to strike his blow. And then another. And another. He was hitting it with every step he made over its back, but once he got to its head, it tossed him like a rodeo rider being thrown from a bull before he could punch its ugly skull in. Scorpion wasn’t sure who she was rooting for.  Shaw was launched into the bars of Haven’s cell, and they bent in under the force of his indestructible body like overcooked noodles. Haven, luckily for her, had moved out of the way, and he wasted no time getting in front of her as the Gai advanced. Scorpion wasn’t sure how smart the Gai were--no one knew if they were sapient beings or merely mindless drones sent down to fight by a greater intelligence---but she for one thought it must be thinking how convenient it was that Shaw had taken down this obstacle for it.  Until he wrenched off the end of a bar and impaled it through the Gai’s bulbous multifaceted left eye. However alien this creature might be, it had a commonality with most beings on Earth, which was that getting a long sharp metal rod jammed into your skull was an unpleasant sensation, and the Gai responded in kind, reeling back and . . .shrieking? Scorpion wasn’t sure that was the right word for it. She wasn’t sure there was a word to describe it. Like all the sound files in the world glitching at once. She had to cover her ears, but Shaw was apparently part deaf---it was the only explanation---because he didn’t even pause as he grabbed Haven and ran. Scorpion was fairly sure he didn’t see her on the way out though; the Director clearly had bigger things on his mind. Like the Gai, which was more dangerous than ever as it thrashed around in pain. Scorpion supposed to humane thing was to put it out of its misery. . . not to mention, it’d be valuable to know how susceptible they were to poison. . .  But she had a target already, and it had just breezed by her in a bright orange jumpsuit. No time for mercy kills; Scorpion followed them.  She didn’t notice who was following her too.  *** Shaw lead Haven at a rapid pace through the sleek corporate-esque hallways of the building, which were even more rapidly being destroyed. They dodged the claws of more Gai, huge chunks of falling walls and ceilings, sprays of crumbling dust that she might inhale. . . or rather, Shaw dodged the claws and dragged Haven with him, shielded her with his force-absorbing body from the falling walls and ceilings, and commanded her to hold her breath through the crumbling dust from the destruction. He faced a few more Gai on the way out, and while hurting them was easy once they provided him with enough energy, keeping Haven safe---his priority---was difficult to do in tandem. But Shaw was professional, and Shaw was experienced, and Shaw not only got her out alive, she didn’t have a scratch on her. “Everyone good?” he said into his ear piece as he steered Haven towards the door that would lead them out at last. In addition to guarding her, he’d been guiding the Red Guard and the rest of the personnel as best he could over the communicator. “I’m getting the prisoner secured, after that we can---hello?! Over?! Over?!” The line had gone dead. It could be an accident during the destruction. But Shaw wasn’t sure about that. He’d figure it out soon. Getting Radha Dastoor to safety came first though. And he believed he had succeeded. They made it out the front doors, to the jet, into the jet--- And then Shaw cried out and fell to the floor, green toxic energy crackling around him. Not the kind he could absorb, either----it was pure concentrated poison. Scorpion stepped out of the shadows. “Took you long enough, old man,” she said, “I made it out way sooner. Of course. . .” Her eyes traveled to Haven, her real target. “. . .I didn’t have a load to carry. You must be tired from that; please, don’t get up.” She fired another blast into Shaw, who had been rising to his feet, despite the fact the first should have been enough to kill him.  Haven cried out this time in front of Shaw, throwing herself in front of his fallen form, begging Thasanee to stop. “Don’t worry, I’ll get to you,” Scorpion assured her,  “But before I do, I want to know one thing from him.” She addressed Shaw again, “Why has a mutant fascist pig like you been risking your life to defend a human? I saw you in there. You protected her. Why? Is it because of what she used to do for you guys? Has she been a double agent all along? Is she really a mutant?”

“Because. . . “ Shaw croaked, using all the strength he had left just to lift his head as Haven knelt down beside him, “She. . . is the State’s prisoner. And I. . . am a representive of the State. Of SHIELD. Of Emperor Magnus. It is my duty. . .to protect those in our custody.” He took a moment to breathe, and then continued, less labored this time, but still unable to do more than speak. “I find her activism sentimental soft-minded tripe, and I will see her stand trial for the parts of it that break the law---but I shall NOT see her harmed while she is still my responsibility. Not by the Gai, and nor by YOU.” “Wow,” Scorpion said, and she was genuinely impressed,  “Ok, so----I don’t take back that you’re a mutant fascist pig, but you’re a mutant fascist pig with some honor. Not gonna lie---I’m surprised. Enough that I’ll let you in one something before you die---I’m not going to kill her.” Both Shaw and Haven looked shocked. “Yeah,” Scorpion said, and answered the question she knew they must have, “My mom wants her dead, and I was sent to do that, but like. . .I’m just going to fake her death, get her out of here, set her up somewhere. That way--” She turned her gaze specifically to Haven,  “That way, you can’t denounce us---if that was ever even your plan---without A.I.M knowing you’re alive and killing you for real, so you won’t, right? And I don’t have to kill you for something you haven’t even done, and maybe were never going to. Everybody wins. I mean, except grandpa there, but I count wiping out one more SHIELD fucker---the Director, no less!---a win. Talk about cutting the head from the snake; he’s one step from Emperor Magnus himself!” “I wish I could be proud of you for this, daughter.” As if she had teleported, Monica Rappapccini appeared before her daughter. Who, judging by her reaction, had NOT been expecting this. ”Invisibility device,” Monica tapped a metal bracelet on her wrist, “I’ve been by your side this whole time. And you were doing so well, too. . . .up until now.” She sighed, “I know adolescence is a time to question authority but  you have to follow orders even if you find them difficult. That’s really more what this has been than anything---a test to see how far out of line you’ve fallen. The scientist in me, always having to test a hypothesis before I consider it proven. “ “Well, consider it proven, Mom!” Thasanee barked back, her feelings akin to how a normal teenager might react to finding out her parent had been in her room, “Now what! Going to kill ME too?” “Don’t be silly, you’re far too valuable,” Monica tssked, “As are these two as hostages. Dastoor for her money, Shaw for his political worth to the House of Magnus and SHIELD---much as I truly would love to slaughter him in so many ways. Indeed, I think I might just do that anyway once he’s served his purpose. He deserves it. Do you know how many people he has---” And that was when Exodus, Toad, and Pyro teleported onboard and saved the day. They made short work of Dr. Rappaccini, but alas, Scorpion got away. Shaw made a full recovery after receiving medical aid. And Ms. Dastoor awaits trial for her crimes. 

[bustedbernie]

not american, so feel free to correct if i'm wrong but even of rbg had retired as so manu people say she should have, wouldn't it have come a point where inveitably the supreme court would be on the line and therefore should be considered when voting? from my point of view it should always be taken into account, but again not american so my perspective is solely an outside thing

It should be a consideration. In fact, it has been a consideration for the right-wing for a couple decades, now. There has been a deliberate attempt to use the courts to their advantage, for all the projecting the GOP does about the dems supposedly doing this, it really is a GOP phenomenon. Holding up Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland was unprecedented and purely partisan obstructionism.

But yes, if you’re an American, and you vote, then the potential slant of the Supreme Court is something that should be considered when weighing your vote. In 2016, the slant of the court was brought up, as was the danger of the GOP’s obstruction and politicization/partisanship in terms of the court. Those dangers came true as evidenced in the corruption of the Kennedy Retirement, the fact that a SCOTUS justice’s wife paid to bus in January 6th insurrectionists, the Kavanaugh hearings, and the complete disregard of their own “standards” in order to nominate Barrett. If you were voting in 2016 and you voted for Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders or wrote in “Harambe,” this is on your hands. What are you gonna do to rectify that??? 

There’s evidence that the GOP began this politicization of the Judiciary as early as the Clinton Administration. In my view, given that, SCOTUS should be one of the central reasons why anyone should vote for Democrats, and Democratic-nominees to the White House. To pretend that it was still an apolitical institution in 2016 both ignored history, but also the recent politicization. It was a smokescreen to hate on Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and remove oneself from personal responsibility. That’s not a possibility, and these folks are now responsible for their pathetic choices that are already hurting the courts and could very well lead to a destruction of precedent that has moved ever more toward justice. 

For those saying “This could motivate dems in the midterms and shows the court IS apolitical, and that dems ought to use this anger to their advantage,” on some points, yes, we SHOULD use this to push court-reform. We should directly threaten the courts with this. But was this worth it? Not at all. How many decisions will be made that will be a disaster? How many people will suffer? Again, this is a smokescreen to avoid personal responsibility. If these dirty ass Jill Stein voters aren’t on the front-line working for the Democratic Party up and down the ballot everywhere, if they aren’t working to register and facilitate voting in disenfranchised communities, If they aren’t donating whatever time/money they can to the groups doing the above, then I don’t buy anything they have to say about empathy or policy. If they really see the effects of their past choices, now is the best time to grow the fuck up and start trying to remedy that. Well, the best time was November 2016. But that’s already the past. I guess we’ll see if they shape up and do the right thing or keep being sexist dogs. 

[ucflibrary]

November in the United States is Native American Heritage Month, also referred to as American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. It celebrates the rich history and diversity of America’s native peoples and educates the public about historical and current challenges they face. Native American Heritage Month was first declared by presidential proclamation in 1990 which urged the United States to learn more about their first nations.

 Join the UCF Libraries as we celebrate diverse voices and subjects with these suggestions. Click on the Keep Reading link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the featured Native American Heritage titles suggested by UCF Library employees. These 16 books plus many more are also on display on the 2nd (main) floor of the John C. Hitt Library next to the bank of two elevators.

An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family’s lands and opens a dialogue with history. In An American Sunrise, Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of her homeland and confronts the site where her people, and other indigenous families, essentially disappeared. From her memory of her mother’s death, to her beginnings in the native rights movement, to the fresh road with her beloved, Harjo’s personal life intertwines with tribal histories to create a space for renewed beginnings. Her poems sing of beauty and survival, illuminating a spirituality that connects her to her ancestors and thrums with the quiet anger of living in the ruins of injustice. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 Bird Songs Don't Lie: writings from the rez by Gordon Lee Johnson In this deeply moving collection of short stories and essays, Gordon Lee Johnson (Cupeño/Cahuilla) cements his voice not only as a wry commentator on American Indian reservation life but also as a master of fiction writing. In Johnson's stories, all of which are set on the fictional San Ignacio reservation in Southern California, we meet unforgettable characters like Plato Pena, the Stanford-bound geek who reads Kahlil Gibran during intertribal softball games; hardboiled investigator Roddy Foo; and Etta, whose motto is “early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise,” as they face down circumstances by turns ordinary and devastating. From the noir-tinged mystery of “Unholy Wine” to the gripping intensity of “Tukwut,” Johnson effortlessly switches genre, perspective, and tense, vividly evoking people and places that are fictional but profoundly true to life. Suggested by Megan Haught, Research & Information Services/Teaching & Engagement

 Coming Down from Above: prophecy, resistance, and renewal in Native American religions by Lee Irwin An introduction to an important strand within the rich tapestry of Native religions, this shows the remarkable responsiveness of those beliefs to historical events. It is an unprecedented, encyclopedic sourcebook for anyone interested in the roots of Native theology. From the highly assimilated ideas of the Puget Sound Shakers to such resistance movements as that of the Shawnee Prophet, Irwin tells how the integration of non-Native beliefs with prophetic teachings gave rise to diverse ethnotheologies with unique features. He surveys the beliefs and practices of the nation to which each prophet belonged, then describes his or her life and teachings, the codification of those teachings, and the impact they had on both the community and the history of Native religions. Key hard-to-find primary texts are included in an appendix. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 Fools Crow by Thomas E. Mails; assisted by Dallas Chief Eagle Set in Montana shortly after the Civil War, this novel tells of White Man's Dog (later known as Fools Crow so called after he killed the chief of the Crows during a raid), a young Blackfeet Indian on the verge of manhood, and his band, known as the Lone Eaters. The invasion of white society threatens to change their traditional way of life, and they must choose to fight or assimilate. Suggested by Mary Lee Gladding, Circulation

 Four Souls: a novel by Louise Erdrich After taking her mother’s name, Four Souls, for strength, the strange and compelling Fleur Pillager walks from her Ojibwe reservation to the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. She is seeking restitution from and revenge on the lumber baron who has stripped her tribe’s land. But revenge is never simple, and her intentions are complicated by her dangerous compassion for the man who wronged her. Suggested by Jada Reyes, UCF Libraries Student Ambassador

 House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday He was a young American Indian named Abel, and he lived in two worlds. One was that of his father, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, the ecstasy of the drug called peyote. The other was the world of the twentieth century, goading him into a compulsive cycle of sexual exploits, dissipation, and disgust. Home from a foreign war, he was a man being torn apart, a man descending into hell. Suggested by Mary Lee Gladding, Circulation

 Keepers of the Morning Star: an anthology of native women's theater edited by Jaye T. Darby and Stephanie Fitzgerald This is the first major anthology of Native women's contemporary theater bringing together works from established and new playwrights. This collection, representing a rich diversity of Native communities, showcases the exciting range of Native women's theater today from the dynamic fusion of storytelling, ceremony, music and dance to the bold experimentation of poetic stream of consciousness and Native agitprop. Suggested by Rich Gause, Research & Information Services

 Native Southerners: indigenous history from origins to removal by Gregory D. Smithers Long before the indigenous people of southeastern North America first encountered Europeans and Africans, they established communities with clear social and political hierarchies and rich cultural traditions. Award-winning historian Gregory D. Smithers brings this world to life in Native Southerners, a sweeping narrative of American Indian history in the Southeast from the time before European colonialism to the Trail of Tears and beyond. Suggested by Megan Haught, Research & Information Services/Teaching & Engagement

 Nature Poem by Tommy Pico This work follows Teebs―a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet―who can’t bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He’d slap a tree across the face. He’d rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he’d rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he’s adamant―bratty, even―about his distaste for the word “natural,” over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the “natural world,” he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 On the Rez by Ian Frazier This is a sharp, unflinching account of the modern-day American Indian experience, especially that of the Oglala Sioux, who now live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the plains and badlands of the American West. Crazy Horse, perhaps the greatest Indian war leader of the 1800s, and Black Elk, the holy man whose teachings achieved worldwide renown, were Oglala; in these typically perceptive pages, Frazier seeks out their descendants on Pine Ridge―a/k/a "the rez"―which is one of the poorest places in America today. Suggested by Larry Cooperman, Research & Information Services

 Shapes of Native Nonfiction by Elissa Washuta Just as a basket's purpose determines its materials, weave, and shape, so too is the purpose of the essay related to its material, weave, and shape. Editors Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton ground this anthology of essays by Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving. Using weaving techniques such as coiling and plaiting as organizing themes, the editors have curated an exciting collection of imaginative, world-making lyric essays by twenty-seven contemporary Native writers from tribal nations across Turtle Island into a well-crafted basket. Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 Surviving Genocide: native nations and the United States from the American Revolution to bleeding Kansas by Jeffrey Ostler An authoritative contribution to the history of the United States’ violent path toward building a continental empire, this ambitious and well-researched book deepens our understanding of the seizure of Indigenous lands, including the use of treaties to create the appearance of Native consent to dispossession. Ostler also documents the resilience of Native people, showing how they survived genocide by creating alliances, defending their towns, and rebuilding their communities. Suggested by Megan Haught, Research & Information Services/Teaching & Engagement

 The Man to Send Rain Clouds: contemporary stories by American Indians edited by Kenneth Rosen Over a two-year period, Kenneth Rosen traveled from town to town, pueblo to pueblo, to uncover the stories contained in this volume. All reveal the preoccupations of contemporary American Indians. Not surprisingly, many of the stories are infused with the bitterness of a people and a culture long repressed. Several deal with violence and the effort to escape from the pervasive, and so often destructive, white influence and system. In most, the enduring strength of the Indian past is very much in evidence, evoked as a kind of counterpoint to the repression and aimlessness that have marked, and still mark today, the lives of so many American Indians. Suggested by Rich Gause, Research & Information Services

 The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden … but what they don’t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.

Suggested by Mary Lee Gladding, Circulation

 Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War by Daniel J. Sharfstein Recreating the Nez Perce War through the voices of its survivors, Daniel J. Sharfstein’s visionary history of the West casts Howard’s turn away from civil rights alongside the nation’s rejection of racial equality and embrace of empire. The conflict becomes a pivotal struggle over who gets to claim the American dream: a battle of ideas about the meaning of freedom and equality, the mechanics of American power, and the limits of what the government can and should do for its people. The war that Howard and Joseph fought is one that Americans continue to fight today. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson With his single mother in jail, Sequoyah, a fifteen-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care with the Troutt family. Literally and figuratively scarred by his mother’s years of substance abuse, Sequoyah keeps mostly to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep below the surface. At least until he meets seventeen-year-old Rosemary, a troubled artist who also lives with the family. Sequoyah and Rosemary bond over their shared Native American background and tumultuous paths through the foster care system, but as Sequoyah’s feelings toward Rosemary deepen, the precariousness of their lives and the scars of their pasts threaten to undo them both. Suggested by Rich Gause, Research & Information Services

[cryptovalid]

An attempt at political analysis in 2021

I remember when I was still working on my Masters Degree in Political Philosophy. I really used to believe that liberal institutions could stand up to fascism. I really believed that our systems of law and justice, our constitutions as democratic states, had the means to prevent totalitarianism from rising. 

As the end of Trump's presidency approaches, it strikes me how much damage Trump has done to the public's trust in elections and democracy in general. How he has succesfully warped the public's perception of how freedom of speech and rights and equality work. But honestly, over the last four years it has become clear to me that Trump is not an abberation or a rejection of the centrist liberalism that preceded him. He is the inevitable result of the neoliberal project that started under Reagan and Thatcher and never abated. 

Not a single institution stopped Donald Trump, a man repeatedly convicted of discriminating against tenants on the basis of race who spouted racist bullshit constantly, who repeatedly bragged about abusing women and vocally supported political violence all over the world, who shamelessly used his position for monetary gain. Nothing stopped him from stacking the Supreme Court or imprisoning children in camps without their parents for the crime of crossing a border. 

The courts were toothless, and charges against him were dropped for no other reason than his electoral success in 2016. These last four years have seen the rise of similar figures and movements all over the globe. It is simply not a coincidence that everywhere from Turkey to Hungary, France and the Phillipines, from Greece to the Netherlands and the UK, in Bolivia and in many other democracies around the world, similar movements have arisen.

Movements that claim to represent the true people and a return to tradition and sovereignty, that propose a violent cleansing of foreign influence and moral corruption of the 'elites', while themselves colluding with foreign powers and led and funded by billionaires. Racist and violent regressive movements that channel the resentment over economic and political failures towards  immigrants, the poor and the left.This is not the first time that liberal democracy has fallen into fascism or the second or third, and we would do well to understand why. 

Over the past 50 years, the ideas of socialism have almost completely left the political mainstream. Previously leftist movements have been seduced by centrism, and have given up their fundamental opposition to capitalism to join the ruling class. The most famous living leaders of the biggest socialist party in the Netherlands now work for oil companies. As a result, all policy in the Netherlands is market-based. And when the market inevitably crashes because it is driven by unsustainable greed, the left no longer has a clear way forward. 

The right can always say: 'we need to turn more stuff over to the market. We need to punish people who 'leech' off the system. It's the foreigners, the poor and the left that took your money. We should remove them.'The mainstream left can't say that. It has no identity left, because it has already accepted the market as a solution before. They believe the same things about the world as the right, but less so. The ideas of the mainstream left are fundamentally in tension with each other: markets are good, but equality is also good. 

So whenever the left embraces the market as a solution, and the market crashes, they lose credibility. They've already dismissed anticapitalism as naive. They're stuck having to concede to the right. Anticapitalists have no choice but to vote for centrists, and the resulting policies are just watered down and ineffective, if any can be implemented at all.     And so we have the perfect recipe for political desillusionment. There is no real debate or difference in the political mainstream and no real socialist alternative. 

When the market collapses, the only radical change that shares the common worldview of the mainstream is fascism. Fascism is just capitalism with all the compassion and high-minded moral qualms thrown out. When even the left has spent the last 30 years insisting that anti-capitalism is a utopian dream, how are people supposed to deal with growing income inequality, rising costs of living, stagnating wages and a looming climate crisis, not to mention a pandemic that is spread by economic activity?

Since critiquing the system is not present as a mainstream political option, most people just stick to the options that are already available: blaming the outsider and the poor, but even more so. Where refugees, the disabled and the unemployed were previously just bad investments, now they are the reason your income is at risk. The people that were hit hard by the financial crash and by COVID measures are told not to be angry with lax/corrupt financial oversight, the inevitability of growing income inequality, forced labor and pollution in a global capitalist economy or with indecisive and compromised anti-pandemic measures, but to blame specific people and groups. This is fertile ground for conspiracy theories.

There is no easy 'free speech' solution to this, because hearing that specific people are responsible, especially disenfranchised people, is much more comforting than hearing that the culprit is the very system that you currently have to use to get most goods and services you need.

It has proven to be especially easy to direct people's deep anxiety over the future towards minorities, 'the media' and the scientific community in stead of the systems that got us here: self-interested power dynamics. Going back to the way things were 'before' is only going to produce the same results in the future. There is no capitalist solution to forced labor, pollution, financial crashes and growing income inequality. The market will at most try to sell you the illusion of a solution to those things. Individual self-interest will just not be a good guide in solving those issues, no matter how enlightened.

[didanawisgi]

“Late Wednesday night, the House passed H.R. 1, the “For the People Act.” It passed by ten votes, with every Republican voting against it, as well as Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, who fears that the bill will abolish majority-black districts like his in the Deep South. Thompson deserves credit for reading past the title of the bill, which its cheerleaders in the media seem not to have done.

As to that title, H.R. 1 says that it is “For the People,” but tellingly, not by the people, or of the people. Quite the contrary.

It would be an understatement to describe H.R. 1 as a radical assault on American democracy, federalism, and free speech. It is actually several radical left-wing wish lists stuffed into a single 791-page sausage casing. It would override hundreds of state laws governing the orderly conduct of elections, federalize control of voting and elections to a degree without precedent in American history, end two centuries of state power to draw congressional districts, turn the Federal Elections Commission into a partisan weapon, and massively burden political speech against the government while offering government handouts to congressional campaigns and campus activists. Merely to describe the bill is to damn it, and describing it is a Herculean task in itself.

States have long experience running elections, and different states have taken different approaches suited to their own locales and populations. The federal government traditionally intervened only to prevent serious abuses of voting rights. H.R. 1 would upend that balance for no good reason, wrecking carefully refined state regimes for securing the vote. It also throws out much of the work of federal election laws passed with extensive bipartisan support in 1993 and 2002.

The first target is to wipe out state laws that allow voters to be checked against a preexisting list of registrations. H.R. 1 mandates that states provide same-day registration and allow people to change their name and address on the rolls at the polling place on Election Day, then forbids states from treating their votes as provisional ballots that can be checked later. It mandates online registration without adequate safeguards against hackers. It mandates automated registration of people who apply for unemployment, Medicaid, Obamacare, and college, or who are coming out of prison. The bill’s authors expect this to register noncitizens: They create a safe harbor against prosecution of noncitizens who report that they have been erroneously registered.

H.R. 1 bars states from checking with other states for duplicate registrations within six months of an election. It bars removing former voters from the rolls for failure to vote or to respond to mailings. Outside election observers are an important check on the system; H.R. 1 bars anyone but an election official from challenging a voter’s eligibility to vote on Election Day — thus insulating Democrat-run precincts from scrutiny.

State voter-ID laws are banned, replaced simply by a sworn voter statement. The dramatic expansion of mail-in voting during the COVID pandemic is enshrined permanently in federal law. States are banned from the most elementary security methods for mail-in ballots: They must provide a ballot to everyone without asking for identification and may not require notarization or a witness to signatures. States are compelled to permit ballot harvesting so long as the harvesters are not paid per ballot. Curbside voting, ballot drop boxes, and 15 days of early voting are mandated nationwide, and the bill micromanages the location and hours of polling stations, early voting locations, and drop boxes.

States are compelled to accept voter registrations from 16-year-olds, although they still cannot vote before turning 18 (an amendment to mandate that, too, was defeated). Democrats and their political allies, who rely on the youth vote, traditionally expend extensive resources registering young people. The bill shifts the job of signing up young voters to the federal government, which will pay to teach twelfth graders how to register, create a “Campus Vote Coordinator” position on college campuses, and award grants to colleges for “demonstrated excellence in registering students to vote.” This is measured in part by whether campuses provide rides to get students to the polls and whether they encourage both students and the communities around the campus to get “mobilized to vote.”

Restrictions on felon voting in federal elections in many states are overridden. This exceeds Congress’s constitutional authority over the conduct of elections by directly regulating who may vote, rather than how. In fact, the 14th Amendment expressly permits felons to be disenfranchised — as the Supreme Court held in 1974. State elections officials would be effectively banned from running for federal office by recusal requirements.

Not content to remake the American voting system, H.R. 1 takes the drawing of congressional districts out of the hands of elected state legislatures — who have done the job since the Founding — and turns them over to “independent” commissions, while banning mid-decade readjustments of district lines. It also counts inmates as residents of their last address (even if serving a life sentence), a provision aimed at reducing the representation of rural areas where prisons are located.

These are just the warm-ups. H.R. 1’s crackdowns on political speech are at least as extensive and biased as its changes to election law, and some of the provisions on coordination and foreign-related activity are so complex that even election-law experts warn that their impact is impossible to determine. For example, one provision could be read to bar corporations from political activity if they have even a single foreign shareholder. The new anti-speech laws would generate years of litigation, and many of them would likely be struck down by the Supreme Court.

New disclosure rules would treat huge amounts of speech and advertising on matters of public concern as if they were campaign contributions, including any advertisement urging viewers to contact elected officials to support or oppose a program, policy, or law. This would require donors to, say, the AARP to be identified as supporters of any candidate if the AARP demands that the candidate keep a promise to protect Social Security. The cumulative effect is to further burden citizen rights to petition and further insulate the government from criticism.

501(c)(4) nonprofits would be required to disclose their donors, another potentially unconstitutional burden on the freedom to speak and associate. New limits on corporate political activity are extensive, and similar restrictions are not placed on unions. Previous rules in place to enable free speech on the Internet and prevent political bias in IRS audits are repealed.

What would an omnibus bill be without handouts to unworthy causes, starting with the people who wrote the bill? H.R. 1 includes extensive public-funding giveaways to candidates, including a six-to-one public match for some donations to congressional and presidential campaigns. It also establishes a pilot program that gives voters $25 apiece to make government-funded donations to campaigns.

The labyrinth of new speech rules would be administered by the FEC, and so H.R. 1 eliminates the commission’s longstanding bipartisan structure and makes it more directly accountable to the president. We are sympathetic to efforts to make executive agencies more politically accountable, but the newly partisan structure of the FEC that would be created by H.R. 1 only illustrates why it should not wield such vast powers over elections.

There are reasonable issues to be taken with the current system of voting and elections, and constructive steps Congress could take. But not since the Alien and Sedition Acts has one political party in Congress sought to bend the power of the federal government, on partisan lines, toward crushing political opposition to this extent. H.R. 1 is not merely a bad idea; it is a scandal.”

[hullrepublic-blog]

The latest Guest Blog for HullRepublic is presented below. Thanks go to Les Monaghan a talented photographer and writer exploring contemporary issues of poverty and politics. Over to Les.

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Our esteemed editor asked, ‘What would it take to knock the Tories off 40%?’ and, ‘How does the Left build a 45% vote share?’

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It’s a question that has concerned me for the last five years. In 2016 I smuggled a social artwork onto the walls of the Frenchgate Centre in Doncaster. I’d asked around 150 people what they most desired. I asked people across society but I especially made space for those I felt were disenfranchised, voices with the least spending power – the low-paid, the homeless, young people, refugees... ordinary people, like us. The responses in The Desire Project gave me hope. In a space dedicated to consumption the exhibition asked what we value most. It turns out we want health, happiness and a better world. We want the same things, we want to get along, we want to be social, we want community.

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So why don’t we live in that world? A world where we prioritise our health, happiness and seek peace? This is the world the Left offers, it seems like an idea we could all support. In the UK, this is not what any Tory government delivers for its citizens. Public health deteriorates under Tory rule, mental health issues increase and, Tory or New Labour, we never seem to stop bombing or invading other countries. It could be that maybe by asking the 60% or so that don’t vote for the social murder party, I’d reflected hopes that contrasted so starkly with the world we do inhabit.

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Or, of course, it could be that come election time, the parties that offer us a brighter future, lie.

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I sought another issue that I could photograph -  and exhibit - that could persuade some of that obstinate 40% that their votes lead directly to others suffering.

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In April 2016 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) published the first of their destitution reports. 1.25 million of our fellow UK citizens were having to choose daily between eating, heating and keeping clean. This, surely, was an issue no caring person could not be appalled by. Six years of Tory austerity had pushed those with the least into living Dickensian lives. This had to be a gamechanger. So what happened?

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Only the Daily Mirror, the Morning Star, The Guardian, and (incredibly) the Daily Mail (they put all the detail in quotation marks) covered this apocalyptic report. All the other Tory-supporting papers ignored it, the BBC and ITV, led as they are by our press, gave it minimal coverage. In parliament the baying toffs shouted down questions.

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Optimistically, I figured most of the papers hadn’t covered the news because readers would genuinely be appalled and, as in other times of mass public consciousness raising (the airing of Cathy Come Home, Michael Buerk’s report from Ethiopia, for example) demand action. I’ve been in press rooms where the editors decide what is, and what isn’t news. What people ‘think’, what is spoken of as ‘common sense’, what we think our world is, rests so much upon what we are told.

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The news that 1.25 million people were destitute was being suppressed.

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I knew that any quantitive, documentary report I produced would at best be contested, and most likely ignored if I took the usual photography routes to dissemination – galleries, magazines and the wider media.

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Perhaps if the public were informed of the worst effects of voting Tory it ‘could’ have an effect on their next vote. Why concentrate on voting? I felt that the only brake we can put on the rampaging neoliberalism that corrodes life and ultimately makes ‘losers’ of so many of us would be a Labour government. The media, clearly, was part of the system that sustains Tory governments. Whatever work I made had to reach voters without the media. The Desire Project had been seen by 77000 people a week in the Frenchgate Centre. What if public art projects informed people (voters) about an issue that was ignored everywhere else? And, what if the artworks forestalled potential objections by informing the public through real life stories? (more on this, here)

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Relative Poverty would be shown in free public spaces where it could be absorbed at different speeds, it would show ‘real lives’, but it would be supported by details and statistics that point to the scale of the issue. These supporting texts would also link directly to the government policies that cause the suffering. So, rather than throw your hands up at the scenes depicted, you, the viewer, can do something. You can vote to remove those who create the Bedroom Tax, or vote down amendments that would force landlords to make homes fit for human habitation…

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Relative Poverty never reached the scale I’d hoped for it. The Arts Council refused to fund the project four times.

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The first exhibits had only just begun when an early election was called.

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When it is shown, the effect is usually positive. The objections rely on division; “these people” “can’t look after their money” or “spend their money on the wrong things”, “you and I would budget and have savings, these people…” etc. Most conversations are dominated by media portrayals – these trump even first-hand experience.

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I’ve found that people are (naturally) resistant to bad news, it’s relatively easy to ignore the suffering of others, and nobody wants to be told they are wrong. A single project like Relative Poverty can only be part of a much bigger process.

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We live in an age of saturated right wing propaganda. We need portrayals of the lives most of us lead, the hopes and dreams most of us (still) have. These portrayals have to infiltrate every available space in our culture – this blog is an example. Life in the UK is great for the few, but plenty of the 40% have common ground with us and their dreams are ours. At every turn we must counter power, in our daily lives, in posts, in conversations. If you can’t create, then amplify those that have, always resist!

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By @LesMonaghan.

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Thanks to Les for taking the time to blog for us - an important and powerful read with great photographs. You can find more of his photographic work here:

https://www.relativepoverty.org

And his blog here:

http://lesmonaghan.blogspot.com

If you would like to blog for HullRepublic drop us a line.

[browngirlpolitics]

Hello! I’m back with another piece and this time I will be talking about a problem in my country, Pakistan. As a student, I was shocked and appalled when I learned that student unions are banned in Pakistan. Considering not many people talk about this, the majority of the student population even now is unaware of the fact that they are being deprived of their constitutional right to freedom of assembly. This is because the lack of student unions is so normalized and is such an old topic that we are not being taught about this very important part of a student’s life and depriving them of very basic and common knowledge. So, I took it upon myself to talk about the reasons why it was banned and how students and the general public are working to restore this very important organization. The general purpose of student unions is to represent students internally and externally, including on local and national issues. In Pakistan, although the constitution of Pakistan provides for fundamental rights including freedom of association and freedom of assembly, student unions are banned as already mentioned above. This happened in 1984 when, under martial law, general Zia ul Haq came into power. He banned all student unions in hopes that it'll help with the longevity of his political reign as they are a perfect platform for students to emerge as aspiring future politicians. The ban was however lifted during the PPP government in 1989. Despite the win in 1989, students were again greatly disappointed in 1993, when a petition arose seeking a ban on all student unions due to some students losing their lives on campus thanks to the Afghan “jihad”. As a result of this tragedy, the supreme court banned all political activities by students on campus. Though it is argued that the court did not outright ban all student unions, it could not be denied that the court failed to specify what exactly it was banning and hence political parties, scared of students rebelling for their rights and against any wrong action by a government, took full advantage of that. Since then, all student unions have been banned. The absence of student unions has been disastrous for the educational system and the social and political interests of the young generation and yet there is still some support in the community for the disenfranchisement of the students. How are students, parents of said students and everyone that can benefit from the revival of student unions working to remove the ban from this very important organization? What is the stance of politicians and former students’ union members regarding the uprising of students? I’ll talk about all that in my next blog!