#I don’t want to be anything other than leftist but all I see is decline and regression

[sonic-wildfire]

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[a-room-of-my-own]

Have you read "An Apology to JK Rowling" by Petra Bueskens on Areo? I'm pathetically grateful to read something so clever and well articulated on the subject after the amount of abuse JK has been subjected to

It's a great piece so here it is, thank you anon!

 Rowling recently published an eminently reasonable, heartfelt treatise, outlining why it is important to preserve the category of woman. There’s only one thing wrong with it: it assumes a rational interlocutor. Rowling outlines why the biological and legal category of sex is important: in sports, in rape crisis shelters, in prisons, in toilets and changing rooms, for lesbians who want to sleep with natal women only and at the level of reality in general. Rowling marshals her experiences as an androgynous girl, as a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor and as someone familiar with the emotional perils of social media, in ways that have resonated with many women (and men). Her writing is clear, unpretentious, thoughtful, moving, vulnerable and honest. At no point does she use exclusionary or hostile language or say that trans women do not exist, have no right to exist or that she wants to rob them of their rights. Her position is that natal women exist and have a right to limit access to their political and personal spaces. Period.

Of course, to assume that her missive would be engaged with in the spirit in which it was intended, is to make the mistake of imagining that the identitarian left is broadly committed to secular, rational discourse. It is not. Its activist component has transmogrified into a religious movement, which brooks no opposition and no discussion. You must agree with every tenet or else you’re a racist, sexist, transphobic bigot, etc. Because its followers are fanatics, Rowling is being subjected to an extraordinary level of abuse. There seems to be no cognitive dissonance among those who accuse her of insensitivity and then proceed to call her a cunt, bitch or hag and insist that they want to assault and even kill her (see this compilation of tweets on Medium). She has been accused of ruining childhoods. Some even claim that the actor Daniel Radcliffe wrote the Harry Potter books—reality has become optional for some of these identitarians. Rowling’s age, menstrual status and vagina come in for particularly nasty attention and many trans women (or those masquerading as such) write of wanting to sexually assault her with lady cock, as a punishment for speaking out. I haven’t seen misogyny like this since Julia Gillard became our prime minister.

The Balkanisation of culture into silos of unreason means that the responses have not followed what might be loosely called the pre-digital rules of discourse. These rules assume that the purpose of public debate is to discern truth and that interlocutors on opposing sides—a reductionist bifurcation, because, in fact, there are many sides—engage in argument because they are interested in something higher than themselves: an ideal of truth, no matter how complicated, multifaceted and evolving. While in-group preferences and biases are inevitable, these exist within an overarching deliberative framework. This style of dialogue assumes the validity of a persuasive argument grounded in reason and evidence, even if—as Rowling does—it also utilises experience and feeling. By default, it assumes that civil conflict and opposition are essential devices in the pursuit of truth.

Three decades of postmodernism and ten years of Twitter have destroyed these conventions and, together with them, the shared norms by which we create and sustain social consensus. There is no grounding metanarrative, there are no binding norms of civil discourse in the digital age. Indeed, as Jaron Lanier shows with his bummer paradigm (Behaviours of Users Modified and Made into an Empire for Rent) social media is destroying the fabric of our personal and political lives (although, with a different business model and more robust regulation, it need not do so). The algorithm searching for and recording your every click, like and share, your every purchase, search term, conversation, movement, facial expression, social connection and preference rewards engagement above all else—which means that your feed—an aptly infantile descriptor—will quickly become full of the things you and others like you are most likely to be motivated to click, like and share. Outrage is a more effective mechanism through which to foster engagement than almost anything else. In Lanier’s terms, this produces a “menagerie of wraiths”—a bunch of digitised dementors: fake and bad actors, paid troll armies and dyspeptic bots—designed to confect mob outrage.

The norms of civil discourse are being eroded, as we increasingly inhabit individualised media ecosystems, designed to addict, distract, absorb, outrage, manipulate and incite us. These internecine culture wars damage us all. As Lanier notes, social media is biased “not towards the left or right but downwards.” As a result, we are witnessing a catastrophic decline in the standards of our democratic institutions and discourse. Nowhere is this more evident than in the contemporary culture wars around the trans question, where confected outrage is the norm.

This is why the furore over Rowling’s blog post misses the point: whether we agree with her or not, the problem is the collapse of our capacity to disagree constructively. If you deal primarily in subjective experience and impulse-driven reaction, under the assumption that you occupy the undisputed moral high ground, and you’ve been incited by fake news and want to signal your allegiances to your social media friends, then you can’t engage in rational discussion with your opponent. Your stock in trade will be unsubstantiated accusations and social shaming.

In this discombobulating universe, sex-based rights are turned into insults against trans people. Gender-critical feminists are recast as immoral bigots, engaged in deliberately hurtful, even life-threatening, speech. Rowling is not who we thought she was, her ex-fans wail, her characters and plots conceal hidden reservoirs of homophobia and bigotry. A few grandstanders attempt to distinguish themselves by saying that they have always been able to smell a rat—no, not Scabbers—and therefore hated the books from the outset. Nowhere amid this morass of moral grandstanding and outrage is there any serious engagement with her ideas.

Those of us on the left—and left-wing feminists in particular—who find trans ideology fraught, for all the reasons Rowling outlines, are a very small group. While Rowling is clearly privileged, she has also become the figurehead of a rapidly dwindling and increasingly vilified group of feminists, pejoratively labelled terfs, who want to preserve women’s sex-based rights and spaces. Although our arguments align with centrist, conservative and common sense positions, ours is not the prevailing view in academia, public service or the media, arts and culture industries, where we are most likely to be located (when we are not at home with our children). In most of these workplaces, a sex-based rights position is defined a priori as bigoted, indeed as hate speech. It can get us fired, attacked, socially ostracised and even assaulted.

As leftist thinkers who believe in freedom of speech and thought, who find creeping ideological and bureaucratic control alarming, we are horrified by these increasingly vicious denunciations by the left. The centre right and libertarians—the neo-cons, post-liberals and the IDW—are invariably smug about how funny it is to watch the left eat itself. But it’s true: some progressive circles are now defined by a call out/cancel culture to rival that of the most repressive of totalitarian states. Historically, it was progressives who fought against limits on freedom of speech and action. But the digital–identitarian left split off from the old print-based left some time ago, and has become its own beast. A contingent of us are deeply critical of these new directions.

Only a few on the left have had the gumption to speak up for us. Few have even defended our right to express our opinions. Those who have spoken out include former media darlings Germaine Greer and Michael Leunig. Many reader comments on left-leaning news sites claim that Rowling is to blame for the ill treatment she is suffering. Rowling can bask in the consequences of her free speech, they claim, as if having a different opinion from the woke majority means that she is no longer entitled to respect, and that any and all abuse is warranted—or, at least, to be expected. Where is the outrage on her behalf? Where are the writers, film makers, actors and artists defending her right to speak her mind?

Of course, the actors from the Harry Potter films are under no obligation to agree with JK Rowling just because she made them famous. They don’t owe her their ideological fealty: but they owe her better forms of disagreement. When Daniel Radcliffe repeats the nonsensical chant trans women are women, he’s not developing an argument, he’s reciting a mantra. When he invokes experts, who supposedly know more about the subject than Rowling, he betrays his ignorance of how contested the topic of transgender medicine actually is: for example, within endocrinology, paediatrics, psychiatry, sociology, and psychology (the controversies within the latter discipline have been demonstrated by the numerous recent resignations from the prestigious Tavistock and Portman gender identity clinic). The experts are a long way from consensus in what remains a politically fraught field.

Trans women are women is not an engaged reply. It is a mere arrangement of words, which presupposes a faith that cannot be questioned. To question it, we are told, causes harm—an assertion that transforms discussion into a thought crime. If questioning this orthodoxy is tantamount to abuse, then feminists and other dissenters have been gaslit out of the discussion before they can even enter it. This is especially pernicious because feminists in the west have been fighting patriarchy for several hundred years and we do not intend our cause to be derailed at the eleventh hour by an infinitesimal number of natal males, who have decided that they are women. Now, we are told, trans women are women, but natal females are menstruators. I can’t imagine what the suffragists would have made of this patently absurd turn of events.

There has been a cacophony of apologies to the trans community for Rowling’s apparently tendentious and hate-filled words. But no one has paused to apologise to Rowling for the torrent of abuse she has suffered and for being mischaracterised so profoundly.

So, I’m sorry, JK Rowling. I’m sorry that you will not receive the respectful disagreement you deserve: disagreement with your ideas not your person, disagreement with your politics, rather than accusations of wrongspeak. I’m sorry that schools, publishing staff and fan clubs are now cancelling you. And I’m sorry that you will be punished—because cancel culture is all about punishment. I’m sorry that you are being burned at the digital stake for expressing an opinion that goes against the grain.

But remember this, JK—however counterintuitive this may seem to progressives, whose natural home is on the fringe—most people are looking on incredulously at the disconnect between culture and reality. Despite raucous protestations to the contrary, you are on the right side of history—not just because of the points you make, but because of how you make them.

[larktb-archive]

Hi! I'm too shy to come off anon, but I need your help understanding something. I hope I'm not bothering you!!

I don't want to interact with anyone who is a fascist, but I'm not entirely sure what makes someone fascist. Can you please explain it to me?

I know I could look it up myself, but I know that not all definitions online can be correct and I just want your perspective;;

Thanks!

Hi anon! Well, fascism comes in many forms so “sussing out who’s a fascist” is technically a little harder to do than having a simple checklist. After all, doesn’t a White Supremacist have different beliefs to a Japanese fascist? And doesn’t a Japanese fascist have different beliefs to a Wahabist? These beliefs clash don’t they? Well, yes and no. Sure the surface level beliefs are different but the underlying core beliefs of these groups are actually quite similar; it’s the specifics which are different. Even though it isn’t a “bible” on what is fascism and shouldn’t be taken as gospel, Umberto Eco has an essay called “Ur-Fascism” which contains 14 points, which can help us identify whether certain beliefs are fascist no matter the specifics of their belief system. I’ll explain the points in short and give some examples. Quick disclaimer, I am not an expert on fascism or any of the ideologies I’ll discuss by any means so if you aren’t taking Umberto Eco’s writing as the 100% correct truth, definitely don’t take mine as that either (this is how you should treat most sources tho):

1. Cult of Tradition and 2. Rejection of modernity

I put these two together because they’re kind of inseparable. This is basically the idea that there was a “glorious past” that people need to return to and modernity is a corruption of that “glorious past”. In British fascist thought, this past is generally the 19th century at the zenith of the British Empire or mid-20th century Britain. The latter is more common for people who wish to be a little more PC with their writings; instead of trying to use a by-gone era that pretty much no one alive can remember, they use a much more recent time with nostalgic ideas of “the good old days” which doesn’t seem threatening on it’s surface but is dogwhistling for a time when there weren’t as many immigrants in the country.

You may have seen the “reject modernity, embrace tradition” meme and it’s pretty much the most obvious incarnation of this idea. Similarly you may seen people online use “degenerate” as an insult. If you look at the meaning of the degenerate it means “having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable; showing evidence of decline”; it’s microcosm of these ideas put into a single insult. This is why you tend to see conservatives use it more than progressives.

I’d also argue that terfs obsession with 2nd wave feminism and their utter rejection of intersectionality and modern feminism is another manifestation of this idea. 

3. Action for actions sake

This is less detectable in terms of individuals but still important to note that these people tend to support action without a cause. Sure the insurrection at the white house earlier this year was action, but it had no substance behind it. It was action for actions sake, which is why any principled leftist didn’t support it. Fascists will tend to openly just call for action but won’t be very specific about the purposes of the action; as long as they agree with the ideology behind it they’ll support it. It’s why fascists love harassment campaigns and mindless acts of terror. Take Wahabist terrorist orgs like Al-Qaeda or ISIS, it doesn’t matter if bombing an Ariana Grande concert has no point, the only point is the action itself.

4. Disagreement is treason  

This one’s pretty self explanatory, they will ostracize you if you disagree with them. Again, terfs tend to do this, and I had a long conversation with an ex-terf I called a dumbass, who basically said that she was ostracized by them and mocked for having different beliefs (hope she’s doing well actually). There’s numerous stories from ex-terfs like this.

5. Fear of difference

There’s a tendency for fascists to group people into “us” and “them”. “They” are considered to be intruders who need to be removed whereas “we” are the people who deserve to be here because it is “our” right to be here. In Zulu Nationalism, this tends to be any non-Zulu speakers who they deem to be “Shangaan” even if they aren’t actually Tsonga, it’s just a pejorative at this point. If you see vague references to the “elite” without any reference to who they are and what makes them “elite”, this is tends to be a dogwhistle for Jewish people. Western Fascists have very little issue with the workings of capitalism itself or the accumulation of wealth by capitalists, they just don’t like “them”, taking “our” stuff. Any references to “us” and “them” is pretty much a red flag.

6. Appeal to Social Frustration

Fascists will tend to brush upon actual issues faced by the poor today but will instead blame it on an outside force. You’ll see job loss being blamed on immigrants or vague “elites”. Terfs do this too. They’ll see young girls who are genuinely struggling with patriarchal issues and divert all that pent up rage towards trans people and the “q*eers” (which they do tend to use as a slur unlike what most people would have you think). 

7. Obsession with a Plot

Everything is a conspiracy! The election was rigged! 9/11 was fake! that fucking pizza place/this furniture company is a sex ring! All of these are supposedly plots by the deep state who are trying to do... something or other. You’ll notice these “Plots” don’t actually have a purpose, but the fact that there is a plot itself is the issue. This is a way of engendering paranoia in the group while also feeling that there is a constant war against you even if there isn’t. This is also why, despite news sources being pro-capitalist the right will swear up and down it’s leftist media which is controlled by “them” (usually just meaning Jewish people).

8. The enemy is both strong and weak

“Trans people have infiltrated academia and the only reason people refuse to see gender as an immutable biological concept, is because they’re too afraid of the trans cabal to say anything. But also everyone can tell trans people are crazy and haha you have a high suicide rate.” It’s contradictory that’s the point. They need to feel that they’re both counterculture but also they need to be winning at all times so that contradiction is necessary. Also the use of the word “cabal” is a pretty big red flag for all forms of fascism.

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy, 10. Contempt for the weak, 11. Everybody is educated to become a hero and 12. Machismo and weaponry

All of these are kind of interrelated so I’m grouping them together (also this is already fucking long as hell so I don’t wanna bore you any further). You’ll tend to see a love for the military or at least military aesthetics when looking through fascist blogs. Guns aren’t just a tool for fascists, they’re representative of masculinity and the necessity of violence. Pacifists and anyone who refuses to fight are weak and therefore are “degenerate”. If you do not fight, if you are not willing to fight, you cannot be a “hero” (an ubermensch or a matyr). This comes with the fetishization of violence instead of the recognition of violence being an means to an end, and the worship of individuals rather than of communities and organizations. Take Japanese fascists and their lionisation of the imperial military and their desire to once again have an actual army.

Terfs don’t necessarily fit these roles except for arguably 10 considering how much they seem to look down upon the mentally ill and those who commit suicide and surprisingly 11 since that involves the hatred of non-standard sexual activities and terfs hate non-standard sex (this is from the most vanilla bitch who is very uncomfortable with kink but understands its not inherently good or bad). I have a feeling this is more so because terfs are mainly women (there are male terfs ofc) whereas this was written for male led organizations. 

13. Selective populism

When fascists talk about “the people” they tend to mean “the people we like”. “The working class” can be translated to “this cishet white christian man from Minnesota who owns land but hey he lives in a rural area so he’s working class right?”. They’ll also tend to have “tokens” who will suddenly become the mouth piece of the entire community they’re supposedly representing even if no one in the community asked them to (i.e. Milo Yiannopoulos). 

14. Ur fascism speaks Newspeak

They speak in terms which are both inaccessible to anyone outside of their circles whilst being so simple that once you learn them it becomes easy to understand. They abhor any form of “academic” speech so you’ll rarely see them source things (unless those things happen to agree with their views, which is rare but Jordan Peterson is popular for a reason) and if they do source things they probably wouldn’t have read them fully and will rely on you also not reading them. This is to limit any critical thinking so that your brain is basically jellified into an unquestioning organ which only responds “yes” or “no” and only appeals to a higher authority without any form of reasoning involved. This is why they complain about “the lefts memes being too wordy”... because they’re used to not having to read (this is somewhat tongue in cheek but heyho if the boot fits).

And that’s the 14 main features of fascism, if anyone is displaying multiple of these ideas then they are most likely fascist, and if an organization or group continuously replicates these ideas, then they are definitely fascist. I hope this wasn’t too long but like I said... very complex topic. (Also hopefully this is written well, it’s 10 PM and I am surviving off Irn Bru energy drink). Hope this helped!

[xxladylovexx]

The crusade to cancel my talk at Toronto Public Library

Meghan Murphy

October 18, 2019

This week, three Canadian writers launched a petition demanding the Toronto Public Library cancel a room rental for a sold-out event, ‘Gender Identity: What Does It Mean for Society, the Law, and Women?’ Sounds frightening, I know.

The local women organizing the event, a group called Radical Feminists Unite, asked me in June if they could bring me to Toronto to speak about gender identity legislation and women’s rights, unhappy that the debate was not being given space in their city. This is not an uncommon sentiment. The events I have been asked to participate in generally have been organized by regular women who have serious concerns about how gender identity ideology and policy could affect, and already is affecting, women’s sex-based rights. Canada in particular has been resistant to this discussion. Due to media blackouts, harassment, bullying, threats of violence, smear campaigns, censorship, and ostracization, a few brave women have had to force the conversation, at great risk.

In January, a couple women took it upon themselves to organize an event in Vancouver, ‘Gender Identity Ideology and Women’s Rights.’ These women had no budget, no public or political power, no history in activism or organizing events, and no agenda, other than to open up a conversation they feel is desperately needed. The panel, held at the Vancouver Public Library, featured me and two other longtime feminist activists with impeccable records fighting male violence against women. The organizers and I received numerous death and rape threats, were protested, and were libeled by politicians and the media. The VPL forced us to move the event after hours (to 9:30 p.m. on a weeknight), claiming that protesters posed a risk to patrons and staff. They attempted to charge us thousands in security fees in an effort to pressure us to choose another venue, surely aware we didn’t have that kind of budget. The chief librarian, Christina de Castell, issued a statement saying the library did not agree with ‘the views of Feminist Current,’ my website. Castell did not say which views the library disagreed with (protecting women’s sex-based rights or the idea that sexist gender stereotypes are not innate?), but regardless, she should not have taken a position, as a representative of a public institution meant to be neutral, nor should she have spoken on behalf of the VPL, as not everyone at the library is in agreement with her apparent opposition to both biology and women’s rights. Vancouver’s mayor labeled me ‘despicable’. Canada’s national public broadcaster, the CBC, located across the street from the library, refused to cover the event or contact me for comment, despite hosting a panel prior to the event, speculating whether panelists might say anything constituting ‘hate speech’. Of course none did. Despite protests, the event went off without a hitch and was incredibly respectful, inspiring, and galvanizing. The impassioned talks are available on YouTube for anyone to watch and see for themselves.

But why bother? Listening to words and forming an educated opinion based on said words is no longer a popular pastime.

Things have played out similarly in Toronto. The primary difference is that it is now writers leading the charge. You know, people who should be invested in reading and using words correctly.

Not only that, but writers of all people should be defending freedom of expression and a public library’s decision to uphold its mandate, which, per the TPL’s response to the petition, is to ensure meeting rooms are available to the public ‘on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use’. The statement goes on to say: ‘As a public institution, our primary obligation is to uphold the fundamental freedoms of freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression as enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.’

This response was unacceptable to the writers and thousands of Torontonians (many of whom I’m certain would consider themselves ‘progressive,’ even ‘feminist’) wanting my talk canceled. Indeed, those who have signed the petition, ‘Stop Hate Speech from Being Spread at the Toronto Public Library,’ have publicly stated I am guilty of ‘hate speech’ and compared the organizers to a ‘hate group’. The petition, authored by Alicia Elliot, Catherine Hernandez, and Carrianne Leung, reads:

‘Those who want to disseminate hate speech today know that they can misrepresent, then weaponize the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ in order to get what they want: an audience, and space to speak to and then mobilize that audience against marginalized communities. While everyone has freedom of speech, we want to once again point to the limits of those freedoms when certain acts and speech infringe on the freedom of others, particularly those in marginalized communities. We also want to point out that hate groups do not have a right to use publicly funded facilities to meet and organize. This is precisely why TPL has a community and event space policy: to determine who and who does not have the right to use its facilities. There is a difference between denying free speech—and what is known as deplatforming, which is when you refuse to allow hate speech to be disseminated in your facility. This has been an effective tactic to stop those who capitalize on spreading hate speech, such as Meghan Murphy.’

The problem is I’ve never engaged in hate speech. I have made very basic statements about biology, such as ‘men aren’t women’ and ‘male bodies and female bodies are different.’ I have also argued that some spaces should be women-only, including changing rooms, transition houses, and prisons. I have said that individuals cannot change sex through self-declaration and that a boy is not a girl because he prefers dresses to pants. I have said that women have particular rights in this world due to the fact of being born female. I have said that women have not experienced discrimination in the workplace, in the home, in universities, and in politics because of anything they feel or because they somehow ‘identify’ with feminine stereotypes. In fact, it is the desire not to be limited to gender roles that inspired feminists’ ongoing fight.

Usually, I say this all warmly. I’m not generally an angry person but quite jovial, in fact. I don’t spend much of my energy hating anyone beyond slow walkers and morning people. I’m just telling the truth.

The writers who initiated the petition say they will no longer participate in events held at the TPL unless the library cancels my talk, which is fine, I suppose. It is their prerogative if they wish to hold readings for their friends in spaces untainted by free thought. Surely the condos their parents bought them have shared rec rooms available for such gatherings? Cozy bubbles seem better suited for those needing to protect themselves from triggers such as people with different opinions and experiences, anyway.

The whole scene strikes me as nauseatingly elitist, especially the entitlement with which these ‘progressive’ people approach members of the public — in this case, women with no particular social, political, or economic power — as though they should have the power to determine what we all think or say. As though they have the right to dictate what a library, of all places, should allow to be discussed within its walls.

These protesters are primarily middle- and upper-class people who have had access to opportunities most people in this world have not. Who live in relative safety, free from state persecution — who have the privilege of freedom in a world that continues to host dictatorships and incredibly repressive regimes that quite literally jail and murder those who fail to toe the party line. They have taken a postmodernist theory invented primarily within the walls of academia — that is, the notion that material reality is determined by inner feelings — and are attempting to impose it on the general public via force. These people have taken on the position of dictator, threatening to throw those who won’t adopt their nonsensical mantras in jail. Indeed, a former politician with the NDP, Canada’s leftist party, publicly claimed the event was ‘illegal’ while her supporters said I should be jailed.

On Thursday, Toronto mayor John Tory said he had contacted the library in an attempt to have the event canceled and is ‘disappointed’ the library declined to do so. What is in fact ‘disappointing’ (indeed, appalling) is that the mayor of Toronto does not understand the TPL’s mandate as a public institution and opposes freedom of expression.

These leftists seem unaware that opposition to free speech has not treated their presumed heroes kindly. They have so easily forgotten Emma Goldman, who was imprisoned for distributing information about birth control. And Rosa Luxemburg, arrested and killed by the GKSD, a German paramilitary unit instructed to suppress the communists. Surely the suffragettes deserved to be jailed and beaten for fighting to win women the right to vote, as their ideas were deemed too ‘radical’, not only by their opponents but other feminists and abolitionists. They have apparently not paid much attention to the female activists arrested and tortured in Saudi Arabia for advocating that women be allowed to drive. Journalists continue to be murdered in Mexico for reporting on police corruption and the drug war. But no matter. Protecting free expression is clearly a relic of the past, before we had multi-billion-dollar social media companies on hand to police dangerous speech. (‘On top of that, she has been banned from Twitter for violating their Hateful Conduct Policy’, the petition reads, as though In Big Tech We Trust is an appropriate mantra for supposed social justice advocates.)

At what point in history has suppressing subversive speech benefited the marginalized? Or anyone, really?

The CBC again failed to include the organizers or myself, the speaker, in its ‘coverage’ of the event. On a segment that aired Wednesday, Gill Deacon, host of Here and Now Toronto, spoke with Elliot, who stated that I was ‘trying to take away the rights of people’, ‘preach[ing] against human rights’, and did not believe ‘transwomen should have protections’ under the Human Rights Act or Criminal Code, claiming this constituted ‘spreading hate’. That none of this is accurate was of no concern to Deacon or Elliot. The CBC sees no need to allow me to speak for myself and explain my apprehensions because, I assume, my arguments are so reasonable people might agree with me. While Elliot claimed that I was ‘lying’ when arguing that gender identity legislation could override women’s rights, this has, unfortunately, already happened, as we’ve seen men transferred to women’s prisons, where they have assaulted female prisoners; women forced to leave shelters and transition houses on account of being made to share rooms with men; women and girls made to compete with and against males in sport; women’s organizations denied funding for having a women-only policy; and of course as we’ve seen a number of estheticians dragged to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for declining to wax a man’s balls, because that man claimed to be female. What Elliot says there is no evidence for, there is ample evidence for. Which of course she would know, had she ever read my work, listened to my talks, or engaged in conversation with me, rather than using her platform to spout bigoted nonsense.

Ironically, if not for free speech, these individuals would not feel so safe to libel those they don’t like — which appears to be the go-to strategy of the Woke and Online. One wonders why they believe their speech should protected — even when hateful or slanderous — but not the speech of others. It is a modern hypocrisy I will never understand.

Unfortunately for these protesters and petitioners, the TPL will not be canceling the event, and I will continue to speak the truth in the face of threats, slander, harassment, ostracization, and actual hate speech. I will do this not because I have anything personally to gain from doing so but because I could not live with myself otherwise. I will not be silent while women’s rights are eroded, and I will not lie either under duress or to make friends. My integrity is worth more to me than my comfort or popularity, and yours should be too.

Meghan Murphy is a writer in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her website is Feminist Current.

[brandonmcadory17]

My mom’s husband has every right not to like amd not to be affiliated with Outgoing President Donald Trump, but he should have 4 to 6 years to have mainstream media outlets turned off like ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News surprisingly and MSNBC and be open minded and tune in to outlets like One America News Network, Newsmax, Real America News and Right Side Broadcasting Network because they are all better than the mainstream media, but he declined and refused to do and instead through a temper tantrum when conservative outlets like OANN laid out the facts about how corrupt Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton are and also how corrupt the Democrat Party and and the mainstream media are. I wanted Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden to succeed, but I didn’t think that there was a lot of corruption, so that’s exactly why I voted for outgoing President Donald Trump. Fact is, I’m not going to educate my Mom’s husband and explain to him why Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden are corrupt because he’s just as bad as the left is and the way he’s throwing a temper tantrum about Trump is quite frankly unnecessary. Fact is, he is old enough to know better as he voted for a corrupt politician, dictator, pedophile, racist, white supremacist like Joe Biden land he is of what he accused Donald Trump of being for 4 to 6 years and he should be ashamed of himself. I have a fair assessment. I condemn extreme groups from any side, I condemn anybody who has a racist background from any side whether it’s from a Democrat, a Republican, a conservative, a liberal, a Biden supporter, a Clinton supporter, a Trump Supporter or Republicans form the state level and I by any stretch of the imagination do not condone anybody from any side to say racist things and I’m not making up any excuses when he’s on the wrong, but outgoing President Donald Trump never has not encouraged anybody to do anything wrong just because somebody else is doing it and it clearly has nothing to do with outgoing President Donald Trump and I don’t understand why my Mom’s husband, leftists and liberals across the United States Of America who happen to be Biden supporters and Clinton supporters that are affiliated with establishment part of the Democrat Party would have the audacity to score political points against non establishment Republicans, show unnecessary opposition to outgoing President Donald Trump and advocate for the removal of Trump based on their feelings and that is something that I do not and will not condone. He and other Biden supporters who voted for Biden in 2020 should have called for Biden to be disqualified from the 2020 presidential election and should have condemn the Biden family for its corruption. I’m not making up excuses for outgoing President Donald Trump when he’s on the wrong but, I’m not going to allow anybody like my Mom’s husband to just make up excuses for Democrat incoming President Joe Biden and impeach certainly not going to make up excuses for Joe Biden when he’s on the wrong as far as his corruptive ties to his son Hunter Biden and the rest of the Biden family. Politically speaking, I don’t give a fuck or a damn if Biden supporters, Democrats, leftists, liberals and members of the mainstream media are all sick and tired of investigations into Bidens including Joe Biden himself because they are all just as bad as Joe Biden because their refusal to hold Joe Biden and the rest of the Bidens accountable and responsible for their wrongdoings and establishment Republicans are no different than establishment Democrats, so all of those people are essentially a part of the problem as they condone what the Bidens have done and if they voted for Biden as they refused to see how corrupt Joe Biden is, then they are part of the problem and they voted abortion, America last defunding the police, higher taxes, normalization of pedophilia, jobs shipped from the United States Of America to other countries and so did my mom’s husband. An addition to that, they are all criminals and pedophiles that voted for Joe Biden and so is my mom’s mediocre husband.

[toshootforthestars]

Via Akash Mehta, posted 25 Nov 2020:

Many of Cuomo’s most senior advisors previously worked as top aides to the Senate Republican Majority Conference. As a result, Democratic legislators negotiating policy with the governor now find themselves dealing with the same staffers who had once blocked their agenda in the Senate.

“Governor Cuomo would always say, ‘Hey, I can’t really go that far, because there’s a Republican majority,’” said Senate Health Committee Chair Gustavo Rivera, discussing the seven years Cuomo governed alongside a Republican-controlled Senate.  “Well, the folks who were part of the Republican majority and would ‘never go that far’ are exactly the same people who are now negotiating with us as a majority.”

Like other Democrats New York Focus interviewed for this article, Rivera pointed in particular to the influence of three former Senate Republican top aides now in Cuomo’s inner circle: Robert Mujica, the governor’s budget director; Kelly Cummings, his director of state operations; and Elizabeth Garvey, his special counsel and senior advisor.

[...]

A Democratic legislator who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Garvey and Mujica’s conservative orientations have slowed negotiations on marijuana legalization.

“It’s very clear that the governor has had different staff try to influence him in different directions,” the legislator said, discussing the possibility of legalizing marijuana in the upcoming session. “While I’d still say publicly I’m optimistic, I don’t see myself having an insider backing me up the way I did when Alphonso David was the lead counsel and policy person for the governor.”

“Alphonso clearly wanted to legalize marijuana,” they said. “We would get closer and closer to a three-way deal. Mujica clearly didn’t want it and ultimately was successful in killing it, in the very last days or weeks of negotiations each time. And when Alphonso left and Beth Garvey took over, it was very clear that her job was to not let this go anywhere.”

Less senior staff can also play an important role. Megan Baldwin, Cuomo’s assistant secretary for health who formerly worked as an analyst for the Republican Senate Finance Committee, was influential in negotiations over criminal justice reform, the legislator said, and “far more conservative than we expected to see from the governor’s shop on all of the criminal justice reform we were pushing very hard in 2019.”  Baldwin left the executive chamber in October. Alison Birzon, the governor’s assistant counsel who had worked as the policy director of the Republican Senate health committee for seven years, filled her role in health negotiations. “He replaced one Senate Republican staffer with another Senate Republican staffer,” the staffer said. “The more people like this that get hired in the health area, the less friendly they become to progressives.”

Robert Mujica “manages the state finances almost single-handedly,” Cuomo wrote in his recent book on handling the coronavirus pandemic, American Crisis. Mujica’s authority grew after the coronavirus hit, he said.

“I trust his judgment and it took a major burden off my shoulders,” Cuomo wrote of the former Republican staffer’s role in shaping the state budget while the governor focused on responding to the pandemic.

The budget ended up giving Mujica the unilateral authority to make rolling cuts throughout the year.  Mujica was previously the top Senate Republican aide, serving as chief of staff to two majority leaders, John Flanagan and Dean Skelos, and working for the Republican conference for nearly twenty years. “Mujica had been for years the top staffer, budget guy and political operative for the Senate Republicans,” said the Democratic legislator. “So you get a three in one with Rob.”

In the Republican-controlled Senate, progressive budget advocate and former chief policy advisor to the Democratic Senate conference Michael Kink said, “the marching orders were ‘cut benefits for poor people and communities of color, and shift a lot of money to big corporations and tax cuts for the rich.’ When Rob Mujica sits down to work on a budget, that’s his mindset. And the voters rejected it wholeheartedly this election.”

Mujica was instrumental in the 2009 Senate coup that restored Republican control of the chamber. “The meetings to plot the coup were at a bar directly across the street from the Governor’s Mansion—and at Rob Mujica’s apartment,” the legislator said. “Mujica was in on every discussion. And everyone knew that. When the governor hired Mujica, he knew Mujica had designed a coup and pulled it off.”  Three years later, Mujica again helped the Republicans keep control of the chamber by joining a coalition with the Independent Democratic Conference or IDC, a group of breakaway Democrats. Mujica’s role, Politico reported, was to help arrange the coalition in conversations with Governor Cuomo.

Kelly Cummings joined the Cuomo administration as director of state operations after working as the Senate Republicans’ communications director for six years. She was succeeded in that role by Scott Reif, who went on to criticize Cuomo for trying to “create one-man, one-party rule and implement his radical, leftist agenda.” Reif joined the Cuomo administration earlier this year.

In addition to his Republican hires, Cuomo has stocked his staff with former IDC aides, including his deputy secretary for legislative affairs, Dana Carotenuto Rico, formerly the IDC’s chief of staff; and spokesman Rich Azzopardi, who was the IDC’s communications director.

“This is stupid,” Azzopardi told New York Focus in a statement. “The governor sets the policy and he recruits the most qualified people to implement it. ‎We’ve hired from the Assembly, from the Senate Democrats, from organized labor, from the Obama administration, and from the private sector. Take a look at our record—anyone saying we have become a less progressive administration over the years is disingenuous, and anyone blindly taking them at their word is naive.” In a follow-up phone call, Azzopardi declined to make other executive staff mentioned in this article available for comment and argued against interrogating staffers’ employment histories.

“You look at somebody’s resume and you see into their soul—that’s what you’re saying. That we’re not pure enough,” Azzoppardi said. “You really want government to be just a progressive purity test? Is that really what you think the best way to run things is?”  Azzopardi emphasized that staffers’ role is not to set policy but to implement it. “Do you think Andrew Cuomo’s gonna do anything Andrew Cuomo doesn’t wanna do?” he asked. “Yeah, the answer’s no.”

[reinterlacing]

I’m over Identity Politics.

This is a milestone in my lifelong political evolution which I’ve been approaching for some time, and apart from their call on me to consider all this again, it has little to do with current events (the post-’rona #BLM protests, for any future archaeologists reading my important blog).

So what do I mean? Well, with apologies for this being an idea I haven’t chewed on long enough to articulate as well as I’d like, how about this?

I believe that idpol inevitably decays into the Oppression Olympics and causes tons of pointless infighting among people who could otherwise be doing something useful.

While its existence is both highly understandable and even quite useful in some circumstances, identity politics for identity politics’ sake is, in my opinion, doing far more harm than good for the American left.

It’s valid to say that this is an easy position for me to take because my skin practically couldn’t be any whiter, and because it’s been easy to pretend to be straight my entire life. But there’s a counterargument. While I can’t escape the problematic statistics of my biological ancestry,1 the fact remains that I’m not straight, I’m not typically gendered, and perhaps most obviously and most importantly, I’m not neurotypical, never have been, never will be, wouldn’t even want to be.2

So how do I fit in? I do have a degree of morbid curiosity as to how the Painfully Woke would seek to erase MY identity as a neurodivergent nonbinary bisexual human being simply because I disagree with centering all these person-labels as one’s primary political raison d'etre. Every scrap of evidence I’ve seen for the past few years tells me that a truly orthodox Wokester would read this and immediately seek to festoon me with a lifelong Bigotry Warning Flag so that not only they, but all who cross my path in the future, would know to discount, ignore, and ridicule anything I might say.

This self-limiting and counterproductive. For many reasons. As some would say, we live in a society. An unending campaign of hostile shunning is never a good way to promote harmony in any society.3

So where is the line between an oppressed group coming together to wield political power to benefit themselves & possibly others, versus 2020s American Woke Performative Leftism? I don’t know. Clearly what is happening now in the USA involves people acting on both sides of that line.

I consider #BLM an example of identity politics which hasn’t yet outlived its usefulness & entered the decline phase, likely because it’s centered on a group which is undeniably oppressed via state violence with frequent deadly outcome (as opposed to “microaggressions,” uncomfy words, and disagreeing opinions) and because #BLM is focused for now on a primary cause - ending police brutality & racial disparities in the American legal system. But there are plenty of (mostly white!) SJW dingleberries hanging on to the moment and Performing their Leftism for all to see as well. And those people, as far as I can tell, are useless at best and highly counterproductive at worst when it comes to their effect on the actual achievement of actually progressive actual causes.

Some might call me a bigot for pointing out what everybody outside the Woke Left filter bubble knows to be true. And when we get down to brass tacks, I just don’t give a fuck.

The reason for that is similar to why I don’t give a fuck about whatever people still invested in the Democrat Party4 might say about my inconvenient politics: namely, that those people don’t represent me, they don’t give a fuck about me, they won’t do anything to advance my interests, and their existence just adds endless complication to the existence of me & mine & people like me. So if they get mad because I speak & act on my truth, so what?

I’m not even really sure what the point of writing all this was, maybe just to clarify it for myself because I spend a lot of time on social media frequented by leftists, performative and otherwise. For what it’s worth, besides being written in the context of the #BLM protests finally having some long-deserved success in causing actual change, what sparked the actual urge to write this instead of just chew on it moar, was the whole ridiculous nerd fight about renaming the ‘master’ source code branch in a revision control system popular with programmers. Which, man, I’m just not going to step in on other than to say that maybe some people could be otherwise focused.

Oh well, so it goes.

23andme pegged me as 99.9% European, 0.1% sub-Saharan African. I did some napkin estimation and arrived at the conclusion this could plausibly be the result of one (1) black ancestor somewhere around 1520-1580 AD. Otherwise it's Scottish cave people all the way down.

How’s that for “you could never understand” oppressed status? My entire way of experiencing the world is different from normies on a hardware level!

I understand that some on the left - some of my friends, even - do not have a goal of promoting harmony in society. I do.

I hate this GOP PR strategist invented name. With the CARES Act et al, the Democrat establishment earned it with their 100% complicity in the largest upward wealth transfer in American history. It makes the 2008 crisis look like a lemonade stand bankruptcy. Ask yourself why Americans are battling state unemployment systems for $600/mo COVID aid - if eligible, which requires them to lose their job - when other countries at our standard of living have provided 2-3x the amount of aid, and often done it in such a way (thru payroll) that jobs didn’t need to be lost, in fact, would be far more likely to be waiting when lockdowns eased. Ask yourself why the Democrat establishment isn’t fighting tooth & nail for H.R. 6918, the Paycheck Recovery Act introduced by progressive legislator Pramila Jayapal. (Conveniently, I’ll tell you: It’s because the Democrat Party leadership is working for the same wealthy donor class the Republican Party leadership is working for, and that is what people mean when they say "Democrats and Republicans are the same.")

[mutualhighmaintenancemachin-blog]

I need a fix cus I'm going down

Made the mistake of appraising myself sufficiently healthy to attend a bonfire with normal decent tax-payer type folks. Stood up too fast in my chair and blacked out completely, hit my head on concrete. When I came to i had no earthly fucking memory of having driven to the bonfire, nor could i really recall the names of the three concerned hipsters perched over my limp doughy abscessed jaundiced shit heap of a body. Told them it was a problem with blood sugar, i had forgotten to imbibe my afternoon orange juice! Translation-haven’t slept in four days, taking in roughly two hundred calories a day all in ginger ale. Meth heads opt to sustain themselves on a diet of paranoid resentment in lieu of proteins and grains. The cook gets super spun and lectures us like we’re babes about the dark leftist forces presently waging war on the masculinity of the white man-for one thing, he's convinced that jews run the porn industry and that fucking pornhub is riddled with overtures both overt and subliminal intended to brainwash white guys into identifying as weak and feminine and to associate men of color with heroism and strength. He also believes that soy causes gender dysphoria. All of these batshit crazy delusions act like stars in the broad constellation of the cooks worst dystopian fears-a workforce with no room left for traditionally male-centered leadership characteristics dominated from top-down by a host of future ladies who make their trade in creative collaboration, rather than fear and theft of other peoples ideas. Without a need for a provider, our nazi-bespectacled methamphetamine cook envisions a new sexual economy in which women will jettison their attachments to the family structure in favor of like, industrialism, i guess, and men will have no other resort but a desperate turn to cross-dressing and dick-taking and i guess maybe stitching scarves. It was at this point that i was really tempted to tell the cook something he needs to hear-if you really believe that large shadow societies are orchestrating history just cus they want to make you some dudes boyfriend, its probably cus part of you wants to be. I get that, sucking dick is a blast. if you’re terrified that you can’t compete in a post-modern job market, it might just be because you aren’t. There’s no place left for cowboys or outlaws or methcooks cus those professions only make sense in the context of an insanely violent frontier. You feel obsolete and useless because you are, but make no mistake, that hurt has nothing to do with the world everything to do with your soul being severely malnourished. I know cus mine is too! Real moral christian courage is showing up to your crucifixion with a smile on your face ready to graciously thank the romans for every nail they put through your wrist. You feel empty because your a paranoid fascist meth cook, i feel bad cus I'm a junkie. We are bad. The nazi pilots who blitzed france in two sleepless, speed-fueled nights probably felt fucking fantastic, as if they were aloft on the trade winds of history itself and their momentum across europe must have seemed like proof enough of the moral righteousness of the german cause. But then the morning comes and the meth wears off and your skin smells like piss and your back aches and you can’t stop grinding your jaw and the first wave of survivors begin to trickle out from the camps and presumably in that moment a few nazis had the epiphany-that the very same starved beaten traumatized jewish women and men and children they had aspired to extinguish from human memory were now going to tell the story of what had happened. Power loses, grace is its own kingdom, etc etc. Furthermore those german officers who managed to transition back to civilian life and start families must have experienced a very strange new parental dynamic-can you imagine a family at a dinner table and the proud head of household instructs his small son to finish his vegetables and after pausing to mull it over for a few moments his son turns to him and says Father having thought about it a great deal i don’t think ill be following your instructions-after all you were only following instructions yourself when you helped to engineer the greatest cruelty in human history! To which ostensibly the father mumbles to clear his throat and asks his wife to pass the potato salad. Not even to invoke the possibility that the Fuhrer himself Mr. Adolph Hitler probably died surrounded by a swarm of shadow people, fucking hilarious just the thought, him yelling in that distinctive manic patois of his that he’s the leader and the abeyance of his will is sacrosanct blah blah blah while the little invisible mites under his pale skin shift and swell and scratch and the shadow people dancing around his peripheral vision taunting and cajoling and ridiculing him and the absurdity of his final solution and because he didn’t know speed the way we now know speed he probably didn’t know anything about the shadow people at all from his perspective they might just as well have been the ghosts of his victims come to taunt and ridicule him in his lowest hour pointing and laughing and daring him to pull the trigger!   

The same entitlement motivates the mass shooter who imagines a world full of seven billion perfect strangers as an attack on his rightful pursuit of happiness. No one will sleep with him and he can’t make sense of his place in a world built on fucking so he begins to indulge in fantasies of coercion, revenging himself on the very public space he so craved Now if our hypothetical douchebag had any pretense of self-awareness he might have looked into the possibility of adopting several dogs, and in turn coming to see his life as a story about caring unconditionally for animals. That’s a helluva life-Saint Francis got into the catholic hall of fame for doing not a whole lot more. Or perhaps he could adjust his expectations of intimacy in consideration of the countless plain-to middling-to ugly folks who are forced to come to terms with the truth early on that all of our bodies are grotesque and hideously deformed billboard advertisements for our big beautiful impossibly dense souls-come see a kernel of divine inspiration made self-aware, shimmering in the glory of creation,  just two exits past the tits and chin and ankles and all the rest of our faulty parts. 

Now a discerning reader(however unlikely you’d be to find one in an audience consisting of absolutely fucking nobody lol) might have already begun to detect a certain heady strain of hypocrisy in this authors conclusion. Because while I'm not much of anything the one thing i certainly am is a self-destructive drug addict. So maybe its one thing for me to make fun of the cook for his wrath-filled flu-stricken infants tantrum of a way of viewing the world, assigning to his solipsism a generation-hopping solidarity with his nazi forefathers who came before and identifying in his politics the germinal seed of fascisms future, a politics so personal and self-contained that every divorce will be debated as if it were a stand in for larger cultural decay, every morning hangover a portent of spiritual decline, the vitals of the stock market remeasured and reassessed each time someone finds on the sidewalk a loose dollar bill. Political assemblies with real largesse exclusively devoted to trolling the instagram of a nebraskan man named doug’s now ex-wife  for pictures of her maui vacation with husband number two drinking mojitos on a beach with sand bleached white as bone and both of them grinning with surgical precision an opulent almost confrontational kind of public grinning Doug couldn't recall that bitch ever having felt for him and the kids off playing in the surf and well how could any concerned and conscientious citizen fail to see the basic threat to democracy that whole scene represents? Donald Trump is probably the loneliest man in the world. He’s never met another person. He spends his time wandering the halls of his head checking for reoccurrences of his own reflection, a lifetime spent pathologically re-telling the same story about how he came to be the most powerful person in the world, so that by the time he really became who he had always pretended to be, the most influential figure in the free world, he had long-since bought into his own fraud to such a great extent that even the real thing couldn’t compare. Only a selfishness and self-centeredness as grandiloquent as his could explain the mindset of the modern mass shooter and the micro-politics informing him. He confuses his head for the world and then becomes enraged when it won’t do as he wishes, cursing the rain for its cold lash against his shoulder where he’d rather there have rested warm summer glow, furious at the thought of all the people he would never meet in far-off places he would never see who never paid him any attention whatsoever. Playing peek-a-boo a little bit of cheating peer through chubby fingers arrayed like a geisha’s fan and for the first time see that objects don’t disappear without our gaze to ontologically anchor them to earth. What a hurt. Now it might be technically correct that my addiction does to my loving family what the selfishness of the mass shooter does to public space. It intrudes like an alien thing and turns the air chilly in our childhood home and it transforms the medicine cabinet into a contested territory in need of defensive fortification and now that Cassies marriage has crashed on the rocks of addiction nobody could blame her if she never allowed another addict to darken her doorstep again and there was the sight of Jan opening my trucks passenger side door and a few rigs fell out onto the floor and all the spoons in the house have one side burnt-and-bruised like a black-eye you say you got from falling down a flight of stairs despite body language that says something entirely else why is it we don’t have a single spoon in the house what ghost spends all night punching the walls full of holes 

recently went to an Alanon meeting to sneak a glimpse of how the other half lives...this lady said my addiction is to loving my addict. Bawled rivers out from red raw-rubbed rubber eyes and said my addiction is to my addict Not her person or qualifier or partner but her addict. Syntax almost seeming to suggest that something about the existential plight of the addict gets her intoxicated dizzy on pain. It’s quaint though cus that sort of sentiment is for fucking rookies-guarantee you no ones crying over me like a romantic. Not anymore. My thing these days is of a distinctly more shakespearian strand of tragedy, with wittgenstein and derrida’s influences also undeniable. I’m sick now in a way where people stop crying and praying you’ll find God and change and decide instead it’d be easier to just cross the street. Schizophrenics lost in a chorus meant only just for them, apocalyptic street preachers who stand on soap boxes while reeking of shit and give voice to visions of an America not our own, an alternate dimension where european arrival at the shores of the new world stalled out somewhere halfway across the pacific ocean on a wave so tall it scraped the heavens and America grew up a nation of nomads who set their watches to the rumbling migration of herds of buffalo and not even the highest priest could dream of a more beautiful idea than that of motion, movement without cease, the only acceptable fixed still frozen property being the burial mounds where the dead went after all their motion had gone-if they could view us on the other side of the looking glass stolen away in our own personal homes they would almost certainly come to the conclusion that this place where we live is just the land of the dead, a negative photograph of everything vital and good. Who would i be to disagree though, right? 

The point is anyway that some alchemical reaction of A. Mental illness and B. Amphetamine abuse has more or less stranded me in words. Verbs and nouns and adjectives and adverbs in place of sky and grass. What Fredric Jameson called the prison house of language. Where derrida’s difference goes to play for eternity, never quite meaning what it had meant to say. What shook wittgenstein speechless. The president’s rhetoric so hollow that you can almost see him suffering a kind of dementia or spiritual torpor that results from the badness of his faith. Chewing and chomping consonants and sounds till they all are made to mush and shearing syllable after syllable off the network of signification until all that’s left is one satellite pinging a distress call hello is anyone there off of its own side. It’s own side like Adam plucked Eve from his rib and said put on this dress-after they ate the fruit and God cast him/her out to walk the world alone reportedly God said have fun all alone you worthless slut. Imagine trumps final state of the union-i am very sick, i have been alone for as long as I can remember, i wish i hadn’t lied so often, i wish i had occasionally told the truth, i would trade all of it to have known just one person. 

Anyways, barring that miracle of political theater, the body gets sick and dissolves while the spirit is lost in words. I’d like to die in a bathroom stall in haughville with a rig stuck in my arm and the words I'm sorry stuck at the tip of my tongue and God decides to show some compassion and makes me a deal says you were never much good to people didn’t believe in a thing but you sure could do some impressive vomiting up of nonsense words and so what ill do is your soul will dissolve and turn into ink and for the rest of eternity you’ll be a naughty joke or a half-scribbled doggerel scrawled on the wall of a piss-soaked bathroom stall in the ghetto or you could say call this number here for a good time and don’t forget to ask for large marge and nobody’d ever suspect you were trapped in there or maybe a joke like this favorite of mine about my son it goes something like Jesus Christ was a God-awful carpenter, couldn’t pull a nail to save his own life. Christ was a God-awful, couldn’t pull a nail to save his own life. Couldn't pull a nail. Christ was God-awful. Couldn’t nail his own couldn’t save a carpenter terrible couldn’t pull god-awful a terrible carpenter he couldn’t pull a nail to save his own life. I can’t pull this nail to save my own life. It’s right there sticking out of my wrist, but for whatever reason I just can’t find the right words to pull it out he was a carpenter who couldn’t pull a nail even if his life depended on it couldn't save his own life he couldn't-

For a good time call this number 1-555-555-5555 and don’t forget to ask for-

[evilelitest2]

100 Days of Trump Day 60: 1984

     Welcome back to 100 Days of Trump, where we try to sum up WTF happened in 2016 in 100 recommendations.  Today we are going to talk to the ganddaddy of them all, 1984....and let me just get this out of the way.  Orwell was a Socialist, he was extremely left wing, his criticism of communism (and it is more than just communism he is critical of) wasn’t coming from a right wing place.  Now one of Orwells main theory was actually disproved, if you don’t have a word for something it doesn't keep you from articulating it, usually by making a new word via language drift.  When Mao Zedong created Simplified Chinese he deliberately tried to remove certain phases and concepts from the language...but very quickly that failed, the Chinese just used new terms or loan words.  But what I do want to talk about with 1984 is the co-option of language, yes I am banging that drum again.  

    See the regime Ingoc is specifically said to lack any real ideology, its most defining traits is its inconsistency, “We have always been at war with east asia”  But a political regime must have ideological rhetoric, even if it has no ideology itself, and so lacking any core beliefs, they instead latch upon other ideas and concepts and co-opt them for their own purpose.  And the Far Right (though not necessarily the more ‘moderate’ right) doesn’t really have a coherent political ideology beyond vague “I oppose these things” when you leave them alone to make their own theories it just turns into absolute shit.  And the greatest irony is that if you look at their writings, not only do they all sound like each other with no discernible difference, they all use the same phases over and over again, like cuck.  But the thing I find interesting is...almost all of those phases are leftist terms they just stop (not cuck obviously).  Here let me give a list of their mindlessly parroted phases that the Neoreactionary Right just can’t get enough of

Politically Correct

This was originally a socialist/communist term used by people like Orwell and Troskey against Stalinist style communists, politically correct mean that they followed the party line mindlessly without questioning.  If you used the word in its originally meaning, then you’d be using it against republicans who put aside previous objections in order to work with Trump.  Then it came to mean basically “Corporate works trying to pretend to be progressive without actually being progressive” a decidedly left wing charge.  But the right got it so not it just kinda means “Giving a shit about social justice”   Speaking of which

Social Justice Warrior 

This was actually a left wing term, I’m serious, I remember when it was first spreading around left wing internet and I was like “god damn this is a useful term”  And holy crap did that get co-opted fast.  SJW originally was a word to use for leftists who advocated a much more militant and “Us vs. them” mentality, basically for the modern day Marat or Robespierre.  This time of liberal disagreement goes back for quite a long way, the question of reform vs. revolution, and its not necessarily an ideological difference as it is a practical one, and it was nice to have a term to those people who fetishize the idea of violent revolution utterly ignorant of its results (spoiler warning, it doesn’t end well).  But not it is just a blanket term to mean “people I don’t like”

White Knight

Man i remember when this was a feminist term, it was a great term, it basically referred to men who try to defend women out of a desire for sex, which is a creepy thing that happens all the time.  Problem now is that any man who like...doesn’t think that Anita Sarkeesian is trying to take over the world is a white knight by default.  

Virtue Signalling

Basically this is when somebody obstains from doing something horrible and then calls attention to it so that everybody will value and respect them, social justices entirely for the praise.  Good term, we have all met that one guy who does that.  Problem is now that anybody who is like “Man, it is really awful the way women are consistently harassed on the internet” and the immediate response is “well you are just virtue signalling”.  

MLK

MLK’s entire existence has become one giant use of Rightists misusing him to support their argument, and then in response leftist pretending he was somehow  a violent revolutionary cause that makes sense. 

Regressive Leftist 

This one originally means to people who are supposedly left wing but actually seem to hold really non left wing views 

Ethics in Game Journalism

This might shock you but long before Gamergate was the glimmer in Ejoni’s empty souless eyes there were a lot of people talking about how corrupt games journalism is, because it fucking is but guess what? Most of them didn’t join up with GG, in fact many like Jim Sterling actually opposed GG and none of them were talking about indie devs interacting with games journalist for good reviews, they were instead talking about giant corporations buying adds on gaming journalist sites to get good reviews, the giant corporations that GG didn’t spend its time talking about in favor of how an indie game developer and a youtube feminist are somehow responsible for everything wrong in a multi billion dollar industry.  

Orwell himself

And of course, Orwell himself suffered this, despite being, I will say this again, a socialist, you see the term orwellian used to refer to the very same ideology Orwell held, its fucking maddening.  You have folks online like RedbloodedAmerican who literally say “Socialism has never produced anything of value ever” and then use the term Orwellian without any bat of irony.  

Part of this is that when these terms of defined, they are usually only defined in what they are, not what they aren’t, which makes them very easy to co-opt, after all the original definition didn’t not mean this right? Good hint for future leftist term makings, when you make something up, very specifically say what it isn’t.  Orwell would have done better I feel if he had very specifically made it clear what his regime was not as much as what it was.  

but we don’t just see this in a political context, I mean take the term 

Mary Sue

It is suppose to mean a character who is way too powerful for the narrative and around whom the narrative revolves because they are always correct, and now kinda means “thing I don’t like” 

But the right doesn’t just always co-opt the left, they have lots of neat little terms that instead exist to sort of hide to themselves and others how utterly abhorrent the whole lot of them are.  I mean when you say 

Family Values

When being homophobic or anti feminist, it basically doesn’t mean anything, I mean....what do families as a collective unit produce universal values?  All of them?  I mean the Judeo Claudians were a family should I take advice from them?  What defines a family? What if a family disagrees?  How does that mean anything at all?

Intelligent Design

This literally exists to make creationism sound less stupid than creationism, but of course every single person who believes in Intelligent Design is of course a creationist. 

White Nationalist 

Rather than just saying ‘I’m a nazi” they use this cute little term instead, because their beliefs are basically the same as the nazis except Pan European rather than just German.  

Spengler

This one honestly confuses me, because Spengler was right wing I mean did any of them actually read Decline of the West

The point is that we just see words used not for a method of communication, but instead as a way to create a larger point 

    The list goes on and on but I want to get to my main point, I want to talk about the psychology going on with this constant revisionist of language, it isn’t because they are stupid (I mean it is but that isn’t the main point) its about keeping people angry, about creating a constant sense of anger and embittered paranoia.  Because here is the dirty little secret of the Far Right, if you actually calm them the fuck down and don’t have an enemy to oppose....they don’t really have all that much in common.  IN fact a lot of them have beliefs that are actually really left wing.  Again and again we have found that if you poll Americans based on specific issues like “Should healthcare be affordable”and “Does this country have too much of a wealth gap” and “Do the rich not pay enough in taxes” and a lot of hardcore republican suddenly sound like socialists.  CGP Grey noted that if you abstract enough and talk to people about the electoral college they will almost uniformly come out and say “Wow, that is awful” but the moment they realize that they benefit from it, they will instantly start to change their tune.  Because to a lot of Republican voters, it isn’t actually about the issues, its about fucking over “The enemy” which in this case is the democrats, and as long as people are fucking pissed, they don’t really fully listen to the whole platform of the guy they supported.  I had this issue with Obama/Clinton supporters where their supporters just stopped listening when they got to things they didn't’ like about the candidate, because it isn’t actually about the core issues, its about fear and hatred of the other side.  But maintaining that level of hatred is actually pretty difficult, because the moment people calm down a tad and go home, watch TV and find out the world hasn’t ended, they start to realize that you are kinda hyperbolic and most importantly, might become vulnerable to leftists pointing out that they actually agree on most issues.  So you need to keep them mad, constantly perpetually mad, just endlessly angry, so that they never really have that moment of calming the fuck down and actually thinking about the issues.  And Angry people aren’t famous for rational decisions

Yet again reminder of why Hitchens is an utterly worthless pseudo intellectual who reminds me a lot of Alex Jones, who is basically the result of a human being who has been angry for decades and has never calmed down.

  This is also why these buzzwords are so important, they distract from the issue as a whole, because family values...I has family, and I don’t wants family to change gah.  Rather than sitting them down and talking to them about what a changing modern society actually means for a family they just kind of vaguely panic because they aren’t in a head-space where they are ready to reason (This is worse for single issue voters).  Like i’ve spoken to people about the Iraq War and once I get to “So how do you win a war on terror” they suddenly kinda stop and go “Huh....wait”  or “How do you win a war on drugs” if they aren’t viewing in from the lenses of a culture war, they  become more receptive.  So the point of the right (who i remind you, have interests which most of the country doesn’t like, as Trump’s supporters are finding out right now).  I mean literally at this moment, we are seeing people go “Well I like the ACA I just don’t like Obamacare” when they are the SAME FUCKING THING  

And that is where the Right wing Media empire comes in and by that I mean the two min of hate, where you can take all of your collective insecurities anger and frustrations in life and everything around you and blame it on one nebulous force of “Them”.  Huh where have I seen that before?

If you watch folks like THunderfoot, Sargon or other anti feminists, they fixate a fucking tone of attention on this extremely standard video series, it is notably shocking how much time they spend talking about really basic theory level stuff and then you realize....Anita, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu and Hillary Clinton are literally the whole feminists they know.  Like they haven’t read any of the material, they don’t know any of these people, they don’t even know what feminism is other than a vague “bad thing” that that they don’t like and blame for all their problems.  This is why so called “Free speech” advocates” are totally ok with GSM folks having videos put down, why devout Christians vote for a man who admitted to sexual assault, why people who hate the Eastern Elites are always getting in bed with Goldman sachs or why the working class voted for Trump, it isn’t actually about the issues, its about screwing the other guy.  

It is into this environment that Trump thrives, because pointing to a vague, undefinable, conspiratorial other is where he thrives and he serves as the culminate conductor of rage (that should be a title of a book on this subject honestly)

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

13 Keys to the White House

I hate politics with a burning passion. The whole subject just makes me depressed and stressed, but like a moth to the flame I find myself unable to escape it. My politics posts were topical and relatively popular during the lead up to the 2020 election, but things have quieted down considerably a we adjust to the new normal under a sane but useless president. For this reason, I've decided that the best way to spend my time is to try and make prediction about 2024, because it makes me feel like I have some semblance of control over my life when in reality these things are well out of my hands.

Allan Lichtman is a political analyst who has correctly predicted every presidential election since 1984, and working backwards his method correctly accounts for every election since 1860; with the only hiccup being 2000 when he predicted Al Gore would win (by all rights he did; he won the popular vote and he would have won the Florida recount if George W. Bush's brother hadn't illegally stopped it and delayed it until it was too late to restart).

Lichtman gives 13 yes or no statements to assess the performance of the incumbent party over the last four years, and has determined that if eight or more are true then the incumbent party wins another term. If six or more are false, the challenging party wins instead. From Wikipedia they are:

Midterm gains: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.

No primary contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.

Incumbent seeking re-election: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.

No third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.

Strong short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.

Strong long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.

Major policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.

No social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.

No scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.

No foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.

Major foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.

Charismatic incumbent: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.

Uncharismatic challenger: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

In 2020 the chips fell thusly:

False: the Democrats won more seat in 2018 than the Republicans in 2014

True: Trump was the only Republican candidate, and in fact many states canceled their primaries to give it to him

True: Trump was running for another term

True: the libertarians and the greens didn't get nearly as much air time as they did in 2016

False: Covid recession

False: Trump dug a hole so deep it'll take us years to crawl our way back out of it

True: McConnell's court packing scheme, 3 justices, America First foreign policy, sucking up to dictators, alienating our allies

False: George Floyd protests

False: too many to name

True: not failing doesn't necessarily mean succeeding

False: case in point, he didn't accomplish any of his goals like ending the war in Afghanistan or disarming North Korea

False: although his base worships him as the second coming of Christ, they only make up 40% of the country, and the other 60% HATES him

True: Biden is a boring old man that both right-wingers hate and progressive leftists hate. Only moderates and centrists really like him

That's 6 true and 7 false. Trump needed 8 true to win, so Lichtman called it for Biden in summer. While we can make some assumptions about the future, we can't predict everything, so there will be a lot of unknowns that prevent us from drawing solid conclusions. I'll update this post as time goes on; we should have a fairly solid picture by early 2023 after the midterms.

Almost certainly false: the Democrats are hanging on by a thread as is, and 2022 will see dozens of competitive House seats redrawn by Republican to give themselves an advantage going forward. I'm pretty sure the Republicans will take back the House, but even if they don't there's no way the Democrats will manage to hang onto as many seats in 2022 as they won in 2018 (235)

Probably true: to hear Biden tell it, he's a spring chicken at the top of his game and wholeheartedly intends to run for re-election in 2024. I give it 50/50 odds that he bows out due to declining health and gives it to Kamala Harris, but either way they have the nomination in the bag. Nobody is going to challenge Biden, and nobody serious will challenge Harris.

Unknown: see above

Unknown: this one is leaning towards true, but it's too soon to tell. We think of third-party candidates as being fringe, but they played major roles in 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2016. I don't expect the networks to give as much airtime to the libertarians and the greens as they did in 2016, but then again all the media outlets made off like bandits during the Trump years. Love him or hate him, he made them a shit load of money, and helping a third-party campaign will ensure another candidate like Trump gets elected

Probably true: it'll be hard for Biden to fuck things up more than they are now. I don't think we'll see ANOTHER recession in less than 4 years, but then again we thought the Great Recession of 2008 would be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Absolutely true: Obama's second term was prosperous, Trump's term put us deep in the red, so they average out to neutral; as long as Biden can do better than literally nothing, he has this one in the bag.

I don't think so: 2021 was the Democrats' best chance at changing things, but they fumbled like we all expected them to. They have majroties in both houses of Congress and could conceivably railroad through any legislation they want, as Trump did in his first 2 years, but no, they want to play fair, they want to be bipartisan. They extend an olive branch when the other side wouldn't piss on them to put them out if they were on fire. None of Biden's campaign promises will get done.

Probably true: I don't think things can get worse than 2020. Biden is, if nothing else, inoffensive. Republicans are trying to make him out as this socialist boogeyman, but nothing really sticks because he is nearly economically identical to Trump (both party establishments are economically neoliberal). If we were going to go to war, it would have been last year. I don't think there's anything Biden can do to screw things up that badly.

Probably: like I said, Biden is boring, which means he's not take any risks. I think even he has sense enough to realize that the entire country is watching him with a magnifying glass, waiting for him to make any mistake. He's playing it as safe as possible with relative transparency, so I don't see him doing anything shadier than any other president. If the Republicans take back the House they might impeach him as revenge for Trump, but he'll be acquitted and public opinion will probably be on his side.

Unknown: Democrats love to fumble, so this one's up in the air

Unknown: pulling out of Afghanistan might be a success, but the Taliban will just retake control once we're gone and it'll be back to square one. It'll be this generation's Vietnam; a 20 year long waste of time that we ended up losing. I'm still not convicned the withdrawal will even go through.

False: Lichtman didn't call Biden charismatic in 2020, I know for a fact he won't suddenly become MORE popular by 2024. Hes boring. If he didn't run and gave it to Kamala Harris I still don't see this flipping true. She has more energy, sure, but she's disingenuous at best and a two-faced enemy of the revolution at worst. She's a cop.

True: calling it now, nobody the Republicans choose will have national appeal. Lichtman noted that these last two keys are incredibly subjective, but you know it when you see it. For his definition of charisma he cites presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama (2008 Obama, not 2012 Obama; the novelty wore off real quick and we realized he was the Republicans' doormat and a war criminal). If Trump tries for a second term, he'll be even less popular then than he is now, and none of his underlings inspire as much confidence in the party. Ron DeSantis, my state's governor, appears to be the front runner of non-Trumps, but he's so dumb he makes that whole family look like a Rhodes Scholars. America is so divided that I don't think there will ever be another super charismatic candidate with bipartisan appeal.

That's 3 false, 4 unknown, and 6 true. Biden needs 8 true to win a second term, but he has plenty of unknown keys which would turn in his favor. Even Trump avoided a major foreign policy failure, so I'm sure Biden can cinch that key, bringing him up to 7. That and the third-party key seem the most likely to flip true, meaning Biden will probably win, though I could very well see this becoming a repeat of 2000 and 2016 where he wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college. In that case, I expect civil unrest going into whatever Republican's term, verging on total civil war.

One-term wonders are exceedingly rare. Trump was a historically weak candidate who only won because of low voter turnout in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. He saw an Alabama senate seat flip blue, as well as all four seats in Arizona and Georgia, he lost the house and the senate in quick succession, and was impeached twice. He was a loser through and through, and I don't think he'll be coming back.

At least I certainly hope so.

[sweatygardencollectorblr]

Seattle’s bustling Capitol Hill neighborhood has long been a hotbed of gentrification, but right now, the streets surrounding Cal Anderson Park are undergoing a different kind of transformation.Over the past several days of its remarkable existence, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has captured radical imaginations across the country, and struck fear into the hearts of conservative politicians and right-wing media pundits (including the president). Also known as the Seattle Autonomous Zone, the six blocks surrounding Seattle’s now-abandoned East Precinct have become a virtually cop-free space, populated instead by a diverse congregation of activists and community members who have turned it into a bastion of radical care and artistic expression. Last week, the area resembled a warzone, as Seattle police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and choked out the neighborhood. Now, there is a community garden, a harm reduction clinic, a free food co-op, and artwork everywhere—and local businesses are on board. As Vixen, a Seattle resident who has been participating in the protests and declined to give a last name, told The Daily Beast from a quiet spot behind the barricades, “This place has gone from being filled with explosions and tear gas to being a place of healing.” Comparisons have predictably been drawn between CHAZ and the Occupy movement, but in the place also known as Free Capitol Hill, there is one crucial distance: this time, some of the protesters are armed. Local Businesses Love the ‘Domestic Terror’ Zone in Seattle, ActuallyMembers of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (PSJBGC)—a leftist community defense and firearms education organization that gained a spate of notoriety last year when a former member, Willem van Spronsen, set fire to an ICE parking lot—have been a constant presence. The club is often asked to provide security for protests and rallies around the Seattle area, and while their involvement in CHAZ is structured more loosely, the presence of armed civilians has raised a few eyebrows.Leftist gun clubs have been on the rise, and organizations like the Socialist Rifle Association—of which, full disclosure, I am a member—Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Trigger Warning Queer & Trans Gun Club, and other chapters of the John Brown Gun Club have successfully introduced the issue of gun rights and firearms education into the broader leftist discourse. In Seattle, John Brown members have generally been showing up on an individual basis, rather than as part of a coordinated campaign. But as Nick—the group’s towering spokesperson, who like other members requested his full name be withheld given law enforcement’s fixation on left-wing activists—told The Daily Beast, the group was also tapped to provide a security escort for “some very prominent black voices who were doing speeches here at the Autonomous Zone” following the events of last Sunday evening. That was when a man armed with a Glock (with taped-on extended magazines) drove into a crowd of protesters, and shot a civilian named Daniel Gregory in the arm. According to Nick and local news reports, the driver then ran over to the police, where he was taken into custody.Though a suspect has since been charged with first-degree assault, Vixen told the Daily Beast, “We have to rely on each other to protect each other.”So right now, while police mostly steer clear of the Zone, that’s what they say they’re doing. Right-wing media has worked itself into a lather over the specter of armed leftists patrolling the area’s makeshift borders, but that hysteria only underlines what activists see as their profound misunderstanding of both leftist gun culture and what exactly these people are defending themselves against. As Nick explains, they’re there to discourage white supremacist groups, accelerationist boogaloo bois, and violent gangs like the Proud Boys from trying to harm the people inside. “It’s not like our club is going force-to-force against the police; that's not what we do,” he told The Daily Beast.Their second, and arguably more important, goal, they say, is to ensure that everyone who is carrying inside CHAZ is doing so safely and responsibly, and ideally with community buy-in. According to Nick, members have been joined out on patrol by other armed locals, a hodgepodge of  “random community members, affinity groups, [and] antifa that aren’t labeled with a specific group” who have reportedly been helping to fill in gaps in the barricades. The PSJBC’s approach, as they describe it, is heavily focused on de-escalation, and they’ve been leaning on that training as various tensions have surfaced.“That’s kind of the world we live in, right? We have people who are disciplined with firearms, and people who get into firearms who don't have that discipline, so when we see it, we’re not policing people; the best we can do is educate people,” Nick said. “Other people are carrying and we want to make sure that people are carrying safely, so we’re also discussing whether we can do trainings for people here.”It’s worth noting that Seattle’s Mayor, Jenny Durkan, set a ban on weapons on May 30. In a Saturday statement, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office told The Daily Beast of the Zone, “There have been individuals with weapons—open carrying is legal in Washington State. While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement. It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary”“The City will continue to assess the area on a regular basis and work with community and other stakeholders on a path forward that allows individuals to demonstrate, businesses to continue their operations, and preserves public safety for local residents,” the spokesperson added. “Officers in the East Precinct have continued to respond to calls. [Seattle Police] Chief [Carmen] Best and Command Staff have been on site at the East Precinct including yesterday, and some personnel are now staffing the precinct.”The Seattle PD did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. However, Chief Best told KIRO 7 on Friday, of the Zone, “We don’t want to exacerbate or intensify or incite problems that are going to lead to harm to the officers or the people who are standing by. We know that several are armed. We want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful about how we respond.”As is unsurprising for an evolving occupation composed of numerous organizations and political tendencies, not everyone is on the same page. Reports of “warlords” trying to fill the vacuum left by the Seattle cops with their own police stylings have been highly exaggerated, but it is true that an activist was seen appearing to hand out a firearm from the back of a car (an action streamed on Facebook), drawing Twitter accolades from an unlikely source: neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. “Sure, there are occasionally people open carrying, and usually they’re people of color, but all that they're doing is exercising the same Second Amendment rights that the 3%ers and right wingers never shut up about,” Vixen, who is also a PSJBC member, told The Daily Beast. “But because they’re afraid of the c-word, ‘communist’, [right wingers] lose their minds over it. And unlike whatever’s happening in their own personal fantasyland—all this talk of the boogaloo, without the rule of law—the threats of violence against these communities are actually credible.”And while a more liberal project would undoubtedly balk at the mere thought of armed community members strolling through its midst, the explicitly leftist bent of the CHAZ itself allows for a diversity of opinions on firearms and their use. Nick said that everyone he’s spoken to has appreciated their presence, save for one older white man who spotted a black man open carrying and fretted, “I thought this was a peaceful protest!” By all accounts on the ground, it is. The protestors themselves say they are just not taking any chances on what—or who—may be lurking beyond their makeshift bordersUltimately, the CHAZ is a new stab at an ancient idea. As scott crow, Anarchist Agency spokesperson and author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense, told The Daily Beast, it’s important to remember that picking up guns “doesn’t make you more badass.” He added that taking an explicitly liberatory approach and focusing on safety and strategy, as PSJBC members say they’ve done, is paramount.  “[Guns] are not automatically the most protective thing that you can have; only in certain situations do they work,” he explained. “In my analysis, this is the time when it’s needed; this is the time when you can go forth and protect the people who are there from random gunshots or anything, without escalating the situation further.”There is no telling how long Free Capitol Hill will remain in its current form. Seattle police have begun popping up inside its faux borders. Donald Trump, who deemed its inhabitants “domestic terrorists,” has called on Gov. Jay Inslee and Mayor Durkan to break it up, and threatened to use military force if they refuse his demands. Both essentially told him to kick rocks, and Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has floated legislation to convert the East Precinct into a permanent community center for restorative justice. Sawant, who also recently brought forth legislation banning police from using chemical weapons and chokeholds, said on Twitter that the process for deciding that conversion must include a broad range of perspectives, citing those involved in the CHAZ, black community organizations, restorative justice activists, faith leaders, anti-racists, renter organizations, land trusts, and labor unions that have a proven record of fighting racism.And as crow explains, the tensions between various community defense strategies is normal, and can even be healthy. “Nobody said autonomy or trying to build these spaces was going to be beautiful always, if you're not there to convert or to rule over people, it's always that way,” he said. He would know, having co-founded the Common Ground Collective autonomous project that took root in New Orleans’ Algiers neighborhood in 2005, post-Katrina. “It's going to be messy along the way, and it's okay that it's going to be messy, because we haven't gotten to try this, and that's one thing that I hope we give each other a break about.”For now, occupants of Seattle’s autonomous zone are building what they can in the time they’ve got left, and providing a shot of inspiration to activists across the country. Conversations with radical activists suggest that there are discussions going on in at least three other major cities about how to follow their lead—if not in having armed civilians on hand, then at least in claiming public space free of traditional policing. “If one barricade is fairly successful, whatever that looks like—even if it's in anarchist pipe dreams where it seems successful because it did not get shut down by the cops for two weeks—they will be duplicated, again and again,” crow says. “It may not happen in the next few weeks—or it might!— but it's definitely going to happen in the future.”No matter what happens next, the community defenders of Free Capitol Hill believe they have drawn up a new blueprint, however rough, for what it can look like when the people take it upon themselves to defend and protect their communities. As calls to defund and abolish the police continue to pick up steam, this little slice of Seattle offers a stark reminder that a world without cops really is possible, however ephemeral it may be, and despite the potential for armed civilians to cause harm.“Here's what’s happened in the last few days of occupation: a lot less tear gas,” Nick told The Daily Beast. “That precinct has not gone on fire, and there's talk of turning it into a community center if we can get the police to leave. If somebody calls the police, they'll just show up 30 mins late and end up swatting the wrong address and shooting someone's dog. Those are all things that we’re missing, and I'm not sure that anybody here has any complaints about that.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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[weopenviews]

Seattle’s bustling Capitol Hill neighborhood has long been a hotbed of gentrification, but right now, the streets surrounding Cal Anderson Park are undergoing a different kind of transformation.Over the past several days of its remarkable existence, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has captured radical imaginations across the country, and struck fear into the hearts of conservative politicians and right-wing media pundits (including the president). Also known as the Seattle Autonomous Zone, the six blocks surrounding Seattle’s now-abandoned East Precinct have become a virtually cop-free space, populated instead by a diverse congregation of activists and community members who have turned it into a bastion of radical care and artistic expression. Last week, the area resembled a warzone, as Seattle police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and choked out the neighborhood. Now, there is a community garden, a harm reduction clinic, a free food co-op, and artwork everywhere—and local businesses are on board. As Vixen, a Seattle resident who has been participating in the protests and declined to give a last name, told The Daily Beast from a quiet spot behind the barricades, “This place has gone from being filled with explosions and tear gas to being a place of healing.” Comparisons have predictably been drawn between CHAZ and the Occupy movement, but in the place also known as Free Capitol Hill, there is one crucial distance: this time, some of the protesters are armed. Local Businesses Love the ‘Domestic Terror’ Zone in Seattle, ActuallyMembers of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (PSJBGC)—a leftist community defense and firearms education organization that gained a spate of notoriety last year when a former member, Willem van Spronsen, set fire to an ICE parking lot—have been a constant presence. The club is often asked to provide security for protests and rallies around the Seattle area, and while their involvement in CHAZ is structured more loosely, the presence of armed civilians has raised a few eyebrows.Leftist gun clubs have been on the rise, and organizations like the Socialist Rifle Association—of which, full disclosure, I am a member—Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Trigger Warning Queer & Trans Gun Club, and other chapters of the John Brown Gun Club have successfully introduced the issue of gun rights and firearms education into the broader leftist discourse. In Seattle, John Brown members have generally been showing up on an individual basis, rather than as part of a coordinated campaign. But as Nick—the group’s towering spokesperson, who like other members requested his full name be withheld given law enforcement’s fixation on left-wing activists—told The Daily Beast, the group was also tapped to provide a security escort for “some very prominent black voices who were doing speeches here at the Autonomous Zone” following the events of last Sunday evening. That was when a man armed with a Glock (with taped-on extended magazines) drove into a crowd of protesters, and shot a civilian named Daniel Gregory in the arm. According to Nick and local news reports, the driver then ran over to the police, where he was taken into custody.Though a suspect has since been charged with first-degree assault, Vixen told the Daily Beast, “We have to rely on each other to protect each other.”So right now, while police mostly steer clear of the Zone, that’s what they say they’re doing. Right-wing media has worked itself into a lather over the specter of armed leftists patrolling the area’s makeshift borders, but that hysteria only underlines what activists see as their profound misunderstanding of both leftist gun culture and what exactly these people are defending themselves against. As Nick explains, they’re there to discourage white supremacist groups, accelerationist boogaloo bois, and violent gangs like the Proud Boys from trying to harm the people inside. “It’s not like our club is going force-to-force against the police; that's not what we do,” he told The Daily Beast.Their second, and arguably more important, goal, they say, is to ensure that everyone who is carrying inside CHAZ is doing so safely and responsibly, and ideally with community buy-in. According to Nick, members have been joined out on patrol by other armed locals, a hodgepodge of  “random community members, affinity groups, [and] antifa that aren’t labeled with a specific group” who have reportedly been helping to fill in gaps in the barricades. The PSJBC’s approach, as they describe it, is heavily focused on de-escalation, and they’ve been leaning on that training as various tensions have surfaced.“That’s kind of the world we live in, right? We have people who are disciplined with firearms, and people who get into firearms who don't have that discipline, so when we see it, we’re not policing people; the best we can do is educate people,” Nick said. “Other people are carrying and we want to make sure that people are carrying safely, so we’re also discussing whether we can do trainings for people here.”It’s worth noting that Seattle’s Mayor, Jenny Durkan, set a ban on weapons on May 30. In a Saturday statement, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office told The Daily Beast of the Zone, “There have been individuals with weapons—open carrying is legal in Washington State. While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement. It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary”“The City will continue to assess the area on a regular basis and work with community and other stakeholders on a path forward that allows individuals to demonstrate, businesses to continue their operations, and preserves public safety for local residents,” the spokesperson added. “Officers in the East Precinct have continued to respond to calls. [Seattle Police] Chief [Carmen] Best and Command Staff have been on site at the East Precinct including yesterday, and some personnel are now staffing the precinct.”The Seattle PD did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. However, Chief Best told KIRO 7 on Friday, of the Zone, “We don’t want to exacerbate or intensify or incite problems that are going to lead to harm to the officers or the people who are standing by. We know that several are armed. We want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful about how we respond.”As is unsurprising for an evolving occupation composed of numerous organizations and political tendencies, not everyone is on the same page. Reports of “warlords” trying to fill the vacuum left by the Seattle cops with their own police stylings have been highly exaggerated, but it is true that an activist was seen appearing to hand out a firearm from the back of a car (an action streamed on Facebook), drawing Twitter accolades from an unlikely source: neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. “Sure, there are occasionally people open carrying, and usually they’re people of color, but all that they're doing is exercising the same Second Amendment rights that the 3%ers and right wingers never shut up about,” Vixen, who is also a PSJBC member, told The Daily Beast. “But because they’re afraid of the c-word, ‘communist’, [right wingers] lose their minds over it. And unlike whatever’s happening in their own personal fantasyland—all this talk of the boogaloo, without the rule of law—the threats of violence against these communities are actually credible.”And while a more liberal project would undoubtedly balk at the mere thought of armed community members strolling through its midst, the explicitly leftist bent of the CHAZ itself allows for a diversity of opinions on firearms and their use. Nick said that everyone he’s spoken to has appreciated their presence, save for one older white man who spotted a black man open carrying and fretted, “I thought this was a peaceful protest!” By all accounts on the ground, it is. The protestors themselves say they are just not taking any chances on what—or who—may be lurking beyond their makeshift bordersUltimately, the CHAZ is a new stab at an ancient idea. As scott crow, Anarchist Agency spokesperson and author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense, told The Daily Beast, it’s important to remember that picking up guns “doesn’t make you more badass.” He added that taking an explicitly liberatory approach and focusing on safety and strategy, as PSJBC members say they’ve done, is paramount.  “[Guns] are not automatically the most protective thing that you can have; only in certain situations do they work,” he explained. “In my analysis, this is the time when it’s needed; this is the time when you can go forth and protect the people who are there from random gunshots or anything, without escalating the situation further.”There is no telling how long Free Capitol Hill will remain in its current form. Seattle police have begun popping up inside its faux borders. Donald Trump, who deemed its inhabitants “domestic terrorists,” has called on Gov. Jay Inslee and Mayor Durkan to break it up, and threatened to use military force if they refuse his demands. Both essentially told him to kick rocks, and Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has floated legislation to convert the East Precinct into a permanent community center for restorative justice. Sawant, who also recently brought forth legislation banning police from using chemical weapons and chokeholds, said on Twitter that the process for deciding that conversion must include a broad range of perspectives, citing those involved in the CHAZ, black community organizations, restorative justice activists, faith leaders, anti-racists, renter organizations, land trusts, and labor unions that have a proven record of fighting racism.And as crow explains, the tensions between various community defense strategies is normal, and can even be healthy. “Nobody said autonomy or trying to build these spaces was going to be beautiful always, if you're not there to convert or to rule over people, it's always that way,” he said. He would know, having co-founded the Common Ground Collective autonomous project that took root in New Orleans’ Algiers neighborhood in 2005, post-Katrina. “It's going to be messy along the way, and it's okay that it's going to be messy, because we haven't gotten to try this, and that's one thing that I hope we give each other a break about.”For now, occupants of Seattle’s autonomous zone are building what they can in the time they’ve got left, and providing a shot of inspiration to activists across the country. Conversations with radical activists suggest that there are discussions going on in at least three other major cities about how to follow their lead—if not in having armed civilians on hand, then at least in claiming public space free of traditional policing. “If one barricade is fairly successful, whatever that looks like—even if it's in anarchist pipe dreams where it seems successful because it did not get shut down by the cops for two weeks—they will be duplicated, again and again,” crow says. “It may not happen in the next few weeks—or it might!— but it's definitely going to happen in the future.”No matter what happens next, the community defenders of Free Capitol Hill believe they have drawn up a new blueprint, however rough, for what it can look like when the people take it upon themselves to defend and protect their communities. As calls to defund and abolish the police continue to pick up steam, this little slice of Seattle offers a stark reminder that a world without cops really is possible, however ephemeral it may be, and despite the potential for armed civilians to cause harm.“Here's what’s happened in the last few days of occupation: a lot less tear gas,” Nick told The Daily Beast. “That precinct has not gone on fire, and there's talk of turning it into a community center if we can get the police to leave. If somebody calls the police, they'll just show up 30 mins late and end up swatting the wrong address and shooting someone's dog. Those are all things that we’re missing, and I'm not sure that anybody here has any complaints about that.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MZscSu

[itssquidwarsjournal]

Seattle’s bustling Capitol Hill neighborhood has long been a hotbed of gentrification, but right now, the streets surrounding Cal Anderson Park are undergoing a different kind of transformation.Over the past several days of its remarkable existence, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has captured radical imaginations across the country, and struck fear into the hearts of conservative politicians and right-wing media pundits (including the president). Also known as the Seattle Autonomous Zone, the six blocks surrounding Seattle’s now-abandoned East Precinct have become a virtually cop-free space, populated instead by a diverse congregation of activists and community members who have turned it into a bastion of radical care and artistic expression. Last week, the area resembled a warzone, as Seattle police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and choked out the neighborhood. Now, there is a community garden, a harm reduction clinic, a free food co-op, and artwork everywhere—and local businesses are on board. As Vixen, a Seattle resident who has been participating in the protests and declined to give a last name, told The Daily Beast from a quiet spot behind the barricades, “This place has gone from being filled with explosions and tear gas to being a place of healing.” Comparisons have predictably been drawn between CHAZ and the Occupy movement, but in the place also known as Free Capitol Hill, there is one crucial distance: this time, some of the protesters are armed. Local Businesses Love the ‘Domestic Terror’ Zone in Seattle, ActuallyMembers of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (PSJBGC)—a leftist community defense and firearms education organization that gained a spate of notoriety last year when a former member, Willem van Spronsen, set fire to an ICE parking lot—have been a constant presence. The club is often asked to provide security for protests and rallies around the Seattle area, and while their involvement in CHAZ is structured more loosely, the presence of armed civilians has raised a few eyebrows.Leftist gun clubs have been on the rise, and organizations like the Socialist Rifle Association—of which, full disclosure, I am a member—Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Trigger Warning Queer & Trans Gun Club, and other chapters of the John Brown Gun Club have successfully introduced the issue of gun rights and firearms education into the broader leftist discourse. In Seattle, John Brown members have generally been showing up on an individual basis, rather than as part of a coordinated campaign. But as Nick—the group’s towering spokesperson, who like other members requested his full name be withheld given law enforcement’s fixation on left-wing activists—told The Daily Beast, the group was also tapped to provide a security escort for “some very prominent black voices who were doing speeches here at the Autonomous Zone” following the events of last Sunday evening. That was when a man armed with a Glock (with taped-on extended magazines) drove into a crowd of protesters, and shot a civilian named Daniel Gregory in the arm. According to Nick and local news reports, the driver then ran over to the police, where he was taken into custody.Though a suspect has since been charged with first-degree assault, Vixen told the Daily Beast, “We have to rely on each other to protect each other.”So right now, while police mostly steer clear of the Zone, that’s what they say they’re doing. Right-wing media has worked itself into a lather over the specter of armed leftists patrolling the area’s makeshift borders, but that hysteria only underlines what activists see as their profound misunderstanding of both leftist gun culture and what exactly these people are defending themselves against. As Nick explains, they’re there to discourage white supremacist groups, accelerationist boogaloo bois, and violent gangs like the Proud Boys from trying to harm the people inside. “It’s not like our club is going force-to-force against the police; that's not what we do,” he told The Daily Beast.Their second, and arguably more important, goal, they say, is to ensure that everyone who is carrying inside CHAZ is doing so safely and responsibly, and ideally with community buy-in. According to Nick, members have been joined out on patrol by other armed locals, a hodgepodge of  “random community members, affinity groups, [and] antifa that aren’t labeled with a specific group” who have reportedly been helping to fill in gaps in the barricades. The PSJBC’s approach, as they describe it, is heavily focused on de-escalation, and they’ve been leaning on that training as various tensions have surfaced.“That’s kind of the world we live in, right? We have people who are disciplined with firearms, and people who get into firearms who don't have that discipline, so when we see it, we’re not policing people; the best we can do is educate people,” Nick said. “Other people are carrying and we want to make sure that people are carrying safely, so we’re also discussing whether we can do trainings for people here.”It’s worth noting that Seattle’s Mayor, Jenny Durkan, set a ban on weapons on May 30. In a Saturday statement, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office told The Daily Beast of the Zone, “There have been individuals with weapons—open carrying is legal in Washington State. While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement. It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary”“The City will continue to assess the area on a regular basis and work with community and other stakeholders on a path forward that allows individuals to demonstrate, businesses to continue their operations, and preserves public safety for local residents,” the spokesperson added. “Officers in the East Precinct have continued to respond to calls. [Seattle Police] Chief [Carmen] Best and Command Staff have been on site at the East Precinct including yesterday, and some personnel are now staffing the precinct.”The Seattle PD did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. However, Chief Best told KIRO 7 on Friday, of the Zone, “We don’t want to exacerbate or intensify or incite problems that are going to lead to harm to the officers or the people who are standing by. We know that several are armed. We want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful about how we respond.”As is unsurprising for an evolving occupation composed of numerous organizations and political tendencies, not everyone is on the same page. Reports of “warlords” trying to fill the vacuum left by the Seattle cops with their own police stylings have been highly exaggerated, but it is true that an activist was seen appearing to hand out a firearm from the back of a car (an action streamed on Facebook), drawing Twitter accolades from an unlikely source: neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. “Sure, there are occasionally people open carrying, and usually they’re people of color, but all that they're doing is exercising the same Second Amendment rights that the 3%ers and right wingers never shut up about,” Vixen, who is also a PSJBC member, told The Daily Beast. “But because they’re afraid of the c-word, ‘communist’, [right wingers] lose their minds over it. And unlike whatever’s happening in their own personal fantasyland—all this talk of the boogaloo, without the rule of law—the threats of violence against these communities are actually credible.”And while a more liberal project would undoubtedly balk at the mere thought of armed community members strolling through its midst, the explicitly leftist bent of the CHAZ itself allows for a diversity of opinions on firearms and their use. Nick said that everyone he’s spoken to has appreciated their presence, save for one older white man who spotted a black man open carrying and fretted, “I thought this was a peaceful protest!” By all accounts on the ground, it is. The protestors themselves say they are just not taking any chances on what—or who—may be lurking beyond their makeshift bordersUltimately, the CHAZ is a new stab at an ancient idea. As scott crow, Anarchist Agency spokesperson and author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense, told The Daily Beast, it’s important to remember that picking up guns “doesn’t make you more badass.” He added that taking an explicitly liberatory approach and focusing on safety and strategy, as PSJBC members say they’ve done, is paramount.  “[Guns] are not automatically the most protective thing that you can have; only in certain situations do they work,” he explained. “In my analysis, this is the time when it’s needed; this is the time when you can go forth and protect the people who are there from random gunshots or anything, without escalating the situation further.”There is no telling how long Free Capitol Hill will remain in its current form. Seattle police have begun popping up inside its faux borders. Donald Trump, who deemed its inhabitants “domestic terrorists,” has called on Gov. Jay Inslee and Mayor Durkan to break it up, and threatened to use military force if they refuse his demands. Both essentially told him to kick rocks, and Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has floated legislation to convert the East Precinct into a permanent community center for restorative justice. Sawant, who also recently brought forth legislation banning police from using chemical weapons and chokeholds, said on Twitter that the process for deciding that conversion must include a broad range of perspectives, citing those involved in the CHAZ, black community organizations, restorative justice activists, faith leaders, anti-racists, renter organizations, land trusts, and labor unions that have a proven record of fighting racism.And as crow explains, the tensions between various community defense strategies is normal, and can even be healthy. “Nobody said autonomy or trying to build these spaces was going to be beautiful always, if you're not there to convert or to rule over people, it's always that way,” he said. He would know, having co-founded the Common Ground Collective autonomous project that took root in New Orleans’ Algiers neighborhood in 2005, post-Katrina. “It's going to be messy along the way, and it's okay that it's going to be messy, because we haven't gotten to try this, and that's one thing that I hope we give each other a break about.”For now, occupants of Seattle’s autonomous zone are building what they can in the time they’ve got left, and providing a shot of inspiration to activists across the country. Conversations with radical activists suggest that there are discussions going on in at least three other major cities about how to follow their lead—if not in having armed civilians on hand, then at least in claiming public space free of traditional policing. “If one barricade is fairly successful, whatever that looks like—even if it's in anarchist pipe dreams where it seems successful because it did not get shut down by the cops for two weeks—they will be duplicated, again and again,” crow says. “It may not happen in the next few weeks—or it might!— but it's definitely going to happen in the future.”No matter what happens next, the community defenders of Free Capitol Hill believe they have drawn up a new blueprint, however rough, for what it can look like when the people take it upon themselves to defend and protect their communities. As calls to defund and abolish the police continue to pick up steam, this little slice of Seattle offers a stark reminder that a world without cops really is possible, however ephemeral it may be, and despite the potential for armed civilians to cause harm.“Here's what’s happened in the last few days of occupation: a lot less tear gas,” Nick told The Daily Beast. “That precinct has not gone on fire, and there's talk of turning it into a community center if we can get the police to leave. If somebody calls the police, they'll just show up 30 mins late and end up swatting the wrong address and shooting someone's dog. Those are all things that we’re missing, and I'm not sure that anybody here has any complaints about that.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MZscSu

[attredd]

Seattle’s bustling Capitol Hill neighborhood has long been a hotbed of gentrification, but right now, the streets surrounding Cal Anderson Park are undergoing a different kind of transformation.Over the past several days of its remarkable existence, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has captured radical imaginations across the country, and struck fear into the hearts of conservative politicians and right-wing media pundits (including the president). Also known as the Seattle Autonomous Zone, the six blocks surrounding Seattle’s now-abandoned East Precinct have become a virtually cop-free space, populated instead by a diverse congregation of activists and community members who have turned it into a bastion of radical care and artistic expression. Last week, the area resembled a warzone, as Seattle police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and choked out the neighborhood. Now, there is a community garden, a harm reduction clinic, a free food co-op, and artwork everywhere—and local businesses are on board. As Vixen, a Seattle resident who has been participating in the protests and declined to give a last name, told The Daily Beast from a quiet spot behind the barricades, “This place has gone from being filled with explosions and tear gas to being a place of healing.” Comparisons have predictably been drawn between CHAZ and the Occupy movement, but in the place also known as Free Capitol Hill, there is one crucial distance: this time, some of the protesters are armed. Local Businesses Love the ‘Domestic Terror’ Zone in Seattle, ActuallyMembers of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (PSJBGC)—a leftist community defense and firearms education organization that gained a spate of notoriety last year when a former member, Willem van Spronsen, set fire to an ICE parking lot—have been a constant presence. The club is often asked to provide security for protests and rallies around the Seattle area, and while their involvement in CHAZ is structured more loosely, the presence of armed civilians has raised a few eyebrows.Leftist gun clubs have been on the rise, and organizations like the Socialist Rifle Association—of which, full disclosure, I am a member—Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Trigger Warning Queer & Trans Gun Club, and other chapters of the John Brown Gun Club have successfully introduced the issue of gun rights and firearms education into the broader leftist discourse. In Seattle, John Brown members have generally been showing up on an individual basis, rather than as part of a coordinated campaign. But as Nick—the group’s towering spokesperson, who like other members requested his full name be withheld given law enforcement’s fixation on left-wing activists—told The Daily Beast, the group was also tapped to provide a security escort for “some very prominent black voices who were doing speeches here at the Autonomous Zone” following the events of last Sunday evening. That was when a man armed with a Glock (with taped-on extended magazines) drove into a crowd of protesters, and shot a civilian named Daniel Gregory in the arm. According to Nick and local news reports, the driver then ran over to the police, where he was taken into custody.Though a suspect has since been charged with first-degree assault, Vixen told the Daily Beast, “We have to rely on each other to protect each other.”So right now, while police mostly steer clear of the Zone, that’s what they say they’re doing. Right-wing media has worked itself into a lather over the specter of armed leftists patrolling the area’s makeshift borders, but that hysteria only underlines what activists see as their profound misunderstanding of both leftist gun culture and what exactly these people are defending themselves against. As Nick explains, they’re there to discourage white supremacist groups, accelerationist boogaloo bois, and violent gangs like the Proud Boys from trying to harm the people inside. “It’s not like our club is going force-to-force against the police; that's not what we do,” he told The Daily Beast.Their second, and arguably more important, goal, they say, is to ensure that everyone who is carrying inside CHAZ is doing so safely and responsibly, and ideally with community buy-in. According to Nick, members have been joined out on patrol by other armed locals, a hodgepodge of  “random community members, affinity groups, [and] antifa that aren’t labeled with a specific group” who have reportedly been helping to fill in gaps in the barricades. The PSJBC’s approach, as they describe it, is heavily focused on de-escalation, and they’ve been leaning on that training as various tensions have surfaced.“That’s kind of the world we live in, right? We have people who are disciplined with firearms, and people who get into firearms who don't have that discipline, so when we see it, we’re not policing people; the best we can do is educate people,” Nick said. “Other people are carrying and we want to make sure that people are carrying safely, so we’re also discussing whether we can do trainings for people here.”It’s worth noting that Seattle’s Mayor, Jenny Durkan, set a ban on weapons on May 30. In a Saturday statement, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office told The Daily Beast of the Zone, “There have been individuals with weapons—open carrying is legal in Washington State. While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement. It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary”“The City will continue to assess the area on a regular basis and work with community and other stakeholders on a path forward that allows individuals to demonstrate, businesses to continue their operations, and preserves public safety for local residents,” the spokesperson added. “Officers in the East Precinct have continued to respond to calls. [Seattle Police] Chief [Carmen] Best and Command Staff have been on site at the East Precinct including yesterday, and some personnel are now staffing the precinct.”The Seattle PD did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. However, Chief Best told KIRO 7 on Friday, of the Zone, “We don’t want to exacerbate or intensify or incite problems that are going to lead to harm to the officers or the people who are standing by. We know that several are armed. We want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful about how we respond.”As is unsurprising for an evolving occupation composed of numerous organizations and political tendencies, not everyone is on the same page. Reports of “warlords” trying to fill the vacuum left by the Seattle cops with their own police stylings have been highly exaggerated, but it is true that an activist was seen appearing to hand out a firearm from the back of a car (an action streamed on Facebook), drawing Twitter accolades from an unlikely source: neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. “Sure, there are occasionally people open carrying, and usually they’re people of color, but all that they're doing is exercising the same Second Amendment rights that the 3%ers and right wingers never shut up about,” Vixen, who is also a PSJBC member, told The Daily Beast. “But because they’re afraid of the c-word, ‘communist’, [right wingers] lose their minds over it. And unlike whatever’s happening in their own personal fantasyland—all this talk of the boogaloo, without the rule of law—the threats of violence against these communities are actually credible.”And while a more liberal project would undoubtedly balk at the mere thought of armed community members strolling through its midst, the explicitly leftist bent of the CHAZ itself allows for a diversity of opinions on firearms and their use. Nick said that everyone he’s spoken to has appreciated their presence, save for one older white man who spotted a black man open carrying and fretted, “I thought this was a peaceful protest!” By all accounts on the ground, it is. The protestors themselves say they are just not taking any chances on what—or who—may be lurking beyond their makeshift bordersUltimately, the CHAZ is a new stab at an ancient idea. As scott crow, Anarchist Agency spokesperson and author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense, told The Daily Beast, it’s important to remember that picking up guns “doesn’t make you more badass.” He added that taking an explicitly liberatory approach and focusing on safety and strategy, as PSJBC members say they’ve done, is paramount.  “[Guns] are not automatically the most protective thing that you can have; only in certain situations do they work,” he explained. “In my analysis, this is the time when it’s needed; this is the time when you can go forth and protect the people who are there from random gunshots or anything, without escalating the situation further.”There is no telling how long Free Capitol Hill will remain in its current form. Seattle police have begun popping up inside its faux borders. Donald Trump, who deemed its inhabitants “domestic terrorists,” has called on Gov. Jay Inslee and Mayor Durkan to break it up, and threatened to use military force if they refuse his demands. Both essentially told him to kick rocks, and Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has floated legislation to convert the East Precinct into a permanent community center for restorative justice. Sawant, who also recently brought forth legislation banning police from using chemical weapons and chokeholds, said on Twitter that the process for deciding that conversion must include a broad range of perspectives, citing those involved in the CHAZ, black community organizations, restorative justice activists, faith leaders, anti-racists, renter organizations, land trusts, and labor unions that have a proven record of fighting racism.And as crow explains, the tensions between various community defense strategies is normal, and can even be healthy. “Nobody said autonomy or trying to build these spaces was going to be beautiful always, if you're not there to convert or to rule over people, it's always that way,” he said. He would know, having co-founded the Common Ground Collective autonomous project that took root in New Orleans’ Algiers neighborhood in 2005, post-Katrina. “It's going to be messy along the way, and it's okay that it's going to be messy, because we haven't gotten to try this, and that's one thing that I hope we give each other a break about.”For now, occupants of Seattle’s autonomous zone are building what they can in the time they’ve got left, and providing a shot of inspiration to activists across the country. Conversations with radical activists suggest that there are discussions going on in at least three other major cities about how to follow their lead—if not in having armed civilians on hand, then at least in claiming public space free of traditional policing. “If one barricade is fairly successful, whatever that looks like—even if it's in anarchist pipe dreams where it seems successful because it did not get shut down by the cops for two weeks—they will be duplicated, again and again,” crow says. “It may not happen in the next few weeks—or it might!— but it's definitely going to happen in the future.”No matter what happens next, the community defenders of Free Capitol Hill believe they have drawn up a new blueprint, however rough, for what it can look like when the people take it upon themselves to defend and protect their communities. As calls to defund and abolish the police continue to pick up steam, this little slice of Seattle offers a stark reminder that a world without cops really is possible, however ephemeral it may be, and despite the potential for armed civilians to cause harm.“Here's what’s happened in the last few days of occupation: a lot less tear gas,” Nick told The Daily Beast. “That precinct has not gone on fire, and there's talk of turning it into a community center if we can get the police to leave. If somebody calls the police, they'll just show up 30 mins late and end up swatting the wrong address and shooting someone's dog. Those are all things that we’re missing, and I'm not sure that anybody here has any complaints about that.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MZscSu

[orendrasingh]

Seattle’s bustling Capitol Hill neighborhood has long been a hotbed of gentrification, but right now, the streets surrounding Cal Anderson Park are undergoing a different kind of transformation.Over the past several days of its remarkable existence, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has captured radical imaginations across the country, and struck fear into the hearts of conservative politicians and right-wing media pundits (including the president). Also known as the Seattle Autonomous Zone, the six blocks surrounding Seattle’s now-abandoned East Precinct have become a virtually cop-free space, populated instead by a diverse congregation of activists and community members who have turned it into a bastion of radical care and artistic expression. Last week, the area resembled a warzone, as Seattle police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd and choked out the neighborhood. Now, there is a community garden, a harm reduction clinic, a free food co-op, and artwork everywhere—and local businesses are on board. As Vixen, a Seattle resident who has been participating in the protests and declined to give a last name, told The Daily Beast from a quiet spot behind the barricades, “This place has gone from being filled with explosions and tear gas to being a place of healing.” Comparisons have predictably been drawn between CHAZ and the Occupy movement, but in the place also known as Free Capitol Hill, there is one crucial distance: this time, some of the protesters are armed. Local Businesses Love the ‘Domestic Terror’ Zone in Seattle, ActuallyMembers of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (PSJBGC)—a leftist community defense and firearms education organization that gained a spate of notoriety last year when a former member, Willem van Spronsen, set fire to an ICE parking lot—have been a constant presence. The club is often asked to provide security for protests and rallies around the Seattle area, and while their involvement in CHAZ is structured more loosely, the presence of armed civilians has raised a few eyebrows.Leftist gun clubs have been on the rise, and organizations like the Socialist Rifle Association—of which, full disclosure, I am a member—Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Trigger Warning Queer & Trans Gun Club, and other chapters of the John Brown Gun Club have successfully introduced the issue of gun rights and firearms education into the broader leftist discourse. In Seattle, John Brown members have generally been showing up on an individual basis, rather than as part of a coordinated campaign. But as Nick—the group’s towering spokesperson, who like other members requested his full name be withheld given law enforcement’s fixation on left-wing activists—told The Daily Beast, the group was also tapped to provide a security escort for “some very prominent black voices who were doing speeches here at the Autonomous Zone” following the events of last Sunday evening. That was when a man armed with a Glock (with taped-on extended magazines) drove into a crowd of protesters, and shot a civilian named Daniel Gregory in the arm. According to Nick and local news reports, the driver then ran over to the police, where he was taken into custody.Though a suspect has since been charged with first-degree assault, Vixen told the Daily Beast, “We have to rely on each other to protect each other.”So right now, while police mostly steer clear of the Zone, that’s what they say they’re doing. Right-wing media has worked itself into a lather over the specter of armed leftists patrolling the area’s makeshift borders, but that hysteria only underlines what activists see as their profound misunderstanding of both leftist gun culture and what exactly these people are defending themselves against. As Nick explains, they’re there to discourage white supremacist groups, accelerationist boogaloo bois, and violent gangs like the Proud Boys from trying to harm the people inside. “It’s not like our club is going force-to-force against the police; that's not what we do,” he told The Daily Beast.Their second, and arguably more important, goal, they say, is to ensure that everyone who is carrying inside CHAZ is doing so safely and responsibly, and ideally with community buy-in. According to Nick, members have been joined out on patrol by other armed locals, a hodgepodge of  “random community members, affinity groups, [and] antifa that aren’t labeled with a specific group” who have reportedly been helping to fill in gaps in the barricades. The PSJBC’s approach, as they describe it, is heavily focused on de-escalation, and they’ve been leaning on that training as various tensions have surfaced.“That’s kind of the world we live in, right? We have people who are disciplined with firearms, and people who get into firearms who don't have that discipline, so when we see it, we’re not policing people; the best we can do is educate people,” Nick said. “Other people are carrying and we want to make sure that people are carrying safely, so we’re also discussing whether we can do trainings for people here.”It’s worth noting that Seattle’s Mayor, Jenny Durkan, set a ban on weapons on May 30. In a Saturday statement, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office told The Daily Beast of the Zone, “There have been individuals with weapons—open carrying is legal in Washington State. While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement. It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary”“The City will continue to assess the area on a regular basis and work with community and other stakeholders on a path forward that allows individuals to demonstrate, businesses to continue their operations, and preserves public safety for local residents,” the spokesperson added. “Officers in the East Precinct have continued to respond to calls. [Seattle Police] Chief [Carmen] Best and Command Staff have been on site at the East Precinct including yesterday, and some personnel are now staffing the precinct.”The Seattle PD did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. However, Chief Best told KIRO 7 on Friday, of the Zone, “We don’t want to exacerbate or intensify or incite problems that are going to lead to harm to the officers or the people who are standing by. We know that several are armed. We want to make sure that we are being very thoughtful about how we respond.”As is unsurprising for an evolving occupation composed of numerous organizations and political tendencies, not everyone is on the same page. Reports of “warlords” trying to fill the vacuum left by the Seattle cops with their own police stylings have been highly exaggerated, but it is true that an activist was seen appearing to hand out a firearm from the back of a car (an action streamed on Facebook), drawing Twitter accolades from an unlikely source: neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. “Sure, there are occasionally people open carrying, and usually they’re people of color, but all that they're doing is exercising the same Second Amendment rights that the 3%ers and right wingers never shut up about,” Vixen, who is also a PSJBC member, told The Daily Beast. “But because they’re afraid of the c-word, ‘communist’, [right wingers] lose their minds over it. And unlike whatever’s happening in their own personal fantasyland—all this talk of the boogaloo, without the rule of law—the threats of violence against these communities are actually credible.”And while a more liberal project would undoubtedly balk at the mere thought of armed community members strolling through its midst, the explicitly leftist bent of the CHAZ itself allows for a diversity of opinions on firearms and their use. Nick said that everyone he’s spoken to has appreciated their presence, save for one older white man who spotted a black man open carrying and fretted, “I thought this was a peaceful protest!” By all accounts on the ground, it is. The protestors themselves say they are just not taking any chances on what—or who—may be lurking beyond their makeshift bordersUltimately, the CHAZ is a new stab at an ancient idea. As scott crow, Anarchist Agency spokesperson and author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense, told The Daily Beast, it’s important to remember that picking up guns “doesn’t make you more badass.” He added that taking an explicitly liberatory approach and focusing on safety and strategy, as PSJBC members say they’ve done, is paramount.  “[Guns] are not automatically the most protective thing that you can have; only in certain situations do they work,” he explained. “In my analysis, this is the time when it’s needed; this is the time when you can go forth and protect the people who are there from random gunshots or anything, without escalating the situation further.”There is no telling how long Free Capitol Hill will remain in its current form. Seattle police have begun popping up inside its faux borders. Donald Trump, who deemed its inhabitants “domestic terrorists,” has called on Gov. Jay Inslee and Mayor Durkan to break it up, and threatened to use military force if they refuse his demands. Both essentially told him to kick rocks, and Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has floated legislation to convert the East Precinct into a permanent community center for restorative justice. Sawant, who also recently brought forth legislation banning police from using chemical weapons and chokeholds, said on Twitter that the process for deciding that conversion must include a broad range of perspectives, citing those involved in the CHAZ, black community organizations, restorative justice activists, faith leaders, anti-racists, renter organizations, land trusts, and labor unions that have a proven record of fighting racism.And as crow explains, the tensions between various community defense strategies is normal, and can even be healthy. “Nobody said autonomy or trying to build these spaces was going to be beautiful always, if you're not there to convert or to rule over people, it's always that way,” he said. He would know, having co-founded the Common Ground Collective autonomous project that took root in New Orleans’ Algiers neighborhood in 2005, post-Katrina. “It's going to be messy along the way, and it's okay that it's going to be messy, because we haven't gotten to try this, and that's one thing that I hope we give each other a break about.”For now, occupants of Seattle’s autonomous zone are building what they can in the time they’ve got left, and providing a shot of inspiration to activists across the country. Conversations with radical activists suggest that there are discussions going on in at least three other major cities about how to follow their lead—if not in having armed civilians on hand, then at least in claiming public space free of traditional policing. “If one barricade is fairly successful, whatever that looks like—even if it's in anarchist pipe dreams where it seems successful because it did not get shut down by the cops for two weeks—they will be duplicated, again and again,” crow says. “It may not happen in the next few weeks—or it might!— but it's definitely going to happen in the future.”No matter what happens next, the community defenders of Free Capitol Hill believe they have drawn up a new blueprint, however rough, for what it can look like when the people take it upon themselves to defend and protect their communities. As calls to defund and abolish the police continue to pick up steam, this little slice of Seattle offers a stark reminder that a world without cops really is possible, however ephemeral it may be, and despite the potential for armed civilians to cause harm.“Here's what’s happened in the last few days of occupation: a lot less tear gas,” Nick told The Daily Beast. “That precinct has not gone on fire, and there's talk of turning it into a community center if we can get the police to leave. If somebody calls the police, they'll just show up 30 mins late and end up swatting the wrong address and shooting someone's dog. Those are all things that we’re missing, and I'm not sure that anybody here has any complaints about that.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2MZscSu

[mcdouglecompany-blog]

John Stossel, Dinesh D’Souza, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan

John Stossel, Dinesh D’Souza, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Andrew Klavan.

  PAY FOR YOUR OWN CHOICES: Andrew Klavan 100% SHREDS socialist redistribution.

John Stossel- More Free Stuff 2020

Everything on Demand

Second Chance DENIED

Hot Air on the Hill

DINESH D'SOUZA ROASTS AOC: Her socialism is more like Venezuela than Scandinavia

FROM NEW YORK TO NORTHAM: Knowles hits the Left over barbaric abortion policies Michael Knowles TEARS INTO the Left over their racism & bigotry

Watch Elizabeth Warren Lie About Her Son's Private School Education

GENESIS V. DARWIN: Shapiro sets the record straight about the creation of man

ALL CONFLICT IS THEOLOGICAL: Knowles proves that faith is what informs

Dinesh D'Souza CALLS OUT illegal aliens for cutting the line he had to wait in

    PAY FOR YOUR OWN CHOICES: Andrew Klavan 100% SHREDS socialist redistribution.

    More Free Stuff 2020

Watch this video at- https://youtu.be/_I_glE1X10w

John Stossel

Last year, we added up all the candidates' spending plans. Since then, they've proposed so much additional spending that we had to do a new videoWe break the spending plans into four categories: Education, Welfare, Environment, and... a “Grab-bag” section. First, Education: Joe Biden wants free community college, to cut student debt in half, to increase Pell Grants, “modernize" schools, create government-funded pre-K, and hire school psychologists. In total, Biden would increase spending by $157 billion every year. Yet he's the "moderate"! Compared to most others, he is. Pete Buttigieg would spend $178 billion a year on similar programs. His plan is nothing compared to Elizabeth Warren's. She'd eliminate nearly all student debt, impose universal childcare, and quadruple spending for low-income schools. $277 billion. Bernie Sanders would eliminate ALL student debt, even for the rich. That alone would cost $220 billion a year. Add in $60 billion for free childcare and pre-k, and $15 billion for black colleges, Sanders’ wants to increase education spending by $295 billion. That’s just education. In total, two candidates want to increase spending by several TRILLION dollars! Who’s the worst? Who is least bad? For the other rounds, and to see the final winner, see the video above. !

-------- Don't miss a single video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://johnstossel.activehosted.com/f/1 ---------

    Everything on Demand

https://youtu.be/kIvoWK_GVGQ

John Stossel

Competition makes entertainment better and cheaper. -------- Don't miss a single video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://johnstossel.activehosted.com/f/1 --------- “Reporters always complain about business. We rarely cover good things businesses do -- the constant improvements that happen slowly,” says John Stossel. Fortunately, a new video essay by Sean Malone of the Foundation for Economic Education does exactly that. He shows the limited options for entertainment we had during his childhood and how “now just about anything I've ever wanted to watch is available at the click of a button.” Why did this happen? “The astounding wealth of home entertainment options we have today are the result of entrepreneurial start-ups.” The video explains that 20 years ago, “Blockbuster dominate[d] the rental video space... but tack[ed] on substantial fees for returning movies late ... $40 in late fees at Blockbuster annoyed Reed Hastings enough to start a new subscription-based company built around mail-order movie rentals with no late fees, called Netflix.” By 2005, the video notes, Blockbuster had lost 75% of its market share. Stossel says, “There is an economics lesson in that. When entrepreneurs face competition, they may lose, but the fight makes life better for almost all of us. Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter explained how that works.” “He introduced the term "Creative Destruction" as a defining feature of free market economies … older companies like Blockbuster have to become more innovative themselves or be destroyed by their competition. This process is how our standards of living continually increase,” says Malone. “We see this in most every industry. Think how much our phones have changed,” Stossel continues. “… Competition drove innovation. We got the blackberry, then the iPhone … Now we have budget smartphones that are even better.” Stossel adds, “Of course, not every new idea is a good one. That’s why markets and prices are important. Prices are not just money, they’re information. They tell us where to put our money.” The FEE video explains, “This is the biggest reason why trying to centrally plan an economy just doesn't work. Politicians and bureaucrats don't know what people are going to value.” Don’t monopolies stop progress? In 2007, Netflix had what some people claimed was a monopoly over streaming. But that monopoly disappeared almost as soon as it formed. “ … Jeff Bezos ... launched a small movie streaming app called Amazon Unbox. A year later, NBC Universal decided to put its big library of content into a new service called Hulu … Other companies caught up real fast,” says Malone. When Malone was a kid, a basic cable package cost about $73 (adjusted for inflation). “Now we get much more choice for 1/10 th the price," adds Stossel. “None of this was the result of any kind of grand, coordinated political plan. It’s something that could only happen in a market economy,” says Malone, “Disney+ is amazing. So is Netflix. And Hulu, and Amazon Prime. And they're all getting better and better.” “As long as politicians don't do something stupid, the future looks really good,” Malone concludes.

    Second Chance DENIED

https://youtu.be/hHC4gyStlds

John Stossel

Government rules often ban people with years-old misdemeanors from working. -------- Don't miss a single video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://johnstossel.activehosted.com/f/1 --------- Thousands of state laws make it hard for people to turn their life around. Courtney Haveman was an alcoholic when she was young -- she got arrested for a DUI and also for drunkenly hitting a security guard in a casino. She pled guilty to misdemeanors. Years later, she went to beauty school to turn her life around. She had to pay thousands of dollars, and take more than a thousand hours to get the state license. "I really like skin. I finally found something I was passionate about," she tells John Stossel. But when she applied for her license, the form had a box asking if she'd ever been convicted of anything. "I clicked yes, because that's the truth," Haveman tells John Stossel. The bureaucrats then said she'd have to prove she had "good moral character." She and others who knew her wrote character letters to the Pennsylvania State Board of Cosmetology. But they declined her application anyway. Andrew Ward, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, says such laws are outrageous and unconstitutional -- and make the country less safe by making it harder for people to become productive. The Institute for Justice filed suit on behalf of Courtney and other women in similar situations. The stated purpose of the law is to protect "public health and safety." But it doesn't do that! Learn why in above video.

    DINESH D'SOUZA ROASTS AOC: Her socialism is more like Venezuela than Scandinavia.

https://youtu.be/ZvflkfoCMiM

YAFTV

"The Scandinavian model is very simple: everyone benefits, and everyone has to pay." Dinesh D'Souza bursts the Left's bubble about Scandinavian socialism. --- Watch more #onlyatYAF videos every day! Click now to connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/youngamericasfoun...

    FROM NEW YORK TO NORTHAM: Knowles hits the Left over barbaric abortion policies

https://youtu.be/9ra-zquQoT8

YAFTV

Privileged, white leftists like Andrew Cuomo and Ralph Northam sit back and smile while a genocide is taking place against black babies in the womb. Michael Knowles TAKES NO PRISONERS in the fight for life. --- Watch more #onlyatYAF videos every day! Click now to connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/youngamericasfoun...

    Michael Knowles TEARS INTO the Left over their racism & bigotry

https://youtu.be/TkKiZHkQ2Vk

YAFTV

The Left wants us to believe that conservatives hate minorities. Nothing could be further from the truth. Michael Knowles explains how we can beat this leftist propaganda once and for all. --- Watch more #onlyatYAF videos every day! Click now to connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/youngamericasfoun...

    Hot Air on the Hill

Watch this video at- https://youtu.be/FdRUTtujROI

John Stossel

Politicians use congressional hearings to score cheap points and bully productive people. -------- Don't miss a single video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://johnstossel.activehosted.com/f/1 --------- Congressional hearings date back to the first congress in 1789, and they're supposed to educate lawmakers. But now hearings are more about scoring points. In the recent impeachment hearings, Rep. Adam Schiff shouted at least five times, "Gentleman is not recognized!" to shut down opposition points. Republicans are ridiculous, too. Some should wish they’d been shut down. Several years ago, Sen. Orrin Hatch asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg the silly question: "How do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service?" After a pause, Zuckerberg responded, "Senator, we run ads." Hatch couldn't figure that out on his own? Rep. Al Green interrogated Zuckerberg about groups that Facebook partners with to create a new cryptocurrency. “How many are headed by women?" Green demanded. "Congressman, I do not know the answer," Zuckerberg replied. "How many of them are minorities, Mr. Zuckerberg? ... Are there any members of the LGBTQ+ community?" Republican Steve King complained to Google's CEO about what his granddaughter saw on an iPhone. He demanded, "how does that show up on a seven year old's iPhone, who's playing a kid's game?" he asked. "Congressman, the iPhone is made by a different company," Google's CEO had to tell King. John Stossel invites you to send in your favorite examples of politicians revealing themselves.

    Watch Elizabeth Warren Lie About Her Son's Private School Education

https://youtu.be/xopibfXRIhA

ReasonTV

Political hypocrisy on school choice needs to be exposed, says Reason Foundation's Corey DeAngelis. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Should politicians be held accountable for being hypocrites about education policy? At least one leading Democratic presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, wants to make it harder for parents to exercise school choice even though she sent one of her children to elite private schools. When Warren delivered a speech at a campaign event in Atlanta last November, charter school supporters showed up to make their voices heard. Warren is an outspoken critic of charters, which are publicly funded schools that operate with more freedom (and less taxpayer money per pupil) than traditional K-12 institutions. The Massachusetts senator's education platform calls for ending federal funding of charters, increasing regulations for them, and making it more difficult to open new ones. Sarah Carpenter, a grandmother and school choice activist who had traveled six hours from Memphis to attend the event, later confronted Warren backstage in a filmed exchange that went viral: Carpenter: "I read that your children went to private schools." Warren: "No, my children went to public schools." The clip went viral because Warren wasn't telling the truth. Corey DeAngelis, the director of school choice at Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes this website), had discovered through online sleuthing that Warren's son Alex, now 43, had attended Kirby Hall, an elite private school in Austin, Texas. It subsequently came out that Alex had also attended the Haverford School, a tony all-boys academy outside Philadelphia. Yet Warren's educational platform would make it more difficult for low- and middle-income families to follow suit using charters, taxpayer-funded voucher programs, tuition tax credits, and a wide range of other options. On the campaign trail, though, she presents herself as a champion of public schools and counsels parents not to leave failing institutions. She addressed a gathering of members of the nation's largest teachers union, declaring: "If you think your public school is not working, then go help your public school…Go help get more resources for [your public school]. Volunteer at your public school. Help get the teachers and school bus drivers and cafeteria workers and the custodial staff and the support staff, help get them some support so they can do the work that needs to be done. You don't like the building? You think it's old and decaying? Then get out there and push to get a new one." In an interview with Reason's Nick Gillespie, DeAngelis discusses school choice hypocrisy on the part of Warren, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Obama Chief of Staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, and others. Many critics of charters and vouchers oppose the use of tax dollars at private or religious educational institutions, he notes, but have no issue when public funds are used in the same way via Pell grants, veterans benefits, or in plans for universal preschool. "Why is it any different between pre-K and college?" asks DeAngelis. "It seems pretty inconsistent to me." Reason is celebrating National School Choice Week. This story is part of a series that will be published over the course of the week highlighting different K-12 education options available to children and families.

  GENESIS V. DARWIN: Shapiro sets the record straight about the creation of man

ALL CONFLICT IS THEOLOGICAL: Knowles proves that faith is what informs

Dinesh D'Souza CALLS OUT illegal aliens for cutting the line he had to wait in

From YAF Playlist- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkKiZHkQ2Vk&list=PLGC1Vd9mQlVNqyoYKScry44JJg6X4zEXq

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