#I refuse to enter the discourse right now because I have a rule where the OP has to have at least 2 brain cells

[numapompilioi]

Carta Abierta a la Junta Militar / Open Letter to the Military Junta

1. The censorship of the press, the persecution of intellectuals, the raid on my house in El Tigre, the dear friends murdered by you, and the loss of my daughter, who died fighting you: these are among the circumstances that have made me resort to this clandestine form of expression, after nearly thirty years of having freely given my opinion as a journalist and writer.

The first anniversary of this Military Junta compels a measuring-up of the actions of this government, against its officially released documents and discourses, in order to fairly balance the scales between the official version and fact. For what you have named as certified facts are errors, and what you are willing to admit as your mistakes are in fact crimes, and events that you have entirely omitted happen to be calamities.

On the 24th of March of 1976, you overthrew a government that you had formed part of, just as you contributed to its dishonor by enforcing its repressive policies. The end of term of that government was to be determined by elections, slated for 9 months from then. What you annihilated, however, was not merely the transitional mandate of Isabela Martínez: you blocked the very possibility of a democratic process that would allow the people to remedy the very ills that you, ever since the coup, have proliferated and intensified.

Illegitimate in its origins, this government you enforce could have defended its thin claim to legitimacy by reinstating the same program already chosen by eighty percent of the Argentinian population in the 1973 elections, a program which still stands as the sole objective expression of the thwarted general will of the people, the sole possible meaning of this so-called ”national Being” so often invoked by you.

Your inversion of that path has shifted the tide according to the interests and ideas of defeated minorities, groups who stall the development of our nation’s productive forces, who exploit the people and who segregate the Nation. A political rule such as this one, can only reinforce itself as a transitional regime: as it currently prohibits all political parties, busts unions, and cripples free press while sowing the most profound terror the Argentine society has ever known.

2. Fifteen thousand disappeared persons, ten thousand prisoners taken, four thousand dead, tens of thousands landless peasants— together, these comprise the naked cipher of the terror I speak of.

As the common prisons were already full, you used barracks and military complexes for what are virtually the first concentration camps this country has ever known. These are camps–where no judge, lawyer, journalist or international monitor may enter. The martial secrecy of the trials, a secrecy invoked as necessary for the purpose of investigations, has made the majority of detentions into abductions, ensuring for torture without limits, and for executions without trials.[1]

More than seven thousand pleas issued for Habeas Corpus rights met refusal in the past year. In other thousands of cases of disappearances, the recourse of Habeas Corpus has not even been presented in court, either because the effort appears useless, or because of the near-impossibility of finding a lawyer willing to present the claim after fifty or seventy lawyers were, in turn, abducted as hostages by you after they took on these cases.

In this way, you have extricated torture from its confinement in time. As the detainee does not exist, there is no possibility of presenting him before a judge within ten days, as mandated by a law that was respected even by the repressive regimes of previous dictatorships in Argentina.

The absence of a limit in time is complemented by the absence of limitations in the methods of torture, thereby regressing back to ages when torturers operated directly upon the joints and the intestines of the victims—only now they make use of surgical and pharmacological tools, unavailable to the executioners of old. The rack, the screw, the skinning-alive, the hacksaw of medieval inquisitors all reappear in the testimonies alongside the electrodes, the ”submarine”, the blowtorch, among other modern accessories.

In the midst of your rationalizations, as you claim the objective of exterminating the guerrilla justifies the means you use, you have arrived at an absolute torture: it is timeless, metaphysical torture. The barest original intention behind these methods—that of extracting intelligence information from the captives—has by now given way in the perturbed minds of those who mete it out. Those who enforce it, instead succumb to the impulse of mashing up the human substance until it breaks, as it loses the dignity already lost by the executioner, the executioner’s dignity, which you yourselves already lost.

3. The negative order given by this Junta against publishing the names of prisoners, in itself belies a cover-up of your systematic executions of hostages, carried out in deserted areas during the dawn hours. In those locales you harvest your pretexts for murder with the forged battle-scenes, the planted evidence, the fantasized chase-scenes and escape attempts.

You have disseminated stories about bungling extremists, who you allege spread pamphlets in the countryside, who paint over the irrigation channels or who amass comically into exploding cars. Such stereotypes about the resistance are straight out of a propaganda leaflet—but the function of that propaganda is not to be believable: it intends only to mock the international outcry responding to mass executions. Such official accounts are designed to downplay the brutal, disproportionate nature of your retaliations conducted in the same places and dates of the guerrilla activities of the resistance.

Seventy dead in the executions you held in a response to the bombing of the Federal Security building, 55 extra-judicially executed in retaliation for the explosions in the Police Department in La Plata, 30 in your response to the attack on the Ministry of Defense, 40 executions in the Massacre of the New Year following suit after they were blamed for the death of colonel Castellanos, 19 extrajudicial killings of those who were held responsible for the explosion that destroyed the police-station of Ciudadela: these amount to the 1200 executions in 300 purported battles in which the opponent suffered no war-wounded, and the forces you commanded had no war-dead.

Condemned to being the human personification of a collective guilt that is alien to civilized norms of justice, the demonized captives are powerless to carry any influence in those same political trials that produce the planted evidence of the crimes for which they are being penalized. Many of the hostages are syndicate-delegates, intellectuals, family of the guerrilla fighters, unarmed opposition members, or ordinary suspects. When they are killed, it is merely part of your accounting act of “balancing the scales” according to the foreign doctrine of ‘the ‘body-count”, used by the SS in the occupied countries and by the invaders of Vietnam.

The practice of rounding-up, then immediately liquidating wounded or captured guerrillas in actual battles, is evidenced by the military’s own bulletin-updates and press conferences: these report how, within a year, they attributed 600 dead, but only 10 or 15 injured, among the guerrilla enemy. Such a ratio is unheard of in the most berserk conflicts of recent memory.

This impression is confirmed by a journalistic study that circulated in the clandestine underground. The report reveals how, between the 18th of December of 1976 and February 3rd of 1977, in 40 real actions, the legal forces had 23 dead and 40 wounded, while the guerrilla had 63 dead.

More than a hundred of those put on trial were similarly overpowered, as the military provided official narratives of sensational chase-stories—none of them intended to be believed, so much as to sabotage negotiations and proceedings. These performances are intended to prevent the guerrilla brigade and the political parties from enacting any legal process for the release of recognized political prisoners. Such negotiation is prevented from interfering and encumbering the strategy of retaliation used by the Core of Commanders. The military junta’s Core of Commanders want to employ these tactics (of disproportionate retaliation) in the shifting battle-scenery, maintaining the convenience of being able to dictate attacks, while unfettered by laws and in obedience only to the impulses and momentary whims.

That is how the general Benjamin Menéndez, chief of the Third Body of the Army, earned his laurels before the 24th of March with the assassination of Marcos Osatinsky, detained in Córdoba, following the killing of Hugo Vaca Narvaja and fifty other prisoners. All were executed without pity, in varied acts of martial law that officers later attested to without shame.[2]

4. The assassination of Dardo Cabo, detained in april of 1975, liquidated on the 6th of January in 1977 with seven other prisoners in the jurisdiction of the First Body of the Army led by general Suarez Mason, serves as further evidence revealing that these episodes were not occasional excesses carried out by a deluded few, or by the bad centurions who strayed. Rather, these appear to be executions of the same policy planned in your grand assemblies, the policy that you discuss in your cabinet meetings, imposed by you as commanders-in-chief of the 3 Arms and approved by you members of the Junta government.

Between one thousand five hundred and three thousand persons or more have so far been massacred in secret detention, after you prohibited the surfacing of information on found corpses. The news seeped through despite your very best efforts. Word spread to other countries, as international media and communities were shaken by the genocidal magnitude, by the sheer horror these facts have evoked among their leaders.[3]

Twenty-five mutilated bodies flowered forth just this March and October of 1976 upon Uruguayan beaches. Perhaps these were but a fraction of the cargo, of those tortured to death inside the Technical School of the Armada, then discarded as flotsam in the river La Plata by boats of the Armada. Among them was a boy, 15 year old Floreal Avellaneda, his feet and hands tied ”with breakages in his anal region and visible fractures” according to the autopsy.

A veritable underwater cemetery was discovered in August 1976, by a local who was scuba-diving in the Son Roque lagoon of Cordoba. He sought to report his finding to the attention of the police. At the station the police refused to register the diver’s report, until he took it to the newspapers, where the editors refused to publish it.

Thirty and four corpses turned up in Buenos Aires between the 3rd and 9th of April of 1976, eight in San Telmo on the 4th of July, ten in the river Lujan on the 9th of October. These serve as a measure of the massacres of the 20th of August that piled up 30 of the corpses, only 15 kilometers from the May Field and 17 kilometers from Lomas de Zamora.

These revelations put an end to the used-up fiction of the right-wing gangs who we presumed to be none other than the heirs of the Triple A squadron of López Rega. These were able to operate in the major garrisons of the country using military trucks, capable of forming blanketing the entire river La Plata with corpses of their victims, able to throw prisoners hurtling down to the sea from the doors of the First Air Brigade [4].

All this, you allege, could have happened without the general Videla, the admiral Massera and the brigadier-gendarme Agosti ever having known—so we are told. Today, the Triple A organization are none other than the Three Branches of the Junta which you preside over, and not the phantom in your nebulous reports regarding “violent outbreaks, seemingly of different sources”. No longer can you pretend to be the just arbiter between ”two terrorisms” one of the right and the other of the left. Rather, you have become the very same fountainhead of the terror that completely lost is course, while you babble in the turbid speech, in  the very discourse of death.[5]

The same historical continuity links the assassination of the dissenting general Carlos Prats under the previous government, with the kidnappings and murders of generals Juan José Torres, Zelmar Michelini, Hector Gutiérrez Ruíz. Dozens more were made into refugees, as their persecutors sought to assassinate the future of democratic processes in Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay by murdering it inside of those who carried and represented that unborn potential for a democratic future.[6]

The proven participation of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and of the Federal Police, in these crimes conducted by officers who received scholarships from the C.I.A. (through the A.I.D.) such as the commissioners Juan Gattei and Antonio Gettor, themselves subjected to the authority of Mr Gardener Hathaway, Station Chief of the CIA in Argentina. Such involvements will provide the seedbed for future revelations of the sordid kind that today already shake the international community. These revelations will not merely stop the moment the facts are laid bare about the role played by that agency (the CIA) and Army chiefs headed by general Menéndez in creating the Lodge of Liberators of Latin America. The Lodge has replaced and fulfilled the function of the Triple A death-squadron, until its role in the international stage was taken up by the Junta and its Three Arms.

This portrait of extermination by no means excludes the personal settling of scores, such as the assassination of captain Horacio Gandara, who for a decade went about investigating the businesses of high chiefs of the Navy. This does not exclude the reporter of “Prensa Libre” (Free Press)

Horacio Novillo, stabbed to death and cremated after the newspaper denounced sundry connections between the minister Martínez de Hoz and corporate monopolies.

As these episodes come to light, so does the true and final significance of your definition of the war at hand, as uttered by one of your chiefs: “The struggle that we have unleashed knows neither moral nor natural limits; it unfolds in a realm beyond good and evil”[7]

5. These facts that shake the conscience of the civilized world, however, are not the greatest of all torments brought upon the Argentine people to date. These facts are not the worst human rights violations so far incurred by you. It is in your economic policy, where we find not only the explanation of this government’s crimes, but also a larger atrocity punishing millions of human beings with planned misery.

Within a year, you reduced the common wage of the laborers by 40%, diminishing their participation in GDP by 30%, raising work-day from 6 to 18 hours of drudgery required for the income to support a family[8], This is how your program has resuscitated forms of slave-labor that had long gone extinct, even in the world’s last few remaining colonial outposts.

Wages are frozen and knocked down, while prices soar, past the sky-ward pointing bayonets of your rifles. Coercion abolishes all forms of collective opposition, assemblies and internal committees strictly forbidden, raising the unemployment rate to a record 9% [9]. This you have promised to worsen in official forecasts with 300.000 planned layoffs, as you go about reversing the relations of production back to the beginnings of the machine age. Whenever laborers had attempted protest, you have labeled them as subversives, abducting entire delegations, which in some instances turned up murdered, or otherwise simply never turned up. [10]

The results of these policies are smoldering devastation. Within the first year of military government, consumption of foods diminished by 40%, that of clothes by 50%, supply of medicines has virtually disappeared from the social layers of the majority. Already we see regions of Greater Buenos Aires where infant mortality surpasses 30%, putting us in the company of Rhodesia, Dahomey or the Guyanas. Diseases such as chronic diarrhea, various parasites and even rabies are reported in peak numbers approximating the worst global rates according to today’s health monitors, in some cases even surpassing known records. These results must appear satisfactory to you, for you have reduced the budget for public health to less than a third of military expenditures, suppressing the free hospitals while thousands of doctors, professionals and technicians join the exodus of jobless created by the terror, by the plummeted salaries or by the policies of ”rationalizing the economy.”

It should suffice to spend a few hours roaming through Greater Buenos Aires to confirm the speed at which these policies have decayed the city outskirts into a shantytown of ten million dwellers.

Suburban cities are half of the time deprived of electricity, entire districts lack running water. Industrial monopolies plunder the subterranean earth-layers for minerals and cement, leaving thousands of housing-blocks collapsed into wasteland, as you care only to pave the streets outside of the military families’ residences, or to decorate and prettify the May Plaza. The world’s largest river is poisoning all its beaches, only because business-partners of the ministry of Martínez de Hoz pour the residual waste of industry into that river. And in the wake of the poison-pouring, the only response your government has taken is to prohibit bathers from swimming.

When it comes to the mishmash of economic abstractions and objectives that you tend to refer to as ”the country”, it seems you have been equally successful. A decline in the GDP sunk until 3%, while an external debt reaches about 600 dollars per inhabitant, at an annual inflation rate of 400%. Production of printed money within one week in December increased by 9%, with a 13% lowering of external investment which also reaches global lows. Strange fruit indeed, that has come of all your cold deliberations, your crude ineptitude.

Nearly all creative and protectionist functions of the State atrophy, unraveling into the utmost decrepitude. Only one arm of the State expands, attaining an autonomous life.

One thousand eight hundred million dollars, the equivalent of nearly half of all Argentinean exports, were assigned to Security and Defense in 1977, four thousand new placements of agents in the Federal Police, twelve thousand in the province of Buenos Aires with salaries that double that of an industrial worker and will triple come February. These numbers forecast there will be no amount of freezes of stagnation or unemployment in the realm of torture and of death, the only camp of Argentinian activity in which the very gross product grows. In the concentration camps, the fixing of rates per head of smashed guerrilla grows quicker than the dollar.

6. In its fulfillment of the diktat of the International Monetary Fund, according to the prescription to be applied indiscriminately to either Zaire or Chile, to Uruguay or to Indonesia, the economic policy of this Junta serves only to acknowledge the needs of its chosen beneficiaries. Among these are the old cattle-raising oligarchies, the new speculations-oligarchs and a select group of international monopolies headed by Esso, ITT, the automotive groups, U.S. Steel, Siemens, all of whom have personal ties to Martínez de Hoz and all his members of cabinet.

An increase of 772% in the prices of animal produce (meat and leather) in 1976 encapsulates the very magnitude of the restoration of the oligarchical minorities’ power. This follows from the initiatives of Martínez de Hoz in collusion with the creed of land-owning Rural Society organization, as exposed by the organization’s president Celedonio Pereda: “It astonishes, how a handful of tiny yet very active groups continue insisting that food-prices need to be affordable.”[11]

In the spectacle of the Stock Exchange, it is possible within one week for some to profit by a hundred or two hundred per cent without working; where corporations were able to double their capital overnight without producing more output than before, as the mad fortune wheel rolls in speculations in dollars, in signs, in adjustable values, in plain usury that has already pre-calculated its interest rates on loans by the hour. How curious are these results of the self-described anti-corruption government that came along promising to put an end to ”the banquet-party of the corrupt.”

Denationalization of the banks has placed savings and national credit in the hands of foreign bankers. With the indemnification of the ITT and the Siemens corporations, rewards go to the same companies that scammed the State. Even while closing down their plants, the profits of Shell and Esso increase. By giving rebates and free passes from the customs tariffs, they create jobs in Hong Kong and in Singapore and massive unemployment in Argentina. Before the mass of these facts, you, the self-proclaimed nationalists, may ask yourselves who are these “anti-patriots”, those ‘’without fatherland’’ condemned in the blaring official propaganda.

In the light of these facts, ask yourselves: who are the real mercenaries at the behest of foreign interests adverse to those of the country? Whose is the ideology that truly threatens the national being you swore to defend in your solemn cries?

A barrage of propaganda (that deforming mirror of wicked facts) claims this Junta to be a securer of peace, and appoints Videla as a defender of human rights, while praising admiral Massera for his sheer love of life. If that propaganda machine were not in place to pour its noise, silencing all reason and access to the truth, then it might have been possible to ask the Commanders in Chief of the Three Arms that they may meditate upon the abyss they have dug. It is the chasm towards which they are driving this country. They claim to be steering the country towards victory in a war they are winning. That war and its imminent victory are illusions. For after even having killed the last guerrilla fighter, resistance would only be fermented anew in other forms.

The source of what has motivated resistance from the Argentine people, for more than the past twenty years, will not have disappeared after the last guerrilla fighter is executed: their urgency will only be intensified, by the memory of the strife and devastation, and by the revelation of atrocities that you have committed.

The above are my thoughts on the first anniversary of your infamous government, and I seek to ensure the transmission of my thoughts to the members of this Junta, without any hope of being heard. Although I am certain that I will be persecuted, I am also faithful to the commitment I made a long time ago, the commitment to bear witness in the difficult hours.

Rodolfo Walsh. – Citizen Identity number: 2845022

Buenos Aires, March 24 1977

Traducción: Arturo Desimone

[thejesusmaninred]

"The Crisis." Mark 7: 24-30.

Tyre is a word closely relatred to myrrh. Jesus proceeds to Tyre, the place of the costly balsam in order to continue His lecture on the rules of Kosher. What ensues is another famous example of game changing discourse between the Gospel Spirit and mankind that has not until this moment been properly understood.

The rules of Kosher are meant to be kept by Jews and Gentiles alike. In spite of the fact they are heavily encrypted and their method for anaylsis has been lost to history, the benefits of their protocols cannot be denied. The number of clean and unclean foods is extensive as are the rules for their preparation, to extensive to fully list and explain here, but Jesus Himself did not intend to explain them only establish the fact they must be studied.

He does this with a Syrophoenician, "let them see the fantasy" from Syria, which means "her song" and Phoenicia, "the sea where the seas don't break."

Now the woman, the institution Jesus visits was probably an amphora, a gathering of Greek men. Jews and Greeks did not get along because Greeks refuse to commit only comment endlessly about the presence and thus the science of the eternal.

Observe within the etymology, from the term Hellas:

Verb חול (hul I) denotes a whirling in circular motions. It comes with quite a cluster of derivatives, most notably the noun חל (hol), meaning sand; the noun חל (hil), meaning pain so bad that it makes one writhe (specifically childbirth); the noun חל (hel), which denotes a (circular) rampart, and the nouns מחול (mahol) and מחולה (mehola), which describe (whirling) dances.

Verb חול (hul II) means to be strong, and the important derived noun חיל (hayil) means might.

A by-form of the previous: the verb חלם (halam I) means to be strong.

Verb חלם (halam II) means to dream, and its derived noun חלום (halom) means a dream.

To the Jewish people God is not a dream, Mashiach is not a myth. Jesus explains, just as He did to the governor, the Legionnaires, the people by the lake, all of them- they needed to get out of bed, out of the darkness:

Jesus Honors a Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith

24 Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.[g] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret.

 25 In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. 

26 The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

27 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

28 “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

29 Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”

30 She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Now we confront an ancient unncessary prejudice, the one spawned when Jesus compares the children and the dogs. This has been constrewed to mean Jesus, a Jew came to convert other Jews to a new way of life. Jews that reject human food are relegated to the status of dogs. This has caused many problems.

Quoth, "how far would you go to get to Jesus?" Inherent in this comment is the earnest belief that unless the Jews go all the way and accept Jesus no amount of Christian ministry has any value and this bizarre belief falls very short of the teachings of the Christ.

So most Christians think everyone needs to pull out a chair, sit at the table and have a heaping helping of Jesus, or life has no meaning. Let's fix this right now: It is almost certainly the other way around.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 24: Jesus left and went to the vicinity. The Number is 9522, טהבב, tahab, "you will love and be fond of..."

v. 25: A woman whose daughter was possessed came. We know how that possessed persons compel themselves to engage in drama and bullcrap and bullshit and are not happy because they don't want to be. The Number is 7015, ע‎י״ה, "the House of Israel in me."

v. 26: The woman was a Greek. The Number is 6471, ו‎דז‎א‎, "and dza", from da and ahaz, "you will understand how two separate entities can connect."

"The verb אחז (ahaz), meaning to take hold of, seize or grasp, is used in pretty much any sense in which two naturally disconnected entities become firmly united."

v. 27: First, let the children. The Number is 5039, ןלט, "you gave volts..."

Voltage is the ability to gaze at something until you know what you are dealing with. The Greeks gave the world arithmetic, the one thing Jews could not crack. Which is why the Gospel was written in Greek instead of Hebrew to keep it safe because the Greeks had numbers, real ones. If the Romans figured out what Saint Mark was up to, the document would not have survived. Voltage is therefore critical to our story.

The Greeks did not believe in oppression but they did believe in slavery, quite a bit...so a document that forbade slavery, but circumvented endless Greek philosophizing that overcame the limit imposed by Gematria was important to the mission.

Even still we clearly needed both systems of learning to complete the Torah:

v. 28: "Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” The Number is 2907, ב‎צז, "In the afternoon." According to the Mishnah after the First Condition, a detailed definition of the Mashiach has been explained, comes the Second, during which the dogs get to bark - to argue the way forward.

v. 29: Then He told her. The Number is 4181, דא‎חא‎ ‎, "supsend."

"stop and dream."

v. 30: She went home and found the child, the new beginning on the bed. The Number is 2802, בפב, "at the pub."

= Shabbar.

"the collapse of the crisis."

The pub shabbar is where society changes through theological means. Without religion we don't know whether or not to even begin to dream of just, pure, righteous way of life, free of persons with slavery, oppression and rotten, rotten attitudes on their minds.

[victoriareyloficlists]

17 March 2021 Additions to Reylo Holidays

These fics have been added to the Holiday list located here.

Christmas

Mistle-oh-no by KyloTrashForever (AO3  2019  Rated E Complete, 5 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Rey kisses a stranger at a holiday party.) Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday by CaliforniaQueen (AO3 2020  Rated E Complete, 20 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Celebrating finishing school and getting a teaching job, Rey Jackson and her friends go out for a night of drinks and letting their hair down. When she meets the beautiful stranger at the bar, she decides tonight she's going to break a rule and be the bad girl for a change. Their one night together turns out to have disastrous consequences for everyone involved. But is being tied down as bad as Rey thinks it is, or is she just afraid to let herself be happy?) Scrooged at Crossroads by apisa_b (AO3 2019  Rated T Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Kylo Ren is a workaholic Grinch with anger management issues - until his life is changed by falling in love and being visited by a ghost.) A Heavenly Holiday by ElleRen31 (AO3 2018  Rated T Complete, 4 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Ben Solo needs to find Christmas gifts for his family. At a local department store, he finds more than he bargains for.) Christmas Eve Will Find Me (Where the Lovelight Gleams) by Love_andbalance (AO3 2020  Rated T Complete, 3 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Christmas Eve. Ben stares at the train that he and his now ex were supposed to be departing on. A noise behind him turns his head, a beautiful girl yelling at the SOLD OUT ticket booth. He looks at the 2 tickets in his hand and back at the girl. "Fuck it," he says, walking up to her.) Keep On Giving by MaryMonster (AO3 2018  Rated E Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Rey is eagerly awaiting the delivery of her Christmas present, a luxury vibrator. There’s only one problem – it was accidentally delivered to her neighbor, Ben Solo. A cozy Christmas Reylo fic full of fluff and smut.) Let It Be Me by elemie89 (AO3 2018  Rated E Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Ben Solo has found the perfect Christmas tree. Only problem is, someone else thinks it’s a perfect tree too.) Merry Christmas, I'm Yours by captain_staryeyed (AO3 2018  Rated T Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: After finding out that Rey has nowhere to go for Christmas, Ben invites her to spend Christmas at his parents’ house. During the time spent together, they are forced to confront their growing feelings toward each other.) Dark Carols by Nyx_Fedra (AO3 2018  Rated E Complete, 3 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: CW: Suicidal Ideation. Ben Solo wasn't liked around the office. He had outbursts of rage, and he was generally rather unpleasant, harsh, difficult to get along with. He seemed to despise others and to be disinterested in anything anyone talked to him about. Rey didn't like him very much, their few encounters had been difficult, some even shouting matches. To her eyes, he was spoiled, ungrateful of the privileges he’d been granted by life. He refused to join Resistance enterprise for a long time, working for Snoke instead, he was harsh with Leia and Han, hostile with Luke…It all changed two months before Christmas, when they entered Resistance enterprise headquarters to find Holdo dishevelled, alone when Leia never missed a day, and she informed them that Ben Solo had almost succeeded in committing suicide the night before. Rey’s world tilted upside down. ) If the Fates Allow by dawninthemtn (AO3 2018  Rated T Complete, 6 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Leia Organa is the most successful matchmaker in the world and renowned creator of irresistible.com, where she built an algorithm so airtight her corporate headquarters is wallpapered with wedding announcements. To her chagrin, the only person she’s never been able to set up is her own son, Ben. But she has an employee named Rey that she has decided is Ben’s perfect match, so she hatches a plan to set them up. Unbeknownst to his mother, Ben has set up an anonymous profile on irresistible.com and has been writing his match Rey for months.) All I Want for Christmas (Is Smut) by MizuPhoenix (AO3 2018  Rated E Complete, 2 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: All Ben Solo wanted for Christmas was to lose his V-Card. Only, the reason he was still thirty years old and hadn't lost it yet was all due to one Rey Jackson. His very best friend. Rey wanted quite a lot of things for Christmas this year. All of them involving her first friend (and love of her life) Ben Solo.With meddling friends trying to bring the oblivious pair some Christmas cheer, this was going to be a very Smutty Christmas.) Gelt by RebelRebel (AO3 2018  Rated G Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: "I only need a few minutes of your time," she continued, voice faltering slightly under his gaze. "To discuss my proposal for the purchase and refurbishment of the Plutt Orphanage in Brooklyn Heights– " In which Rey works with Kylo Ren, Advocacy Director of the Organa Foundation, to spread a little Chrismukkah cheer.) smothered, covered, chunked by SecretReyloTrash (BadOldWest) (AO3 2018  Rated T Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Ben is a painfully shy college student. Rey is the fellow insomniac next door. He finally gets to see where she goes in the middle of the night when he hears her leave the dorm.) Homecoming by ItsALilah (AO3 2018  Rated E Complete, 2 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: After disaster rips through his hometown, Ben Solo finally comes home to surprise his parents at their annual Christmas Eve party. And if he's hoping to run into Rey, the girl he's secretly been pining for since high school, that would be... cool. Although he'll never make a move, not while her over-protective older brother - and Ben's best friend - is around. But when Ben makes it home, not only does he find himself reconnecting with his friends and family, but fate itself seems to be pushing him and Rey together (thanks to a ridiculous amount of mistletoe).) Got a Feeling we Should Just Go Home by slugmutt (AO3 2018  Rated M Complete, 13 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Spending the week before Christmas with sullen deputy-CEO Kylo Ren is the last thing on earth Rey wants to do. Going back to his hometown with Christmas-loving Rey in tow is the last thing Kylo wants to do. But with a little help from family, some holiday magic, and a stray blizzard or two, they might start seeing things differently.) A Reylo Christmas Carol by Crackedkybercrystal (AO3 2018  Rated M Complete, 4 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: "Before the dawn," Hux intoned, "you will be visited by three spirits. Heed their message Kylo Ren, least you end your days like me." It was only now that Kylo perceived his old partner to be bound with a great chain around his waist, weighed down by heavy blocks.) The Set-up by CajunSpice714 (AO3 2018  Rated T Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Ben Solo has aways been socially awkward, but when he sets his sights on his brother Poe's fiance Finn's bestfriend Rey during an engagment party Poe decided that he and Finn need to divise a plan to set the two of them up if not for the sake of his and Finn's future wedding then for the sake of their own sanity.) Bespoke by L_awlietxoxx (AO3 2018  Rated G Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Ben Solo is miserable, stumbling through his life in London without seeing much of anything. Then Christmas sneaks up on him, as does a little shop and a woman who makes custom ornaments to meet the needs of any heart. Suddenly, Ben sees everything.) Valentine’s Day

forever valentine by bellestar (AO3 2021  Rated G Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Ben makes a confession in his wedding speech. He knew he was going to marry Rey when he and Rey were 4 years old and she gave him a Valentine she made and colored herself. And 21 years later, he still has that Valentine.) Halloween

Housewarming by ArdeaJestin (AO3 2018  Rated E Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: When her best friend Rose asks Ben Solo to help on moving day, Rey knows she's in trouble. If only those big strong arms didn't make her forget what an obnoxious jerk he is every time she looked at him.) How You Turn My World, You Precious Thing by BensLostTookaCat (VillainTheBlank) (AO3 2018  Rated E Complete, 3 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: He's the hotshot asshole who leads The First Order, the legal arm of The Resistance. She's the new company liaison who has been assigned to The First Order to keep them accountable.The annual Resistance Masquerade Ball is about to turn Kylo and Rey's worlds upside down.) Haunted Corn Maze by OptimisticBeth (AO3 2018  Rated T Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Rey bonds with her work buddy, Ben.) Zombie Run by OptimisticBeth (AO3 2018  Rated T Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: During a charity run, Rey is relentlessly pursued by a zombie.) you're my boo by murakamism (AO3 2018  Rated M Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: Rey's neighbor Ben Solo is the only one who ever shows Halloween spirit around here. When she discovers he's moving out, she's only hurt because that means she won't have anymore competition... right? So she sets out on a plan to make him stay.) Thanksgiving

New Beginnings by reylocalligraphy (AO3 2018  Rated G Complete, One-Shot, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: When Ben comes home for the first time in five years, it happens to be Thanksgiving dinner. He’s surprised to meet a girl who’s working for his father… an odd girl his parents seem strangely fond of.) Of Penmanship and Discourse by INTPSlytherin_reylove97 (AO3 2018  Rated M Complete, 35 Chapters, Modern AU, Quick Synopsis: When Rey Kenobi's professor and advisor, Luke Skywalker, refuses to give constructive criticism or facilitate workshops for his students, she decides to seek help else where. Ben Solo (or if you read his published work, Kylo Ren) is on the brink of insanity. The literary magazine he is editor for is racing off in a new direction-- and is leaving him questioning both its morals and his love for writing. To find his intellectual and creative needs met, he decides to turn to the internet. A PenPals AU no one asked for.)

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Controversial as it may be these days, I actually support and defend people's right to have racist, sexist, or whatever phobic thoughts as long as they don't try to hurt anyone. Just having these views don't hurt anyone but yourself. Unfortunately too many do try to impose on the ones they dislike. But for the ones that keep to themselves, I many not like your views, but I will fight to the death for you to have them cause this is America. Snowflakes may not like this but oh well.

Yeah, the quote “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” has always been a liberal mantra that has separated the United States from the rest of the world, up until now. Now with the bizarre invented crimes of “Islamophobia” and “transphobia,” and getting fired, banned and de-platformed over a joke, free speech is facing one hell of a test. What we can and can’t say is today regulated based on what part of the intersectional order we fall under. Choosing who you vote for, what you believe in and what hat you wear outside will decide whether or not you’re allowed to speak and whether you are subjected to assault and rabid mob outrage, all in the name of social harmony and justice of course... Such demonstrations express an ideology that has been growing in the academy but has only recently entered the cultural mainstream after their orthodoxy was challenged.

From the 1960s, the academic left began adding third-wave feminism, LGBT theory, the consolidation of post-colonialism, and “privilege theory,” which surfaced in the 1990s. Its greatest claims should be familiar to most of us by now, gender is socially constructed rather than based in biology, the West is uniquely despicable, racial identity rather than individual action determines guilt and responsibility and capitalism is evil. Each divides the world into oppressors and oppressed: whites versus “persons of color,” men versus women, “cisgender” versus queer, etc. To a large degree, it is a Marxist divide, but with race and gender in the place of class. Anything that strays from the script must be shut down at all costs.

An average college student at most state and leading private universities will witness displays targeting Israel, warnings of an ominous “rape culture,” and complaints of “white privilege.” Students report PTSD and require therapy dogs and Play-Doh to soothe their feelings after hearing something they don’t like. Activist students and faculty alike regularly argue that “hate speech” is the same as violence and it’s not unusual to see professors alongside their screaming hoard of students and antifa stopping conservative speakers from speaking, claiming the mere presence of an apostate is dangerous. 

Because of this sense of group victimhood, students feel justified in attempting to shut down the free exchange of ideas or retreating to safe spaces, as certain ideas could not only further harm the oppressed, but may potentially strip them of their victim status. Their unfamiliarity with operating in an environment of intellectual disagreement also makes these “social justice warriors” perceive contrary opinions as assaults on their intellectual security. The traditional rules of public discourse therefore do not apply to them. Their cause is too morally important. To allow dissenting opinion is to allow oppression itself.

A large number of college students believe that violence and shouting over a speaker is acceptable methods to prevent people from saying things. Over half of U.S. college students believe screaming over the top of a speaker to shut them down is acceptable, and one in five believe it’s acceptable to use violence to shut the speaker up, according to a national survey of students in 49 states. Today’s college students are tomorrow’s attorneys, teachers, policymakers, and judges. If a large fraction of college students believe incorrectly that offensive speech is unprotected by the First Amendment, that view will be at the center of all the decisions they make once they’re in positions of authority.

Silencing speech creates more chaos than peace. Those who dissent will resort to other means to speak out. They will protest, they will move to the other extreme or they will vote for the most outspoken leader they can find. In response, those who sought to dominate the conversation will do even more to end it, pumping out fake news, vilifying free speech advocates and refusing to present opposing views. So much of the polarization and division afflicting society today is a direct result of restricting speech. When figures in the media block certain ideas, they actually do more to validate and preserve these ideas than remove them. They validate them by granting them enough weight to merit oppressive action and preserve them by keeping them from being debunked.

Therefore, it should surprise no one that the left, which has taken to opposing free speech, has grown more extreme. Idiotic ideas like socialism meet little opposition because free market capitalism allows for winners and losers and is thus hateful. Even comedy has disappeared, as comedians only feel safe obsessing over Trump and white people. By contrast, free speech advocates, although frequently characterized as evil nationalists and unapologetic bigots, maintains integrity by its insistence on freedom. Many different positions find discussion among conservatives which allows for better policy and more constructive dialogue. Even though this dedication to free speech allows alt-right nuts to run their mouths, the strict dedication to reason and reality keeps them to the fringes. Compare it to the other side where the most far-left ideas and figures are mainstream.

It’s one thing to protest a speaker whose stance we find appalling, it’s another to work to block them from being able to speak at all. It’s one thing to choose to walk away from a discussion, it’s another to try to silence another’s voice entirely. When we choose the latter routes, we are one step closer to becoming the exact authoritarians Trump is accused of being. Free speech rights in the United States are still stronger and better protected than anywhere else in the world but we should still be closely aware of these growing attempts to weaken them. As we watch the English being arrested over insensitive tweets, Scots being sentenced and fined for memes and Norwegians imprisoned for "hate speech,” we're getting a glimpse of how fast and easy free speech can be removed and criminalized even in the most liberal democracies like ours. 

[anyu-blue]

~

Read More vv

Rant negative thing.

I'm looking forward to the day I no longer need these so much. To the day I'm happily just chugging along and feel no need to type out words with such negative feelings attached to them.

Unfortunately... I feel that day may only come when all of my blood family is behind me. Is physically at least out of my life.

I could be very wrong. Life has many, many challenges. Some have gotten easier in ways to deal with.. like work and bosses and bills... Not that they still don't suck cuz they do, but when it's one at a time and there's the ability to step back... They're not so so bad.

But with my family... Everything is all stress.

One reason I love my friends so much is when they're having a bad day or time of it, or when I am, even if positive words and support can't fix everything, it's still a receptive give and take. No one bites the other person's head off for no reason... Or if heads are being bitten, we know the source and are able to forgive one another. It takes a lot of pressure off.

My mother's side of the family seems to have a problem with this. I'd say it's because we're in close contact a lot, but we're really not... Everything is just an attack.. when it's really not. Words are spoken, intent is clarified.. and still you get bitten because the way you say even one word is 'disrespectful' and they don't like that. Which I get it... Tone is WAY more important than I've sometimes given credit for... But for me if someone's snarking and I point it out and they tell me it's not me... I tend to believe it's not actually me. My anxiety issues have calmed enough I don't take it personally when someone tells me not to. I may not enjoy someone's tone or snark... But it's up to me to push that aside.. and things get so much easier for everyone, especially me, when I manage it.

Very few people are out to get me. And a good chunk of those who are, aren't necessarily doing it to me specifically on purpose. Like my mother. She's a shit person in a lot of ways (as am I), but that's just who she is. And if I can't handle that.. I move away from it. Because if I don't it will keep hurting me.. and I don't want to end up really hurting the other person in return- especially not intentionally.

... Tevie has been trying to call me out on something recently. Believing I am holding a double standard. Perhaps I am.. I'm not entirely sure.

She asked me why I don't get angry or upset when she uses female pronouns heavily and extensively for me, but I will get uncomfortable when our mother does it...

My reasoning is I don't get upset with her because any time I mention it, Tevie corrects herself and then continues to be 'correct' the entire day following, and will voluntarily be neutral with me other days- even correct herself when she slips sometimes- especially in my presence.. because it's honestly more comfortable for Tevie to refer to me neutrally or as a guy because she knows me so well. Knows I don't do girly in pretty much any sense of the word and never truly have (or I was miserable trying so hard to).

Whereas my mother... She sees me exclusively as her daughter. After reminded I'm not entirely comfortable with that, she will correct herself once.. and the rest of the day will go off as she normally does and ignore or get upset with any reminders. And every new time I see her.. it's another reminder. Another upset for her. Another trial. It really wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't caught her introducing me to 3 new people- same day, hours apart, as her daughter.. when I specifically asked that day to be called her kiddo and she agreed, only to not do it. And then to catch that awful post on her FB... Showing me she really doesn't believe anything we've discussed.. not even the science of mine and thousands of others' physical brains and chemistry. It's not an attack on ME specifically.. it's just another piece of how she views the world... And that's why I'm upset more with her than when Tevie slips up. She's attacking something important to me indirectly and then gets upset when it's pointed out.

As clear as I can explain it.. I want to be seen as ME, and not the parts... People who don't know me and don't particularly care about me will always see me as my parts, and I get that... Its kinda our societal rule. But Those that do care (or claim to in my mother's case) shouldn't rely on that.. namely when I've asked them not to AND they've agreed. Time and Time again. Just see me as a person, please. Because that's what I am. Not my parts.

Tevie doesn't rely on my parts to call me her family. Nor does my dad, step mom, 5 other siblings, or my friends (well one does.. and I've been avoiding him like the plague because I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it, though he's still an awesome dude in all other ways. He even knows about my avoiding him and stuff and is totally cool with it). My mother does. (While she swears it was a different time and has sorta proven as such, my being the way I am was the only thing we were told we would be disowned for.) She's still upset I won't have sex or be a mother so she can have grandbabies though. (Tried to convince me to get knocked up when I was in highschool.. I'm still reeling over that one). It makes me wonder, though, how she would see me should I want and manage any drastic change..

Is it a double standard that I will let some slip up without being upset and others not? Probably... I am sorry for holding it against people... But I do have my reasons. To me there is a difference between the two, if there isn't much of one to others.

But anyway.. I am looking forward to potentially more mutal relationships in the future... Ones where I'm not the only one analyzing all my flaws and trying to work with them.. Tevie says she is... I do believe she might be.. it's just that progress is invisible when it's not discussed at all.. and it is obviously in a different area... Because I can tell her hey, you're not being cool right now (and you've told me nothing's going on so there's actually no reason for it) but yet you're still continuing to be uncool and downright rude. What the heck? I'm literally trying to be extra nice right now. You've asked me to be sure you're comfortable before doing things so I'm following through and still you're biting my head off and yelling at me and completely ignoring what I have to say because you think I'm just going off on a tangent... When I was literally asking you a question and not trying to be all ranty or anything...? Seriously? That's rude. I'm trying to be courteous and you assume I'm just trying to bother you with something stupid.

Ugh. Not the first time she's done this to me... I get ranty, yes, but I stop when she asks me to. I ask her first if it's okay to rant (I've gotten eally good about that). Alongside other things like this.. she'll just assume and completely ignore what I have to say, even if I tell her right off the bat it's entirely different.

Sounds kinda like entering discourse here on Tumblr... You can cite every fact and go in as clear and concise and even as kindly as possible - no sarcasm in sight- and still people will get all twisted and refuse to acknowledge a thing and just keep going off where they think they're right and/or valid.

I'm not the easiest to live with I'm sure.. but that's just exhausting. I'll be happy to not live with it anymore... Eventually. Tevie definitely needs to find something out there worth living for and not her half wanting to live just because I might need her protection.

[the-christian-walk]

HE IS RISEN!

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell His disciples.

Matthew 28:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.’”

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Mark 16:1-8

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you, while He was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered His words.

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

Luke 24:1-12

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put Him!”

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

John 20:1-10

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It’s Resurrection Sunday!

The darkness, sadness, and gloom of the cross has given way to the brilliant light of glory and hope today, the day when our Savior was raised up from the dead by His (and our) Father God to rule and reign and grant salvation to sinners like us forever. Alleluia!

Today, we immediately rejoice at the light of dawn on Resurrection Day because we know Jesus was raised from the dead to life but it was an unknown for those who lived in that time in AD 33. Each of the Gospels share an account with us from that early morning after the Sabbath and not surprisingly, there are differences but not on the main elements as we go back to dawn on the first day of the week after Jesus’ crucifixion. There are four of these elements and I’ll look at each.

1. Women were the first to find the empty tomb.

Collectively, we find there were more than a few women present that early Sunday morning. Matthew tells us that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there. Mark puts Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, the mother of James and John at the tomb. John only places Mary Magdalene there but when we look at the 10th verse of Luke 24, we find the number of women expanded. He posits Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others at the scene.

So with this, we don’t really know how many women were present but that doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it was women who not only were first to witness the empty tomb but also to see the resurrected Jesus face to face.

2. The women had a supernatural encounter and received a message that Jesus has risen and was alive

The second consistent element found across the Gospel accounts is that the women had a supernatural encounter which provided information as to what happened to Jesus, the Savior they had come to anoint. Without some answers regarding why the tomb was empty, the women would have been left confused and concerned.

In Luke, we find the two men who appeared in dazzling clothes telling the women that they shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus was no longer dead in the tomb. This is because Jesus had told them what would happen to Him, making sure they understood at the time that it was all necessary. During this discourse, Jesus made it clear that He would be raised again on the third day and indeed He was.

The news had to bring great joy to the women but note they weren’t supposed to keep it to themselves and this leads to the third element of consistency within the Gospels.

3. The women were told by the supernatural messenger to go and report to Jesus’ disciples.

In the different Gospel accounts, we see where the supernatural messengers tasked the women to go and make report of the empty tomb to the disciples, the Eleven who had sequestered themselves after Jesus was arrested and brought to trial. Of interest, Luke’s Gospel tells us the disciples, minus Peter, refused to believe what the women reported. This was more societal as anything because women were subordinate to men in every way and even if a woman testified in court, their words were never considered credible. Nonetheless, they were obedient to what they were told to do.

4. Jesus was alive, resurrected from the dead.

This is why the Gospels bear their name because it is consummation of the ultimate good news contained within each account. In order for salvation to be possible, Jesus had to first die, a perfect atoning sacrifice to atone for the sins of all mankind, and then be resurrected from death to life, gaining victory over the cross and the grave. Because Jesus died and rose again, anyone who places their belief and trust in Him as Savior will be resurrected as well. Death has no sting for any Christ believer and Jesus made it all possible.

This is why we celebrate today on Resurrection Sunday. For we remember the day when eternal hope was born, the day when Jesus was risen and risen indeed. Thanks be to God for the gift of His Son and promise of everlasting life found in and through Him.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

[entireconfection]

Can We Turn It Around?

Hard to believe it’s been four years, isn’t it?

           As I sit down to write this, 5 weeks out from the 2020 election, it’s hard to know where to start. For almost four years now, we’ve been living in an altered (and very shitty) state of reality. Donald Trump’s America. A never-ending dumpster fire. And, to be frank, one of the worst chapters in our country’s history. On top of that, we’ve just crossed the half-year mark of a global pandemic, an ongoing crisis by turns devastating and surreal, one that seems sadly befitting of our dystopian, is-this-really-happening times.

           After 4 agonizing years of hate and stupidity ruling the roost, of nonstop assaults on science and decency and civility, of the obliteration of democratic norms, destruction of the checks and balances that we naively assumed would always be there for us, we’ve almost arrived at another election. And with it, the possibility that we can start to turn this around. That we can rise up and say “NO. We DON’T want a dictatorship. We WON’T go along with this. We will FIGHT for love and decency and our democracy.”

           Personally, I am proceeding under the assumption that Trump will be reelected. I have to do so for my own wellbeing. I don’t want to get my hopes up. The bitter, blindsiding defeat of 2016 is still fresh in my mind. There are many ways that this election could turn into a shitshow. Not the least of which is we have a ruthless dictator as President who is doing everything he can to sabotage the vote. And he has a powerful ally in the Republican party, which has expertly suppressed the vote for decades and is doing so now with as much gusto as ever, determined to hold onto power at all costs. Throw in all of the logistical challenges and obstacles caused by COVID, along with all of the flaws of our antiquated, broken-by-design voting system (courtesy of the democracy-hating GOP), and no one really knows what the hell is going to happen on November 3.

           So I have to assume that Trump will win. Because, awful as that will be, life will go on if he wins. And I need to be able to carry on as well.

           Still, as accustomed as I’ve become to the insanity of the Trump era, it’s sometimes hard to grasp that it’s come to this. That we are perilously close to becoming an authoritarian country with a permanent conservative majority. That it pretty much all hangs on this election.

           It’s not just our country either. It’s our planet that’s on the line. Perhaps you’ve heard of climate change? You know, that little issue that Americans don’t give a shit about, but is an existential threat to human civilization? Well, it’s only getting worse. The Northern Hemisphere just had its hottest summer ever, 2 degrees above normal. You can expect a new record every year for your lifetime.

           Trump, as expected, has been a disaster for the climate – withdrawing from the Paris Accord, gutting environmental regulations left and right, and basically doing as much damage to the earth as possible. Given that experts say we have 10 years to make major cuts in emissions if we have any hope of avoiding irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption, it’s safe to say that a second Trump term would pretty much be game over for the climate, and for life as we know it. It’s the predictable outcome when you elect an idiot climate denier president of the most powerful country in the world.

           Then there’s the fate of democracy itself, which is in a perilous position around the world. Fascism masquerading as “right-wing parties” has been on the march across Europe for years. Trump has gleefully helped that effort, cozying up to ruthless dictators like Kim-Jong Il and giving his buddy Putin the green light to continue to ratfuck elections, sow chaos, and wage cyber warfare on any country he chooses.

Meanwhile, Trump has given the middle finger to our allies constantly since taking office. Again, completely to be expected from a jingoistic simpleton whose entire understanding of foreign policy boils down to “America First.” Remember his shit-eating smirk while refusing to shake Angela Merkel’s hand in the Oval Office? Trump exemplifies the right’s foaming-mouth hatred of Europe, foreigners, and diplomacy. Just one of their many flavors of bigotry, he and his base believe that the rest of the world basically consists of international elitists determined to destroy America. Not exactly a philosophy conducive to preventing trifling matters like, say, global pandemics or world wars.

The more I write, the more I remember when an absolute sleazebag our president is, and the more astonished I am that this man is our president. This is the guy who 60 million people voted for in 2016. This is the guy who is nothing less than a savior to millions and millions of white Americans. Donald fucking Trump? You would be hard-pressed to find a more loathsome person in all of America. And despite knowing full well how polarized and tribalized we have become, it’s still hard to fathom that so many Americans can look at this vile, morally bankrupt con man and see a great leader, a champion of their values, the greatest president of all time. It just doesn’t compute.

           And yes, many of his voters are well aware of his vices, and yes, white working-class voters have legitimate problems, and on and on. For four years, we’ve discussed and dissected these reasons for Trump’s victory. They are admitted and entered into the record. Now can we please get rid of this menace because he destroys our democracy, wiping out the great experiment that has endured for 244 years?

           Because that’s what’s really on the line on November 3. We’re all deciding if we want to go back to being a democracy – a flawed, messy, imperfect democracy to be sure, but still a democracy at heart – or a dictatorship.  That’s not hyperbole. That’s just the situation.

Trump, aided and abetted by the entire Republican apparatus and 40% of the population, has turned us into a dictatorship. He has put his cronies in positions of power. He has fired anyone who refuses to become his unquestioning flunky, smearing public servants who have spent decades working to help people – a concept completely alien to Trump. He has demonized the media (except for the propaganda outlets who run only pro-Trump news), relentlessly undermining one of the pillars of a liberal democracy, turning people against the very journalists who are trying to expose how Trump is screwing them over. He has conspired with our enemies to compromise our own elections. He came to power by colluding with Russia to his political opponent. He tear-gassed peaceful protestors in front of the White House and painted Black Lives Matter as radical terrorists and applauded right-wing vigilantes who pointed guns at BLM protestors. Hell, he gave them a plum speaking slot at the RNC. Because that’s who calls the shots in Donald Trump’s America – racists and white supremacists.

So, yeah…it’s a rubbish time. And as anyone who remembers the train wreck of Election Night 2016 can understand, I don’t want to get my hopes up. We’ve all been burned one too many times.

Still, it is nice – if only for a moment – to think about a President Biden.

A president who acts like a fucking adult, not a tantrum-throwing toddler or a schoolyard bully.

A president who condemns violence, not one who exploits and encourages it for political gain.

A president who speaks carefully and thoughtfully, knowing his words have real-life consequences. Not one who constantly spews venom and lies, not caring if people die as a result because they’re not his base so screw them.

A president who refuses to legitimize dangerous conspiracy theories. Not one who gleefully seizes on every twisted fairy-tale to emerge from alt-right trolls lurking on 4chan.

A president who accepts the simple fact that our world is interconnected and that diplomacy, respect, and civil discourse are our best tools for making life better for everyone. Not one who embraces the right’s phony-ass “patriotism” and thinks Americans – more specifically, his supporters – are the only people on Earth who matter.

A president who does his fucking job, not one who sits on his ass tweeting and watching Fox News to get his daily ass-kissing. When he’s not golfing or holding white supremacist rallies, that is.

Trump’s awfulness is simply unparalleled, probably in human history. It is an expansive mass so vast and blatant and unashamed that it’s almost a work of art, in a sick way. You could go on forever about the cringe, the iconic moments of incompetence, the garish displays of smirking idiocy and unabashed bigotry that have come to define our time. Sharpie-doctored hurricane maps, Kanye in the Oval Office, calling African countries “shitholes,” telling black and Latina Congresswomen to “go back where they came from,” toilet paper on the shoe, shoving a world leader on stage, soundproof phone booths at the EPA, white supremacists as “very fine people,” caravans, paper towels, upside-down Bibles, covfefe…it has just been a constant, dizzying tornado of hate and evil and stupid. It’s why I stopped watching the news. It’s too much. We weren’t wired to ingest this level of crazy and awful every day. Being a human being is hard enough as it is.

It’s hard to stomach the thought of one more day of this shit, let alone 4 years. Should Trump get reelected, it’s hard to see how anything good will survive. And should his victory come once again come via dirty tricks, be it foreign interference or voter suppression or both, it would appear to confirm that our system has been so hopelessly corrupted by the right that it’s impossible for a Democrat to win. It would suggest that it is now impossible to have a fair presidential election and we’re doomed to have permanent tyrannical rule by a racist, reactionary, science-hating, authoritarian minority. Where we go from there is anyone’s guess.

I hope we can turn it around. I hope there are enough decent people out there who are fed up with this asshole. I hope the myriad GOTV efforts we’ve seen in recent months will motivate people who sat out last time, and maybe some people who have never voted. I hope the collective determination of people who are against Trump is enough to overcome the GOP’s perennial cheating and voter-suppression campaigns. I hope, no matter the outcome, that the whole thing doesn’t devolve into an epic shitshow that makes Florida 2000 look like a calm and orderly affair.

So I have hope. Is it well-founded? Is it anything more than wishful thinking? Hard to say. But when all appears lost, that’s what we have. Hope.  

In closing, if you are dismayed by what America has become these past 4 years, if you want to save the democracy that so many people fought and died for throughout our history, please vote for Biden. Your kids, your grandkids, and the entire world will thank you.

[stretchjournalemerson]

Infinite Banality

By Graham Wheeler-Nelson

I am seated in a classroom, surrounded by heads and bodies. My scoliosis prone spine [^1] contorts to fit increasingly miniature chairs. I am at Emerson College. I’m seated amongst some of the most skilled artisans and communicators of our generation [^2], I’m religiously taking notes (both physical pencil on college-ruled notebook paper as well as digitally via fingers on a membrane keyboard) from professors who are masters of their field, and I’m sitting seven stories above one of the busiest intersections in New England. From my 115 square foot [^3] LED lit dorm room, I am able to look across the historic Boston Common and see the multitude of backpacked students wearing Patagonia coats briskly shuffle across the paved passageways between grassy pastures and local foliage, I see the upper-class professionals in freshly pressed business attire, and I witness the haphazardly directionalized wander in and out of the recesses of the park [^4] .

When I would walk out of my house in Lake City, Minnesota - a town which is made up of 5,025 people, a total of two street lights, misanthropy, one locally owned grocery store, and a post office [^5] - there would be nobody there despite neighboring a house on the left, a house on the right, a duplex across the street, and existing in a residential zone. And but so [^6] , there was a certain kind of palpable and identifiable isolation in knowing you’re alone in this specific slice of space and time; it’s a cold and visceral reflection of the physicality of loneliness when there are no people, yet this manifestation of loneliness somehow fuels and simultaneously extinguishes itself, - it gives you a real thing that you can point to and blame your destitution on.

When I landed in Boston, the humid, 90 degree east coast air was buzzing, and the energy was transformative - the hum of the public was the roaring industrial engine driving social discourse, the massive skyscraping monuments to humanity’s triumph were poetically juxtaposed against the 50 acre expanse of preserved manufactured greenery situated, as my father would say, “Right smack dab in the middle of everything!” [sic] I was studying with, sitting next to, and experiencing life right alongside people [^7] that are handpicked to be right here in that moment [^8] - nobody was there by accident, everyone wanted to be there from the bottom of their heart, and it was magic. Students were all on the same page during the first week of orientation, we were scared, we were insecure, we were entering a foreign environment without our kin, and we were clueless; none of us knew a single soul, so we tried to meet them all. It was socially acceptable and even encouraged for you to walk up to someone - a complete stranger - and start a conversation: I was meeting people every second of every minute of every day.[^9]

You can’t do that anymore. There’s sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students to contend with; you don’t know who’s who: who is an empathetic freshman, a sympathetic sophomore, a banal junior, or a scoffing senior. Once they moved in, I felt distinctly freshman.[^10] The fascination and amazement that once surrounded the intellectual and artistic powerhouse now morphed into insecurity; the hum of public discourse was distracting from an unwritten essay, the huddled masses of Bostonians were a mob chomping at the bit to engulf me, I was no longer experiencing life alongside anyone else, I was actively avoiding it - I am inadequate. I’m constantly surrounded by people who are more invested than me, more attractive, more emotionally stable, more curious than I am. [^11] Even though, because I hate being alone, I aggressively fill my schedule, I still feel I’m not doing enough: I need more on my resume, I need to write that essay, I need to not be alone. And but so, I somehow simultaneously envy and despise the recluse roommate - that academic anchorite - who is content with nothing more than watching mind-numbing repetitive television programs while ingesting prescription drugs for which he is not the prescriptee.[^12] The one who is able to wallow and relax in their own filth. I want to be able to take comfort in my wretched refuse.

And but isn’t this feeling of isolation paradoxically universally bonding in some strange way? We are all, deep down, united in our belief that we are alone. It’s a self-defeating clause that is impossible to understand - how can one be alone and seeking connection to someone in a sea of people who are also alone and seeking connection to someone. It’s a common story, one that nearly every college freshman or ambitious young adult experiences when abandoning their cliched metaphorical nest - that of perceived isolation in the face of novel settings and experiences and people. I yearn for the day when I was fascinated by street signs - engrossed by plain white letters on a green metallic plate. But so now I’ve transitioned into a time when the banality of giving passerbys directions goes from excitedly abnormal to be horribly and utterly distracting. When I walk out of my dorm in Boston, Massachusetts - a city which is made up of roughly 685,094 people, 67,000 street lights, misanthropy, and dozens upon dozens of locally owned and franchise grocers [^13] - when I walk out of my dorm, there are people there. And I see people I love and respect and strive to impress. There’s a certain kind of abstruse and esoteric isolation when you’re surrounded by people you love and respect and strive to impress and still feel lonely. It gives you nothing to blame for your banal cloistered existence. [^14]

Acknowledgments

This essays owes its approach to David Foster Wallace. I first read Infinite Jest about a year ago and fell in love with Wallace’s use of the English Language - and while it may be cliché or problematic for an 18 year old white man to like Infinite Jest , I truly felt a connection between the page and me that no other book has achieved. I’ve read a lot of Wallace’s work, and all of what I’ve read has influenced this essay, including Infinite Jest, his collection of essays entitled A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again , his collection of short stories Brief Interviews With Hideous Men , and his 2005 commencement speech for Kenyon College that was later published under the title This is Water .

[1] I don’t actually have scoliosis.

[2] Obviously, these artists are not the greatest yet - right now we are all in the midst of creating the utter garbage that will define the term “learning experience.”

[3] My dorm room specifically is not exactly 115 square feet - because of an egressed corner of the room, it’s difficult to get exact measurements.

[4] Some of these wanderers are also students or busy businessmen taking a break from their strictly and precisely organized day, but some, if not most, are coming from places such as: a methadone clinic, their dealer’s house, or maybe a sleazy public bathroom after they shot up or snorted their substance of choice.

[5] Among other things.

[6] [sic]

[7] People that Emerson College’s president, Lee Pelton, would describe as “change makers,” and “truth tellers.”

[8]The moment of banal ecstasy: during your first week in a new location on the map, a group of people you met not one or maybe two days ago go to a comedy show down the street, and on the walk back you look up at the millions of illuminated apartments and office spaces - places where professionals perfect. You are instantly and subtly aware of a connection being formed between you and this group made up of people so breathtakingly individual and legitimate and sincere and nice that you will do anything in your power to sustain this moment. Nothing more, just sustain.

[9] Or at least it felt like it; I was making constant connection to other souls.

[10] Even while doing something as seemingly banal as walking into my residence hall, I felt remarkably immature. Like when you were a little child clutching your parents hand while walking through a department store and they let go and they leave. It’s the first time in your microcosm of a life when you’ve actually had real autonomy - and it’s paralyzing. For the first few minutes it’s exhilarating, but then the fact sets in that you are nothing but a lost little child.

[11] This is not wholly true.

[12] There is a surprising amount of drug abuse that goes on within the walls of academia.

[13] Among other things.

[14] I am in here.

[eclecticcankitchen]

Hi. It’s OK if you want to ignore this...

what with all the discourse™ that’s happening around cursing and stubborn people waving the ‘but moralsss’ flag. 

I am pretty new to magic and while, as a rule, I try to never judge people for their life choices I grew up in an environment where, every time someone was acting “odd” or dressed “differently” or just liked black too much the immediate concern that would come to mind was “they’re being led astray by the devil!!!”. 

Really it was… (Is if I’m truly honest) pretty damn radical like even the word magic in a story, or a movie, or a game would send trigger signals and the speech™ would come and the next hour would consist in talking someone’s ears off trying to make sure there was no doubt they knew magic was evil/forbidden/bad. This was the most benign form of judgement you could get at home, the worst were the condemnations they would inflict upon people just because they didn’t like you.

Witch was always used as an insult “she descends from a line of witches”,  “she is a witch”, “there’s no salvation for her”... There were weird meetings and hushed voices every week that I wouldn’t dare call exorcisms if only for a lack of understanding of what those meetings really were: people spoke in tongues, they would cry, they would ‘’’'pray’’’’ and do other things I consider too disgusting to talk about… They would do this to attempt to 'save’ my mother, to make her repent of her 'sins’ and she believed in them until she had enough. She was the one they called a witch and the reason they had to do this? was because my mum’s mother, a grandmother I never knew because I was too young to remember, died, to the best of her family’s knowledge, due to a curse. 

My mother and her siblings say there was a woman that used to live in their neighbourhood, who lived in fact next door. This woman 'fancied’ my grandfather and was mad because he wouldn’t return her affections and one day she invited my grandmother to have lunch at her place. She offered her a grapefruit, which my grandmother had never liked, and was insistent that she ate it. She did and claimed to have never enjoyed something as much. 

We can only suppose there was something about it because shortly after she fell ill and no doctor knew what was wrong with her; the sickness was debilitating and painful. No one could offer an explanation so my family, being Catholics, called for a priest for counsel. After a glance he refused to help, what ever he saw or felt he refused to treat. He condemned my family too; told them it was their fault. 

Now, the actual reason these people had to fault my mother and her family for? came from the fact that, after they got no answers from anyone, they turned to a Brujo, the ones that in my country are known to perform cleansings. I don’t know if he was a santero or what kind of magic he knew (since making those kinds of questions would have always landed me in trouble, and while more open minded, not even my mother would be fully understanding) but what I do know is that after talking to my grandmother and checking her over he was certain that the event I just related to you, where she visited this woman, was the reason to my grandmother’s sickness. He was sure she had been cursed and that it was meant to kill her for, after he checked her out, he also knew there was nothing he could do to help her. He told them they could only wait... 

Of course my family would not sit with their arms crossed, and in fact they didn’t, they still went to a doctor’s office and they did scans and studies and when things started to get bad they would take her to the hospital and they never stopped encouraging her to eat but she was very weak and very thin and for the rest of her life she lived almost bed ridden with that sickness. It did not last long.

They never wanted to believe the Brujo and the things he told them but before he left he did tell them one thing. That they didn’t have to believe his words but that it would best if they didn’t let the woman see my grandmother because she would come to make sure if my grandmother was still alive, and that they should tell her that she was fine.

The woman came knocking a few months after the Brujo’s visit, they told her she was fine when she enquired after her health and when, faced with the answer, she asked to see her they told her she went to visit some friends in her hometown. Her interest was palpable in the way she tried to look into the house but hey didn’t let her in. 

After that they were more willing to believe in what the Brujo had told them but the matter was never settled and they never did know what happened. What they knew was the church denied their help and their faith in it took a big blow from that. Still my mother went on believing in whatever it is my father’s mother believes and after her mother passed away she sincerely and innocently and devotedly thought my father’s mother would understand her when she confided this story. What she got for her trust has been the source of most my family’s troubles and the root of many of the issues I have today...

What I mean to say from all this is that it’s taken me all my life to reach a point where I can let myself believe in magic, almost freely because I am still living in the broom closet, in spite of feeling that pull to it for as long as I can remember because of the restraints and the judgement and the fear I've had to deal with, both internal and external and... to suddenly be a witness of it again? within a community that claims to respect and do no harm to others (I'm referring to wiccan practice in particular here since most comments seem to come from there) is not only triggering but disappointing. 

I decided to take a wiccan path due to its precepts and its beliefs and while, for me, that meant that I wouldn’t consider cursing someone as an option, that also meant that anyone else's doings were not my business. Each one walks their own path, each one decides what to make of it. Each one gets a choice and those are held only to ourselves. 

Was that not it? Isn't that the deal? So why all of a sudden it matters what others think is right, or appropriate or necessary? What does that have to do with me? 

The answer is it doesn't. 

So cursing is wrong to you well... Don't do it. Are you scared of the implications? Are you scared of the word? The Gods know I am; I have every reason too. I am also scared of knifes and heights and flying but you know what? I can deal with those. And I sure as fuck can deal with curses too. 

Just because they exist and are a thing, it doesn't mean they're out to get me, or that people out of no where are gonna come at me at all hours with knives, cliffs and planes to jump out of. It doesn't mean I have to live in fear and if I do anyway? it doesn't mean I get to blame it on other people. I don't get to police their lives. 

There are many kinds of people in the world, there are good, there are bad... and they all exist around us in many shapes and in many ways we cannot fully control. That we won't ever get to control. So... Why choose fear over acceptance? Why judge when you can let live?

[todaynewsstories]

Italian populists sue black politician for calling their anti-immigrant party racist | Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW

Cecile Kyenge, Italy’s former integration minister, has seen plenty of racism. In the past five years, lawmakers from far-right party the League have called the country’s first black minister “a great housekeeper,” compared her to an orangutan, described the government she served in as a “bongo bongo” administration and worn blackface to a debate. In 2013, the Padua local-level League councilor Dolores Valandro called for Kyenge to be raped.

Though the League promptly expelled Valandro, there was not so much as a reprimand for the party members who engaged in the other acts of racism. Two serve as government ministers, and another sits in the European Parliament. The League declined to comment for this article.

“I started to say, OK, the League is a racist party because it didn’t take a stand,” Kyenge said. “It voted for and re-elected those same people to institutional positions.”

Read more: Italy and the EU clash over budget plan

Now, in a twist that has angered anti-racism campaigners across the country, the League is taking Kyenge to court for defamation. The case comes amid a broader uptick in xenophobic sentiment and a rise in attacks on foreign-born citizens since the country’s general election in March.

“It’s paradoxical,” said Kyenge, who was assigned a bodyguard as part of a protection program in response to racist attacks and death threats. “If we lower our guard in the fight against racism or xenophobia or populism, this is where we get to — where the situation [of racists and minorities] is reversed.”

If found guilty of defamation, Kyenge could face a hefty fine. Italian courts had previously thrown out two earlier attempts to sue the Congolese-born Member of the European Parliament. The League’s third attempt will go to trial after a judge ruled that Kyenge’s accusation tars the entire party and not just the individuals concerned.

Drifting further right

Italy’s co-ruling League party has long held an anti-establishment stance. But until recently the enemy was Rome, not Brussels, and jibes about identity were targeted at southern Italians, not foreigners. Under current leader Matteo Salvini, the League has transformed from a party of regional populism to one of right-wing nationalism — with the European Union and immigrants squarely in its crosshairs.

The League won 17.4 percent of the vote in March, finishing third behind the Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party, but has risen to become the dominant force in Italian politics since entering a coalition government with Five Star. Opinion polls in September put its support at 32 percent, slightly ahead of Five Star’s 30 percent.

Read more: Which side is the Five Star Movement on?

But the strength of the League’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has unsettled even the populist Five Star Movement, which has at times found itself at odds with Salvini over his attitude to refugees and refusal to let rescue ships carrying migrants picked up in the Mediterranean disembark in Italy.

Salvini’s xenophobic rhetoric has at times put him at odds with his party’s coalition partners

Salvini last month likened African migrants to “slaves” and has previously dismissed accusations of racism as “an invention of the left.” His xenophobic tirades have also coincided with a rise in hate crime that has drawn widespread condemnation from rights organizations.

Nine shootings targeting ethnic minorities took place over just 50 days this summer, including one incident where a former government employee shot a 13-month-old Roma child in the back with an air gun, and another in which a Senegalese street vendor’s thigh was fractured by shooters on a scooter.

According to Grazia Naletto, head of the migration and anti-racism unit at the nongovernmental organization Lunario, the rise in shootings and other violence against foreigners has been encouraged by a rise in “racist discourse.”

“The current political and social climate in Italy concerns foreign minorities a lot,” said Naletto. “The last political elections are just a step [in] a long process of political, social and cultural legitimation of racism — which has deep historical roots.”

Underlying tensions

Unlike other large Western European countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, large-scale immigration to Italy is a relatively new phenomenon. In 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, net migration reached 144,000 people, according to Italy’s national statistics office. The highest relative rise came from four African countries: Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Ghana.

Read more: Italy: 100 days of a populist experiment

Italy’s aging population and low birth rate has led opposition lawmakers to celebrate the arrival of a mostly younger generation ready to kick-start the economy. But a persistently high youth unemployment rate has left many Italians wary.

Many refugees in Italy undertook a perilous journey to reach Europe, but that hasn’t made the new government in Rome more accepting

Perceived competition for jobs and “cultural upheaval” has fed a sense of threat to Italians’ national identity, said Nicoletta Cavazza, a social psychology professor at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

“Some political parties, like the League, have cleverly taken advantage of this situation,” said Cavazza, “because their proposed representation of the world — primarily based on a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ — fitted well with the dynamic we are facing.”

This has legitimized thoughts, feelings and behaviors that many citizens would otherwise suppress, suggests Cavazza, who points to social science research showing a difference between “manifest racism” that is conscious and “latent racism” that simmers underneath.

“Nowadays, I think that it would be easier to find that the two dimensions converge,” said Cavazza, “because the public discourse is so openly discriminatory toward foreigners.”

Changing that discourse is a key priority for Kyenge. The MEP, whose job protects her against prosecution, has chosen to stand trial as a public statement against racism.

“I have waived my diplomatic immunity,” said Kyenge. “I’m here not for Cecile Kyenge, but for everyone. I’m here for people who can’t defend themselves. I’m here to start saying there are some things that shouldn’t happen.”

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[eichy815]

Still Faking the Cake

Two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote an op-ed piece titled “Faking the Cake.”  In it, I took the rather libertarian position that the federal government should refrain from penalizing baker Jack C. Phillips of Lakewood, Colorado’s Masterpiece Cakeshop for refusing to bake a wedding cake when a gay couple requested that he do so for them. I’m fully aware that this position of mine is in stark opposition to many of my brethren and sisteren in the LGBT community.

Fast-forward to the present: on June 4 of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled with a 7-2 majority in favor of Phillips during the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.  And, even in the aftermath of that ruling, my position has remained unchanged (with one slight modification, which I will address momentarily).

First, let’s review the arguments I made in favor of Phillips (as much as I personally oppose his religious bigotry) back in 2015.  The foundation for my belief is that there should be a strict delineation between the freedoms and discretions of private businesses (which Masterpiece Cakeshop was) versus public institutions (such as a city hall or mass transit).  

Hence, why I’ve always been a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage in the secular world.  Churches and private venues shouldn't be forced by our government to recognize LGBT weddings...just like religious organizations shouldn't be able to force their “values” on the general public through legislative manipulation.

There is one caveat that I will clarify, which I hadn’ t considered back when I’d first weighed this issue in 2015.  Private businesses shouldn’t be allowed to broadly refuse service to customers based on the customer belonging to a protected class (race, sex, ethnicity, religion, nationality, age, disability, genetics, citizenship, veteran status).  I would also extend this sentiment to other groups that aren’t technically protected by the Civil Rights Act (e.g. sexual orientation, political affiliation or ideology, socioeconomic class, etc.).

But let’s be clear:  that means the de facto reason for refusing service cannot be because someone belongs to a specific group.

A tailor shouldn’t be able to say, “I won’t offer my services to Jews.”

But a tailor *can* say, “I don’t offer yarmulke-repair as part of my services.”

John C. Phillips wasn’t denying Charlie Craig and David Mullins service because of their sexual orientation, per se.  He would have gladly sold them any of the items available for purchase in his bakery.  Phillips just declined to cater gay weddings (among other types of events) – and, in making this choice, he was also voluntarily shrinking his customer base.

After all, there were undoubtedly plenty of gay-friendly (or ambivalent) bakers who would have gladly made a fantastic wedding cake for the Craig/Mullins reception.  And, on top of that, if Phillips was going to wear his anti-gay bigotry on his sleeve (in his capacity as a business owner), then Craig and Mullins and anybody else would have had full discretion to organize a mass-boycott against him for that reason.

Free market capitalism should reward good behavior and upstanding morals, by design.  In this day and age, someone like Phillips would be fair game to lose a sizable portion of his customer base when he chooses to flaunt his hateful attitude.

This is the reason why I agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, in this particular instance.  Phillips wasn’t saying, “I’m going to deny service to a customer if I find out that they are gay.”  He was merely saying, “Gay weddings are one type of special event for which I decline to design cakes.”

Devil’s advocates might challenge me as to why, under this framework, businesses such as female-only gyms should be allowed to exist and thrive.  Again, it all comes back to the entrepreneurial spirit...and context.

A gym for working out is a very intimate place.  If a gym owner wants to make their gym “female-only,” “male-only,” or “coed,” there are other gym options (usually coed) available in most communities.  This is the same concept that is used in Title IX sports (be it K-12 or collegiate).

So, if a private gym owner wanted to make their fitness center “male-only,” they should have that exact same option as we’d give to a Curves franchisee.

The only type of case in which the federal government should be able to step in – within the context of this particular scenario – would be if someone was being barred from attaining gym membership due to their sex and there was LITERALLY no other gym available for them to patronize within a reasonable distance.  

But it’s highly unlikely that there are any towns or cities in the United States where Curves is the *ONLY* gym located in someone’s community.

Yes, I would likewise apply that concept to salons, country clubs, support groups (within health facilities), or temporary housing.

We should also consider how, despite the anti-LGBT bigotry of certain U.S. Supreme Court justices, the Court’s majority itself made this ruling with very narrow nuance.

In the majority’s opinion, it’s the “equal access” to goods and services that the federal government must mandate.  The Court never deemed that this gives business owners some broad constitutional “right” to discriminate against groups.  

That was the difference from the 1968 Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises case:  Maurice Bessinger was trying to use his “religious beliefs” as the basis for denying any seating area service whatsoever to people of color.  John C. Phillips, by contrast, never refused to sell cupcakes or brownies to LGBT people who were entering his bakery.  His religious beliefs only came into play when the request was made to design a specific type of cake.

In the aftermath of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court has now refused to hear a similar case: the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that Barronnelle Stutzman of Arlene’s Flowers refusing to make floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding was in violation of state nondiscrimination statutes.  By punting the case back down to the lower courts, the U.S. Supreme Court is asking Washington state to reconsider the context of that case in the same way the higher court did for Masterpiece Cakeshop.

So what does this mean for the recent incident where Donald Trump’s Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was kicked out of a Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia by owner Stephanie Wilkinson?  Again, context.

Wilkinson asked Huckabee Sanders to leave because she is personally repulsed by the Press Secretary’s chosen role as a mouthpiece for Trump.  It wasn’t due to Sarah Huckabee Sanders being a woman...or a white person...or a Christian...or a Republican.

Was it a bad idea on Wilkinson’s part?  Probably – the jury’s still out on that. Conservatives will conceivably organize a boycott of Red Hen franchises all over the country (and certainly against Wilkinson’s individual restaurant).  Meanwhile, many liberals and progressives are praising Wilkinson for standing up for her convictions – and have promised her their future patronage.

Honestly, if I had been the restaurant owner, I would have served Huckabee Sanders and allowed her to finish her meal.  Although I might have been constantly stopping by her table, annoying her with “small talk” about my own political beliefs.  She is, after all, a public figure – and any public figure should expect strangers to confront them in public when they are in such a visible and outspoken position.

Again – context, context, context!

As a community, LGBT people should be focusing on getting the ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act) passed, in future sessions of Congress.  We should be cracking down on the bullying that occurs against our community’s youth, while making sure we are included in the public discourse (along with various forms of representation, therein).

And, without question, we should dig in our heels at defending the maintenance of Obergfell v. Hodges in the same way that pro-choice activists defend Roe v. Wade.

We have much bigger things to worry about than wedding cakes and floral arrangements.  If you object to a private business owner’s bigotry – put them on blast.  That’s the beauty of social media, after all.