#and neither of our politicians care!!! and of course the entire fucking world ends up dictated by the whims of the US anyways so the fact

[carnival-core]

Hey not to make a political post but does it ever feel like we can just never win and the suffering will be forever and we're always going to have to fight with moments of peace being fleeting and not worth looking forward to

[relationshipsandpolitics]

How I Alienated My Potential Readers Part #2

And we’re back.   Here’s how we are looking after Part 1:

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

Well, some things have changed so we can just go ahead and remove Beto, which is a shame because I had a good rant about him sucking.  Alas, my genius will have to wait.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

I debated where to put climate change in this breakdown.  For me, climate change is issue #1b for me.  If a candidate denied it, that would be an automatic disqualifier. It should be for every voter.  But I am surprised about how we all agree this is a dire issue that needs to be dealt with immediately, but the only candidate who made it their chief issue, Governor Jim Inslee, got virtually no support and was one of the first to drop out.  We really talk out of both sides of our mouth on climate change.  We all agree it is going to kill us, but we don’t seem to prioritize it, do we?   I have some thoughts about that, but I digress.  

The good news is all remaining candidates agree climate change is happening and that we need to act. The bad news is many of the candidates do not appear willing to take those drastic steps needed to stave off the worst outcomes. This is a problem.  Even the remaining candidates who are best on this issue leave a lot to be desire.  As it stands, I’m not removing anyone because no one is Republican levels of awful on the issue, but also no one meets the bar that needs to be set on genuine change. But seriously, we are all awful on this issue, me included.   We need to be taking steps in out personal lives to cut back on carbon emissions, and we need to be willing to pay more to save our planet.  The truth is if the leading scientific minds announced that to save our planet, we needed to raise taxes by 2% on everyone, we’d instead spend double that to buy front row seats to the end of the world.  We as a people truly suck.

Now let’s finally get into the issues that differentiate the candidates. This is really the whole game for me.  Because there are certain issues I care about tremendously, issues that I feel we need to address if this country is going to survive or if we will slip fully into the oligarchy we seem destined towards.  I’m talking about corporate power and workers’ rights.  Look, we all know the stats.  Income inequality is worse now than at any time since the Gilded Age.  That preceded the Great Depression.  Billionaires and corporations hold more power than the bottom 95% of the population combined. They can write a measly $5,000 check and get face time with the most powerful politicians in the country, and another $5,000 check gets them their full support.  I know this because part of my job is to write those checks.  I don’t try to get into too much about what I do, but suffice it say I work within politics very much behind the scenes. I don’t like what I do, even if I believe in the interests I advocate for.  People like me should not exist, but our corrupt political system not only enables me, but empowers me.

We all want a candidate we can trust to act in the average American’s best interest.  But we so willingly elect people who knowingly fuck us over in favor of the rich and corporate interests that it’s a wonder they even bother going through the motions trying to appease us.  And what have we got for it?  Unions have been decimated as lawmakers pass corporate-sponsored Right to Work laws.  Wages have stagnated while wealth for the top 1% has skyrocketed.  Americans are more productive than ever but seeing a smaller share of that productivity.   Compared to all other industrialized nations, we offer no guaranteed paid vacation, family leave, or health care. This is despite being the richest nation in the world.   College is a necessity to obtain a well-paying job, yet it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain, meaning anyone graduating with loans will be paying them off until they retire. Or die.

These developments are not a coincidence.  They are the results of deliberate efforts by monied interests.  Next, they will come after Social Security and Medicare, claiming we need to reign in the deficit.  And both Republicans and Democrats will heed their call, and we will buy their sudden concern about deficits.  They’ll vote to raise the retirement age and cut benefits, we’ll get mad, and then re-elect them anyway.

How does this rant relate to the upcoming 2020 elections?  It relates because the next decade will mark the point of no return, in my estimation.  Either this country will wake up to getting screwed and finally vote to do something about it, or it will cement its acceptance of the status quo.  Our descent into oligarchy has been relatively gradual because even the Democratic administrations have done little to stem the tide.  They’ve just slowed it down by promoting policies benefiting the rich while throwing tokens of support to the working class, which is everybody else.  They bump up the income tax rates slightly while ignoring the ways the rich really make their money.  They threaten anti-trust lawsuits but never follow through.   They bail out the banks and refuse to prosecute the heads of those banks.  Then they appoint them to run the Treasury Department. Republicans do these same things; they are just more brazen about it.  Whereas Democrats will announce tighter regulations on businesses but include weak enforcement and huge loopholes, Republicans simply get rid of the regulations. Republicans cut the taxes of the rich, Democrats keep them at the status quo.  

The next president has a unique opportunity to finally right the wrongs of decades of neo-liberal fiscal policy.  They can bring the country in line with the rest of the democratic world by pushing policies that help the poor, working and middle classes.   Young parents would be able to afford to have a child.  College graduates would be able to afford to buy home and have a crazy thing called disposable income because their college debt was wiped out and college itself became affordable.  People would stop fucking dying because they don’t have health care. Seriously, on this last point, what in the ever-loving fuck is wrong with people for not being willing to raise their taxes to fund universal health care?

We need to begin assessing potential candidates by what they want to accomplish to fix this issue.   And we can best determine if they will remain mired in the status quo of empty gestures and corporate checks, or if they will fight for us, by their words and actions.  With that in mind, I’m going to base my choice on whether the remaining candidates can be expected to support the fundamental restructuring of government and wealth equality.  I think you all know where I’m going with this one.

Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney – The Technocratic Legislators

Here you have some good moderate Democratic legislators.  Booker, Harris and Klobuchar are sitting U.S. Senators while Delaney is a former Representative.  I don’t really have an issue with any of them, save maybe Delaney.  They all are effective legislators, even if they may be more moderate than I’d like.  I particularly like Booker and Harris as people if not politicians.  But at the end of the day, I can’t really rely on them to push the things that need to be front and center.  I don’t exactly know what their broad policy even is.  Sure, they will come out with a good sound bite or a good proposal on some smaller but still important issue.  Booker is doing great things on tackling issues facing inner city youths.  Harris is good on gun reform.  But Booker is way too closely tied with Big Pharma.  Harris has an awful record on criminal justice and did nothing to help homeowners defrauded during the housing crisis.

They both illustrate a major concern we should all share.  When you have a record of being too cozy with some terrible industries, it shows that the voters can’t truly trust you to have their back.  Campaign contributions are par for the course.  You need them to win elections.  But when you take a disproportionate amount of money from very specific industries, it means you are probably bought by them.  Don’t be surprised if Booker nominates a Pharmaceutical lobbyist to head up CMS.  And when private equity managers donate to Harris, as Blackstone’s Tia Breakley did in March, 2019, they are doing so because there is a reasonable belief that Harris and others won’t come after them.  

Again, I think Harris and Booker are good people and good legislators.  And the critique about money is not limited to them, as I plan on thoroughly ripping into Buttigieg and Biden on it.   But when you take these facts along with the truth that neither candidate is pushing the sort of structural reforms needed in this country, I think it’s fair to say their presidencies would be rather unremarkable.

Amy Klobuchar and Jon Delaney share the money problem, but they have so much more going for them!  Klobuchar treats her staff like absolute shit, which only matters when you remember that we are relying on her to protect all low-level workers.  She clearly has contempt for people beneath her on the career ladder, and a wise woman once said “when a person shows you who they are, believe them.”  

Klobuchar and Delaney have spent their entire campaign advocating not for what they believe, but for trashing other candidates who dare to dream. Klobuchar and Delaney come from the school of Democratic politicians who believe things are too hard to try, and we might lose Republican voters by trying to be Democrats.  The Klobuchar’s and Delaney’s of the world would be happy to adopt every major Republican fiscal position if it meant they got to be President.  Also, Delaney is the moron who thought it was a good idea to trash Medicare for All at the California Democratic convention.  

I would vote for Harris and Booker and not feel bad about it.  I’d feel weird about voting for Klobuchar, and Delaney has as much chance of the nomination as Scott Baio.   They are out.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg

We’re going to go after the young guns now.  The candidates we all secretly wish were just a bit better so that we didn’t have to choose from three candidates in their 70’s.  But these candidates are ultimately empty shells of better candidates who seem too concerned with appearing like the rational voice in the room to have a vision for our country.

Let’s start with Mayor Pete Buttigieg.   I was talking with my mother about who she was going to support in the primary.  Let me be clear that I did not initiate this conversation.  I’d literally rather talk to my mother about our respective sex lives than politics.  But my mother has a bit of a control issue, and this blog was cheaper than therapy.

Anyway, my mother said she was supporting either Biden (shocking, I know) or Buttigieg.  She said she liked that he was young, and it was great he was gay. I asked my mom what positions of his did she support, and she couldn’t really name any except that he didn’t support Medicare for All.  This was a selling point for her.  See, my mother represents a huge segment of the Democratic base that is upper middle class, socially liberal (except Kaepernick should’ve stood) and fiscally moderate (aka conservative but they swear they have homeless friends).  What this really means is they are Democrats when it doesn’t hurt them to be.  They think what’s going on at the border is abhorrent, but they know someone who was mugged by an “illegal” and we need a wall.  And they support the idea of everyone having health insurance, but no way will that mean they have to pay more in taxes.   They agree housing is too expensive, but then they’ll oppose affordable housing development in their neighborhoods because they attract a “bad element.”  For these people, Buttigieg is the ideal candidate. They get to keep their money and nice gated communities, but because he is gay they can call themselves progressive.   Plus, we know Buttigieg won’t do anything monstrous like keeping refugees locked up or denying basic rights to LGTBQ people, so how could anyone not support him?

Well, let me be the first to say that Pete Buttigieg is awful.  First, keep in mind this guy is the Mayor of South Bend.  That’s less a city and more a place for Notre Dame fanboys to “romance” the gold helmets in a sleazy motel.  He won his last election with 8,500 votes.  And he still managed to piss off a sizable number of his constituents by botching police relations with the black community.  And now people think he can run a country.  But he’s taken seriously because he raised a boatload of money and the pundits (also rich white people generally) like him.  Never mind where that money is coming from and what favors he now owes to those people, right?

Mayor Pete came out for Medicare for All but decided when it was political opportune to trash it using Republican talking points.  His actual healthcare plan is truly awful.  Pete Buttigieg is the darling candidate for voters who don’t want anything to change, like my mother. They have good health insurance.  They own their house and see it as an asset, not a noose.  They don’t have any student debt, mainly because they attended college when it cost the equivalent of an iPhone.  Buttigieg is a technocrat with a nice haircut. He is a lot like Obama, minus the everything. But his message is one of comfort to the people who own vacation homes in upstate New York and tie rainbow bandannas around their dog’s neck for Pride Week. Under a Buttigieg administration, civility will return and nothing else will change.  If the biggest criticism of Sanders and Warren is they have pie-in-the-sky ideas, then Buttigieg’s biggest critique is he has no ideas.  It’s just sad how little that matters to the people who will decide this election.

Julian Castro: you’re next. Here’s someone I kind of like.  He is great on housing, one of the core issues keeping Americans from feeling secure.  I live in an area once considered cheap for housing.  But that’s changing.  They keep building and building but rents still shoot higher and higher.   Sometimes I feel the laws of supply and demand don’t work with housing.  I mean, it works when there is low supply and high demand like in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  But where I live, there is plenty of supply, yet rents are increasing as much as 10% year over year.  Likely this is because demand is still high to live near an urban center.  It doesn’t matter if there are tons of vacant units. Renters are willing to pay the cost and don’t do a good job shopping around.  Also, as rents continue to soar while jobs continue to navigate towards major cities and people continue to need to live near those jobs, our commutes will get longer and longer.  This means more cars on the road, more pollution in the air. Solving the housing crisis means putting a huge dent in climate change. No one seems to understand the impact of not having affordable housing, but Castro comes fairly close.  I think I would go for him if he wasn’t so milquetoast on every other issue.  He gets completely lost in the shuffle.  I think Castro supports Medicare for All? I mean, I do know where he stands because I follow this stuff closely, but it should be clear to the average voter.  Castro is young, attractive and is relatively progressive compared to the field.  But he isn’t charismatic.  He doesn’t articulate his message clearly enough, and my big concern is whether he can create a narrative that gives his administration a chance to pass meaningful legislation.  It’s not that I can’t get on board with Castro based on policy, but I just don’t think he has the chops to get it done.  Castro’s other problem is he doesn’t speak to workers’ rights issues enough. He pays them lip service, and I’m sure he believes in increasing union membership and raising the minimum wage. I just can’t envision him fighting hard for those issues once in office.  I, quite frankly, see him as another politician pushing incremental change on some areas and tackling the low hanging fruit issues of the Democratic base rather than swinging for the fences.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders

And then there were three. I think we all knew it was coming down to these three.  Let’s not kid ourselves here.  We know who is getting the next ax, but the bottom line is these are the three true contenders and until things change, they are the only horses in the race.  So we will tackle them together in Part 3, which is hopefully coming soon.

[buckysforeverprincess]

What Do You Want From Me? Ch 17

Lance Tucker, OFC Claire

Words: 2024

Warnings: Language

A/N: Let’s see what happens when Claire comes calling. Enjoy!

The knock on his door was expected. He knew she'd come when he called, and he knew she'd wait until the morning to do so thinking she was doing it on her own terms. The fact is, Lance knew her type; pegged her from the beginning. That's the very reason he one and doned her. Come to think of it...that's why he did it to them all.  

Lance came out the womb wooing the ladies. His mother told him he had the attention of every single female nurse in the labor and delivery unit. Mama Tucker never saw it as a problem, so Lance didn't either. When he became a gymnast, his moves continued to draw the ladies in and it never stopped. He relished in the female attention and used it to his advantage. Lance knew he could have anyone he wanted, and when fame came calling...so did the beautiful women with ugly personalities. That was his type. The women who knew they could have anyone they wanted. The ones that weren't wifey material. All they wanted was to fuck, party, and have a good time. The one nighters he chose were the ones that normally let men do the walk of shame in the morning. Lance was smooth enough to turn the tables on each one of them. He never thought it would bite him in the ass later.

Lance opened the door to see Claire standing there with a huge shit eating grin plastered to her face.

“Miss me?” She blew him a kiss and he just rolled his eyes.

“Why, of course I did! Please, come in.” His tone was sarcastic, but he let her in nonetheless.  

Claire entered his house and walked right into the living room throwing her jacket and purse on the couch. What was it with these women acting like they own his house, throwing their shit around? Clearly, they have no regard for the cleanliness of his home.

“So, you changed your mind?” Claire asks him, ego bursting at the seams.

“About that…tell me why? Why go through this elaborate scheme just to get to me? Surely I'm not worth ruining so many people's lives.”

She shrugs her shoulders and plops herself down on his couch, patting on the cushion next to her. Lance walks over but decides to sit on the ottoman at the end of the couch instead, trying to put as much distance as he could between them without seeming uncomfortable.

“What makes you think this was a scheme?” She licks her lips almost predatorily, and he knew what she was after. He'd have to be a little smarter if she was going to talk.

“You've won! She's marrying him…told me last night. Whatever it is you have on Jase, it doesn't matter anymore, but if you want to claim your prize, you have to tell me why?!” Lance leans himself back and opens his legs, looking very inviting, trying to get the woman to tell him what he wants to know.

“Because Lance…you and I are alike. We always get what we want, consequences be damned, and I know we could be very good for each other; unstoppable! Let's also not forget the amazing sex! There's nothing we couldn't do for each other. We could lay the world at our feet!”  

Lance breaks out in an uncontrollable laugh. Claire does not look impressed, glaring at him with murder in her eyes.

“Seriously Claire, you talk like this is world domination!” He continues to laugh, “like we'd be trending on twitter…hashtag Lance and Claire domination tour!”

Her expression doesn't change, and she still looks like she's going to kill someone.

“We are perfect for each other! Better for you than Y/N!” Claire yells with a fiery passion.

“You ever heard that opposites attract? Maybe that's why I fell for her?” He remains calm, trying not to feed into her anger.

“Cute, perfect, annoying, Y/N!”

Lance almost cringes when she says your name this time.

“She's weak! She could never tame you…you're too wild and need someone just as dominate as you!”

“So that's what this is about? I mean, she was just my PA! It's not like she had a direct line to my bed!”

It's mostly the truth. It only happened one time. But had things been different, Y/N would have been there permanently.

“You never gave me a second chance. Just fucked me and moved on!”

Lance looks at her in disbelief, “It's called a one-night stand. That's what you do!” He's shaking his head, pissing off the woman even more.

“What makes her better than me?!” Claire yells, demanding an answer.

Lance stands up and walks to his window, looking out into the beauty of the day. “She's everything I'm not.” He says softly, never looking back at Claire.

“I can be everything you need.” Claire says walking up behind him, placing her hands around his waist.

Lance closes his eye at her touch, it's not the intimacy he wants. Claire's not Y/N!

“Why Jase?” He hasn't stopped her from touching him, nor has he turned to face her. “And don't say it's because of his lifestyle. Everyone knows he's into BDSM.  I've seen him at the club, engrossed in a scene. That's not a reason to blackmail!” Lance throws it in her face.

He's a dominant too, and occasionally goes to the club when he's in desperate need of a submissive. It's been awhile since he's had a scene.

Claire chuckles at Lance, “no, that's not all. Just a small part. I chose him because he's got more to lose. He was raised by his aunt and uncle and he's honestly a good guy.”

She puts her head on Lance’s back, using her hands to rub on his torso. “His uncle is the governor, and he's not squeaky clean.”

Lance scoffs, “what politician is?”

Claire chuckles right back, “right, but he's been taking bribes; specifically, from my dad's company. I only stumbled on the knowledge and I'm sure there's more, but I really don't care. Jase would do anything to protect the people that raised him, so….”

Lance can't believe she just disclosed all that information, but also can't believe that her jealousy drove her to ruin so many people's lives.

“So, you blackmailed him into dating her? You really wanted her away from me that bad?” He keeps his tone calm, so she doesn't catch on to how seething mad he is inside.

“She's been in love with you for a long time. I needed her to focus on someone else...to forget about you.”  

There are still so many questions and not enough answers. He really must be careful how he handles things right now. Lance needs to know everything.

“My kids? How do my children factor in your plan?”

Claire moves her head and starts kissing his back. God! The shit he's enduring just to get the truth out of her is infuriating him to no end.

“Casualties of war. Jase will be a good father to them and they'll grow up with the best of everything. Face it Lance, you never wanted kids anyway. We all remember Maggie!”  

It's taking everything for him to not smack the shit out of her, but he just can't. He has to hold on a little longer.

Lance turns around and faces her, “so is that everything? Anything I missed? All this blackmailing is because you feel entitled and jealous? You're not only destroying Y/N’s life and my twins, but also Jase’s entire family including his governor uncle just because you want to be in a relationship with me? Now that I said that out loud, that's one big stupid risk you just took!” Lance begins to laugh, “you set up all these people over some stupid jealous crush! Oh my god, that's the fucking worst!”  

Claire starts to slowly back away from him and moves back to the couch and sits down, watching him laugh his ass off.

“Wait…,” Lance tried to catch his breath, “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me, I apologize.” He looks sincere in his apology.

“Maybe it wasn't the smartest plan…,” she looks at him and he can see how uneasy she has now become, “but would you have even looked my way if I didn't do this?!” Claire has once again raised her voice to get her point across.

Lance can't believe he's lowering himself to care right now. Claire is showing true emotion over the situation, but the whole thing is rather ridiculous to him. Blackmail, deceit, and lies are all she's good at. He really wants no part of this; just wants his life back.  

He makes his way over to where she's seated on his couch and kneels in front of her.

Lance places a hand on her knee in a sign of affection and gives her a soft smile.

“Honestly Claire, I don't really like the person I was. What I was doing, how I was treating women...that's not right or fair. But I did it, and I can't take it back. What I can do is change into something better. That's what I've been trying to do. Maybe it's time you change too.”  

Claire scrunches her face and her breathing becomes hard and fast, and Lance knows she's angry again.

“No!” She yells out and he stands up and begins backing away from her. “You don't get it Lance! I don't want to change and honestly neither do you!”

The angry woman stands up and heads straight towards him, getting up in his face. “If you don't give me what I want, I'll make life fucking miserable for Y/N and your kids! Jase will do what I tell him to just to make sure his family is protected! I'll make you regret ever saying no to me!”

This is a new development. Claire's threatening Y/N and the twins if he doesn't do what she wants. If he gets out of this with minimal damage he promises to convert to Buddhism. God, she’s all kinds of mentally unstable.  

“Look. I'm not saying no…,” he softly grabs her hand and holds them in his, “but right now, I have a meeting with my agent.”

Lance lets her go and walks to the couch, grabbing her things and placing them in her hands.

“I could go with you!”

Claire just went from psycho angry to happily excited. Nope! Not even a little bit.

“Meeting with my agent is a me thing. I don't ever take anyone else. You know…,” he begins walking her to the door to see her out, “maybe we could talk about this more later and maybe I could be your date for the wedding?”

Lance tries to sound as smooth as possible, so she doesn't expect and ulterior motives.

“You won't try anything?” Claire sounds a little suspicious of his sudden change of heart.

The man just shakes his head, “she doesn't want me. Y/N is dead set on marrying Jase. Maybe for me to move on and let her go, I just have to see her do it first.”  

Claire accepts his explanation and decides it's good enough for her, “fine…but if you try anything, I'll make sure Jase moves them far away from here! Understand?”

He nods at her in agreement, and she leans in and places a quick kiss to his lips. “I'll talk to you later!” The she devil walks out the door and to her car with a little more pep in her step.  

Lance watches her leave his driveway, never moving from his door. Once her sees her car hit the main road, he heads straight for the kitchen sink and pours himself a handful of dish soap and rubbing it all over his mouth, trying to wash away any traces of the kiss she just gave him.

When he's finished he looks at his phone and checks an app, making sure everything is in place for his next stop. Grabbing his keys and his wallet he heads out the door.  

“Stupid bitch will learn not to fuck with me!”

[forsetti]

On Voting: Be Part of The Solution Not Part of The Problem

In a recent article in “The Week,” titled, “Confessions of an Ex-Voter,” Matthew Walther presents a perfect example of privileged arrogance and civic malfeasance.  This isn't surprising because he begins the article laying out his childish, uneducated views of politics for the first twenty-three years of his life.  His “American Idol” approach to politics and voting is an underlying basis for his argument about why he doesn't vote.   Let's go through these reasons. (His words in bold) There are any number of reasons why I have not voted since. One is simply that I cannot manage to fulfill the minimum requirement of keeping my address up to date.

Translation: I'm so fucking lazy, I can't even be bothered to fill out a simple form and send it in.  Right after telling us he doesn't know jack about politics, he informs us he is lazy, as well.  It is going to be really difficult to make an argument that is taken seriously when your setup is, “I'm ignorant about the topic and lazy.” Another reason I have found for not voting is that in most cases it appears that my ballot will not make a difference.

This is a classic fallacy and not seeing the electoral forest for the trees.  If a particular candidate wins an election by a wide margin, no single vote is responsible for their win or loss.  The implication of this view is the only votes that “count” are the ones that decide an election by one vote.  The thing is, even in elections won by a single vote, every single person who voted for the winning candidate's victory can be legitimately viewed as the “deciding vote.”  The example the author uses is the presidential election results in Florida in 2000.  If George W. Bush had won Florida by a single vote, then every single one of the 2,912,790 votes cast for him was equally important because they all contributed to him winning the election.

The decline of regional newspapers has made local affairs outside major metropolitan areas a matter of anagogic frustration to voters, who have only the faintest idea how and by whom most decisions are made in their states and cities. One simply accepts things as they are.

Even if this statement is true, it is nothing more than another example of the author's laziness.  Yes, local news in many places is no longer disseminated by local newspapers but there are many good, online sources of information for anyone with access to a computer or a smartphone which I'm pretty sure covers the author.  If you “accept things as they are,” the problem with voting isn't the process or the candidates, it is you.

But my principal reason for declining to take part in elections is moral. It involves, I suppose, a private objection to democracy itself.

Now that the blatantly nonsensical arguments have been laid out, the author finally gets down to the real reason he doesn't vote-he has a fucked up view of morality and democracy.

For most of history men and women enjoyed the luxury of knowing that the sovereign's rule was a brute fact about which nothing could be done. They went about the ordinary business of life — laboring, raising children, worshipping their creator — untroubled by futile expectations of change. Some of us continue to aspire to this happy ideal.

Go ahead, read the above paragraph a few times.  Let the fucked up, idealistic view of history wash over you as you try and wrap your brain around this statement is at the crux of an argument against voting.  Even if you ignore the fact that the time and situation the author longs for was the main catalyst behind the Renaissance, the formation of the U.S., and most of the progress made the past 300+ years, this is still a severely fucked up premise.  The lives of the vast majority of people who lived under sovereign rule were deplorable.  The problems and issues of income inequality now are nothing compared to the era the author pines for.  The problem, besides not knowing a damn thing about history, is with the author's last word in the paragraph-”ideal.”  His entire view of history and voting is idealistic in the dangerous, mythologized, untethered from reality way.

Popular elections are a recent phenomenon in human affairs. I do not expect the illusion that there is something nobler about choosing leaders than inheriting them to hold sway over our imaginations forever. The neoliberal economic consensus that has united both of our major political parties, and indeed most politicians in the industrialized world, is a more powerful force than democracy.

There is a lot to unpacked from this word salad of nonsense.  First, “popular elections are a recent phenomenon...”  Yes.  So too are human rights, safe drinking water, indoor plumbing, television, the internet...  The notion that just because something is relatively new makes it bad or a passing fancy is fallacious.  

“The neoliberal economic consensus that has united both of our major political parties...”  Of course, someone who has proudly expressed their laziness and ignorance tosses out “neoliberal” as a cudgel.  Then, to make matters worse goes full, “both sides are to blame.”  One political party has been obsessively devoted to supply-side economics and the other has not.  One political party believes in unfettered capitalism and the other believes in capitalism with restrictions.  One political party believes in large tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and the other in taxing these to fund social programs.  Just because someone uses, “neoliberal,” doesn't mean they understand it in the slightest.

In a bland way I hope to see Republicans control various state and national offices. This arises from a single issue: the legality of abortion.

The author has already professed his Libertarian bent and is a writer at Libertarian, Dudebro Central-The Federalist.  Yet, when it comes to standing up for and defending freedoms and individual choices, he is 100% against women being eligible for either.  So, besides being ignorant and lazy, the author is a misogynist and a hypocrite. The capriciousness of his (Trump) decisions, the hideousness of his conduct, and the visible descent of his mind and body into a ribald senescence are easier to bear if one sees him as a decadent potentate late in the decline of an empire...  I have neither the power nor the will to alter the reality of Trump's presidency.

Earlier, the author claims the number one reason he doesn't vote is based on some sense of morality.  Now, after laying out the immoral actions of Trump, he suddenly doesn't give a fuck about his morals.  At least the author is consistent with his laziness.  If you think you can't change politics in a representative democracy, you don't understand the meaning of “representative” or “democracy.”  If you don't have the will to alter the reality of what the author labels as, “hideous conduct...ribald senescence...decadence...,” then the problem is you.  

I like to imagine that my disinterest allows me to see things more clearly than partisans, but even if this is not so it certainly makes me happier.

Since the author starts the article with seriously faulty premises, he might as well end with one.  His argument at the conclusion is basically, “Since I don't know a damn thing about history, politics, democracy... I see things related to these more clearly.” “Since I didn't go to med school or study surgical techniques, but I write about them, I see things in the operating room more clearly.” You don't get to state you are lazy, uninterested in the process and outcomes, then claim you see the things you are lazy, uninterested in, and really don't give a fuck about, “more clearly.”  

This kind of self-congratulatory attitude about being lazy and ignorant about politics is bad enough.  When it is used to discourage others from participating in the democratic process, it is dangerous because it feeds the very problem that makes America less democratic-voter apathy.  

Voting is an individual right but a social obligation.  To not vote, to argue that voting isn't worth it, that not voting is the moral thing to do... is the very definition of social negligence and unethical behavior.  Of course, you should vote for the issues that are important to you and for the candidates you think best reflect these values.  However, if there aren't candidates who perfectly match what you want, it is still ethically necessary to vote for the person you think will do the most good because, unlike what the author claims, a single vote can make the difference between millions having health care, millions having better wages, millions having clean drinking water...  If you think not voting for moral reasons outweighs these kinds of benefits, your moral compass is severely fucked up.  

It has been suggested to me this article was written almost as satire, to be provocative.  If it was, it was executed very poorly.  Also, if it was written as satire because it was done so badly, it comes across as serious and in so doing, adds to what is already a dangerous problem-voter apathy.  There are far too many people who honestly believe the things written in this article.  There are a lot more coming of voting age who already believe the propaganda both major political parties don't care about them.  To write or say anything that feeds this apathy, this attitude is unconscionable.

[kingofthenorth49]

New Year, Old Me

The smell of breakfast cooking is filling the house, my dogs is at my feet chewing on his indestructible dollar store ball as happy as a clam (ed note. – how do we know clams are actually happy?) and 2021 has begun with sunshine streaming in every window filling the day with the promise of a bright and prosperous future. Even Gloria is in the kitchen singing to the music playing on the radio.

Then there’s the 30 centimeters of snow forecast for tomorrow. Fack.

I love my Christmas vacations. We took a cruise for Christmas two years ago, I’ll never do that again. Not just the competition with 1300 little off spring for wifi when we were trying to sell a house Christmas eve, there’s just something about doing a whole lot of nothing for 10 days that really appeals to the inner child in me.

I’ve played countless hours of Minecraft. I’ve watched hours of videos. I’ve read, I’ve cooked. We’ve talked about whatr’s next, what’s been, and who. We’ve played with the dog, a lot.

The only thing missing was the kids. I miss them dear

Christmas was awesome for it just being the three of us. We did that on purpose.

2020 was a challenging year in many respects. We lost Ozzy in June, that was a major life event for us both that neither of us saw coming. Then there’s the plandemic, yes, tin foil hat in fully bloom, the politicians of the world are wrecking society over a bad flu. Even politicians in the 1918 pandemic weren’t as incompetent. As someone who has managed risk my entire career I can unequivocally say they fucked this up, likely on purpose. I say on purpose because there’s no way the stupid could be this collective. The costs to society based on the actions of our elected officials over the past year have damaged mankind (not peoplekind moron) and will have lingering effects for decades.

I just can’t grasp the level of incompetence I’ve witnessed in our governments, but I’m not surprised.

2020 professionally was one of my best years ever, mind you I worked a lot, but I’ve never been afraid of that. From mid-March until July I worked every single day from Moncton, dealing with bad decisions made by governments every single day trying to keep the country going. Imagine dealing with hundreds of governments, none who talk to each other and correlate activities. It’s an epic shitshow every day, but it’s honest work.

I’ve met some amazing new friends this year, and we’ve developed some new relationships. I’ve watched some of my team members grow exponentially, as well as watched some of my peers hit their stride. It’s awesome to see people at their best, and knowing you had a hand in helping them get to that place. That’s what I live for now.

Living back home has been a major challenge for me, not some much for Gloria. We came back for her, she wanted to be home and now she is. Life is good here, don’t get me wrong, but I hate living in the fishbowl. People talk too much and invest themselves in others’ business way too often, it’s that part of living here I don’t like. Everywhere else we’ve lived no one cared what kind of car you drove or where you went on vacation, but down east it’s blood sport. The difference for me this time round is I just don’t care what they think or say, their opinion means nothing. Unless I’m paying you for advice, I’ll give it the due consideration it deserves. The day I learned that was likely the day my life changed for the better, and I remember it well.

I’m starting to enjoy living home again, but not for the reasons you’d think.

I’m enjoying the familiarity of people again, the people who interact with us at our favorite restaurants, stopping and chatting with people at Superstore, knowing what is really going on in our community. Those are the kind of things you miss living the lifestyle we did for 20 years bouncing all over the globe. We missed that connection with community.

We are enjoying making our current house our home and putting our touches on it. It’s been a labor of love because as my realtor Cathy said the day we were doing the home inspection and I had a parade of contractors lined up on the street, there’s no way I’ll ever get my money back out of this place. Nope, I won’t. But I’m ok with that. I grew up watching this house and wanting it, now that I own it it’s fun to bring it back to it’s original beauty and improving it’s functionality. Plus we have awesome neighbors and everyone looks out for one another.

I like my job. I like my boss. I still enjoy what I do, and that’s a positive. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with amazing people throughout my career, but over the last year dealing with a pandemic, 18,000 employees across dozens of companies and multiple jurisdictions who move the goal posts daily, I’m very thankful for the team I work with are all A players. We accomplished more this year than I would have ever thought possible given the circumstances.

Then there’s politics. Relax, you knew it was coming, I’ve not ranted very often about anything that doesn’t at least brush up against politics.

2020 was a political shitshow of epic proportions. In Canada we have a buffoon as Prime Minister who is selling out this country to communist China. He’s not even hiding it anymore. The WE scandal should have affronted every single Canadian and we should have marched on Ottawa to demand his resignation and incarceration.

But we didn’t. So we get what we deserve.

In the USA Trump lost a crooked election, and no, you cannot convince me otherwise. It was a surgical strike in key swing states carried out with militaristic effort. I watched hearings in Wisconsin, Illinois and Georgia. There was enough fraud to cost Trump the election. But am I upset? Yes, a bit. Will I get over it? Of course. The democratic party has no morals, the ends justify the means and they had no qualms about using deception and fraud to elect a senile career politician who has accomplished nothing in a 47 year career on capitol hill, one who is racist (not an opinion, there’s his words in video and print) and can’t remember what state he is in most of the time.

And they elected him with more votes than Obama? Seriously?

The entire election reeks. Thousands of consecutive ballots, all votes for Joe, with no down ticket selections. Consecutive. Let me say it again for the kids in the back. Thousands of consecutive ballots for Joe with no down ticketing. (Down ticketing is voting for a set of party candidates, so President, Judges, etc on the ballot). Can you even begin to grasp the statistical probability of that?   Let’s just say the odds of having that many consecutive ballots all for just Joe are astronomical, kind of like getting hit by lightening in your basement on your birthday while having a heart attack during a solar eclipse.

Even that’s more statistically likely.

But at the end of the day, if congress accepts the electors then Biden will be my president. I’m not that stupid or arrogant to say otherwise, although I know in my heart of hearts he stole it. But that’s irrelevant, and he has to look at himself in the mirror every morning just like I do.

What I have learned in the past year is local politics are more important than national politics, and we need to move towards more local control of our resources versus Provincial or Federal control. I’m excited for our new town council and have great hope they will energize this town, as we are poised on the precipice of opportunity. People are relocating here from all over, buying homes sight unseen. Why? Because its small and safe. That’s my theory anyway. With the gig economy, many workers can work from anywhere (I did it for years) and why live in a congested city with all the issues and expense that come with it when you can live like a king in small town Nova Scotia. For the first time in my life people WANT to move here, not away. That’s a huge opportunity that we need to build on.

Anyway, I guess I’m trying to say that while 2020 had it’s challenges, for us there is a lining in the cloud that we shouldn’t overlook. We ended the year on a high note with the perfect New Years eve for the three of us, a few drinks, a cigar by the fire, and McDonalds. Yep, 2020 didn’t deserve anything more than a McChicken and fires.

So those are my final thoughts for 2020, the year has now passed and 2021 has arrived, full of promise, hope, and excitement. What you will make of 2021 lies within you, and you alone. You can choose to climb a mountain or read a book, but all I ask of you is you help us maintain the ability to have the freedom to choose. That is my only fear going into the new year is that we are allowing our freedoms to be taken away at an alarming pace, with no sign of resistance. That’s not a good thing. Once your freedoms are gone, you won’t easily get them back.

Happy New Year folks, its going to be amazing. Either that or the murder hornets show up and then it’s over.

Jim Out.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

A Farewell to Tossers (Or ‘Trump is Out: Hooray!’)

TRIGGER WARNING: COVID; Discussion of Racism; ‘It’s the Great Rape Satsuma, Charlie Brown!’

Well then. Trump is no longer President Elect of the United States and the world breathes a sigh of relief. At last, we can all stop worrying that the increasingly unstable leader of the free world is going to blow us all up with nukes because he mistook the big red thermonuclear button for the ‘send’ button on fucking Twitter! It actually feels nice to go back to worrying about more nebulous threats that don’t come with a fuck-ugly face and a dubious web presence attached. This being space-year 2020, we still have to cower in fear of COVID, the collapse of the global economy and a slow, choking death courtesy of a climate and planetary ecology that are frankly sick of our bullshit, but it’s still good to celebrate the fact that there’s one less dangerous, narcissistic prick with serious political power. The last four years have felt like a deeply disturbing docudrama answering the question ‘What if the Annoying Orange Ever Got its Hands on Real Power’, but the nightmare is over now. Well, I say ‘Annoying Orange’. He’s really more of a Rapey Satsuma, but let’s not split hairs of semantics. The tosser’s on his way out and that’s a cause for delight.

Now, obviously, this blog is somewhat overdue. Sorry, humans, but I just haven’t had the time to compose snarky think-pieces on major news items in real time. I’ve been busy being in love with- and making love to- an amazing woman (who’s also my sometime glamorous assistant over on my Youtube channel where I post magic vids), writing four novels, playing through the recent rash of Crash Bandicoot games and trying weed for the first, last and only time in my life (the only effect it had on me was to make me crave Mars Bars, which happens to me on a semi-regular basis anyway). However, don’t mistake my taciturnity for ambiguity! I am overjoyed that America has finally gotten rid of the psychotic Cheesy Whatsit who spent not quite half a decade shitting on the poor and disenfranchised while stumbling disastrously around the international stage like a very stupid, ill-tempered bear that’s suddenly found itself in the middle of a production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Like most of my American readers and probably every sane, right-thinking person outside America, I greeted the news that he was on his way out with a fist-pump and a little dance of happiness. I might have twerked. I can neither confirm nor deny twerking.

But what lessons can we learn from this election and the fact that Trump clawed his way into power in the first place? Surely the last four years weren’t just the result of one nation’s collective brain-fart and their abrupt end nothing more than a spontaneous return to sanity? Well, no. The main reason Trump managed to grab hold of power was because he pretended to care about the American working classes. He didn’t, obviously: as soon as he got into power, he started taking away the social securities on which many of the poorest depend and dismantling their access to healthcare, because he’s a megalomaniacal rich dickhead. But he pretended to care well enough to convince an enormous quantity of people who felt alienated and disenfranchised by modern politics and- in particular- by a version of liberalism that seemed entirely focused on city-dwelling, self-consciously woke hipsters and regarded everyone else as a joke. A large part of the reason Joe Biden was able to wrest power back from the tantrum-throwing saveloy wanker was because he bothered to go out to the most impoverished parts of his country and remind that them that yes, the Democratic party did know they existed and did give a shit. Admittedly, he wasn’t the best candidate for working class voters- that would have been Bernie Sanders- but he was the best guy to get the message across in a way that wouldn’t seem patronising. So, Lesson One: ignore the gargantuan body of unskilled and menial labourers who power your country’s economy only at your own peril.

The second, related lesson should probably be something along the lines of ‘maybe prioritise rigorous analytical thinking as part of your country’s education strategy from a young age’. Seriously, it might seem obvious to you or I that Trump is a dangerous bullshit artist, but he hoodwinked a lot of people. And no, they’re not just naturally, randomly stupid. Okay, some of them are- nature bestows a fresh bounty of total fucking clods on the human race with every new generation, after all. But the point is that natural idiocy doesn’t adequately explain why so many people voted for a twat who clearly didn’t have their best interests at heart. The ability to recognise predatory charlatans is a subset of the ability to think critically about information with which you’re presented. Both the US and the UK education systems fail spectacularly to give people the mental tools they need to do this early on, with a heavier emphasis on learning rote facts and formulas which- while useful- only help to build crystallised intelligence not vital fluid intelligence (one is just stats and dry information, the other is the skills you need to navigate modern civilisation). Because fluid intelligence becomes harder and harder to acquire as one gets older, teaching people critical thinking skills early on is really important. Neither the UK nor US education systems really start to seriously teach it until pupils are almost adolescent, meaning that by the time they get to adulthood, they just don’t have the ability to peer through the miasma of obfuscating horseshit that surrounds most political candidates and accurately assess who is going to fuck them in the gall-bladder least. Biden was able to win this time round partly because he was really good at putting his message in a non-obfuscating way that helped to mobilise people regardless of their level of critical thinking. That’s great for him, and anything that helped oust Trump is a good thing, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem. The underlying problem, of course, is that, so long as education doesn’t take analytical skills seriously, the political system will always favour candidates with big, simple messages over more nuanced politicians with complex and ambiguous views, regardless of who the most qualified person is.

If Lessons One and Two were about understanding why people voted for Trump four years ago and why the didn’t this time, Lesson Three is our big ‘fuck humans’ moment, because one thing the election of Trump made is clear is that racism is alive and well in modern America. Yes, many of his voters were hoodwinked. Yes, many of them were legitimately alienated. But a significant percentage of them were also just xenophobic, racist arseholes who voted for him because they thought he’d get rid of some Mexicans for them. It’s tragic that these attitudes still persist in the modern world, but they do. Worse still, I’m not sure how you could easily address it. Fear and hatred of difference- even if it’s a superficial difference like skin colour or accent- seems to be hardwired into some people. While we can work to build a world where these attitudes aren’t acceptable, so long as we humans think of ourselves as belonging to different nations and groups, it’s almost impossible to extinguish them entirely. We’re just not at the point we need to be at: the point where we think of ourselves as a species with common goals and needs, not a disparate collection of tribes and interest groups. Trump and his election to power were symptomatic of this problem. His recent de-election might help alleviate it for awhile. However, only time and repeated, positive mutual interaction between different groups of people (on both the global and individual level) can ever cure the disease itself. And that shit’s going to take time. There’s years of genocide and exploitation and war and rivalry and mistrust to make up for and, frankly, it’s still going on, which just makes it harder to drag the human race in the right direction.

Fuck, that got deep. This was meant to be a funny, celebratory blog about how we no longer have to put up with that prat Trump, and instead it turned into a lengthy disquisition on the failure of education and the problems inherent in how humans relate to one another through Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory (that’s the whole in-group/out-group/fear-and-distrust-among-nations-and-peoples thing I was going on about). Sorry, folks, sometimes life is just like that: you tune in for laughs and get punched in the dick with a dry, depressing polemic on our failings as a species. Happy 2020, everyone! Anyway, tune in soon for a review of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, which I promise not to turn into a didactic on the role of Nietzsche’s hypothetical superman in a civilisation that relies on the suppression of certain, key choices… aaaaaalthough…

[vowel-in-thug]

therealautobotgirl replied to your post “This DACA decision makes me sick to my stomach. I was undocumented for…”

Someone please explain to me why we don’t just improve the process of gaining US citizenship??? Honestly curious

I certainly can! Sorry it's a bit of a history lesson.

So the important thing to realize is that, in the past as it is in the present, immigration policy was dictated heavily by popular opinion. Or popular opinion was swayed heavily by what the Government was saying. It's a feedback loop and always has been.

so before, back in the 19th century, there was little to know immigration policy. there was an industrial revolution! this country needed all the workers they could get. Many of these workers were Chinese men, looking to make some money to send back home. But once the railroads were finished and the gold mines in California had dried up, these men stayed in the U.S. and were willing to work labor jobs for less money than ""Americans"" were willing to work. This is also when the notion of immigrants "not assimiliating" to American culture. Which I'm sure sounds very familiar to what people say with today's immigrants. There was huge anti-Chinese sentiment sweeping the country.

In 1882, the government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the only non-wartime federal law which discriminates against an entire nationality. It banned any immigration from China, unless the person had a permit to work (remember this). So many of the families of men already in the U.S. were kept out, and whole families were torn apart for years.

But besides from China, immigrants from other nations were still pretty unregulated. At Ellis Island, they were much more concerned with making sure incoming immigrants didn't carry disease, and they had enough cash on them to not be a drain on tax dollars. They also had to have a family member or anyone able to pick them up from the island, again to prove they aren't going to be a drain on society (remember this too). SIDE NOTE: anyone who says their family's name was changed at Ellis Island has been grossly misinformed. Maybe their ancestors changed it themselves later, or it got changed before they even left their home country. But the agents at Ellis Island were only there to check the manifests of each ship and were VERY concerned about the names matching the person's documents. That was kind of the whole point. They didn't have the ability to change anyone's name, nor would they want to, as that would likely go against all their strict checking rules. But anyway.

Then came the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924. This instituted a national quota on immigrants, greatly reducing the number allowed from, well, everywhere. This was shortly after World War I ended, and again, greeaat concern about those pesky immigrants "stealing our jobs." But this was also a time when eugenics was becoming a popular theory. You can't say "all immigrants are stealing our jobs" but allow larger numbers of the "good" immigrants from Northern and Western Europe in, while not allowing the "bad" immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. I mean, you can, and they did, but their reasoning was pretty clear. It was all about racism, and white supremacy.

so for the next few decades, there was little to no immigration to the U.S. This would be the period in which Donald and his base refer to, when they say "Make America Great Again." Before Civil Rights, before the Hart-Celler Act. When it was all-whitey, all the time, at least in terms of who benefited from society.

So then, we have the Hart-Celler Act of 1965. This lifted the national quotas in place from the Johnson-Reed Act. Remember what I said before about public opinion? This law was passed right after the Civil Rights Act was passed. It's almost like the politicians in this country realized, "Hey.....maybe........people care about.............brown people?? as well as white????" and blew their fuckin minds!

Once that gate had been opened, there were new waves of immigration (especially from Asia), which of course brought back the sentiments of "They're stealing our jobs!!" but other than a few laws passed in the 80s and 90s affecting the immigrants already here, not much changed in the way of entry into the country.

And then 9/11 happened, and fucked this up for a whole lot of people

Because suddenly, people weren't just afraid of immigrants stealing their jobs. Now, all anyone could think about was TERRORISM, and immigration became heavily tied to national security. Things became much stricter, new ID laws were passed, an additional 850 mile fence was added to the U.S.-Mexico border (YEAH there's already a wall there, people don't just fuckin prance through), "suspected terrorists" were being detained and deported with "special evidence" neither they nor their lawyers were allowed to see. It's all shit.

But that's where public opinion comes in. The government works so hard to keep that rhetoric going, where we have to be TERRIFIED of anyone who looks different than us. so the public WANTS to keep people out, and then they can pass the racist laws that allow that.

right now, here is how people can get "on line" to come into this country. Well, first. It requires a lot of money to do it. That should go without saying. Second, they have to meet one of these three qualifications: they have to have an employer lined up willing to sponsor them, they have family already here, or they're in need of humanitarian protection. All three of these are very difficult to achieve.

I've never moved from another country for a job, but I have moved to another state and I've needed to secure a job, and that shit is tough!! A whole other country, where you have to get someone to hire you (without actually be allowed to go??) where the employer has to sponsor you? That's putting a whole lot of faith into someone you don't know from an entirely different country. The family thing? Is limited to only close family - spouses, parents, siblings, and children. You got a grandma or grandchild or uncle or cousin willing to sponsor you? Tough shit. That's not "family" enough for the USCIS. And the number of refugees allowed in this country is severely limited, and unfortunately humanitarian crises don't happen one at a time. Armed forces and natural disasters can affect whole countries, not just individuals, and they're all clamoring for escape. Not to mention poverty and economic crises don't count as a humanitarian problem.

So it's very difficult now to get here legally. And you're totally right, we do need it to change!! You'll see the phrase "permanent path to citizenship" tossed around. DACA and other are temporary fixes. The problem is, now, unlike in 1965, we have a government that is actively working against the popular opinion. The racist base of donald are not the majority, and recent polls have said that even many of them did not agree with ending DACA. But even before donald, you had a Congress unwilling to pass the DREAM Act or any other solutions President Obama put forth, and you know why they worked so hard against him at every little turn? (psst the answer again is racism)

so until we have a government actually working for the common interest of all, things are never going to get better. Which is why it's really, really, really, REALLY important that y'all vote in the mid-term elections and get a Congress that actually listens to the people they represent.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I don’t really know what people claim about me in real life half the time.  I hear echoes from other people about who I am or what I represent.  But the reality of the situation is people both talk to me and don’t.  I’m an extremely forward facing person in public.  This has grown over a three year period sharing my thoughts on the internet.  It’s also as of today the third year that has passed quietly since I quit alcohol.  In some ways it’s only fitting a phase passed with a whimper.  It’s a habit I will never go back to.  Which is sort of a refreshing place to start looking ahead.  It’s true after sharing all this personal information on the internet I’m still very much alone.  I sit in a kitchen that overlooks the train platform like a fishbowl.  My life has become much the same.  Open ended for everyone to read into.  But most people just skim the cover of the book.  Some people are aware of the sprawling Tolstoy-esque monologues I’ve woven over the years.  The images and people that got me through some dark times.  The inspiration I took from them and acted upon in my own life.  I found beauty in myself and explored what that meant.  Then I lived it.  The result is the same as it’s ever been really.  I don’t really compare or measure myself to anyone in this world.  I stand on my own two feet and have proven my worth to myself countless times around the globe searching for bizarre artifacts for my museum.  Some Indiana Jones shit for sure.  I hate nazis too.  But for however much of a superhero I’ve become to some I’m still just that guy who people would rather ignore or attack.  Some years I’d be a little more depressed about it.  People can claim they know all about me.  And yet nobody really cares that I’m spending the holidays alone for the most part.  People here probably do.  Which is why I reiterate the painfully obvious in paragraph form once again.  If I really hated my life right now I’d be less enthused by the fact of spending the turn of the year alone.  I’ve done that for years.  If I can’t be with somebody who respects me I don’t really want to suffer the consequences of being treated less than what I deserve.  I don’t live my life hardcore to hold over anyone’s head but my own.  And I don’t really expect people to understand every nuance I breathe into my life to stay real as fuck.  I do realize people are ignorant and I’ve spent a year policing that behavior in my life.  I got so good at it that it blew my cover wide open.  And then it fades like everything else exciting i’ve done.  I don’t know what the point of getting people’s attention is anymore.  People don’t talk or share anything openly.  It’s all projections and mirrors we are meant to look and read into.  I do have real interactions in the city i live in.  I paid my rent.  I’ve lived in this place for a decade now.  I came from a bad place.  I’ve written about that and nobody cared.  So now I’m here in the present.  My rent got lower.  My ear to the ground even more so.  I still wear esoteric street wear brands that have aged in reverse.  And people still just treat me like a shadow that is neither here nor there.  So slippery that people would rather just use me as a pivot or soapbox in passing than confront me directly.  I’m the boogeyman on the internet to some people.  To other’s I’m a level 120 paladin that’s strong like bull.  And in 2020 it’s apparently very obvious I’m through with everybody’s bullshit.

Three paragraphs.  That was the format.  I wrote every week to you for years.  You echoes in my head like a void.  Is there anybody actually even out there?  I wouldn’t continue if I didn’t think there was.  And yet we’re still echoing back and forth like a blip on a radar.  Tracking movement like a James Cameron film.  Shipwrecked and stranded on a terraformed mining colony.  Slaves to our careers in a crumbling Utopia called America.  My love for you like a sonnet from a William Gibson poem.  If William Gibson decided to risk it all and leave cyberpunk behind and let us live out our dystopia in peace.  I don’t really have anything to show for any of this.  That wasn’t the point.  If I believed I had nothing to show for all this growth I’d be the biggest loser.  I wouldn’t know the value of myself.  I wouldn’t know the boredom I’m supposed to enjoy of staying the course.  My kitchen bubble a literal ship on a maiden voyage into the great beyond.  That’s what happens when you legalize weed I guess.  Some things have changed.  I’ve spent my time organizing my finances and my belongings just as much.  I head back to New York in the same nondescript way again in February.  Around a birthday nobody has ever celebrated in the last three years for certain.  It can be your birthday anywhere.  I tend to spend it in places where it means something.  Nobody knows other than politicians robocalling me to wish me happy birthday.  That happened last year.  That’s the tip of the iceberg I’ve come to expect.  And yet nobody really knows how deep the wounds have been that I’ve been hiding.  I stopped going out entirely in some respects.  And yet I’m everybody’s favorite topic at the local grocery store.  I mean nothing and feel invisible.  I live with that reality every day.  That some people wish they could interact more but are afraid.  And some people just can’t risk it.  So I make myself less risky.  Which is to say I’m far less risky than I was this time last year.  And I was pretty fucking boring then.  I’m not a boring person.  It’s obvious somebody who hops on a flight to New York by himself with no plan is somewhat spontaneous.  I feel comfortable talking to people.  I don’t feel awkward in what I project.  I have overdone it at times.  And sometimes been too much of a ghost.  And yet people can’t stop talking about fractures of things I’ve done.  I didn’t get here in the present day by being boring.  And then again that’s what it feels like.  People who show off are sloppy.  I see the arcs of their behavior over time.  Just like I look back at the last three years with a bit of a smile.  You have to start somewhere.  And you plan your journey to move forward.  I don’t have any resolutions to speak of other than to enjoy and love myself.  Spread that where it’s well deserved and give everybody else the cold shoulder.  How could I cut off the world so viciously like that?  I gave them three fucking years and what have they done?  We’re all still down here in the bomb shelter talking about our feelings.

I don’t have any fears about the new year.  I paid my rent on time.  Actually before it was usually due.  I’m getting better at simply walking through things.  Almost as if the streets were a runway.  There’s people that vogue downtown in public all the time.  Everybody knows that’s not me or my power.  I respect that a lot of diversity feels free to exist around me in the city I’ve come to love begrudgingly.  I also know when to shut the door on ridiculous bullshit.  The trick is not getting upset.  Like you walk down this catwalk with all these eyes on you.  What does it matter.  You have the power.  That comes from within you.  Nobody can take that away other than yourself.  So you get into the zone and march towards your goal.  Or you find a safe space to bow out of the spectacle for awhile.  When faced with the mundane prospect of just living the reality in front of me I’m not exactly bored.  I’m pissed off nobody understands just how much I’ve put into being me.  But why  be the old man yelling at cloud in sky.  I have answers.  I live them every day.  I have two checking accounts.  I have backup plans for everything.  I don’t worry because I come prepared.  Nobody knows just how many notifications I’ve set up for myself I live by.  Nobody knows what certain activity in my dash means to me.  I don’t share my personal life much with anyone.  Nobody gives me the impression they listen let alone process what I say.  I learned this skill traveling abroad where people didn’t speak my language.  Learn to be silent and appreciate human kindness.  Cultivate it in yourself and how you present yourself as a guest.  Curb your power and share when appropriate.  Shine when it’s your time.  It’s been my time for a minute.  I listen to myself enough to know it.  What you do with that time is something only you know the value of.  These days I try to stay happy.  I also don’t expect people to understand the deep realities of why I make the choices and sacrifices I do.  When it comes time to live them I will just breathe.  Live in the moment and act accordingly.  I spent three years and I’ll spend three more being myself.  After awhile what can people really say?  They forget all the good I’ve ever done.  Maybe they’ll forget the times when they talked shit about me.  Maybe I just don’t care about any of it any more.  I just want to live.  I want to be happy.  I want to keep doing what I am doing.  I need to.  And nobody can stop me.  Because nobody cares that deeply about me enough to know where I’m going.  I’ve already been there and back again.  If you’ve been on the journey with me then you know I’m still on it.  It’s as bullshit as it ever was and I’m stubborn as fuck.  Strong like bull.  Allergic to bullshit.  Isn’t that what a tank is supposed to do?  Take the heat while you run interference.  Could use some heals.  Actually don’t bother.  I made a paladin because I knew I had to roll solo.  I stand in the light.  Bubbled up in my kitchen for the next week on vacation.  Not to burst yours or anything. <3 Tim

[rbempathy]

What I’ve Learned Writing Political Speeches

So, first off, I’m not professing to be an expert or a career speech writer - I volunteer to do my speech writing, so take everything you’re about to read with a grain of salt, and please assume at least some amount of humility has seasoned the critical portions of the following reading.  Also, my experiences have been in working with relatively unknown, grassroots candidates, so what I’m speaking on has little to do with many (hopefully) already well-funded and established campaigns. Oh, and there’s profanity, so maybe don’t read if you’re not into that sort of thing.

I’ll put a little TL;DR right here, just so you can decide whether or not it’s worth reading the rest, so... here ya go: 1) grassroots politics requires you to take initiative 2) speech writing should be equal parts inspiring and painfully boring 3) be realistic; it’s okay to lose, as long as you’re learning 4) there’s a lot of great people and experiences in the field, and you get to make real, meaningful change or help influence political dialogue.

Firstly, I’ve learned that candidates, especially those who are inexperienced and haven’t yet realized how much of a fucking mess of a campaign they’re inevitably destined to be expected to represent and manage at all times over the next 4 months to 4 years, usually don’t understand that they are meant to co-opt a speech-writer’s material.  We’re not writing in stone, and we often don’t know you very well, or have much opportunity to spend much time with you. So, take what you like, and drop the rest. These individuals are generally even worse at offering constructive criticism, the next step in the process, that allows us writers to adjust our works to better suit the platform/rhetoric that is proffered by the candidate. Taken as a whole, I’ve often felt as if my work is considered as something to be memorized and then discarded, and then I’ve been even more disappointed to find that I’ve been given no direction as to what to do to improve my writings for the candidate, which leaves me feeling unfulfilled.  Considering the fact that speeches are supposed to be a small piece of a larger framework and patchwork that has real meaning and moves people to act, and that criticism gives valuable information that relates experience, expectation, and positive reinforcement (when you get things right), the entire thing starts to feel sterile and meaningless after a while. 

What I’m trying to say is that if you don’t take initiative and recognize that sometimes you’re going to be required to make the politician work with you on these speeches, you’re not doing your job.  That’s why they hired you. It’s a two-way street, when you’re working with a small campaign especially.  Grassroots activism and speech writing often entails voluntarily filling the gaps where a traditional/corporatist politician would definitely already have a long-time colleague working. Okay, I’ll stop venting about that, now.

Secondly, while there’s definitely a lot of slogging through research and re-working your phrasing over and over until you get it right/good enough as you piece together rhetoric and actual policy, sometimes you find yourself losing track of time as you pour your heart and soul into a piece that reflects and expresses something that you care dearly about.  That’s called passion, and finding yourself losing track of time over the course of an afternoon while you craft a minor masterpiece is rewarding to a degree difficult to describe.  That process is amazing, and it’s even better when you receive compliments and support from your colleagues when you present that polished draft. But, there’s always the slogging.  I think it’s better to accept that this is going to happen, rather than trying to convince yourself that eventually you’ll start appreciating this shit, because you NEVER WILL. It sucks, and that’s okay.  There’s a purpose to doing this, and that’s what you need to focus on.  This helps, I’ve found, because when you finally submit that draft and your candidate tells you, “Good work. I’l review this soon, and let you know what I think,” you know that they know the shit you had to sift through to get it to them.  They’re not just happy that you have something to turn in, they understanding that despite the fucking boredom that you had to endure, you stuck with it, and brought them something promising (well, hopefully). In my experience, if you find yourself loving every moment of the process, you’re probably not addressing the specific policy concerns that people need to hear from their representatives, and probably focusing too much on the ideological pronouncements you personally want to hear.  Sometimes, it’s good to take a breather, and wonder where the fuck all the shit that sucks is.  Pure sugar isn’t good, neither are cranberries. But add just enough sweetness to that horrifically astringent berry piss, and you got yourself an appetizing drink. Politics is a bit like that.

Before moving on, I’d just like to note that I’m not trying to convince you that policy sucks.  There are plenty of people, myself included, that are policy-minded and genuinely like parsing through articles and law documents as a way to better understand the ways in which our votes and laws can impact our society. What I’m saying is that a lot of the time the ambivalent/manipulative misinformation and discourse that surrounds policy can be repulsive and aggravating, and requires ample amounts of time to investigate and address. You have to anticipate and/or research opposition so that you can effectively circumvent meme culture’s and political culture’s (same thing, far too often) effect on the conversation.  Being politically minded means often knowing more about how NOT to frame your speech, rather than how TO frame it. Really, though, that’s a bad generalization.  Sometimes it really is a breeze. No bullshit, only wonderful epiphany after epiphany until the sun sets. On that note...

Thirdly, and this is the one that sucks the most - you’re probably going to lose. Especially as a grassroots campaign, and especially if you’re running for any position that has a good amount of power to it. You can’t let this notion defeat you before you begin, however.  You need to realistically assess and accept your chances, then work on writing something that may actually catch enough people’s attention  to matter (because often incumbents win simply because they are incumbents, and most people don’t vote, and the ones that do can be low-information voters, or staunchly supportive of one political flavor). And... keep in mind that failure is how we learn. It’s okay to lose, because this is data, and you can use this data to sharpen your skills next time around (elections are happening all the time, m’dudes).

Grassroots campaigns win enough to make a difference, and you have to remember this.  Also, you should remember that a huge part of the equation is whether or not people hear your message in the first place, then remember it, then share that message.  So you need to plant some incessant earwigs in your speech, things that are catchy, literally unforgettable, and which inspire the listener to repeat them.  Even a brilliant campaign might never develop such a message, but you must always try.  The real reward (I’m guessing) is hearing something you wrote 10 or 20 or 50 years later, because it hit on something true or enduring about our civilization and/or individual perceptions of reality and resonated powerfully.

The first speech I wrote, I though we would win.  I knew it. Aaand, then we lost. I mean, we didn’t even make it into the running (our candidate got cold feet). The resignation sucked. I was alternatively crestfallen and pissed. But I got (a small amount of) experience, and when I started looking for other gigs to keep me busy, I found that this limited experience was invaluable. Having a heads up on how campaigns worked, even on the most basic of levels, allowed me to recognize those I might want to be a part of. And I received compliments on my past work, and was rewarded again by being brought onto another campaign, who was sufficiently impressed enough to want to see what else I could do, at the very least. 

Looking back, I think losing was a good thing. I was prepared to get a righteously big head about my work if we happened to actually win, and having instead to limp away with my tail between my legs taught me a valuable lesson about the political world: it’s run by people. People that make mistakes, have trouble cooperating with others, get too full of themselves or completely exsanguinated by humiliating defeat, and who sometimes do the right thing. It makes you realize how perfectly average (and competent) you are, with all your baggage and insecurities and hodge-podge of skills, and how capable you are to work in such an environment. It’s a humanizing process, especially in the grassroots. 

Finally, I’d like to end on a high note, so I’d like to close by saying that the people you have the opportunity to meet, and the experiences you have make it all worth it.  I have met a few people I’m sure I’m going to keep in touch with for the rest of my life, or at least career.  And I”m sure there are many more that I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting. Likewise, I’m sure there are many opportunities that every step in this process takes me closer to, and doors that I never knew existed that are opening up the more I pursue this path. It’s exciting, it’s rewarding, and it’s totally my thing. I just hope I’m good enough to keep finding gigs.  Let’s not get into that, though. Don’t want to reveal my conceits.

The coolest part, though, is that you get the opportunity to make meaningful change, and see real differences (hopefully positive) in the world enacted through policy and discussed by possibly hundreds of thousands or millions of people. It’s a worthwhile contribution to our society, and something that is unequivocally important.

I have no idea who you are, or why you took the time to read this, but I hope it brought something meaningful to you.  But if not, if it’s all astringent cranberry piss, be a dear and sprinkle some sugar in the notes.

RBEmpathy