#and the power company isnt coming today even though they SAID they were so thats pushing back when i can move in AGAIN

[sugared-violets]

my roommates threw out my fucking sponge???????

[supergirl-writingz]

Kidnapped Part 2

B!D deals with recovery.

Note: the doctor being named dr grey isnt actually like mer or lexie i literally just watch too much greys and couldnt think of another name haha also THANK U FOR BEING SO PATIENT W ME im really proud of this fic tbh and i hope u guys like it:) remember requests are always open

Warning: trauma, anxiety, therapy

It’s been about one week since you were rescued. You were doing okay. Everyone was trying to convince you to see someone, to talk about what you went through. You didn’t get why. You realized you have been through something tragic, but wouldn’t it be easier to just put it in the past? 

Physically, you still had a long way to go. You were still cooped up at the DEO and you would be for a little bit longer. You had bruises everywhere, 2 broken ribs, a concussion, and a broken bone in your foot. But Lena assured you that you were healing properly. You trusted her.

Your least favorite part about everything, was the way people were treating you. They treated you as if you were glass, and if they spoke to loud or even held your hand, they would break you. You didn’t feel broken and you didn’t get why everyone wanted you to be. Lena was the only one who would tell you things how they were, straightforward with no holding back. You appreciated it. 

Lena walked into the room, “Hey hun can we talk?”

You nodded, “Of course Lena what’s up?”

Lena sat at the edge of your bed, “Darling I think you need to see someone, you-”

“Not you too” you interrupted rolling your eyes, “I’m fine, I don’t need to see anyone”

Lena was patient with you, with a calm voice she said, “Y/N you can’t keep bottling up your emotions, it’s not healthy. If you don’t let this out you’re gonna have a breakdown. You’re not fine and thats okay.”

“I am fine” you snapped at her.

“Y/N, you are scared to sleep without sedatives and you haven’t talked about what happened to you at all. Let me help you, please talk to me, or Kara or Alex or a specialist. Please”

You turned your head away from her. You were embarrassed but it was true, you were scared of going to bed without them.

“Don’t sedate me tonight, I’ll sleep just fine”

Lena sighed, “Okay”

As she walked out she turned around and said, “You know we’re all just trying to do what’s best for you right?”

You didn’t answer. Lena walked out looking sad and defeated. You felt bad, she’s helped you so much. But you were tired of people saying you weren’t okay. You thought about sleeping tonight without the sedatives, truthfully you were nervous but you didn’t tell anyone. Tonight was Kara’s turn to sleep in your room, and she always made you feel safe. 

Later that night, around 11, you finally fell asleep after tossing and turning for a couple hours. 

All of the sudden you woke up with a start not knowing where you were. You were screaming and your heart rate was through the roof. Kara instantly got up and rushed to you.

“Y/N baby it’s just a dream! You’re okay!” she said calmly but loud enough so it would get through to you.

It didn’t help. You were starting to hyperventilate. Kara put her face directly in front of yours.

“Look at my sweetheart, breathe like I do” Kara said, breathing in and out slowly for me to follow.

You looked Kara in the eyes and started following her breathing. 5 minutes later you were breathing normally. Lena and Alex came rushing in, someone must have called them.

“Baby what happened?” Alex asked with a concerned tone. 

Tears were building up in your eyes, “I- I was back there.. in my dream”.

“The room where it all happened?” Lena asked. You nodded, tears starting to come quicker

“It was so real, I could feel every punch, every kick. It was like I was back there.” you said, at this point you were sobbing. 

Alex came close to you and put her hand to your cheek, “You’re safe now Y/N, he can’t hurt you anymore”

You pulled Alex closer and cried into the crook of her neck. While Kara was strong and comforting, there was something about Alex that made you feel powerful and in control. She was such a good directer at the DEO, even if things in her life were bad. Even when everything was going wrong, she had control. You needed that. You needed to be in control of your emotions, but you didn’t know how. You realized now everyone was right, you weren’t okay. But you still didn’t like the idea of seeing a therapist of any kind. You just couldn’t imagine talking to a complete stranger about things you can’t talk about to the people closest to you. 

You started to calm down and stopped crying. You looked up at Lena.

“I’m so sorry Lena”, you said.

“Darling you have nothing to be sorry for” she replied softly.

“I was so rude to you, you were just trying to help” you replied guiltily.

“You’re struggling little one, whether you know it or not, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. After what you’ve been through, we’d be more concerned if you weren’t struggling” Kara said.

“We just want you to feel better and we want you to know you have our constant support” Alex said.

You looked down and smiled softly. You didn’t know what you would do without these people. You didn’t think therapy was for you, but it seems like it would make them feel better, and who knows maybe it would make you feel better too. 

“I’ll see someone”, you said quietly, “if you guys really think it will be good”

Alex smiled and said, “We’re only asking that you try”. 

You got in a couple more hours of sleep before day time had come and it was too bright to sleep. You heard a knock at the door and looked up to see Lena and another woman you didn’t recognize. 

“Hey hun, this is Dr. Grey, she works with people who have been through trauma” Lena said, trying not to overwhelm you.

She smiled a bright smile and said, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you”

You took a breath and remembered how you told Lena and your sisters you would give it a try. 

You reached out your hand and said “Hi, I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you too”

Dr. Grey shook your hand then told you that Lena or your sisters could stay in the room, or it could be just them. You decided to give it a try alone with Dr. Grey. Lena understood and wished you good luck before leaving. You took a deep breath, talking to this stranger was making you feel anxious. You and Dr. Grey started talking, and quickly you felt more comfortable. You guys didn’t talk much about the kidnapping, she mostly just wanted to know your home and social life. You told her pretty much everything, from your sisters, your friends, Lena, and school. Dr. Grey was pretty easy to talk to. The only time the kidnapping did come up was when she suggested that you talk to your sisters or Lena about what happened. She said if it was out in the open, you might feel better. She made it very clear though that you should wait until you were ready. And just like that, your hour session was over before you knew it.

“Thank you Dr. Grey” you said.

She smiled warmly, “So we’ll be meeting again?”

You returned her smile and nodded. 

About 2 weeks later, you were sitting in your bed at the DEO. You have been seeing Dr. Grey daily and it was helping a lot. All of the sudden Kara walked in and you smiled at her asked her to bring Alex and Lena into the room. Kara smiled and nodded, walking out of the room to get them. A few moments later, the three women walked in. 

“So Dr. Grey thought that I should talk to at least someone about what happened, other than her. And I trust you guys more than anyone, so I want to tell you guys” you say, starting to feel a little anxious.

“That’s very sweet darling but we don’t wanna push you into talking about something you’re not ready to talk about” Lena said concerned.

You smiled, “I’m ready”, and they nodded.

You told them everything, from you walking home from school, to the guy grabbing you, to your surroundings, and on and on. You told them how they wanted to know who Supergirl was, and you shot Kara a warm look almost saying, ‘This isn’t your fault’. Kara gave you a small yet guilty smile. You took a deep breath as you started to talk about the torture. Your hands were shaking so Alex grabbed them into hers. You didn’t even realize you were crying until Kara wiped a tear from your cheek. You told them everything... you told them the beatings, about the whips and taser. You told them about the hunger, and how cold it was. You told them how you were so hopped up on drugs, you couldn’t even remember how you got there. 

“The scariest part was when I lost hope, I truly thought I was gonna die there” you said. You finally looked up at them, Kara was crying just as much as you were. Lena and Alex had some tears too, but you could tell they were trying to be strong. You grabbed Kara’s hands and looked her in the eyes.

“But you saved me Kara, you’re the reason I’m still here” you said softly.

Kara pulled you into a hug and you felt her warmth and comfort, which then turned into pain from your ribs.

“Kara.. too tight” you said chuckling.

“Sorry” she laughed immediately letting go. The four of you sat there in silence for a while, enjoying each others company. Dr. Grey was right, you did feel better putting it all out there. 

A few weeks later, you were making great progress. You were still having nightmares, but not every night. The anxiety meds you were taking were starting to help with the panic attacks too. You were still at the DEO, but you were starting to walk around though, with a boot and crutches. Your ribs were almost healed and your concussion was all gone. 

You were doing great with Dr. Grey too. The only thing she was concerned with was that you didn’t want to leave the DEO. Of course you wanted to be at home, but you couldn’t get yourself to step out of the building. You felt safe in there. You had this fear that the man who took you would be out there, even though you knew he was in custody. Everyone tried to get you just to go on a simple walk outside, but your anxiety would kick in before you even got the chance. Today was going to be different, today you were determined to go outside. You haven’t been outside since Kara flew you to the DEO the day of the kidnapping, and you were barely conscious.. but today was different. 

You asked Kara, Alex, and Lena if you could all go on a walk. They gave a little surprised look but didn't say anything, they probably didn’t want you to overthink it, but they realized how big of a deal this was. You guys were having a normal conversation, walking through the DEO. You stopped when you reached the exit. You felt Kara give your hand a little squeeze, letting you know that it’s okay. You took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked outside. 

You were surprised as you felt the fresh air in your lungs. Everything looked greener than you remember. You spent so much time in the DEO, that you forgot there was life outside of the grey and dark building. You looked around at all the people, talking and laughing, and you were amazed at how good it felt. You quickly started to cry and turned back to your sisters and Lena.

“Oh baby why are you crying?” Alex asked softly, “Do you wanna go back inside?”

These were happy tears. 

“I’m finally free from him” you said smiling, wiping the tears from your face. 

They all smiled at you and were so proud of your strength and perseverance. You had a lot to work through still, but this was a break through. This was the first time since the kidnapping, that you were 100% sure that you would make it through this. You pulled them into group hug, silently thanking them for never leaving your side.

[pbandjesse]

My head just started hurting really bad. Why. Today was a very long day. I ended up having 5 groups. And it was a lot. But it was also a pretty great day. It just ended weird and a little scary. 

I did not sleep great last night. SweetP got into our room and proceeded to be so loud. Just stepping on us. Batting at the posters on the wall. Just being a nuisance. So it was not the best sleep. But I woke up happy. I had planned to wear my green linen dress but its just to tight on my boobs. It will just be costume dress now I suppose. So I switched to t shirt dress. Even though it can be a little to hot. 

My hair was dirty but besides that I felt cute. I had a good drive into work and it was a quiet morning. We found out that an ambulance did some for the horse girls yesterday. Two of them went to the hospital and one is having trouble still. So keep them in your thoughts. It was pretty upsetting. 

But today was to busy to dwell. And I invited the remaining horse girls to come make art later in the day. Try to bring some joy in. 

Half the power was out at camp too. Which meant the bathrooms were not working. Or the sinks. Because we use a well. But after some back and forth the power company came out and was able to fix it before 1030. So that was good. The art shed only lost power for a little. Which was nice. 

I had set up the theme project, which was painting leaves, in the front of the art cabin. And then setting up the photo project on the other side. My first group was great and honestly all the groups were fun today. I really liked talking through this project. Explaining cryptids and why someone might make some thing up. Why someone else might believe it. And the project was timed really well so while they still get time to hang out in the hammocks its not to much time. 

I had a 2 hour break. And during that I listened to a podcast and worked on my little house project. Elizabeth was coming around with chickfila for staff and she felt so bad when I told her I didnt eat meat. Charlotte and Alexi apparently forgot and then Elizabeth was so upset. I was like. Its okay! I had lunch! But then I felt bad that she felt bad. Charlotte ended up bringing me fries a little while later. And I appreciated the thought even though I wasnt upset. 

I am really excited about this little house project. I just like making them too so I hope the kids like the project. 

The afternoon was very busy. Some confusion with the schedule so I had a group every hour. But it all worked out. I had a good time with the kids. There were some really fun monsters made. It was great. 

Around 130 we all got a storm warning alert on our phones. But it didnt seem like a storm was coming. Man were we wrong. 

At 330 I had my last group of the day. Erin was their counselor and asked if it was okay for her to go close up the nature center for the weekend. Yeah thats all good. This was a good group. The oldest kids. And they were fun! They made good work. They hung out in the hammocks. But then there was thunder in the distance. We laughed it off. But then Heather came over the walkie that there was lightning. And then very loud and close thunder. I told the kids to get out of the hammocks and get them down from the trees. They quickly did that as it started to rain. But then it got scary and the walkies were going off over and over to get the kids to shelter. And the art building isnt safe for that. Its got a tin roof. We were trying to get the art stuff inside but then it was like. Scary. It wasnt even raining that hard yet, but the wind and the noise was terrifying. I told the group to run up to the fort. Grab all your stuff and run. I stayed behind a few more minutes to try to get more things in and then grabbed my rain coat and bag and made a run for it too. 

They were telling me to get in a shelter, like me specifically, over the walkie and I made it to the fort right as the sky opened up. 

It was scary being in the fort. But the kids were funny. They were scared at first. But once the wind calmed down they were fine and joking. My heart was racing a bit. I didnt get all the art stuff inside. And I was worried what I would come back to. I made the kids help clean to give them something to do. But after a half hour the rain slowed enough that we could all move to a safer place for the kids to get picked up.

I went back to the art shed and it wasnt as bad as it could have been. But it was a disaster. An art disaster. Everything was soaked. All the theme stuff was ruined. I just rolled it up and threw it away. Wasnt even worth trying to save. The stuff in the back was wet but could be salvaged for the most part. I threw some stuff away but I mostly just laid things out in the art shed and I hope it drys by monday. 

I got the rest of my stuff and locked up before heading to the office to see where they could use me. So off to the pool house to help watch the kids. And it was mostly just quiet. The rain was steady until 5. And then it started to clear up. I hung out with the kids but soon it was time for me to go home. 

I stopped at the office to check in about my schedule next week. Found an issue that I tried to help fix. Came up with some ideas. And then went to my car. 

I had a long ride home. Three separate accidents slowed the highway down to a stop. But I got home around 6. I ordered dinner. I was going to jump in the shower but it said it would be here at 620 so I waited. And waited. And then my food didnt come! Until almost 7! What the heck. 

My driver was super nice though. What a good guy. I was glad to eat and then took the bets shower and have been laying in bed playing on pinterest and instagram since then. 

But my head kind of hurts and I am pretty tired. I am very excited to have the next two days to just clean and enjoy the quiet. I hope its just a happy time. For all of you too. Sleep well my friends. Goodnight!

[justsomeantifas]

its 11:59 its still technically tonight so

this is gonna be my reference point to questions abt venezuela, at least regarding things pre- May 19 2019. Its a bit scattered and it may get edited down along the road, but yeah.

short version that draws some similar conclusions: https://www.salon.com/2019/05/17/the-plot-to-kill-venezuela_partner/

one difference in scales that’s important to keep in mind: the lifespan of people is 2-7 decades. the lifespan of colonialism lasts centuries. the lifespan of media memory is a couple years, tops.

Most western narratives of venezuela start meaningfully at chavez, which is a mistake. The focus point in history around which the country flowed was the Caracazo. You probably already know about this, but a massive uprising took place in the heart of Caracas, against decades of dictatorship both formal and informal, after severe instability in the global oil market. The people were hungry, the riots were fiery, and the bullets bled. knows the death toll even now, but its estimated well into the thousands.  This happened pre-chavez, and started a cascade of events which brought him into limelight that you can read about here. not gonna go into more venezuelan history, but i talk a bit more here

chavez was democratically elected, multiple times.

   in 2002, after his first democratic election, he was kidnapped by US-backed troops and replaced by someone who threw out the 1999 constitution, which was as legitimate as any other made in venezuela’s colonial and violently capitalist history, seeing as it was the first (aka only, so far) of 26 constitutions actually approved by popular referendum. He was reinstated largely due to massive protests in support of him. Maduro however doesn’t really have as much of the charisma and support of chavez, which is creating problems - as well as exacerbating problems created by the economic crises ramping up just around chavez’s death. In 2015, there were elections to the National Assembly, which ended up with the Opposition winning a majority of the seats (which does show that there’s some degree of fairness in the elections, at least verifiably up til that point, yet that isnt rly accounted for when western media describes it as “undemocratic” - many of whom don’t apply the same scrutiny to their own country: such as this UN Human Rights councilor who also happens to be the crown prince of british-iraq, currently residing in the noted democracy of the Kingdom of Jordan, which has no vested interest or control over any particular export of Venezuela.).        

This turnout showed most of all that maduro had alienated as many as 2 million of his supporters, who didnt end up voting (though many also voted against him - trying to act on their feeling that whatever they want, its “not this”). This decreasing support also accelerates whats known as “Everyday Sabotage” - people not trusting in the government, and look out for their own interests contra everyone else. This is a danger inherent to tying “Socialism” to a primarily state project.       

However 1999 Constitution was never meant as an eternal document & it created mechanisms to call for new popular constitutional referendums to be held. That’s what the “Constituent Assembly” is about, which is what a lot of the western world is describing as him singlehandedly rewriting it (while also being “vague about its contents”), or “created by him”. Elections to the constituent assembly were boycotted by opposition, so that it would be government controlled & look like a sham in the eyes of the broader world. That being said, the assembly was called both as a reaction to losing election but also in response to intensifying crises - it was put forth (i don’t see any reason to believe in bad faith) as a way to come together and figure out how to address the needs that were driving people to protest - to address the desire for “not this”, but bc of the uncertainty, it was easily twistable by reactionaries by putting all emphasis on the former. Also timing corresponds with increasing fears of maduro straying from the path of chavez, the image of scrapping one of his strongest plays for smth unknown is risky - tho if there are other meaningful options given the situation im not sure. And the body’s got at least as much constitutional legitimacy as Guaido  (Chapter III)  

The 1999 constitution also enabled a recall election to be called against maduro in 2016, bc it was written with particular attention to holding public officials accountable - similar noble commitments helped to end the presidency of Rousseff & bring in Bolsonaro (who was also one of the people spurring on the investigations and whipping up a social base).

     (speaking of guaido & bolsonaro)

on Guaido:

part of student group in 2007 protesting against non-renewal of coup-assisting network, who the CFR (one of the major think tanks of the cold war still playing a big role in foreign policy today) considered “most important network”   

close friend of Leopoldo Lopez, the aforementioned coup plotter.

politician since 2010, won a couple small elections

Unknown to majority of general population until 2019, most venezuelans surveyed didnt know him   

Plan Pais       

plans to privatize state owned industry & allow investment from foreign oil companies       

center-right neoliberal draped in platitudes of “stability”, “revitalization”, “security”, and “rescue” - a message seemingly deliberately targeted to become more and more resonant with increased sanctions.

/on Guaido

governing is about the expression of power. I wanna live in a world where that power isn’t expressed, but as long as the exploitation of the global working class continues unabated, id prefer some of that power be put towards helping the poor.     

there is no such thing as a static state of affairs, there’s no “goldilocks zone” out in the political universe where we tweak things finely until we find whats best for everyone, only different rates of change in different dimensions. what we need to do is figure out how we can push that state of affairs in a direction so that everyday people have the power to take control of their lives. re

re: “constitutionality” - if the supreme court calls it constitutional then its constitutional. period. There’s no such thing as a supreme court as an “independent branch” of government, but there are different degrees of integration into the rest of it.       

The Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela has 32 members, (a bit more than a dozen put in by the national assembly, while the PSUV held it), and the opposition holds abt 3 away from a supermajority. Each member of the court holds their spot for 12 years. If that’s “The Most Corrupt In The World” according to Transparency International, i wonder what world the 9-person lifetime-appointed US Supreme Court (2 of which appointed by trump, and save for pulling a Weekend At Ginsbergs, likely 3) is on. In fact, one of the tactics that the more radical circles of democrat voters are putting forward is to pack the Supreme Court. Because thats how shit actually gets done, or at the least how shit is prevented from being committed w the stamp of legality. FDR learned that lesson too, in trying to pass what is today known as “The New Deal”

My comparisons to trump are for specific end: these actions are exerted on levers of liberal democracy, and every single liberal democracy is susceptible to them in some ways.

whats a “dictator”? if hes unelected, the millions of people who participated in the elections dont seem to think so. if maduro is a dictator, then what is donald trump? the majority of ppl didnt vote for him yet hes still governing. macron’s popularity has at several points been less than 1/3, and the yellow vest protestors have been violently attacked - why is he not “a violent dictator with only the support of the military”? These terms are not neutral.

“their elections are highly flawed” So What? show me a country whose elections arent.   

“opposition jailed” - ok but coup plotters don’t get off easy in any liberal democracy. If someone - say Bernie Sanders - said “enough is enough” and succeeded in overthrowing the current government with the help of a foreign government…. you think they’d let him go free? what if ten years later he was getting his supporters all riled up to do it again? how long you think he’d be in jail for (assuming he can survive well into his 100’s)? You think more than 13 years? Think he’d get house arrest? Some US states lock you up for posessing weed up to 10. If you stay long enough around this blog, youll find plenty of other examples of much more cruel and unusual punishments. Look at Chelsea Manning, look at Oscar Riviera…   look at the US protestors saying Guaido is illegitimate

 what we have to keep in mind most of all, is to show that the contradictions being exploited are inherent to Liberalism. Contradictions are just expressed most freely at the margins - the interstices

poor economic decisions happen everywhere - 2008/2009 still affecting the entire world there’s violence thats “natural”, and violence thats “intolerable”. The dividing line is whether we have anything to gain by changing things.

sanctions:    started under obama, originally targeted specific individuals, used as precedent for more generalized. They’re indirect - they have a “squeezing effect”, takes already-existing problems & just makes them markedly worse. also doesn’t necessarily correlate with emigration, bc it takes a lot of money to start a new life somewhere else, and sanctions disproportionately affect the poor.   

war wouldnt likely look like (many) US boots on the ground - we’ve got plenty of other places to be. It’d look like guns being smuggled to counter-protestors. It’d look like sending resources to neighboring countries like Colombia or Brazil who would then use their troops. Colombias ruling party is right wing populists - much of current president’s campaign was run on fearmongering abt venezuelan socialism - they’re raring to go. It’d look like drones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracas_drone_attack. Also means there likely won’t be a sudden trigger, its a gradually escalating stressful gradually-more-warlike situation.  

If war does break out - where would the refugees go?  In reality the majority would go to Colombia, but if anything significant breaks out there will be a stream of those looking to find shelter in the US, which has advertised itself as a beacon of hope - what would happen to them? some may get taken in as a gesture of showmanship, but nowhere close to the majority.   

speaking of the US - imagine if trump and bolton manage to actually plot a winning coup. Do you think that that wont be his main bullwark against ppl like Bernie? you think the media and rest of the democratic party wont jump on that narrative and “begrudgingly” support a fascist because the alternative might mean supporting single payer and not-having-good-for-ratings-climate-apocalypse?

another term thrown around without regard is “once vibrant” - for whom?

most articles ive seen just take this as an axiom, and dont find any cognitive dissonance when also saying chavez reduced poverty hugely.

 The answer to that rhetorical question: Citgo is venezuelan, before chavez none of the wealth went back to venezuela - thats what “vibrancy” means.  

     many similarities with BP (the-artist-formerly-known-as-the-anglo-iranian-oil-company)

in age of climate change & vocal ppl about phasing out oil, the more one’s livelihood is connected to oil, the more unstable ones country will be - either that, or the more instability ones country will cause.

“Oil exports fell by $2,200 per capita from 2012 to 2016, of which $1,500 was due to the decline in oil prices.”  

The drop in price that affected the venezuelan economy so much in 2014 was largely by US shale fracking

in 1970’s Chile, copper was the main product of Chile - allende nationalized the mines, and in return wall street dropped the

(also worth noting that venezuela’s got non-insignificant untapped shale basins)      

At least venezuela used the oil money to fund social programs instead of like, pad the pockets of Raytheon.

also oil price wars in africa highly correlated w oil (whose annual production doesn’t even combined total venezuelas)

a couple ppl have raised concerns abt my strong stance on equivocal dismissal - if there’s a difference, if there’s some way of reading your statement that says “X country that the State Dept wants to invade is an anomoly in the otherwise free world”, then that’s acting to push the discourse towards normalization & invasion. It’s not “whataboutism”, just basic consistency.   

now more than ever, narratives are affected by people. They may not be ones we had a hand in forging, but the way that we propagate them actually does have measurable effects on the larger-scale political outcomes. Always look for the base assumptions, as well as the direction   

sure denounce Chavez. sure denounce Maduro. denounce Kim, Xi, Castro, anyone. But if there’s no equally or proportionally loud denunciations of the horrors perpetrated by allies - the “assumed”, “natural” violence, then you’re acting to reinforce the narrative of exceptionalism.   

Just make sure after you take a breath, you denounce Saudi Arabia & Yemen, Israel for Palestine, the conditions which brought Argentinian/Brazillian, Brazilian coup, the US for Puerto Rico, the conditions which have murdered dozens of journalists in Mexico per year…  

what people want most of all is stability. “A debate over whether it is mismanagement and corruption by the Maduro government or the sanctions that are the author of the crisis is largely irrelevant. The point is that a combination of the reliance on oil revenues and the sanctions policy has crushed the policy space for any stability in the country.”

government’s errors and tensions   

fixed exchange rate -> black market      

took 5 years to address changing relation between dollar & BsF, all the room between those two curves left a huge room for intensifying crises, though since it also corresponds with the death of chavez, it sorta makes sense.   

antidemocratic actions and remarks by maduro  

scattered responses filled w half-solutions   

diversification needed, but how do you diversify an economy filled with rampant poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy… 

(nominally begrudging) support for mineral extraction 12.4% of territory opened to extraction - “Special Economic Zone” as a method of managing decay       

this is also what much of the reality of “economic diversification” looks like

not enough socialism. (even fox agrees!) Venezuela shows the limits of Social Democracy in countries living outside of the Imperial Core - esp the dangers if you’re in the crosshairs already bc of oil         

started out as populism, gradually grew as confronted more.            shows shaping influence on political organs from actions of foreign actors - if you’ve survived a coup before, you’re gonna become paranoid about any more of them - especially when the coup plotters say “hey lets do more coups”       

also shows the weakness of only having a small number of charasmatic faces representing the movement - if one dies and theres no clear and popular replacement, then you’ll lose ppl who were largely brought in by the charisma, weakening your political project, and creating cracks for reactionary forces to take advantage of - especially in times of transition.       

bourgeoisie still control a majority of the economy.            Capitalist businesses are internally unaccountable, and in this age of intensified global trade, one can punish countries for straying from the pack by moving business & focus away. If you’re looking for dictatorships, look at the thousands of private companies run as dictatorships daily       

capital flight is a real effect, precisely because socialism is fundamentally and irreconcilably against the self-interest of the bourgeoisie. not necessarily against the interest of the humans-who-are-also-bourgeois, but of the impersonal self-sustaining force of capital.           

Have you ever pulled something out of an electrical socket, and seen a quick spark? The reason that occurs is bc of what’s called an induction current, which is a fancy physics word for flowing electricity not liking to suddenly change its flow. If you accidentally touch that spark, you might feel it, but youll live to tell the tale. But if you only take the plug out halfway & touch it, that’s a different story.  Capital flows similarly.

   my country (lithuania) has been facing sky-high emigration since the collapse of the USSR (with an added boost after 08-09), we have also consistently had one of the highest suicide rates in the world (#7), a minimum wage of about 3 Euros an hour (after a recent increase), as well as one of the highest prison populations in Europe (discounting Russia & Belarus… which like….)   

when are we gonna be invaded? when will the US media talk about our pain?  

oh wait, they did. We cried all pretty for the TV cameras, then they got a bozo nobody really knew of to denounce the government, who they called dictatorial (though it was far from ideal, massive bureaucracies dont tend to mix well with single-person-decision-making). And to be fair, the fact that the government was unpopular wasnt entirely undeserved. But what was promised to us was the idea of “Freedom”, “Free Enterprise”; to “Get Rid of Corruption” and institute “Real” Democracy". They said we’d be integrated into the glorious capitalist west, and we understood that to mean that we’d be in the position of a Germany, or at least an Austria or smth. But they never meant to integrate us into the imperial Core, we have always been seen as part of the Periphery - the “assumed” violence that “naturally” happens.    

Then we got to where we our today. Some of the stuffs more available, but expensive. Most of the bureaucracy’s still around, it just helps fewer people. We stand as an example of what to expect, in one of the best case scenarios, you would join our emigrees now making up a significant percentage of underpaid house-servants aka maids across the EU.  

if we want the people of Venezuela to be healthy, safe, and fulfilled, then:

speak out and pointing to the effects of US sanctions is incredibly important. They’ve already killed 40,000 people in the last year, and 300,000 more are in extreme danger (and millions more in long-term risk).

what does it mean when you simultaneously sanction trade with a place but also demand they let you give them humanitarian aid?

if there is to be action taken by the international community, then the US has forfeited its right to speak. They threw it away once in 2002, and obama rhetorically picked it up and dusted it off so that trump could throw it in a bigger dumpster, thats also on fire. However we also still live in a world deeply shaped by US Hegemony, so the opinions of its close trade partners & closest-knit media buds should be seen as influenced as such. Doesn’t mean that theyre wrong on everything too, but they still feel the magnetic pull of the US economy and ecosystem (as well as their own potentially imperial interests) and the effect of that force cannot be discounted.

transitioning our economies away from oil & away from globalized neoliberalism which only values peripheral states by their exports - dissolves tensions of how to produce in unproductive terrain   

socialize medicine in the US, so that drug companies run by dictatorships can’t control their lives & ours. healthcare is especially reliant on imports, sanctions affect especially strongly.  

normalize the ideas of Socialism, without taking the easy way out of “oh no dont think of Venezuela, think of sweden or denmark”. None of them are Socialist, but to avoid the complexities of Venezuela is to imagine that US attempts at socialism wouldn’t involve significant capital flight. If we don’t consider that, if we don’t have solid actionable plans to deal with that, while also facing the inherent complexity of changing material conditions, then we’re gonna waste whatever shot we get.   

redirect conversation normally centered around government towards support of the tens of thousands of small business co-operatives, where people live their daily lives in a democratic manner.

on The Communes:

    “delegating responsibility throughout all members, and bringing important decisions to the whole to work through and find the best possible solution… They create “collective criteria” together; agreements stipulating whether individuals have power over certain decisions or whether it is up to the whole group. However, he assures that these “are not rigid, they can change at any moment.” The cooperative I lived with in Venezuela had regular organizational meetings where they informally came to agreement and were even able to come back to re-evaluate decisions that didn´t seem to be satisfactory for the whole group in this same way. Decisions and decision making, in this way, are viewed as a process not contained by meetings and discussions in board rooms, but are always being analyzed and made better by the process of putting them into action, and not only by thinking them out and writing them down.”

- the “Self Government of the Producers” - aka what it looks like for cooks to govern.   

they have communal councils as well - neighborhood councils in the same vein that so many (rightfully) find inspiring in Kurdistan . They preexisted chavez, but they were able to proliferate and be given legal recognition through him. I understand that legal recognition can act to ‘name’ a body & pin it to smth that doesn’t match its requisite variety - how dynamic it is, but imo as its currently legislated it recognizes a good amount of the autonomy that they had already been excersizing. - liable to change                                government recognition of co-ops has drawbacks too, and correlates negatively with that coop’s success           

           "A good example of this intention is the de-emphasis that cooperatives in Venezuela put on advertising or “marketing” products, and instead push to find more people to become part of the cooperative, and choose the services or products they provide based on community decisions about what is needed. A cooperative I worked in […] was originally a family owned and operated theater group that traveled around the country performing theater pieces that highlighted social and environmental issues. When they joined the […] cooperative, the larger co-op did an analysis and decided they wanted a natural fruit juice concentrate producer and gave the group a loan to acquire capital and start producing. They have been doing this for only a couple of years now but have already paid back the loan to the larger cooperative and are bringing extra money in to support themselves, better their services, and supply extra funds to the larger cooperative for community projects such as the recently [2012] built community health center…                  

The cooperative services I experienced and learned about in Venezuela were health, dental, food, and a separate example of trash services. A dental cooperative […] provides quality dental services (I know because I used them) almost every day for affordable prices. You don´t have to be a member of the cooperative, and you don´t have to make an appointment. It takes only a couple of hours, and emergency situations are treated with urgency. The health center, built with funds provided by all the associated cooperatives[…], works the same way. Anyone can go there, the services are subsidized by the cooperative so they are affordable, the clinic and workspaces are clean and well taken care of, and the quality of the service is great. Worker-members of the cooperative receive health care at the facility without charge except for the massage and acupuncture services that they also provide at a really low price.

           […] food services are priced to provide more access to food for the community in which it exists. The original and persistent intention is to make the best situation for people on all ends of the process. The producers are part of the cooperative and are part of the group that decides the prices that growers get, as well as the prices that the food is sold for. This means that both farmers and workers at the market decide what to charge a person, which ultimately affects how much money the growers receive, as well as if the food is affordable for the people who need to eat who live in the city. In a normal capitalist market system these parties are separated and put up against each other, raising prices for consumers and lowering them for small producers, excluding those people from getting enough money to afford all the necessities that are typically only provided at a high price.

           One communal council, a parallel governing organization of community members linked to investment funds from the national government, in the city of Merida, Venezuela organized themselves to get funds to buy a trash collection truck. The truck at the time was used for a specific waste removal project that removed waste from their community regularly but was not a traditional collection service. However, they did have plans to expand the project to start their own collection service, and this would be provided by the commal council, an anti-capitalist organization which does not require people to pay for the service. Although this is not a “co-operative” as some hardliner co-operative enthusiasts might point out, it is a horizontal anti-capitalist organization widening access of necessary services to the larger community run by community members; following cooperative values of equity, inclusion, and solidarity I believe this to be an example of cooperative economics and action. It appears to me that economic inclusion is much more likely to widen only when those who are being excluded are included in the process of organizing the services and are in control of the economy.“

until the communes, workers cooperatives, and the like are strong enough to rule themselves, having Maduro in power is the only option given to us which doesn’t trigger the control of reactionaries. People make their own history, but not in situations of their choosing - the exact outcome isn’t predetermined, but there’s only a limited number of poles - gravitational attractors - towards which that trajectory is heading at any particular time.   

if maduro acts to squash the power of the communes, then thats a different situation. but until that point, we outside of the country must work to center any discussion on these bodies - they are the heart of the country and of whatever social revolution has occurred/is further possible. They are filled with lessons for us to learn from, and show how rich and dynamic the organized populace can be if they are allowed to control their communities. (ex of dealing with gang violence from @ 22:50)       

This is all said with recognition that many chavistas have acted against communes, the bureaucratic machine acts to co-opt much of their energy, its linguistically obscured the concept of "ownership” with that of “control”, and that the state has changed its messages over time. But the heart of the communes is what’s a priority, and they have acted against the government overstepping its bounds & mis-identifying them. But whats important is that there’s a feedback process in the gvt to actually allow them to assert their autonomy. Liberals will do their utmost to close those channels.

   If Guaido and the Popular Will take control of power, be assured that whatever gains made in organizing the everyday people of Venezuela will be at the top of the chopping block. How effective that suppression turns out to be is undetermined - it might turn out to strengthen the communes, but that outcome would be damage control, not something to try and bullseye.

Effective Propaganda knows that its more effective to control what’s left out than control what’s put in. Keep that in mind, and study trajectories and forces.

other links:

https://next.podbay.fm/podcast/1363342644/e/1551711604

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voc08vh9cJY

https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/21/a-cowboy-in-caracas/

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/the-tragedy-of-venezuela/

https://www.multpl.com/venezuela-gdp

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/fivethirtyeights-venezuela-problem

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-venezeulas-middle-class-is-taking-to-the-streets/

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bjkmq8/fiery-protest-leader-leopoldo-lopez-faces-13-year-sentence-in-venezuela

https://potent.media/minimum-sentencing-for-marijuana-possession

https://www.thoughtco.com/core-and-periphery-1435410

https://popularresistance.org/building-the-commune-radical-democracy-in-venezuela/

http://www.antiwar.com/regions/regions.php?c=Venezuela

[sweetlifetownsville]

The Blather Storm Gathers Strength: The Astonisher Is So Desperate For Love, Is Tinder Next?

BLAM! The Astonishers iditor scores another bullseye on her tootsie, while penning a paean of self-praise making the floods all about THEM, not YOU. For comic relief, it cant be bettered. Whats our deputy Doo Dah, Messagebank Walker not telling us? ThePie hears he is so upset with some Facebook jibes, that hes seeking legal advice. Also, the (old) gangs all here Townsville gets another council CEO with a chequered history. And THAT photograph of a female footy player to revert to a dismissive saying of his youth, The Magpie asks whats the hairy deal? And motor scooters dont usually make us laugh, but this one does. But first In these days of whine and posers, few things are hard to imagine as being impossible but The Magpie being genuinely indignant ON BEHALF of Pauline Hanson would be up there until this week. This screechy harridan is truly an ill-educated, blinkered ignoramus, but the set piece public bullying ambush on national TV during the week successfully cast her as a victim deserving sympathy and thats a role she doesnt really deserve. So David Koch and Derryn Hinch have more than their unprofessional behaviour to be ashamed of, but also the fact that it immediately gave Hanson the undeserved role of a victim of misogyny. The is a deplorable trend in pop media to mistake shouty bullyboy ranting as a justified replacement for clever and reasoned questioning. The smug stand-over tactics of the hugely self-satisfied talent-cipher David Koch was reinforced by a swearing and blaspheming Hinch. Any moral point they were trying to make on Sunrise i.e. that Hansons track record of anti-Islamic rhetoric played more than a totally speculative role in the Christchurch massacre was completely lost by their behaviour. Bentley was totally unimpressed.

These two dunderheads quickly learnt that their ranting was self-defeating, with viewers generally sympathetic to Hanson and making widespread calls for Koch to be sacked and Hinch well, well just have to wait on the ballot box for him to get his. The ABC Tries Its Hand At Soft Porn It was the week of THAT photograph of THAT kick. The image that dominated the public chatterati this week was this one AFL footballer Tayla Harris.

And the young lady can thank Channel 7 for the publicity she is now enjoying (well, she indicates she quite OK with the attention.) The pic was put up by 7 on their FB page earlier in the week, but when it attracted some totally predictable low comments from some pimply near-illiterate trolls, the station made the bizarre decision to remove the image instead of just the comments. This skewed logic suggested they agreed that the trolls had some sort of point with their totally unacceptable view of things. Cue predictable outcry over this sort of flinching management oafishness and back up it went sans comments of course. As is the world these days, this attracted a great deal of notoriety for the picture and for Ms Harris, and various members of the professional huffnpuff brigade. Now, you may find this hard to believe, but The Pie has looked and looked and looked examined this photograph at least a dozen if not 20 times, and was nonplussed as to what the whole thing was about. But then the awful truth dawned, courtesy of ABC TV news on Wednesday night. It was what was NOT being said that was the problem. The ABCs lengthy tut-tutting report showed, for reasons known only to themselves, a series of stop-motion pics of the entire Harris kick. Not once, but TWICE (roll through to 16.38 and 17.39 if the link is still up). The relevance or necessity of the extra pics is not immediately apparent. This very un-ABCish display hit like a freight train to the senses the lovingly slowed, later zoom, double dose started to take on the semblance of soft porn for the trolls and talk about the Streisand Effect (decrying the publishing of something magnifies its exposure tenfold). Because the one thing absolutely no one was saying was that the picture was undeniably sexy. And anyone who indignantly says otherwise is simply lying. Or dead. The athletic female form is every bit as sexy as that of a male perhaps more so, but it seemed everyone was tip-toeing around this fact. But The Pie let it all pass until the following night, when a further ABC TV report on the issue again featured the same series of photographs (scroll to 25.14), which started to look like an excuse to run the pics again and again. This was now beyond ingenuous. And it was dishonest, close up zooms and the like also making it clearly prurient. Of course, the whole thing was clothed in a finger-wagging moral tale, with the photographer wittering on about a beautiful, graceful, powerful image - which it is and some other thundering gorgon calling for detection and expulsion of the trolls if they were found to be gasp members of an AFL club. Speaking your mind on social media nowadays requires awareness, common sense and an understanding that private thoughts and grubby unattainable ambitions should remain just that, private. But the medias prissy denial of the reality in this instance, pretending that an obviously sexy image should not be seen as such, just aggravates the situation instead of taking a sober look at the issue. And an image like this can bring out the wrong reaction in the emotionally immature. Sport has always been inextricably linked with sex, indeed, born of it, the first instances of ancient games were devised to advertise the best genes available for breeding purposes and thats not a million miles away from the way sports like tennis, swimming, gymnastics and athletics are subliminally marketed today. And, like the seasoned exponents of other, established sports, Ms Harris and the other women who play AFL will soon get comfortable with the new reality and no doubt flaunt their new image for fun and profit. (As an AFL die hard, The Pie might be unkind enough to suggest the photograph was the only thing worth watching of the new womens league.) But even after rocking that vision back and forward a score of times, The Magpie admits he is stumped try as he might, he just cant see it what all the fuzz is about. The Bulletins New Slogan Its All About Us Well, thats what they meant, and at least thats a refreshing burst of honesty and hilarity. In what in The Magpies experience is an unfortunate first, Bulletin iditor Jenna Cairney has used a prominent two page spread (about $10,000s worth to punters) to tell us how wonderful she and her team have been for doing their jobs. Like hundreds of others, continuing to do their jobs despite suffering flood damage to property . And what tough times she and her battling journos had of it. Suddenly it was Were For Us ,and not Were For You.

Self praise is never any recommendation. But in this virtue-signally fest, a desperate bid to establish that the turnstile staff door at the Astonisher doesnt exist and everybody is here forever, Jenna comes spectacularly undone. First, theres this laugh-your-arse-off clanger

Despite in itself the highly questionable claim of who does what and where, (certainly much of the advertising layout is done in The Phillippines) the boast doesnt say much about the papers writing or subbing or local knowledge when it is featured above a picture carrying an incorrect caption. There is no intersection or corner of Norris Street and Queens Road, these streets run parallel and dont intersect, they are two blocks apart. The initial error could be forgiven, formed under trying circumstances but that was back then, now is now, where any sub with local knowledge wouldve picked it up, or at least checked. And real papers keep the archives updated. But thats not the only dubious claim when we read on.

Just love that line much of what they say will be true; much will be their version of the truth, and lets be blunt, some may be downright lies. That would make a much more accurate description of the Townsville Bulletin instead ofnthe mimsy Were For You, which by the way, is a News Corpse company-wide slogan for all mastheads across the country. So we are to trust you when you tell us 77% of locals read our content. As the Hotels Combined bear keeps saying Really? Lets see, total population of the immediate Townsville local area i.e. possible circulation, is, in round figures, about 250,000, 77% of which is 179,000. Yet the latest Roy Morgan readership figures show that on an average weekday, 43,000 see a Bulletin and on the weekends, 52,000 and almost all these readers are the same repeat readers, the Bulletin is not a destination for casual browsing. Nice try at creative accounting, Jenna, hope you dont do your books with this method. And your risible claim that we can trust the Townsville Bulletin is as believable as this little bit self-praise bollocks.

Pure and utter tosh, and the city knows it. But good job on youth crime, though, mate, herograms all round to your tough journalists. And boy, is your closing going to come back and bite you on the bum sometime soon.

Like they say in Hollywood, Jenna, when you can fake sincerity, youve got it made. It seems appropriate to follow those sentiments with this ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL WITH JENNY AND JENNA Make no mistake folks, were on the campaign trail, and its the Jenny and Jenna show from now until next March. Get used to it.The blizzard of bent bullshit is gathering force down at the Astonisher. We could have been excused for alarm and panic when we read the suggestion that our new council Chief Excecutive Officer is yikes!! Mayor Mullet herself!! Isnt that how anyone would see this at a glance?

But hang on, thats obviously an error in putting the story together, so lets ignore the click bait come on, and click through to the real story as it appears in the online Bulletin.

Nope, still looks like Mayor Mullet. But then we get to the story which is by established practice, usually summarised in photograph and headline and we find that the familiar-sounding Mike Chiodo has been bumped up from acting CEO to the full time gig. So lets look down through the story, see what this Chiodo bloke looks like. No luck! Seems the Bulletin hasnt got a pic of him to inform us what our new CEO looks like. So let The Pie help out here this is our man an why his bname souns familiar AS REPORTED IN THE MAGPIE JULY 15, 2017 EDITION.

New TCC CEO MIke Chiodo Back in 2017, that same article included this .

The mystery resignation was never publicly cleared up, but again, in July 2017, The Pie reported this interesting tidbit about Adele The Impaler Youngs NT chum and now successor.

Seems Mr Chiodo has hit on another sweet little earner in yet another city he is passing through. Look, he may be a fine administrator Christ knows, anybody will do after Adele Young but a bit more transparency at how the choice was made, and what other interest was shown in the position would have been well in order. But of course, Mayor Mullet is like Jenna, and just wants us to trust her. OK, Big Mama, we trust you yeah, right. A Little Messagebank Mystery

Deputy Doo Dah Les Messagebank Walker This floated into The Nest during the week from a Magpie contact (trust The Pie, please ). I read with interest an article you put together some while ago with respect to Wellards possible involvement with certain councillors and some unusual behaviour with feed lots and land. Step forward to our dispute in relation to the Cattle holding yards near Oak Valley. Plenty of opposition from the locals, and for good reason, the submission by the developer (Gary Dixon & Co aka Ronmar Rural Pty Ltd) was an absolute shambles. I suspect they have been trying to strong-arm the planners at the TCC to get their way. Regardless, I thought that you may find it interesting that Les Walker excused himself from chairing the Planning Committee meeting that heard the case. He alleges that posts on social media (I presume the private Oak Valley Facebook page) indicate that he has a relationship with the developer. There certainly have been some comments, but none that anyone who has a thick skin but is innocent wouldnt deflect with a chuckle. Therefore, quite curious behavior from our deputy mayor who he is apparently seeking legal advice on the matter. Thats now on The Magpie watch list. An Historical Bit Of Doggerel For Our Coming Federal Election Season. Some observations defy time and changing fashion, never to lose their core truth. This from Jonathan Swift 250 years ago. Let them, when they once get in, Sell the nation for a pin; While they sit a-picking straws, Let them rave at making laws; While they never hold their tongue, Let them dabble in their dung We may, while they strain their throats Wipeour arses with their votes. And Another Timely Reminder Of These Political Times It applies just about everywhere.

This Is Just Fall-About Funny Motorbike fanciers, cant yet afford that souped-up, scream machine youve always dreamed of? Heres your answer in the meantime. This Week In Trumpistan

Just when you think Americas Chump In Chief cant sink any lower in his increasingly demented ramblings, this week was dominated by his attack on much-loved war hero Senator John McCain. While a young Donald dodged Vietnam because of alleged bone spurs made him unsuitable for the armed forces, pilot McCain was captured by the Viet Cong but remained loyal and unbreakable through years of imprisonment, deprivation and torture. Of course, McCain couldnt reply to Trumps barbs, hes been dead some months now. Trump denigrated McCain viciously, and for no real apparent reason except McCain wouldnt go along with his loopy policies the response to the attack came from across America and was instantaneous, as reflected by cartoonists on all side of the political divide.

Another ridiculous week has gone by, and somehow, were still here. Hit the comments page with your thoughts or just for silly fun. And sincere thanks to those who have supported this blog with a donation, times are a bit skinny at the moment, funds are always needed to defray costs; if you can help out, the how to donate button is below, it will be greatly appreciated.. http://www.townsvillemagpie.com.au/the-blather-storm-gathers-strength-the-astonisher-is-so-desperate-for-love-is-tinder-next/

[ultimateseoorg]

Visit PBN, GuestPost or Syndication for Backlink Building for the whole story

Backlink Building

We can spend all day optimizing our pages for keywords that we researched for days and never rank content on Google Search.  Its just the cold hard fact that in SEO onpage optimization is the easiest thing and it used to work in the 1990s … heck back then you could keyword stuff and just repeat the same phrase enough in the background and you’d get some traction.  Yes, SEO is dead … if thats the SEO you are using.

Backlinks moved in and added some credence to the claims that our content should rank for this or that keyword.  It made sense, each site that links to you with the anchor text including your keyword was that site basically vouching for your content.  If thats all you think backlinks are then … Yes, SEO is dead … simply having a ton of links to your site isn’t a sure fire way to demonstrate that your content is rank worthy anymore.

Backlinks created a storm of opportunity in SEO for gaming the system and stacking the deck.  I love telling people about the Google Bomb Miserable Failure and how it defined George Bush in 2004.  Or the story of the downfall of JCPenny who mysteriously ranked number one for all manner of their products until Google took manual action and basically they have never recovered.  Those bring me to these games we developed in an effort to fool Google into making us number one in SERPs.

Link Building Schemes

Everything I’m going to mention below in this discussions is a link building scheme.  Just like buying multiple domains and having them all for one business, some call it a multi-domain strategy, all of these are understood to be below the belt with Google penalties in the wait.  But thats not exactly true, I strongly think theres a time and place for each of these tools today and they do all still work, it’s how you use them and why.

Anything done to increase backlinks is a link building scheme, thats basically the definition of it.  Which is why I roll my eyes when a client is interviewing me for backlink building and says “white hat only” … that means content improvement only.  Otherwise its all a scheme for building backlinks.

PBN Private Blog Networks in 2019

Backlinks are not dead.  You just cant have links pointing to you from irrelevant sites that have no purpose or traffic anymore.  Thats actually good and its making searches useful again.

But what you may call a PBN may be a workshop for testing, what if I as a high school english teacher assigned my 150 students to create blogs and made their homework to discuss the assigned books I’ve given them for the year?  They’ll all point to the same links likely.  Is that a Private Blog Network?  If you feel it is then are we saying that the students work, their content, is not going to be of value to someone else searching for that same book?

In the easiest terms a true PBN is simply a site thats up that has no real purpose other than to link to other sites.  You can spot them when you see them.  I’d argue that the example of the students I made is not one and its more so the intent of the author.  The student example though likely falls into most people’s definition of a link building scheme.

Effect of a Press Release in 2018

Press Releases for Backlinks

Sometime around the time PBNs were being hunted like vampires for de-indexing someone realized they could put links on publication websites with the ease of a press release.  They likely did it several times and each time it was a little less relevant … not newsworthy what they were announcing.

“Such And Such Company hires Dan Guy” isn’t of importance and no one other than Dan probably cares.  And they told someone else and it ballooned into abuse of Press Releases for backlinks which Google clamped down on to a large degree.  No-follow links started coming from the sites and the press release died.  But not totally.

Link Exchange / Reciprocal Links

Quid Pro Quo is more than just a sexual harassment term that means this for that.  I often get emails from people complimenting an article and then pointing out that they weren’t included in the topic and if I link to them, they’ll link to me.  Now honestly every chance Ive had Ive added the link and left the link back to the wayside … usually thats what I get and thats why folks hate swapping links because theres little reason to expect the link to remain in force.

I dont know what it looks like but I’ll know it when I see it.  Too bad it isnt that simple one person puts that phrase as “I know it when I see it, and someone else will know it when they see it, but what they see and what they know may or may not be what I see and what I know, and that’s okay.”

GuestPosts for Backlinks

Then someone decided, hey let’s write for each other.  And of course…that got out of control with Cat Blogs including Dog articles and Dog articles about catching mice.  The lines got blurred and it was hard to tell what was what.   Again though just like before its hard to tell when something is off limits, it makes sense for Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper to guest post on each others blogs before they do a New Years Eve special together … ( they were great, miss it) but … is that going to hurt their SEO on each others site?

It shouldn’t even though they are pretty darn different they have a legitimate reason and their viewers and readers probably eat that content up.  Again, the intent of the author is in play and the value to the readers.

Syndicated Articles for Backlinks

So a marriage of Press Releases and Guest Posts are Syndicated Content.  People generally freak out over it because of the fairy troll that someone made up called ” Duplicate Content ” it isn’t important.  Don’t waste time worrying about Duplicate Content.

Think about the Associated Press … they write an article about a war in some far off place and then 2000 news sites place the article on their homepages, does that mean that all those news sites are penalized?  No … and Google says and has said for a decade what I’m telling ya here.  There is in fact no Duplicate Content penalty.

But again its the intent of the author and the value of the content that decides if it’s a link building scheme.

User Behavior – Bounce Rate, Visit Duration

Google Analytics becomes a taddle tell.   How do we determine the value of content to the reader?  User Behavior is the biggest ranking factor these days.   We all love free right?  So we added Google Analytics everywhere and it tells us stuff thats really very sensitive about how people interact with our content.

Stuff that say a search engine company might want to know if it were trying to judge your site’s content using user behavior as the biggest metric for keyword ranking.  And BOOM now ya get it.  If ya don’t then go back onpage and say that keyword a few more times, cause you’re in the wrong class.

That free data is also the data that your giving to Google for free for them to track everyone on the web and determine how people interact with your content vs. your competitors site which likely also has Google Analytics.

No one in SEO really connects the dots … they help push clients onto Google Analytics but its been talked about before even on Moz.com they note 7 reasons why you should not use Google Analytics.  They point out in the fourth reason …

4. Giving Big G too much information.

Google sees everything you see. Think about that…they know everything. Do you really want to be responsible for giving them that kind of power? Supposedly that’s the trade off for the fact that…

How Do We Build Backlinks Then In 2019?

Use any method that actually fits the need, the tools above are all valid and in play.  You just cant abuse it and shamelessly do something in the goal to gain a backlink.  Share GuestPosts but put some effort into it and speak to the other site’s readers.  Send a press release but do it when its actually news worthy stuff.  If McDonald’s found a way to make organic fat free fast food that tastes just the same .. they’d likely make a press release and the user behavior would suggest those links are valid.

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Six-month-long stretches of seven-day work weeks and looming deadlines: What it takes to be a strategy guide author

Image: Christopher Mineses/mashable

Ancient map-making required mastery over the disciplines of mathematics and astronomy, the means and courage to venture into dangerous uncharted territories, inhuman patience, artistry and attention to detail, and the ability to perch on the cutting edge of every new technological advancement your cultures most talented minds could muster. David Hodgsons job is arguably more difficult and certainly more tedious.

Hodgson makes video game strategy guides which, much like ancient cartography, is a lost art of primitive methods and painstaking processes.

Not that Hodgson would complain. He started working at gaming magazines in the 90s, but was always drawn back to the world of strategy guides. Currently working on contract for Prima Games, the largest strategy guide publisher in the US, he gets access to some of the biggest games in the world months before the public. And he slaves over their every detail, spending months and months gorging on each new obsession.

I think it’s one of those jobs that you kind of have to pinch yourself, he told me in his workshop a converted guest house behind his Spanish-style Southern California home. The room is equipped with comfortable seating, a large wraparound desk housing three monitors, countless books most of them strategy guides lining floor to ceiling shelves on one wall, and various macabre knick-knacks, from Lovecraftian posters to the crown jewel: Two replica Egyptian sarcophagi flanking the flatscreen like golden guardian deities.

It’s one of those jobs that you kind of have to pinch yourself.

Exact statistics about strategy guide sales are closely guarded info, Douglas Walsh, another longtime strategy guide author, told me over Twitter. As you can imagine, the sales today have consolidated around a few big hits: Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto, things like that, he said. [Sales] have also dropped off considerably, especially for shooters. The Call of Duty and Gears of War books sell a fraction of the copies they used to. But a big hit, especially as a Limited Edition hardcover, can crack Amazon’s top 25. Fighting game books in particular (and Skyrim, GTA, etc.) have even cracked the top five.

Despite those isolated successes, the number of guides produced each year is down along with sales to about 60 every year, half of what the figure was in the PS2 era, Walsh said.

Like vinyl records, the strategy guide as we once knew it all but died as a medium with the internets rise, transforming by necessity into a niche market for hardcore collectors and hobbyists. Hodgson said hes one of around a dozen remaining strategy guide authors.

In the middle of the afternoon, the rays of golden California sunlight barely grazed the exposed rafters of Hodgsons lair. He wore a black t-shirt with the words Who are you a ghost of? a reference to his brother Ian Hodgsons experimental musical act, Moon Wiring Club, described on its own labels website as confusing English electronic music. Hodgson often speaks wistfully of his succulents, and hes frequently sarcastic, though in the dry English way that you barely register after a while.

Each guide Hodgson authors is a massive undertaking involving a six-month-long stretch of seven-day work weeks and looming deadlines, gargantuan organizational conundrums, word counts and page limits, two-week spans of 12-hour days spent hunched over monitors far from home in a game studios back room, trying to beat every quest in a 100-hour RPG. Hes been doing this long and well enough with somewhere over 100 guides to his name (he lost count around 80) that he gets to pick what games he tackles. He mostly chooses massive role-playing games like The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4, simply because he loves diving deep into overwhelmingly huge projects. These are the types of games that seem to get more complex with every release. Each new feature Hodgson must chronicle and quadruple-check is another grey hair in his tangled beard.

I have a very understanding wife, Hodgson said.

***

The process of creating a video game strategy guide is shockingly complex. Look, for example, at what it takes just to make the hundreds of maps that go into the average guide on which Hodgson works.

In the old days the 90s hed draw maps freehand on graph paper and hand them over to a designer. But the games back then were significantly smaller than the ones he writes guides for now.

He starts by doing fly-overs in a special debug version of the game that still contains developer tools, taking screenshots of every single inch of the games exterior locations. In the case of Fallout 4, that included 3.82 square miles of irradiated wilderness and crumbling city streets.

What I’ve done is I’ve flown over the entire tiles of the map, multiple times, inch by inch. I do a north-south pass, I do an east-west pass, over the course of a week, he said. This isn’t playing the game. This is me floating above each sector in the game and plotting it out.

This isn’t playing the game. This is me floating above each sector in the game and plotting it out.

The game wont be out for several months, and its still very much in development, which unfortunately means that dozens of the points he and his assistants and co-authors have plotted in these exteriors could change.

Then you have 500 maps that need to be drawn of all of the different interiors in the game, he continued. You have to figure out first how many interiors there are in the game. So you go to every location in the game, and you see how big it is, then you estimate it, then you tell [strategy guide maker] Prima, ‘It’s going to be about this big. Find more mappers please.

At this point, hes still far from done. I’ve figured out how many primary locations there are. I’ve then figured out how many secondary locations there are that don’t appear on your worldmap. Those are just like, Oh, it’s a shed. Does it appear as an icon on the world map? No. Shit. Well, it has to go in the guide, he said. I’m talking about stuff that isn’t even a quest-related location. I’m talking about a pond with some barrels in it. Maybe he doesnt have to be that thorough not all strategy guides take inventory of every nonessential part of the environment the author can find. But thats just his personality, and its part of the reason hes so good at this job.

With the exterior and interior maps more or less complete, the rough versions based on screenshots are sent to a team of around 20 designers. Its now been weeks since Hodgson first received the early build of the game, and he hasnt even written anything yet.

He hasnt catalogued, sorted and described every single gun, sword, helmet, potion, blueprint, material, artifact, food, enemy, character, spell and skill in the game; he hasnt completed every possible branch of each and every quest, mission, side-quest, bounty, treasure hunt and optional objective; he hasnt compiled strategies for every mini-game, tactics for every boss, solutions to every puzzle and tricks for every fight; and he hasnt taken the hundreds screenshots that need to accompany it all.

A lot of it isnt playing a game necessarily its just checking something in a game and then checking it against an Excel document or a map or something like that, he said. If Im playing Skyrim for 6,000 hours over ten months with a co-author, Im not Woohoo! playing Skyrim; Im going here and checking to make sure that the guides accurate at that location.

The part of my brain that says ‘You don’t need to be this meticulous’ doesn’t work.

The games change in sometimes major ways, even after the guide goes to print. In that case all they can do is update the guides online component and point readers to the web should anything in the final book prove inaccurate. Whenever possible, though, Hodgson redoes a lot of work every time he gets a new build. For 2001s 007: Agent Under Fire, for example, he had to retake all of the screenshots two days before the game was going to go to print because they changed the color of one of the lasers, he said.

The part of my brain that says ‘You don’t need to be this meticulous’ doesn’t work, Hodgson told me.

***

Hodgson began working in the video game industry in the mid 90s after graduating with a history degree from the University of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. Hed wanted to become a history teacher, but instead used a PlayStation fan zine hed started called PlayStation Frenzy to get a job at Maximum, a new gaming magazine from a media company called EMAP.

He wrote massive 40-page features on individual games a precursor of things to come in his career while living on a disused German fishing trawler called the St. Michael that he says was moored illegally on the River Thames in London. They had to siphon power from a nearby car scrapyard.

It sounds quite idyllic, but it wasn’t, he remembered. It was dripping with different weird poisonous acid from roofs that hadn’t been sealed, and it was sort of slowly dissolving.

I kept my PlayStation, but not my sanity, he continued.

Maximum folded after seven issues, and Hodgson went on to a brief stint at Official Nintendo Magazine before receiving a call from Dave Halverson, publisher of the popular GameFan magazine.

Hodgson moved to LA and worked on his first strategy guides at GameFan for games like Super Mario 64, Soul Blade and Doom 64 under the magazines GameFan Books division. He flitted among various publishers and magazines until 2000. He called Prima, at the time one of the biggest strategy guide companies (its main competitor, BradyGames, would later be bought by publisher Penguin Random House and folded into Prima). He sent Prima his Metal Gear Solid guide, and they assigned him Armored Core.

That was 16 years ago and I’m still doing it right now, he said.

***

Hodgson flipped lovingly through his creations as we chatted, pointing out where hed embellished a simple description with some flowery joke, or where hed really gotten into it and written entire sections in the voice of a character from the game.

That love goes both ways CD Projekt Red, developers of The Witcher 3, built Hodgson his own tribute in the form of book merchant Marcus T.K. Hodgson, a character in the games Free City of Novigrad.

We just wanted to honor David for all the awesome work he does, CD Projekt PR Manager Radek Grabowski told me over email. This is just a tribute.

The Witcher 3 tributes Hodgson in the form of book merchant Marcus T.K. Hodgson

Hodgson seems to always go above and beyond. His humor is often self-deprecating, but hes also proud when he talks about some of the things hes accomplished within the limited medium of strategy guides, like the note he received from Hideo Kojima about his Metal Gear Solid guide in 1998.

Strategy guides were usually just go here, do this, go here, do that. I wanted it to be a bit more of an ‘official mission handbook.'”

He loved the guide. He liked the fact that I’d put box-outs for the history of the forklift truck in the first level, Hodgson said. Strategy guides were usually just go here, do this, go here, do that. I wanted it to be a bit more of an ‘official mission handbook,’ we called it. Kojima said hed shown the guide to his mother, who didnt really understand video games but of course knew what a book was.

For 2004s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II Hodgson planned and orchestrated an easter egg on the strategy guides DVD pack-in: Pressing a secret combination on your DVD player remote results in a special menu where you can access videos in which the voice actor for HK-47, a popular droid from the games, quotes other famous fictional robots and AI. Hodgson was excited to get the voice actor involved for a secret he deemed so obscure although his assertion that Nobody A) cares or B) has ever found that, because we never published the easter egg code is more self-deprecating than accurate, based on the above YouTube video and this forum thread.

But he nevertheless lit up when he talked about it, or about the more creative work hes gotten to do, like A Fractured Land: Tales of the Northern Realms, a 96-page lore book that came with the hardcover edition of the official The Witcher 3 guide, or The Improved Emperor’s Guide to Tamriel, a 224-page illustrated guide to the lands of Bethesdas The Elder Scrolls Online that was packed in with the games Imperial collectors edition.

Hodgson wrote the Emperors Guide in character as the scholar Flaccus Terentius, conjuring the characters imagined journal entries as he walked the games fictional lands. It has annotations like Strange to find such Daedra worship among the devout, nestled next to detailed sketches, diagrams and paintings.

I studied history. Its sort of finding the evidence for something and then writing about it, and that was my transferrable skill, Hodgson said. If I wasn’t going to become a history teacher, I was going to maybe become a travel writer or something like that. And in a sense I am, except the places that I write about don’t really exist.

But travel writers dont go to Paris and painstakingly catalog every street sign and boulangerie.

Though travel writers much like strategy guide authors have been made obsolete. Why read a book about a place when you can simply search for photos of it on Instagram? Likewise, why buy an expensive book when everything you could want to know about every game ever made is a Google search away?

For one thing, you only have to look at one of Hodgsons guides to see the value for collectors and hardcore fans. And while the internet is always playing catch-up to catalog new releases in YouTube guides and Wikis, the official strategy guide arrives on day one (or earlier). That makes the physical strategy guide, ironically, the first choice for players who want instant, day one gratification.

“There’s a nice archaic nature to strategy guides that I enjoy. I can write about something that’s cutting edge, like Fallout 4, but I can publish it using 16th century technology.

Hodgson has his own reasons. I can’t show you the writings I’ve done for Maxim.com and Gamespy, because those sites aren’t there anymore, he said. Stuff disappears when you’re on the net. But this Akuji the Heartless strategy guide on paper, or in fact the Fallout 3 strategy guide that’s in the Library of Congress. So even after the bombs drop and we’re in the future apocalypse, you can go to the bunker down below the Library of Congress or even now, if you’d like to do it properly [and] you can search my books out. I think I’m the only person who will ever do that, but there’s a nice archaic nature to strategy guides that I enjoy. I can write about something that’s cutting edge, like Fallout 4, but I can publish it using 16th century technology.

***

Hodgson works on guides ten months out of every twelve, and he rarely plays video games for fun anymore. At the end of a long stretch, Im just sick of staring at screens, so I just go outside or I go and buy another aloe tree or an agave or a different type of succulent, he said. I maybe go on Facebook, but just to see what some of the people that I never get to see do. Friends.

You are suffering from extreme fatigue, and the dogs looking at you going I need to be fed and walked. Immediately, he said.

But if he quit tomorrow, hed still play games after a six-month sabbatical, at least. After your first week [off] youre just like Ah, sort of semi-retirement, this is great. This is fantastic, he said. And then another week goes by and youre sort of starting to get an itchy feeling. Cabin fever sets in. Youre like, whats next?

Hodgson recently wrapped up work on the Complete edition guide to The Witcher 3 and the official Watch Dogs 2 strategy guide, and at the time of writing hes putting the finishing touches on his Ghost Recon Wildlands guide. You can find his work wherever strategy guides are sold.

Mike Rougeau is a freelance journalist who lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and two dogs.

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