#arguably that could be the point of the campaign. for people in general to recognize there are stakes beyond which god gets their worship

[hauntedfalcon]

actually, upon seeing a totally unrelated post it occurred to me that people in Exandria think of the gods like people in America think of corporate brands, and I'm gonna turn that one over in my mind for a while

[thathomestar]

The 3 main things wrong with Destiny 2 right now

I've been enjoying my return to Destiny 2, but this has mostly been carried by the sublime gameplay. Most other aspects of the game are in desperate need of refinement, but these three are the major problems that are truly keeping the game bogged down in mediocrity.

Complete lack of narrative cohesion

It's no secret that "sunsetting" was one of the worst possible decisions Bungie could have made for Destiny 2. Removing whole swaths of the game that people paid real cash money is obviously awful, but the knock-on effects of this have been somewhat dire, primarily the fact that you can no longer experience a fairly important chunk of Destiny 2's story within the game itself.

New players starting Destiny 2 for the first time right now have no real entry point to the story. They get the New Light tutorial quests, which are terrible at introducing the world compared to how it was done in Destiny 1. If they bought the DLC, the earliest campaign they can play is Shadowkeep, one of the weakest stories in the game's history and one that makes no sense to new players. Not to mention that the seasonal story model, where you buy a battle pass every three months to access the new story content, locks out the story after the season is over. If you missed the big story moment from a past season, it's fucking gone forever! Fuck you!

There's not even an in-game cutscene viewer or a bare-bones written summary of the events that have transpired. There's an in-game timeline, sure, but it only gives you a sentence or two about the general events of a given DLC's story. It's basically nothing. Do you seriously expect people trying to understand the basic story of the game to go watch hours of Youtube videos to catch up? That's complete horseshit.

Confusing and aggravating pricing model

Some Destiny Youtubers have been stirring the pot recently about microtransactions, and this is not really about that. I'm talking about straight up purchasing the game. A recent change Bungie has made is a Legacy Collection, which bundles all the previous available campaigns together in a single pack. This is good! Why are they still available to purchase separately from the bundle? Like seriously, look at this store page:

This is a whole bunch of redundancy, and it only serves muddy the waters. "This is so people who have some of the DLC don't have to rebuy the ones they already own when they buy the bundle" that's stupid. There's two solutions to this: either A) have the bundle recognize which DLCs you own and offer a discount based on that (this is possible to do on Steam already), or B) just lower the price of the whole bundle to the price of the latest included expansion (which is Witch Queen, so $30) so people won't feel that bad about rebuying something they own. The latter is what FFXIV does. Buying the latest expansion gets you all the ones that came before it bundled in for $40. Easy. Makes sense.

Then we have the Forsaken Pack and 30th Pack. The Forsaken Pack should just be included in the free to play portion of the game. The fact that they culled Forsaken from the game but still charge money for that content is insulting, though the 30th Pack is arguably worse. $25 for a single dungeon and a single exotic weapon. For the record, dungeon keys, which give you access to two dungeons, is $20. A complete slap in the nuts ripoff.

Speaking of dungeon keys, the fact that dungeon keys have to be bought separately from its corresponding expansion is moronic. Regardless of the reasons Bungie does what it does with dungeon keys (or excuses people come up with for it), it ends up feeling like squeezing people for every dollar they have.

I know at the end of the day, Bungie is a business, and they need money to pay their staff and survive as a studio, but they really need to give some thought into how people actually purchase their game, the process they go through, what they see and encounter along the way, because for a lot of people it's really, really off-putting.

Lack of meaningful player interaction

So Destiny's whole thing is that it's an MMO, right? At the very least, it takes a lot of elements from more traditional MMO games. Something it does not do very well is get people to actually mingle with each other in a meaningful way.

When I play FFXIV, I can strike up a conversation with people hanging out in the main cities if I so desire. There will be people willing to engage in some small talk at the very least. You might tell someone you think their character looks cool, you emote at each other, maybe even add each other to your friends list. You basically cannot do this in Destiny. Text chat might as well not exist with how little I see people use it, and almost nobody opts in to voice chat during activities. People occasionally emote at each other in the Tower or in the field, and that's about it. I've made friends with random people playing FFXIV. I have not made friends with anyone playing Destiny.

Destiny also lacks a proper Group Finder feature common in most other MMO games. They've toyed around with adding matchmaking to raids, but that feature has been in Beta™ for roughly 7 years, so it's safe to say it's never going to properly get off the ground anytime soon. People trying to find pick-up groups for harder content have to use external sites (or know a guy who knows a guy, which is how I've gotten through most of D2's raids).

They have taken a small step in the right direction with player commendations, where you can rate whether people on your fireteam were fun to play with, were a stout ally, or fashionably dressed. This is good! But they really need to make it easier to communicate and form groups outside of matchmaking from within the game to truly take a big step forward.

just about the most interaction i ever managed to get in the tower

To summarize, you can't experience a large portion of Destiny 2's story within the game, trying to buy the game itself is convoluted and the pricing structure is all over the place (and kind of high in my opinion), and for an always-online MMO-style game, it's challenging to find groups or even make friends with other players. Destiny 2 feels like a game that is in desperate need of some true backend maintenance and development, but that kind of work doesn't translate into profit, so it is heavily minimized.

A player starting for the first time right now is not going to know who Cayde-6 is outside of a couple of references. He has been effectively excised from the game. Why should they care about his return in The Final Shape?

[saigontimemd]

Thoughts After C3E107

I think I'm getting irritated with Campaign 3. It took me a while to figure out why, but after the conversation with the Archheart, I think I've got an answer.

It's the huge mismatch between the story the DM wants to tell and what the characters of the party are capable of as people. I don't mean combat-wise, I mean personality-wise.

The narrative issue - what to do about Predathos, what to do about the Weavemind's forces, etc. - is one that requires characters to make a commitment to a course of action that takes all factors into account, and Bell's Hells as a collective are not fundamentally capable of doing that. Most of them are either apathetic to the gods or actively hostile to them; a lot of their attitudes are myopic and selfish.

The forces of the Red Moon are set to invade and colonize the planet, killing hundreds if not thousands of people as they assert themselves in whatever way they want.

Everything held in place by divine magic - such as it is currently - will be unleashed if the gods depart. We've seen that in small form with the demons that overran the Iridon Bastion - a lesson none of the Hells seemed to have realized will happen to the whole of Exandria without the gods' magic.

Ludinus clearly has designs on conquest, and he's arguably the most powerful arcane magic user in Critical Role right now, to say nothing of any powerful servants or sycophants he's able to draw to himself.

Almost none of the Hells seems to realize this - or at least give a shit about it.

Ashton blames the gods for every terrible thing that's happened to him, and hates them on principle anyway, petulant child that he is. FCG would be horrified at his friends' actions.

Dorian is consumed with vengeance, a dark inversion of his father's experience with far-reaching politics, and would rather see the gods destroyed if he could work his will, ignorant and/or apathetic of the countless lives that would be lost just to avenge his brother.

In spite of being revived by the Everlight - a life-changing, paradigm-shifting experience for most people - Laudna continues to be apathetic at best about the gods, seeing them as distant and irrelevant.

Fearne, even having made strides in not being so mindlessly selfish, is still too enticed by the chaos and possibilities of a world without the gods to feel too strongly about saving them. She's got power approaching divine within her very being at this point, and she can theoretically protect her friends, so who cares about the rest of the world.

The rest are wild cards.

Imogen still isn't quite sure what she wants, whether she wants to even be rid of her powers or not. She's shown signs of understanding the bigger picture, but she'll go whichever way she feels in the moment.

Chetney has seen kingdoms rise and fall and understands that dramatic events are necessarily the end of the world, but also seems to recognize a catastrophic possibility when it presents itself. He's concerned about himself (and the rest of the Hells to a lesser extent) but as long as the decision doesn't pertain to one of his few hangups, he's made historically sound decisions.

Orym, Captain Exandria, is about the only member of the Hells with his head screwed on straight, but his complete inability to see himself as anything but a disposable bodyguard has prevented him from taking the reigns of this unwieldy beast of a party in spite of proving himself hundreds of times over to have more sound judgment than anyone else. He doesn't care much for the gods in general, but out of anyone he's the one who understands their necessity in both the wider ecosystem of Exandria and their aid in the coming conflict.

Now, the party is not alone in this. Matt, for better or worse, has not only put this monumental decision - save the gods or not - before a party that mostly dislikes the gods, but has almost completely failed to impress upon them the value of keeping the gods. There have been moments (the bull in Uthodern, the Iridon Bastion) that's shown a world without them, but the players aren't transferring this information from the context it first appears in to a greater understanding of the consequences of the path they're on. They're not fucking getting it. If anything, he's continued to present various perspectives on getting RID of the gods, to the point where it's been obvious there's a disconnect at times between what the players as people want to do and what the characters they're playing would do.

I'm still enjoying the performances and storytelling, but it's been an increasingly frustrating experience watching the characters stare the fate of the world in the face and just kind of give a shrug. Campaign 2 was my introduction for CR, and it felt like that campaign had a good balance between morally ambiguous heroes and doing the right thing, but Campaign 3 feels like it's gotten lost in its own moral complexity. I don't mind an 'evil' campaign, but this just feels like watching a bunch of selfish assholes twiddle their thumbs over the end of the world.

[mariacallous]

As the often-quoted sentence goes, “The first casualty of war is the truth.”

I would argue that “casualty” is not merely an innocent byproduct of war but deliberately targeted.

As a twenty-year veteran of the journalism industry—two decades spent mainly covering war and violence—I can attest to that and how each “side” is trying to lure and manipulate with their messaging—what some might even call propaganda. I can attest to how each “side” will lie or try to cover up the truth, even when a “side” claims to have a higher moral standing.

I can also attest to just how hard it is to navigate through the many pieces of information hurling themselves in your direction, coming from sources on the ground, eyewitnesses, officials, and social media, which is a beast of its own with its trolls and state-sponsored cyber armies. Add to that journalists’ emotional reaction to the images the world sees and the words heard from survivors.

As the media, we need to realize the role we play in the trajectory of events. Our role can either inflame or educate and explain by building bridges of empathy and understanding.

Looking at the coverage of what is happening between Israel and the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attack by the militant group Hamas, it feels like we’re catapulting ourselves toward this abyss of sheer and utter inhumane madness.

The events take me back to the drums of the Iraq war after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks—a runaway train where many Western, especially American media, cheered this effort and the US narrative of “good versus evil.” Oversimplification is so dangerous.

I was in New York City on September 11 and not yet a journalist. My body trembled in fear and confusion as I witnessed the second World Trade Tower come down. I remember how the streets were so eerily deserted at first; the only people out were those looking to donate blood or somehow help. At the time, I thought, “This is how we should treat each other. This is the sort of kindness I want to be a part of.”

But then it all changed.

I remember the hatred and vitriol spewed towards Muslims and people of Middle Eastern and North African descent. It was something that I was spared being a direct target of, despite being an Arab-American of Syrian heritage, simply because I am blond with green eyes.

I also remember watching how, somehow, all Arabs and Muslims got painted with this terrorist brush; watching coverage that lacked nuance and understanding. It was what pushed me to become a journalist.

I remember how Arab rage at the Iraq war was somehow twisted by many in the media as Arab support for al-Qaeda, which could not be further from the truth. How the calls of the few compared to the entire population of the Arab world of “death to America” and “death to Israel”—for the two are magnetically connected in the minds of Arabs—somehow ended up being the loudest voice. The reality was that Arabs did not want an American war in Iraq; not because they supported al-Qaeda; not even because they supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein—for most did not—but because they did not support war. Back then, the Western media played a role. It aided and abetted the United States and its allies in their campaign to villainize and dehumanize Iraqis, Arabs, and Muslims.

Despite being so deeply reminded of the past, this present that we are living in is very different and arguably even more dangerous. Military commanders and even President Joe Biden are warning of the lessons of the past; of the point in time when “victory” will be declared and how there needs to be a plan for “peace.”

I fear that, in that planning, based on everything I am seeing and hearing now from heads of state to people on the street, the intense impact of the emotions generated now is not being planned for at all. Or even more disturbing, it is being planned for: a complete and total meltdown of humanity, which we will all be complicit in bringing around. 

For it is not quite the same as the post-9/11 era. This juncture we are in is potentially more divisive, dangerous, and destructive. There is a much deeper, darker history here with a deeply embedded generational trauma, all of which makes the emotional component of this even more intense. Make no mistake: emotions play such a big part in warfare. There is a reason why there’s an “information war.” It’s because a significant component of military strategy is not just troop movement on the ground nor striking strategic targets but psychological operations. These psychological operations target not just the population against whom war is being waged but all of us.

We need analysts to break down the information war and how it plays and preys on emotions and trauma. I am not talking about military or other analysts who talk about the mechanics of the information war or state that it’s a big aspect of war, but rather psychological analysts who can explain how that impacts our psyche and thinking towards each other. We need to show and analyze the human reaction to hearing words like “human animals,” “rats,” and “children of light versus children of darkness,” and break down how that can dehumanize an entire population and what the risk of that is.

No armed entity can gather support and power without being able to point to pain in the past and say, “Look what has been happening. Look at the pain you suffered. I am the only one who can protect you from your biggest fear.”

No nation can gather support for war within its borders or from its global allies without painting its enemy as “less than.” A life worth less than yours. A life that is not human; not human in the way that you are. A life that doesn’t love like you, laugh like you, hurt like you. This is how we end up, consciously or not, accepting the significant loss of civilian life.

We cannot allow this to happen again. As the media, we cannot let ourselves be a pawn in a dehumanization campaign.

As the media, we need to dive into the emotional aspect of all of this as part of the coverage. Every one of our actions is driven by an emotional reaction—a desire for revenge, anger, hatred, and fear. We need to include emotional analysis, experts who can talk about collective and generational trauma, and the impact that that has had on getting us to this point. It is one thing to analyze events that lead us to a certain point, and it is another, deeper, and necessary thing to talk about how emotions drove the actions that led us to that point.

The polarization that I see is frightening, whether it’s antisemitism on the rise or growing Islamophobia. It is utterly appalling to hear about a six-year-old Palestinian-American child being stabbed to death in a hate crime. It cuts me to listen to an Arab friend tell me about her relative living in the West spat on and told, “You should all be killed.” It is sad to see a Jewish mother post on social media that she is losing followers because she posted about her son’s Bar Mitzvah, a celebration of their faith. It is wrong to hear about some Jewish schools in London closing because of fear.

The Western media needs to give more space to Palestinians, and we all need to really listen and treat their words as if we are hearing them for the first time. There is this very wrong “normalization” of the “plight of the Palestinians”—perhaps because it has been going on for so long—for more than seven decades—and the media “spotlight,” being as limited as it is, kept moving on. Palestinians are right when they question why the outcry and the coverage of their pain is muted. To those networks who do think they are covering “both sides” because they have the one package out of the Gaza Strip and one guest, it’s not enough when the rest of your coverage is leaning so heavily into military operations or, even worse, consists of a lineup of mostly older white men who have not tasted, smelled, nor felt what war feels like on the other end of an American or an Israeli bomb. They are experts who have not lived or experienced, in this scenario, the “Arab” side of it.

On the flip side, non-Western media—especially Arab and Arab-owned media—should not continue to bypass the pain and trauma of the survivors of the Hamas attack and the parents, friends, and family of those taken hostage. I have watched a lot of different networks’ coverage of these events, and while I might have missed it, I did not once see the pain that the Hamas attack caused in Israel reported on. Space needs to be made for Jewish and Israeli voices on such outlets. Not all Israelis support their government’s policies, the illegal settlements, or the oppression or occupation of Palestine. And not all Jews across the world support Zionism or what Israel has done.

We cannot abdicate our fundamental responsibility as the press: to question, confront, and probe all sides; to call out lies and crimes no matter who is committing them. All media outlets need to rise above this notion that, if you cover a person’s pain, you somehow take a “side.” Pain is pain. We must be allowed to see the pain of our “enemy.” For some—and I do believe it is the few; I want to believe it is the few—it will bring them joy and a sense of vengeance to see the pain of the “enemy.” But, for the majority, perhaps, it will make them question and probe why they reacted a certain way, hopefully leading to more understanding.

We need to be allowed to see that the “enemy” is not monochrome. I believe that, for the majority, it will make them realize that perhaps what they have been conditioned to believe might not be the whole picture.

The media needs to realize and recognize the role we can play in fueling polarization and hate, whether that be through simply negating or disregarding a person or a population’s pain. We did play a role in fomenting the deep hatred post-9/11 that ultimately led to a more violent world. We need to be hyper-conscious not to play that role again.

I can see the trajectory we are on—this spiral of animosity and the growing monster that fuels a madness we will not be able to control. I can see a world filled with more hate and violence that will impact not just our generation but generations to come. And I can see the media’s role in preventing that. There are many aspects of this that we cannot alter, but we can ensure that we are not pushing divisions. We need to be stronger and better than the pressures on us—be it pressure from our government, our bosses, and even our own emotions.

We must build a world with more power in the truth than in the lie.

[grubloved]

I mean I feel like you could personally think that humanity as a whole is bad or that it would be better if we all disappeared but still recognize that that isn’t going to happen so all you can do is maximize the positive impact of your existence, do as much good as you can, spread kindness, be the change you want to see and all that jazz

the thing is that this idea of humanity as a whole being bad is demonstrably untrue!

just 100 companies produce 70% of the world's co2. the systems created by people in power are the destructive force, not individual people. we have lists of the names of the people who are directly responsible for the majority of the destruction.

it is so, so much not humans (general). it is "these specific people & their greed".

the idea that the problem has EVER been humans (general) is arguably the best and most effective propaganda campaign ever launched. the people who want you to think that it's all humans are the people who are directly responsible for all of this. if they make YOU guilty, too, then you can't do as much to fight them. you can't name their names or point, you can just say humans (general) are bad.

[soren-apologist]

i’ve seen a lot of modern au stuff where ike is portrayed as struggling in school and more or less fitting into the “meathead jock” stereotype except for having some emotional awareness and common sense, but... do we really know he isn’t smart?

we have actual evidence of fe lords kind of being dumbasses in academic fields (ephraim lol), but we’re never really shown anything with that for ike, seeing as he’s a common mercenary who didn’t get tutoring in a formal sense. and yeah, that might suggest that he wouldn’t have great schooling, but considering how greil was a famed rider of daein, i’d imagine he’d have enough knowledge to impart upon ike and mist that they’d have a fair bit more knowledge than the average merc. yeah ike didn’t really know laguz existed until he was like 17, but that arguably could be because, spoiler warning, his memories of his childhood were lost after seeing greil kill elena. thing is, i’m not even sure greil was aware that ike saw that, or even had his memory wiped, so i think it’s pretty likely that he just assumed ike remembered life in gallia, and that he didn’t need to explain why there were furries everywhere. actually if my theory is right the scene in the forest when they’re explain laguz must be really confusing to greil, like “wtf ike how did you forget the huge lion man you saw all the time”

and then people take his short words for him not being good with words and language, but based on all the amazingly sassy lines he gets in both 9 and 10, that doesn’t really seem to be the case. in fact, ike chooses to only say what’s necessary and be straightforward about everything because of how he views the world, and after having seen the dumpster fire of the senators of begnion, he’d especially think that covering up the truth with pleasantries and dishonesty would just lead to more issues (he’s actually right, too— the senators used being overly pretentious and lavish to hide the fact they caused the genocide that very nearly made an entire race go extinct. for 20 years everyone thought that reyson was literally the only heron alive).

the closest sort of thing we have for a case to be made that he isn’t great at things like math would be this line from heroes:

but honestly, i don’t think it’s trying to say he can’t manage it. it seems more like a cute nod to how soren keeps track of the finances, and just gives ike a report at the end of the day. once he gets a handle on being commander of the mercs, it seems like managing company finances isn’t a massive struggle to ike.

or maybe he’s just too gay for math idk

but we’ve got a lot of evidence pointing towards the idea that he’s actually got a pretty good head on his shoulders. we have to remember that he’s a military commander, and later general, that’s shown to be incredibly talented even if he’s following soren’s strategies and not his own, seeing as he’s led the greil mercenaries to victory for a number of battles that seemed impossible for them to succeed in. he won a seemingly-impossible war only after having been a commander for maybe a little over a year when he’d only been legally an adult for half that time, so i’d say that’s pretty impressive.

he’s also sort of charismatic in his own way, seeing how he managed to convince the hawk tribes and reyson to join their cause, even if it was from the fact he was too stubborn to let leanne off his back and potentially subject her to danger. when he’s made general for a second time against his own reluctance, sigrun tells him that he’s the only person they could all agree on due to his history, and it’s likely he’s one of the only individuals that would be fully respected by the entirety of the empress’ army. i think the best part of that is that, even with all the fame and power he’s been given, he never loses sense of himself and gets a big head. i mean, his response to sigrun saying that he was the only one who was important and beloved enough to serve as general was him essentially saying “ugh fine, but you’re getting a heck of a bill once this is over,” meaning that even in the face of power he still just views himself as a common mercenary.

while he is admittedly kind of naïve at the start of fe9, throughout the campaign it becomes evident that he’s actually a very good judge of character, and he can catch on to things before others. there’s actually a load of evidence for this, like how he’s willing to believe elincia’s telling the truth about her being a princess, or how he very quickly recognizes the fact that the senators of begnion are scumbags (a note i wanted to add to that, he’s actually able to piece together sanaki’s plans for exposing oliver without it needing to be explained to him outside of the missions the mercenaries were hired for. seriously, ike is a lot smarter than he seems at first). meanwhile, even if you’re not having him support soren he catches on to the fact that there’s something bothering him, and then there’s how he was willing to trust both volke and sothe, especially considering titania advised him not to continue work with the former because of how he was kinda sketchy. if nothing else, he’s empathetic and clever. also i’m like 90% sure that a number of enemy bosses get fucked over real bad after assuming that ike would be a bad leader ‘cause they think ike’s just a dumbass kid with no clue what he’s doing

bruh i blame fates and smash for making people think he’s a meathead

#letikebesmart2k21

[chiseler]

The Chiseler Asks Noam Chomsky About Israel-Palestine

Yesterday, May 24, 2021, Daniel Riccuito of The Chiseler conducted the following email interview with Noam Chomsky.

Daniel Riccuito: This latest assault against Gaza seems contradictory: both part and parcel of Israel's abiding agenda and more obviously cynical, bearing no relationship to the usual talking points about national defense, etc.  Is it wrong to overestimate public opinion as surprisingly informed, seeing through Israel’s state propaganda more swiftly this time around?

Noam Chomsky: Each time Israel launches some barbaric act of terror, its sophisticated Hasbara system faces a more difficult task of justification, and its grip on popular opinion weakens.  The horrors of Israel’s latest war against the civilian society in its Gaza prison are impossible to suppress, so propaganda seeks to restrict attention solely to Hamas rockets attacking innocent Israel in an act of unprovoked aggression:  every country has a right to defend itself, and in self-defense Israel has been remarkably restrained considering the nature of the Hamas attack.

That still works in some circles, but fewer than before.  Though the media do not convey anything like the hideous reality of Israel’s murderous strangulation of Gaza or the regular brutality of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, nevertheless a fair amount is seeping through, a good deal more than before, enough for many to dismantle the propaganda line.

Yes, Hamas is a pretty awful organization and Palestinians deserve much better. But there are ways to deal with its rocket launches.  The narrow answer is to eliminate the reason for them.  Many are aware that they were fired in retaliation for Israeli crimes in Jerusalem, particularly the military attack on worshippers in Al-Aqsa.  Hamas announced a deadline saying that unless the attacks stopped by then it would retaliate with rockets.

The more fundamental approach is to end Israel's vicious imprisonment of Gaza, which has rendered it virtually unlivable, without even potable water, let alone any hope for decent survival.  A brutal jailer and torturer is hardly in a position to ask how to defend himself from occasional resistance by the prisoners.  I think more and more people are coming to understand that, despite intensive suppression of the background, which continues.

Along with the limited reporting of the barbarity of Israel’s periodic assaults, the deepening recognition of Israel’s exploits in the illegally occupied territories and within its borders is making it harder to sustain the image of the embattled guardian of democracy and righteousness in the region.

Daniel Riccuito: Is the solidarity among geographically divided Palestinians (East Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank, and within Israel) wholly unprecedented?

Noam Chomsky: Not unprecedented, but taking new forms as circumstances change.  One change, which has received some notice, is the further “Judaization” of the few cities where there still are remnants of the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, “mixed cities,” so-called.  Resentment of the further marginalization and repression of the Palestinian minority seems to have been a factor in the protests there against the Israeli actions in Greater Jerusalem, initially dispossession of still more Arab families in Sheikh Jarrah, then the assault on Al-Aqsa worshippers, among other events.  One was Israel’s decision to prevent East Jerusalem participation in forthcoming Palestinian elections for the first time, in violation of its commitments under the Oslo accords, another step in Israel’s imposition of its nationalist-religious agenda in the Greater Jerusalem it has established, a core part of the Greater Israel project it has imposed throughout the West Bank.

Daniel Riccuito: I won't ask for predictions, but are there specific opportunities available, here and now, to those committed to seeing a semblance of justice for Palestinians?

Noam Chomsky: There definitely are opportunities.  For the first time, there are calls in mainstream media for cancellation of US military aid to Israel along with congressional legislation calling for conditioning such aid (Betsy McCollum).  These are openings that can be pursued well beyond.  This unparalleled aid to Israel is in violation of US laws that bar aid to military units engaged in systematic human right abuses.  The IDF provides many candidates.  Many Americans can come to understand that.  Even a threat to the huge flood of aid could have major policy repercussions.

A more far-reaching issue that should be highlighted is Israel’s nuclear weapons programs.  The US pretends not to know that they exist, for good reasons.  Abandon the pretense, and serious questions arise about whether all US aid to Israel is illegal under US law because of Israel’s development of nuclear weapons outside the framework of international arms control agreements.  By bipartisan agreement, and media complicity, that crucial matter has been effectively suppressed.

And it is crucial.  A lot is at stake, quite apart from the legality of US aid to Israel.  One obvious matter is a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.  That has been strongly supported for years by the Arab states, Iran, the Global South (G-77), with general support in Europe. It is regularly vetoed by the US, most recently Obama.  The unspoken reason, of course, is what I have just described: protecting Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons system, and arguably illegal US aid to Israel.

A ME NWFZ with effective inspections is entirely feasible, as we have seen before Trump dismantled the Joint Agreement on Iranian nuclear programs (JCPOA).  It would go far beyond the JCPOA in ending alleged concerns about an Iranian nuclear threat.  It would end any shred of justification for the vicious US sanctions on Iran, to which Europe is compelled to conform.  It would end a very serious threats of escalation to major war.  It would lay the basis for punishing Israel for its campaign of assassination and sabotage against Iran, and its threats of much worse.

In brief, such initiatives could have major consequences.  All matters that would be of much concern to Americans if they knew about them.

There is a lot more that can be done.  Choice of tactics is no trivial matter, a consideration that should be second nature to activists.  The choice must be based on realistic assessment of existing circumstances – not what we might like them to be, but what they are.

Existing circumstances in Israel-Palestine are not obscure.  For 50 years, Israel has been systematically creating a Greater Israel in the West Bank in which it takes for itself whatever it finds of value while bypassing Palestinian population centers so as to avoid the dread “demographic problem”: too many non-Jews in a “democratic Jewish state,” an oxymoron more difficult to sustain with each passing year.  There is no need to run through the details, evident on the ground.  Greater Israel is so closely integrated into Israel proper that Israelis are barely aware of the international border.  The creation of Greater Israel has been undertaken in brazen defiance of Security Council resolutions and in perfectly conscious violation of international law.  It has been advanced across the Israeli political spectrum, with only marginal opposition.  Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, for example, were among its most forceful proponents.

Discussion of tactics and options is meaningless unless this reality is recognized.  In particular, current 1-2 state debates are empty unless the Greater Israel option is recognized.  As long as the option exists, we can be confident that Israel will never consider disappearing in favor of “one state” --- that is, a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority.  Nor is there any force in the world supporting this, or likely to be such a force in the foreseeable future.

Tactics therefore have to be directed at undermining the Greater Israel option. There are many possibilities: an arms-trade embargo conditioned on terminating this project, for example.  Insofar as that can be accomplished, other options can be considered.  I won’t proceed here but it takes little thought to recognize what the possibilities are.  What is important is to keep all of this clearly in mind in devising ways to reach some tolerable settlement, one that can be a basis for moving on to something better.

[renatogpadilla]

FFVI as a D&D Campaign:

OK, so I've been watching "Critical Role" (Campaign 1, Episode 31, no spoilers!) a LOT lately and it got me thinking how FFVI (arguably the BEST "Final Fantasy" game out there) is essentialy that. The biggest moments could be atributted to CRAZY rolls! I can see each of the characters being played by one of the people at the table! * Marisha as Terra Branford: Would be phenomenal. Her mentality is kinda in-line with Keyleth's. The "Kill Their Own Emotions" moment in the boat shakes the table as a whole. And when it's time to run an orphanage and protect her kids from Humbaba, the emotion in her voice destroys everyone in the Party. The "Mama?" moment becomes the most fan-arted moment for her character until the final fight. Her Trance ability is agreed to be the coolest looking skill at the table. To say nothing of the way she'd react to the whole Slave Crown bussiness!

Matt: "She killed 50 imperial soldiers in a few minutes." Marisha, and the whole table: *S H A K I N G*

* Taliesin as Locke Cole: "Treasure Hunter!" every single time somebody calls him a thief or a rogue. The "Rachel" story would be absolutely heartbreaking with Taliesin's expressions. The solo-sneak through the town while meeting Celes would be one of the highlights of the Campaign... That and his frienship with Terra would only be accentuated by Taliesin's and Marisha's irl friendship. Not to mention him puking on the ship would serve as some comedic timing straight out of "Critical Role"! Also, "That bow looks good on you" LAUNCHES the ship to heights undreamt of.

* Sam as Edgar Figaro: I mean, COME ON! IT WRITES ITSELF! Besides, it would be enjoyable to see him use his -Artificer- Machinist abilities as creatively as he does! Can you IMAGINE him rolling high enough one day and then he just creates the Noiseblaster? And with that he pulls out the microphone every time he uses it and proceeds to shout some thing Scanlan would be proud of... Not to mention his friendship with Sabin would be amazing if played by Sam! "The little shrimp has become a mighty Lobster!" You can HEAR Sam Riegel's voice come out of that! And the two headed coin? Now THAT's a Scanlan! This without mentioning the violations of the Geneva Convention that the Bioblaster would certainly entail...

* Laura as Celes Chere: I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Meeting Locke in the dungeon? The apparent betrayal? THE OPERA HOUSE?! "I'm a former General, not some... Opera floozy!" TELL ME you don't hear Laura Bailey saying that! And then she rolls a Natural 20 on performance and EVERYONE looses their shit! Her Runic ability is the target of MANY close saves. Also, the way Locke and Celes' interactions happen, she'd be perfect opposite Taliesin. The chat on the bridge in Albrook? HEARTSTOPPING. The attempted suicide? You KNOW Matt would call the sesion there!

* Travis as Sabin Figaro: This one was obvious. Monk/Barb that gets mistaken for a bear, and acts like an absolute teddy bear around Terra? Yes. Gods above, YES. "You think a tiny thing like the end of the world was going to be enough to keep me down?" You heard Grog too, right? The moments would be worth MILLIONS. The Opera house and Travis going "Why is everyone singing?" and then getting more and more into it! Him holding up the house for Celes! "MISTER THOU"... But best of all, and probably the single most famous Sabin moment EVER, The Phantom Train:

Matt: The train tracks suddenly lurch to the side. Even after this long and hard-fought battle it seems *chukles* it seems this train isn't letting you get away with your lives. That brings us to you, Travis! Travis, on his 5000 IQ shit: I grapple the train.

Entire Table: ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!?!

Matt: No way in hell are you gonna- You know what? Roll for it. *Picks up dice for the Train* Taliesin: He's dead. He's so fucking dea-

Travis: NATURAL 20.

Entire Table: *Silent disbelief, everyone looks at Matt*.

Matt: *Also in disbelief* ...Rolled a 1.

Entire Table: *Inintelligeble gasping and hyperventilating*

Travis: I'm going to use my last Blitz as Meteor Strike and suplex the Train!

Matt: *Looking at the sheet, knowing damn well what's about to happen* Go ahead and roll for damage...

Travis: *Rolls for damage*

Matt: *Braces for impact* How do you wanna do this?

Entire Table and the Internet: *EXPLODES*

The Fanart keeps coming, even YEARS after the Campaign is done...

* Liam as Setzer Gabbiani: Since he's LITERALY "Mister Steal Your Girl", I think Liam would be PERFECT. Just imagine him getting set up as this suave and smooth rougue who wanted to kidnap a beautiful singer and then gets Laura instead! (Which isn't entirely wrong...) IMAGINE his expresions and his dissapearing under the table laughing as the others barely climb aboard The Blackjack. THE ENTIRE PARTY giving him shit for a low roll on a Wisdom Check (the double-headed coin) and him segwaying that into joining the party, only to find out that he actually knew all along... Priceless. The total and undistilled heartbreak as his ship falls apart, him trying to reach out for Terra and everyone falling on different places. And then meeting Celes a year later and doing the whole Daryll story... Liam would be the one to steal the audience every time he takes the spotlight! Though he would be a little like Percy in the sense that he doesn't get much to do until his arc happens.

"Money, Money, Money!" every time he throws coins to attack, the loaded dice (in character, not at the table?) and the card throws would make him so stylish in a D&D setting I'll be surprised if somebody hasn't done it already.

* Ashley as Relm Arrowny: She takes forever to join because of her constantly being away for filming, but once she's here? HOO BOY, does the fun keep coming! Her paintings coming alive and helping them fight? Her giving Sam shit for Edgar's love life? "Fuddy-Duddy!" becoming A Thing? All of those moments would be hilarious... But probably her most notorious moment comes when they find her a year later, serving a posessed brush, telling her to paint, paint, paint under the Magic House... "Keep painting until I'm complete..." The party snaps her out of it before she finishes the greatest painting she's ever done, her Magnum Opus, and then the painting coming alive prematurely in order to force her to finish... To give her form. And then the Lakshmi boss fight happens... Matt: And with the last of her strength gone, the banshee-like apparition dissipates into mist, and before any of you can react, Relm's magic brush begins to glow, like it had when you first came in here. The glow slowly creeps off the hairs and darts! Off towards the mistified form of it's mistress, enveloping itself into a thicc layer on top of the mist, swirling around... and around and around.

Ashley: Oh god, now what?

Matt: The colors dissipate, and Lakshmi unleashes a terrible wail! *DM monster noises* As it is now joined with this colorful cloud... And it compresses, smaller and smaller... And more solid until it's not mist anymore.

Marisha: *Gets it* ¡WAIT A MINUTE!

Travis: *Exited* ¡OH SHIT, HOLD ON!

Matt: The fog dissipates... And the calm returns to Relm's senses. Ashley you are now holding an innert, ordinary paint brush. However! Floating in the air, you see a crystal with a small glowing core, the particular essence of Life embeded in the middle, Terra you *points at Marisha* feel this and recognize it instantly, as it falls to the ground, and bounces a couple times... A brand new shard of Magicite.

Party: *FERAL LOOTING*

"Lakshmi" becomes the most PAINFUL fanart to make, and it's ALWAYS the one that's valued the most among the fandom.

The rest of the Party (Strago, Umaro, Mog, Cyan, Gau and GoGo) can be the guests that come over every once in a while (I particualrly see Wil Wheaton as Strago Magus, Mary McGlynn as GoGo and Will Friedle as Clyde "Shadow" Arrowny) with Shadow coming and going with the excuse that "His contract is up" (and let's face it, after surviving/witnessing the Phantom Train? My contract would be up too...) and coming back whenever his schedule/the plot allows. Eventually, everyone comes together for one last session and the battle with God Kefka. Setting their affairs in order, the reveal of who Shadow really is during a lone chat with Strago shakes the Critters to their core. Everything makes sense! Why Interceptor went straight to Relm when they met... Why his nightmares kept showing a village of magic users, yet they never mention Shadow in Thamasa! The group is RATTLED and wether or not he survives at the end becomes a HEATED argument between everyone at the table. Only Strago knows the truth...

The sendoff on The Falcon with everyone saying goodbye and seeing what the World will bring next is regarded as one of the most emotional scenes in "Critical Role" history... But the most completely DESTRUCTIVE force in this entire cast is Matt Mercer as Kefka Palazzo:

The personality... the narrative... The absolute slime in his voice when he poisons Doma. When he kills Leo and brings forth the Light of Judgement. Matt definitely has his moments playing Ultros. He's fun! And Emperor Ghestal was more of a political "Darth Sidious" villain. But Kefka? OH, LORD. NOBODY was ready for Kefka. "Enjoy the barbicue!" gets memed to no end, while also sending a horrible shiver down people's spine whenever somebody brings it up. Truly, the villain to end all villains. I can see it happen so vividly... If anybody wants to talk about this more, PLEASE hit me up! This just feels too good! Until off course the party moves on to their next Campaign in the setting for "Final Fantasy 5" but that's a whole OTHER can of worms!

[arecomicsevengood]

Seeds

Before I read it, I had this idea I could write a review of Ann Nocenti and David Aja’s The Seeds for the Comics Journal, but the book just sucked too much. It had basically nothing going for it, or even decipherable as an advancing plot. One thing wrong with it is there’s this sort of conspiracy element, or this “no one believes the news” anymore element of it, but Nocenti didn’t want it to be about “fake news.” Donald Trump has rewired the narrative, so now entire types of subject matter feed into this propaganda machine simply by being addressed. Nocenti’s best work does not shy from topicality, addressing the currents in the cultural air, but this time the modern world feels too hot to handle.

I ordered the Daredevil: Typhoid’s Kiss trade paperback, reprinting a bunch of Nocenti’s work with the Typhoid Mary character from the nineties. The longest story in there is a miniseries with art by John Van Fleet. It’s partly about post-Tarantino video-store employees turned filmmakers kidnapping Typhoid Mary to use her as the subject of a documentary about serial killers and violent media. It’s also about Typhoid Mary working as a private detective trying to track down a killer of prostitutes, who the police don’t care about, and are maybe the actual killers of themselves. Storywise, it’s a pretty cool attempt to address real-world issues of the day within a pulp context.

Van Fleet’s art is pretty boring and bad in a way that’s distinctly ahead of its time. While the miniseries itself probably wouldn’t exist without the precedent of Elektra: Assassin a decade before, (a spinoff about a female Daredevil villain created by the writer during their run on Daredevil where that character defined their run) all the photoreference that’s probably actually just photo backgrounds run through filters sets a precedent for the Alex Maleev/Matt Hollingsworth Daredevil stuff to come a decade later. And it’s frequently annoying on a page design/panel background level. Like in terms of how the panel borders sort of default to grid shapes so there ends up being things that “read” as panels but that don’t actually do anything for pacing. It’s just fitting the narrative into regimented design choices.

This maybe only happens the once. But the art is also just super-stiff throughout, with a very chunky line that eliminates any real nuance. There’s a bunch of characters, but a lot of them are indistinguishable from one another, and that’s because the linework is about as muddy as the color palette — It kinda seems like he’s working with models and photo reference but also doesn’t have that many models to work with so he’s having them play multiple roles, but also his work basically seems more like photoshop filters than actual drawing? There’s a bunch of stuff that I think sucks, basically. But you can also draw a direct line from what Van Fleet is doing in Typhoid to what Aja does in The Seeds. All these choices that are meant to be classy and dignifed, a move away from the excess of superhero comics. The covers of Typhoid are just portraits of the main character, interchangeable from one issue to the next, which was a move that again, was ahead of its time: This is what so many Marvel covers in the 2000s looked like, the Tim Bradstreet Punisher covers probably being the go-to example. It’s pretty dull but it’s nice they’re not super-sexualized.

While the choices arguably suit the subject matter in Typhoid, which is at least partly about movies, in The Seeds, the story doesn’t really make any sense because the visuals seem so steeped in unreality. The premise is that a tabloid has photographed an alien, proving aliens are real. There is really nothing within the context of the story that explains why the news outlet would have enough gravitas to be convincing and have this be an actual news story. And the book is drawn in Photoshop, which is itself a photo-editing software, so the “reality” of the book is defined by the very medium that people recognize as why images can’t be trusted. This contributes a level of irony that could maybe be worked with if the book itself wasn’t so ugly and dull. The whole thing looks like some Banksy bullshit. Outside of word balloons, text appears in the large all-caps typeface of image macros. I don’t have scans of The Seeds because I gave my copy away on account of there not being any reason to keep it around.

The book is beyond dated at the time of its release. Partly this is due to the speed the cultural conversation has been moving for the past five years.  It’s been a difficult time period to work on a work of fiction about the news, certainly, and not only has the comic been a long time in the making, the writer has also been away from making comics for decades now. If the authors had been able to make this as a serialized monthly comic, it might’ve stumbled into timeliness, or the predictive, but as it is, the reading experience feels like a bunch of different, disparate ideas that do not really cohere into a narrative. Leaving aside how the book seems to emerge from a general cultural gestalt of the the 1990s, when The X-Files and Weekly World News were objects of discussion, every major plot point or news story chosen for thematic resonance is approximately fifteen years old. I believe 2005 was when I started to hear about colony collapse disorder. This bee metaphor has been lapped by a Honey Nut Cheerios campaign at this point. (A few years back, boxes of cereal came with seeds of wildflowers you/children could plant.)

Darin Morgan’s episode of The X-Files revival “The Mengele Effect” ably addresses all the issues with how cynicism and conspiracy theories feel different now, all the issues that Nocenti seems terrified of and hopes the audience doesn’t think of when reading her humorless X-Files throwback comic. That episode’s great.  Much of The Seeds seems like it was better done in the decidedly not-great Transmetropolitian. There’s something so dated and sad about this comic’s idea of a cool journalist protagonist: People barely smoke cigarettes anymore! I know no one wants to draw people vaping, but the imagery this book wishes meant “cool, urban, woman” reads as nostalgic affectation in 2021. That so much of the commercial landscapes of our cities has been replaced by vape shops was one of the biggest clues we were already living in a dystopia three years ago.

Nocenti, when she was working regularly, got to be a pretty effective writer for having a monthly deadline wherein she could speak on the issues of the day as they were happening. In the absence of a regular gig, this rare chance to speak her mind gets hampered by how much there is to talk about, and how complicated it all is. If it’s too complicated to address in an ongoing superhero comic, a one-off graphic novel with vaguely commercial ambitions turns out to be a worse space for it. It’s so much sadder than anything in this dream-of-the-nineties comic that the authors were given the grace to make something only under the conditions that doom it to failure. Real people made this work of fiction, and I don’t know what the fuck they’re even talking about, and that’s a more complicated narrative than the journalists in this comic who… stumble upon a story and then need to take to back because it’s too important or something? I don’t understand what this comic is about. It’s clearly gesturing at being about a bunch of different things, but what they get from being in juxtaposition with one another, I don’t know.

In interviews in advance of the release of The Seeds, Nocenti talked about how this was the first time she got to make a comic that didn’t have to have fight scenes or conflict in it. But reading Typhoid it’s clear how conflict ties the story’s disparate threads together. But also while reading Typhoid I kept on thinking about how visually, the Steve Lightle shit that preceded it is so much cooler! Here he is, bifurcating a page so two narrative threads can be told with different approaches to stoytelling:

People sometimes talk about how crazy it is that Nocenti started her Daredevil run immediately following up the Miller/Mazzucchelli Born Again run with a fill-in drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. But I don’t think anyone has pointed out that, since these Typhoid Mary team-up comics appeared in Marvel Comics Presents, she’s basically following up Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X, and Steve Lightle is totally capable of doing that! Even if these comics are kinda whatever narratively, Nocenti comes up with dense enough narratives to give him shit to do. She’s a good writer within the context of the harsh strictures of early nineties mainstream comics. Which I know seems like a harsh diss! But being a writer that makes work that consistently gives a comics artist something interesting to do is a difficult job that many people are just not interested in doing for various reasons, so it should be recognized when it’s attempted and accomplished.

It’s also interesting that the whole visual approach where both Steve Lightle and Barry Windsor-Smith shine is dependent on flat color. The changes in storytelling made to accommodate the shifts in visual language in full-color mainstream comics didn’t really benefit anyone, and now needs to be outsmarted. In The Seeds, we’ve got this pretty dull reading experience that superficially in its two-color print job and nine-panel grid, looks like it might be influenced by Mazzucchelli’s work in Rubber Blanket and City Of Glass. And we’ve got a black and white Barry Windsor-Smith comic coming out from Fantagraphics in a few weeks that I really hope blows it out of the water.

[shireness-says]

Election Day

Summary: This is, arguably, the stupidest thing her best friend has ever done. So how in the hell did Charlie Jones get dragged into it? A 5B Divergence 'verse future snippet. ~1.8K. Rated T for language. Also on AO3.

A/N: @snidgetsafan and I plotted this out a couple of months ago, and it remains an absolutely ridiculous idea. Hopefully in a good way. I love the dynamic of these two idiots.

Tagging: @thejollyroger-writer, @profdanglaisstuff, @captainsjedi, @ultraluckycatnd, @superchocovian, @snowbellewells, @killianjones4ever82, @ohmakemeahercules, @let-it-raines, @lifeinahole27, @kmomof4, @scientificapricot, @spartanguard, @courtorderedcake, @justanotherwannabeclassic, @teamhook, @thisonesatellite

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

~~~~~~

“This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done,” Charlie grumbles to her best friend - former best friend? That may depend on the next two weeks - from their table in front of the town gazebo. Their campaign table. For the mayoral campaign that Vera decided to stage.

You can’t make this shit up.

Honestly, it fucking figures that this is how Vera Mills-Locksley would stage a bout of teenage rebellion. Vera had inherited none of the malevolence but all of the attitude of her mothers - biological and adopted. Generally, that means she’s more bark than bite, more prone to mouthing off than actually doing anything (or at least doing anything genuinely shitty - Charlie’s found herself helping with more than her share of insane ideas over the years). There had been an incident last month about curfew, though, after they and Gideon French had got home a little late from a bit of post-football celebrating. Okay, an hour late. Charlie kind of understands why Aunt Regina had blown her top - this was Storybrooke, after all, where anything could happen. It definitely didn’t help that they hadn’t called or texted. It was probably a small miracle that Fitz or Dorothy hadn’t stopped them in the cruiser.

Still. Vera was… well, Vera, and even if the town agrees that she’s generally a good kid, Charlie knows from long experience that she doesn’t like being told what to do. The really unfortunate moment had come when the redhead had realized that she’d turn 18 only two days before the mayoral election - the election that, until then, Aunt Regina was running unopposed in. For an office that would allow Vera to change the curfew time. 

And when you phrase it like that, it’s almost too easy for a teenager with an attitude and an interesting concept of justice to decide that she’s going to run for mayor and drag her best friend along with her.

The Demon Teen in question (title patent pending, and possibly subject to change if it turns out that Charlie can achieve a new level of frustration before the actual election) hums skeptically. “Is it though? What about the time we borrowed your dad’s boat for that party?”

“Ship,” Charlie answers automatically after years spent in the Jones household. Unfortunately, Vera has a point; it definitely wasn’t one of their brighter moments, though in Charlie’s defense, Christian Erikson was just as good a kisser as he was cute. Still, she’d ended up grounded for a month and scraping barnacles, plus treated to a great safe sex refresher course after her dad had discovered Vera and Gideon trying to get things going in one of the crew cabins. All in all, a goddamn shit show. “But fine, second stupidest thing we’ve ever done. You do admit this is stupid, though?”

“Oh, undeniably,” Vera scoffs. “It’s only stupid if we don’t win though.”

“Ok, that is not how it works.”

“Hey, it’s my plan, it works however I want it to. Jeez, it’s almost like you don’t want to be my vice-mayor.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Charlie mutters under her breath, before continuing less subtly. “That’s not even a thing.”

“Again, my plan, so I say it is.” As some poor unsuspecting townsperson walks by, she quickly plasters on a grin. “Would you like a campaign button?” she calls. “Vote Mills-Locksley for Mayor on November 4th!”

“Okay, so if it’s a thing, what does a ‘vice-mayor’ even do?” Charlie continues once Mr. Harris is out of earshot. 

“Fuck if I know,” Vera admits flippantly. “Look, it’s a good campaign decision. You’re a Jones, and a Charming for that matter. That means something in this town. I may be more charismatic and better suited —” Charlie squawks in protest at that - no one would ever claim that Vera is well suited to be mayor in any reality - but her best friend plows on ahead “— but you’re more…”

“Trustworthy?”

“That’s the one.” You had to give Vera that - she was always fully aware of how people might see her, considering her bloodline, and somehow still managed not to punch people for it. That was more Charlie’s job, anyways. “Now try to look happy, someone’s coming.”

Charlie squints into the distance, only to recognize the familiar gait. “That’s just Dad.”

At least he comes bearing coffee cups from Granny’s. “There’s my favorite candidates!” he calls as he approaches.

“You know I can’t actually serve any office, right?” Charlie questions wryly (not snaps or snarks or any other adjective the look on her father’s face suggests - just questions). “I won’t be eighteen until May. I am literally just a campaign tactic, and a pretty obvious one at that.”

“Play nice, Bean,” her dad murmurs as passes Charlie a travel cup before changing back to a normal volume. “Now, that’s a hot chocolate for you, sweetheart, with cinnamon of course. And Vera, a s’mores mocha for you.”

“Thanks, Captain Jones,” Vera smiles with that politician smile she’s perfected in the past few weeks. Honestly, for a girl who’s never shown a lick of interest in politics in her life - and Charlie’s been there for the vast majority of it, she would know - the redhead sure has adapted quickly.

“I believe that’s more respect than you’ve ever showed me in your life, Miss Mills-Locksley,” the pirate replies with that same wry tone Charlie uses. She had to learn it somewhere, after all. “It would have been much more appreciated when I found you and Gideon French trying to defile my ship, but beggars can’t be choosers, as the saying goes.”

“I think they also say ‘better late than never��,” Vera points out. “Also, ‘what’s done is done’.”

Charlie turns to look at her friend in disbelief. “Really helping your cause, aren’t you?” 

“Out of necessity, diplomacy has become my greatest strength.” God, Charlie hopes she’s kidding. Or being sarcastic. Or literally anything but meaning that sincerely, because the truth of the matter is that there’s only so much a human being can believe and a diplomatic Vera Mills-Locksley isn’t one of those things. 

“Yeah, sure it has,” Charlie settles for mumbling under her breath. Mutinously seems like a good descriptor, here, if she’s looking to become even more like her dad than everyone already claims she is.

(It’s the hair and the ears and maybe a bit of the face, honestly. The eyes and the attitude are all from her mom.)

Vera shoots her a bit of a dirty look, but the plastered-on smile is back only a moment later to schmooze Charlie’s dad. “What can we do for you today, Captain?” she makes sure to emphasize, probably to throw them both off. It would be totally in character, honestly. 

“I was hoping to procure some more buttons please, future Madam Mayor.” 

“Oh my God,” Charlie groans. “How could you have possibly gotten rid of all of those so quickly? We gave you, like, 50 a couple of days ago.” Her dad is arguably - hell, definitely the biggest supporter of this poorly planned campaign. Mom had just kind of rolled her eyes, though Charlie could spot a smile too; Uncle Robin mostly seemed conflicted between pride at Vera’s ambition and disappointment at her effort to spite her mother. And Aunt Regina was flat out pissed, and trying not to show it so that Vera couldn’t accuse her of undermining the sanctity of the election (they were cut from the same cloth, nurture over nature, and Vera totally would). Dad, though… Dad clearly thought that this unexpected campaign was the best and funniest thing to happen in Storybrooke in ages, a callback to his chaos pirate days or something. He handed out buttons at the docks, and at the Sheriff’s station, and at Granny’s - especially if Aunt Regina was there to see it. 

“I’m just here to support the cause,” he says smoothly. Not that Charlie believes that for a second; even though she’s sure he is proud, in his own weird way, it’s definitely for his own entertainment too. She halfway remembers him running for mayor one year when she was a kid just to piss Aunt Regina off. Maybe she’s carrying on the world’s stupidest family tradition or something. 

“Now tell me, Madam Mayor,” he continues, deftly ignoring Charlie’s irritation and general foul mood - seriously, you’d think he’d be more considerate of his daughter - “what will you do first, once you’re elected?”

“Oh, we’re so not winning the election,” Vera snorts.

“Now lass, I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I’m told that the democratic system is full of surprises - ”

Despite Dad’s best attempts at encouragement, Vera just keeps laughing. “Oh no. I won’t. I’m a friggin’ teenager running for mayor, it’s not going to happen. And even if it does, I’ll resign after a week at most. I’ve still got high school and college and drama club, I don’t have time to be mayor.”

“So this is just to get back at your mother, then?” Dad asks. “On the one hand, I’m always happy to see Regina sweat a bit, but as a parent I feel like I shouldn’t encourage this kind of mutiny, lass.”

Charlie takes a sip of her hot chocolate, leaning back to watch the show. Frankly, this looks like it will be the most entertaining part of this whole idiotic affair.

The half a grimace that Vera pulls in response sure is a look, at least. “I mean, kind of? But mostly I’m hoping to get some bargaining power. I figure, if I concede - or at least resign and give the office back to Mom… maybe we can negotiate an extended curfew.”

It’s diabolical, truly. Charlie’s kind of impressed, not that she’ll ever admit it. Her dad clearly is, too, as he barks out a laugh and grins back at Vera. “That’s quite the plan you’ve concocted, Miss Mills-Locksley. A pirate after my own heart. You have my vote.”

“Thanks, Uncle Kil; I’ll be counting on that the Tuesday after next.”

——— 

They do lose, of course; they’re a couple of teenagers running for office, one more willingly than the other. It was inevitable, no matter how many campaign buttons Killian Jones hands out everywhere in town.

There is a negotiation, however, where Vera agrees to give a concession speech supporting her mother’s re-election in return for a revised curfew. The extra hour on Friday and Saturday nights isn’t much, but it feels like a big victory now that all is said and done. Charlie’s just glad it’s over; she certain won’t be pursuing a career in politics. 

(The button, however, stays on her dad’s desk in a special little frame Mom bought just for him. She’s never going to outrun the whole fiasco, but as far as Dad’s concerned, maybe that’s not all bad.)

[wirewitchviolet]

I’d like to talk about Graham for a little bit.

About a month and a half ago, this thing just sort of spontaneously happened that was on the order of the old Jerry Lewis telethons, raising an absolutely jaw-dropping amount of money for an organization called Mermaids, which is great and absolutely deserves to have it. I should clarify before anything further too that I’m using “spontaneously happened” here only to mean absolutely nobody involved had any possible idea that it was going to become the huge thing it became, not that it didn’t do so because of a lot of really impressive work, mainly from Casey Explosion and Dan Olson who both ended up playing producer as guests started hopping in and did phenomenal jobs they can’t get enough credit for.

I am, of course, quite thrilled to see how well that went, particularly since just something like a week prior I’d independently tried to start a charity drive for Mermaids which was... decidedly unsuccessful. And I came oddly close to getting properly involved in this one, because around the time it was at the $1000 mark, “guests” were mainly just people I’m personally friends with and haven’t talked to in a while, I was talking about joining in, but the timing of me getting hold of a microphone and a quiet room and guest coordination shook out weird and I lost my place in line to like, Chelsea Manning and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who I will freely admit were bigger donation draws than me talking to old friends and sharing info about trans charities and transphobic groups trying to undermine them would have been.

One thing I’d have liked to have brought up is the other thing that made the whole event a bit bittersweet, personally. The whole thing was explicitly advertised as existing purely to spite one Graham Linehan, who rather infamously had spearheaded an initiative to undermine funding for Mermaids because these days he is a cartoon villain and defunding a children’s charity was the sort of thing he’s all about now. And I’m saying “now” and “these days” because I have kind of a weird history with Graham. Once upon a time, he was my biggest fan.

No, really. If you don’t believe me, go do a quick twitter search for him mentioning me. It’s a bit surreal to look back on. It was weird to live through at the time too. He started following me at a point where I had something like 10 other twitter followers, and was just super super pumped about literally everything I was writing about, you know, the rise of this group of transphobic fascists weaponizing twitter mobs. I’d start writing something and he’d just pop up in my DMs. Which... OK now it’s weird because I’m the last person the arguable king of all transphobes should be following, but at the time it was also weird because he hadn’t gotten into that and was this famous TV writer.

So first of all, it just sends a chill down my spine any time I see him talking about having trans friends who like him just fine and wondering if he’s still trying to count me there. Because I mean, the last time I actually talked to him it was pretty damn civil. Mainly because I was trying to make a calm rational case explaining that he’d just linked horrifyingly bigoted propaganda out, but I could see him grasping for that straw.

Those prior interactions color the whole thing for me in a really tragic light though. Usually, when you see someone who did a thing you enjoy(ed) tear their face off and reveal a disgusting monster, you get to go “ugh, I can’t believe I never picked up on what a creep this person was the whole time!” but... I personally don’t have that luxury here. At the point I knew him, I can actually say he was a decent, caring guy, willing to stick his neck out in a big big way for worthy causes. He promoted the hell out of everything I wrote for a while, and elevated the voices of a ton of other trans women and other marginalized people under attack from nazis. He really went all in with a pretty big media platform against that crap at a time where it wasn’t especially popular or safe to do so, and he campaigned about as hard as was humanly possible to repeal Ireland’s abortion ban, sharing some really horrifying personal stories which I’d probably still dig out when trying to argue the subject if it wouldn’t be giving oxygen to such a huge bigot. And for whatever it’s worth, that infamous I.T. Crowd episode? Some 6 years after the fact he really was self-conscious about that still, and just sort of... approaching every trans woman he knew one by one to try to explain where he was coming from with it. Which of course is not at all the same thing as apologizing for it, but presumably had he stayed that course, he’d have maybe grabbed some sensitivity readers before the next such bit went to air.

So yeah. My honest assessment of where he was at in late 2014 through early 2015 there is... well-intentioned guy with some blind spots legitimately trying to be a better person and work towards some general trans allyship...

... and then he just suddenly pulled this complete 180, and it’s one of the most chilling things I’ve ever seen. From my perspective, it was like being in a zombie movie where someone gets bit. First they’re fine, then you see a big ol’ red flag (I don’t recall whether the first such was him going to bat for the serial abuser creep we just finally kicked out of tabletop or him linking a post on freaking 4th wave now), and you have this little window of maybe we can cut off the infection before it spreads, and that fails and suddenly you’ve just got this shambling monster wearing the face of a former ally in the fight against them. I suppose a more grounded metaphor would be like comparing it to someone you know joining a cult. every value they had is suddenly gone and they’re just removing themselves from all their old circles to hang out exclusively with these dangerous creeps.

I can’t stress enough that this isn’t me saying “there’s still good in him.” Dude’s out there getting the police showing up at his door because he won’t stop harassing random women and literally organizing letter-writing campaigns to cut the funding to a charity that keeps marginalized children from killing themselves. That is way too far over the cliff to entertain any notion of someone ever crawling back. No my point in all this that moral consistency isn’t anywhere near as solid as people like to tell themselves it is. People can go from vehement anti-fascism to full on fascist over a single conversation with the right recruiter on the right day and there’s really nothing you can do about it but hope you recognize it before your denial starts to amplify the damage.

At least I sure as hell hope there’s nothing else you can do about it because again, this guy was literally my biggest fan before he suddenly flipped, and I don’t want to have to second guess myself about what part of me saying “fascism is bad and trans people don’t deserve this sort of harassment” was sufficiently unclear that a guy hanging on my every word for like a year could get all backwards.

This really isn’t a story with a feel-good moral at the end. I mean, the best spin I can put on it is, moral compasses can break, so be sure to pull yours out regularly and double check that it’s still pointing north, don’t just follow the person ahead of you and assume theirs is working? Make sure you’re familiar with a definition of fascism that doesn’t rely on what costumes someone’s wearing? Bear in mind that the oppressed minority turning out to be the real bullies is just not a thing that happens? Just... don’t ever be like Graham here.

[mattkennard]

Jeremy Corbyn: My goal is to lead a government devoted to social justice

Published: La Jornada (6 November 2018)

Arriving at the Houses of Parliament in London, I worried that I would find Jeremy Corbyn downbeat and nervy. The leader of the Labour Party, the official opposition to the British government, has been the victim of fierce attacks over the past six months -- the crescendo to a campaign that has been rolling since he was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015.

In a near-universally hostile British media, he is regularly portrayed as an anti-semite, a misogynist, a terrorist sympathiser, a communist agent -- the list is literally endless. Every day, there is a new line of attack on a politician who for just about his whole political life was a largely unknown, marginalised left-wing voice in British politics.

But, like so much when it comes to Jeremy Corbyn, the opposite is the case. He is upbeat and relaxed. I meet him at his offices where he is surrounded by young and enthusiastic staff buzzing round the office. As he greets me, he hands me a double espresso. Someone has got his order wrong. “Want it?” he asks smiling.

He is quick to crack a joke, is intensely interested in other people, and seems at peace. His aura is one of enviable calm. Considering the storm around him, it’s disorientating. You take a lot of hits, I say. People worry this must have an effect on you: are you happy? “Absolutely,” he cries with his characteristic wry smile, raising his eyebrows. “Absolutely!” he adds again for emphasis. “I’m extremely happy. I do my work in Parliament, I spend a lot of time touring around the country doing campaigning events, meeting people. And I travel when I can, I was in Jordan this summer visiting refugee camps.” He then adds: “I lead a very balanced life. I read quite widely. I have an allotment, which I'm very proud of, and I keep myself fit and healthy. We want people to be able to lead full lives, and I lead a very full life, and I'm very happy doing it.” As we chat casually -- he is disarmingly open -- I have to keep reminding myself that I am sitting opposite the biggest threat to the British establishment maybe ever. There have been important anti-imperialist socialist figures throughout Britain’s history, but none has ever got as close to power as Jeremy Corbyn is right now. His rise has been improbable, but, after constant destabilisation campaigns (often by his own party) he is obviously going nowhere.

In the General Election of 2017, when he was roundly predicted to crash and burn, he increased Labour’s seat count and the Tories lost their majority in the Houses of Parliament. Some say it was the most important moment for progressive politics in modern British political history. The left finally proved that its ideas could be popular with the general population. Socialism is back, and many predict that if Britain’s unstable Prime Minister Theresa May falls and a general election is called, Corbyn and Labour would win a landslide.  

Corbyn, unlike many in parochial British politics, is and has always been an internationalist. He links struggles for democracy and human rights across the world and has travelled extensively throughout his life. But Latin America, and especially Mexico, has a special place in his heart. I glance over to his desk where a miniature Mexican flies above his papers. Further back is a framed picture of his Mexican wife Laura Alvarez at her graduation.

Corbyn has been rereading A History of Mexico in preparation for the interview and he is clearly enthused by the fact Mexico has turned red with the election of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador -- the first time, he points out, Mexico has elected a real left-winger since Lazaro Cardenas in the 1930s. In fact, he is so excited by what AMLO represents that he announces he will be travelling to Mexico for the inauguration of AMLO in December.  “AMLO has shown amazing personal and political courage over many decades,” he tells me. “He was one of the most reforming of mayors of Mexico City in history. Indeed, it's quite humbling when you go to the supermarket at the time of the month when the older people get their food vouchers, and they call them AMLOs.”

Does Corbyn sees similarities between himself and AMLO? “I see similarities in the sense that we're both of about the same age, both been in politics all of our lives, and both have an absolute commitment to human rights and to righting injustice. I support him in the difficulties I know he's going to face in searching for all the disappeared, as well as dealing with the Ayozinapa 43, and the dreadful case that that is.”

Corbyn first went to Latin America in the late 1960s when he was 20-years-old. He was living in Jamaica working with Voluntary Service Overseas and when he finished he embarked on a solo trip around South America. He fell in love with the region and has since visited nearly every country in Latin America. “There is a huge ethnic diversity across Latin America that's often not understood by people outside. Understanding the history of Latin America is very limited in the rest of the world. The diversity of Bolivia, for example, with Quechua being actually the dominant language not Spanish. When that diversity is recognized you tend to get more inclusive governments. For example, in Chile the great Salvador Allende recognized the needs of the Mapuche people, which had often been ignored until then. I see the strength of Latin America as bringing people together.”

This is the side of Latin America that has inspired the left across the world in the past century. But there is another, darker, side to the region that, in places like Brazil, is coming back. Corbyn is aware of this too. “I also see elites in Latin American that have often been interlinked with the armed forces and global corporations ... hence the problems that the Allende suffered. I think an ongoing issue is the question of control of resources, and the economic development of the continent. I was looking recently at my diaries from 1969, and I've got an entry from May the 1st, 1969, in Santiago. That was the time when Popular Unity had been formed which eventually led to the election of President Allende a year later. Remember it was the first past the post system, so Allende got elected on, I think, 36% of the vote. He faced opposition from the very beginning, particularly from the mining companies, and the CIA, much of it led by Kissinger. It's all very well recorded.”

Corbyn pauses then adds: “There are powerful forces that move around in the world that want to oppose those who want to bring about economic and social justice. The only way to combat it is insertion of democratic values and humans rights, and that is exactly what I'm determined to do.”

Corbyn has been called by some Britain’s answer to Salvador Allende. Except the powerful reactionary forces he mentions will be much more concerned about Britain going red than Chile. No core capitalist country has ever had an anti-imperialist socialist in power. The political and economic system is sick and immoral. It remains to be seen whether such a system will ever allow a decent and principled human being to rise to its apex. Do you worry, I ask, about the forces that brought down Allende doing the same thing to you? “Well, I understand a lot of the media are very unkind towards me here,” he says. “Extremely unkind,” he adds with a wry grin. “I think what we showed in the general election and since then is our ability to communicate with people was critical. Things like social media, and local organizations, have created a confidence amongst a lot of people in Britain that we can bring about political change, we can be a government of social justice and we can have a foreign policy based on human rights and justice. I'm utterly determined to achieve it.”

The Labour Party in Britain is nominally left-wing yet at least since Tony Blair won leadership of the Party in 1994 -- and arguably long before -- it has allied with reactionary forces across the world, from George W Bush to Silvio Berlusconi to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.  That meant it showed no solidarity at all with the “pink tide” movement of the late 1990s and 2000s which saw progressive governments come to power in Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay and Brazil. In one of most exciting times for left politics in history, the Labour Party under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was completely absent - only offering ritual denunciations of “authoritarianism” and “populism” in the liberated countries.

I wonder if that will now change under Corbyn, that the Latin American left can expect solidarity from the Labour Party now. “I'm very clear that we have to build an international movement, which deals with economic injustice and inequality, and challenges the neoliberal agenda. We need governments that think alike to work together on economic justice and we'll absolutely do that.” He is particularly interested in the progress that Bolivia has seen under the government of Evo Morales and the social movements that catapulted him to power. “I had a very interesting visit to Bolivia some years back when I led a parliamentary delegation there. We were looking at the control of water, and the mining industry, but also the enfranchisement of the diversity of Bolivia. The idea that a non-Spanish speaking woman should be the author of the constitution of Bolivia was amazing and historic in so many ways. I've got a lot of respect for what they've achieved in Bolivia.”

Before we finish up I ask him if he has a message for Mexicans as AMLO takes power, and he shoots back, in perfect Spanish: “Saludos y buena suerte para el futuro, y paz y justicia para todo el pueblo de Mexico.” He smiles and then says tapping his Mexican history book, and back in English now, “I’m really looking forward to being in Mexico.”

[hope-for-olicity]

After a while, the true-life horror stories women tell about their struggles to get reproductive health care start to bleed together. They almost always feature some variation on the same character: the doctor who waves a hand and says, “You’ll be fine,” or “That’s just in your head,” or “Take a Tylenol.” They follow an ominous three-act structure, in which a woman expresses concern about a sexual or reproductive issue to a doctor; the doctor demurs; later, after either an obstacle course of doctor visits or a nightmare scenario coming to life, a physician at last acknowledges her pain was real and present the whole time. Sometimes there’s a quietly gloomy boyfriend or husband in a secondary-character role, frustrated by the strain his partner’s health issue is putting on their intimacy.

That many women have stories of medical practitioners dismissing, misdiagnosing, or cluelessly shrugging at their pain is, unfortunately, nothing new. Research cited in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics in 2001, for example, indicated that women get prescribed less pain medication than men after identical procedures (controlling for body size), are less likely to be admitted to hospitals and receive stress tests when they complain of chest pain, and are significantly more likely than men to be “undertreated” for pain by doctors. And there’s a multi-million dollar industry of questionable alternative health remedies that was arguably built at least in part on a history of doctors being dismissive toward women’s bodily health.

But in 2018, these stories of neglect and unhelpfulness within women’s health care, especially women’s sexual and reproductive health care, are bubbling up to the surface—being documented, circulated, and acknowledged by public discourse—in curious abundance.

It started early in the year. In January, a widely cited Vogue cover story on the tennis great Serena Williams, who gave birth to a daughter in September of 2017, told the harrowing tale of how Williams had to urgently insist to the hospital staff in her recovery room that what she was experiencing after her C-section was a pulmonary embolism in order to get the treatment she needed to stay alive. “The nurse thought her pain medicine might be making her confused,” the story reads. A month later, Vogue published an essay by the Girlscreator Lena Dunham on her choice to have a hysterectomy at age 31 to end her struggle with what she understood to be endometriosis. “I had to work so hard to have my pain acknowledged,” she writes. “And while I’ve been battling endometriosis for a decade and this will be my ninth surgical procedure, no doctor has ever confirmed this for me.” After her uterus is removed and she wakes up in a recovery room, she writes, the doctors are eager to tell her she was right: her uterus is “worse than anyone could have imagined.”

Then, in April, The New York Times published Linda Villarosa’s revealing reporton the dangerous endeavor of being black and pregnant in America, a phenomenon partly attributed to medical practitioners’ “dismissal of legitimate concerns and symptoms.” The story’s primary character, 23-year-old New Orleans mother of two, Simone Landrum, recalls being told by a doctor to calm down and take Tylenol when she complained of headaches during a particularly exhausting pregnancy; those headaches were later found to be caused by pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy complication that causes high blood pressure and can result in the placenta separating from the uterus before the baby is born. This happened to Landrum, and her pregnancy ended in a stillbirth.

The stories kept coming. Netflix’s The Bleeding Edge, a documentary released last month, is primarily about the poor testing of many medical devices on the market, but it nonetheless also functions as an indictment of carelessness toward women’s health at the regulatory-body level. Three of the four primary narratives  are about medical devices hastily approved by the FDA and marketed to women as safe, easy solutions for fertility- and childbirth-related issues. One prominently featured woman whose medical device—the birth-control implant Essure—lands her in the hospital so many times she loses her job, her home, and her kids over the course of the documentary, recalls being told by a doctor that her abnormally heavy, persistent vaginal bleeding after its insertion is “because she’s Latina” and that her problems are all in her head.

The new KCRW podcast Bodies, a series about medical mysteries in women’s health that launched in July, kicked off its run with the story of a woman in her twenties who experiences deep, burning pain during sex and is initially told by a doctor that nothing’s wrong, lots of women have pain during sex, and that she should just wait and it’ll probably go away. After getting a referral for a specialist from a friend who visited 20 doctors over the course of  seven years before getting a diagnosis, she’s diagnosed with and successfully treated for a type of vulvodynia—which the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecologydescribes as “common” (though “rarely diagnosed”).

Sasha Ottey calls this phenomenon “health-care gaslighting.” Ottey founded the Atlanta-based nonprofit PCOS Challenge: The National Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Association in 2009 to raise awareness of PCOS, a hormonal disorder affecting the ovaries that’s often linked to infertility, diabetes, and pelvic pain. Despite the fact that PCOS was first identified and researched in 1935 and the CDC has estimated it affects some 6 to 12 percent of adult women in the United States, many doctors still don’t recognize the symptoms. Women with PCOS and similar conditions like endometriosis and uterine fibroids, Ottey says, “have been told to suffer in silence.” Additionally, because PCOS often causes obesity or weight problems, many women with PCOS experience not just sexism but what Ottey calls “weight bias” in the health-care system. “Many women and young girls are told, ‘Oh, it's all in your head. Just eat less and exercise more,’” says Ottey, who herself recalls being initially instructed by an endocrinologist to lose weight and come back in six months. “People who are following an eating plan and present their diaries to their physicians or nutritionists will be told, ‘You left something off. You're lying. You're not doing enough.’”

Ottey, who spearheaded the PCOS Challenge’s first-ever day of advocacy on Capitol Hill in May, has noted the recent shift in how—and where—women talk about their struggles getting the sexual and reproductive health care they need. “We're at a critical juncture in women's health, where women are now feeling more empowered to speak up. Because frankly, we're frustrated,” she says. “We're frustrated with the type of care that we've gotten. We're frustrated that it sometimes takes someone decades to get a diagnosis. It's been a year, or a few years, of being empowered and emboldened."

Katherine Sherif, an internist at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia and the director of the hospital’s women’s primary care unit, says she hears “day in and day out” from patients “about how they are not listened to [by other doctors], how they’re blown off, how a clue was missed.” Sherif believes most of the minimization of women’s health concerns is “unconscious” on the part of both male and female doctors, but blames general societal sexism for the gaps in women’s sexual and reproductive health care. Men with sexual and reproductive dysfunction have to fight for the care they need sometimes too, she points out, but “to a lesser extent” from what she’s seen.

In her 23 years practicing medicine, Sherif has received a lot of thank-you notes from women she’s treated—and “they don’t say ‘Thank you for saving my life’ or ‘Thank you for that great diagnosis,’” she says. “They say, ‘Thank you for listening to me.’ Or ‘I know we couldn’t get to the bottom of it, but thank you for being there.’” So Sherif sees a common theme in the recent flurry of high-profile expressions of disappointment in women’s reproductive health care, feminist protests against President Donald Trump, and the #MeToo movement: All three, she says, result from women feeling that their complaints, concerns, and objections aren’t being listened to.

“Perhaps it parallels what’s changing in our society,” Sherif says. “When we shine a light in those dirty, dark corners, I think it may give us courage to shed light on other things.”

Ottey, meanwhile, believes women’s increasing candor about their health- and health care-related frustrations can be traced back to the advent of social media. Ottey describes her own struggle to finally get a diagnosis and a treatment plan for PCOS in 2008 as one that made her feel “absolutely alone,” but in the years since, she says, she’s seen women with similar conditions and complaints find and support each other on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. “Women see other women, and other girls, speaking up,” she says.

Ottey’s social-media strength-in-numbers theory is borne out in The Bleeding Edge, too: Women whose health deteriorated after getting the Essure birth-control device implanted eventually created an advocacy campaign after finding each other through a Facebook group launched in 2011. Thirty-five thousand women had joined by the time The Bleeding Edge was filmed.

Angie Firmalino, the Facebook group’s founder, remembers being surprised at how many women quickly joined the group, despite it being a project she’d started just so she could warn her female friends about the device. “We became a support group for each other,” Firmalino says, as a montage of selfie videos women have posted to the group page play onscreen. “The day I was implanted, I left the hospital and I was in pain,” says one woman. “They told me to take some ibuprofen and it’ll get better,” says another.

When Firmalino researched the process by which Essure was approved for sale and implantation, she found the FDA hearings had been videotaped, but the video company that owned the tapes would only release them to her for several hundred dollars. So she posted on the Facebook group asking for donations to buy the video—clips of which are repurposed in the documentary and account for its most chilling moments. They raised $900 in 15 minutes.

[teafortwo29]

Once Reluctant to Speak Out, an Energized Obama Now Calls Out His Successor

Former President Barack Obama has leveled many attacks on President Trump heading into the 2018 midterm elections. These sharp rebukes, though, are a departure from how past leaders used their post-presidential campaign stops. Published on Nov. 1, 2018, Credit Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

By Peter Baker Nov. 2, 2018

MIAMI — Former President Barack Obama’s voice has a way of lifting into a high-pitched tone of astonishment when he talks about his successor, almost as if he still cannot believe that the Executive Mansion he occupied for eight years is now the home of President Trump.

For most of the last two years, he stewed about it in private, only occasionally speaking out. But as he hit the campaign trail this fall, Mr. Obama has vented his exasperation loud and often, assailing his successor in a sharper, more systematic way arguably than any former president has done in three-quarters of a century.

Although some admirers believe he remains too restrained in an era of Trumpian bombast, Mr. Obama has excoriated the incumbent for “lying” and “fear-mongering” and pulling “a political stunt” by sending troops to the border. As he opened a final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday’s midterm elections, Mr. Obama has re-emerged as the Democrats’ most prominent face, pitting president versus president over the future of the country.

In a fiery speech in Miami on Friday afternoon before heading to Georgia for another rally, Mr. Obama said that even conservatives should be disturbed by Mr. Trump’s disregard for the Constitution and basic decency. “I know there are sincere conservatives who are compassionate and must think there is nothing compassionate about ripping immigrant children from the arms of their mothers at the border,” he said.

“I am assuming that they recognize that a president doesn’t get to decide on his own who’s an American citizen and who’s not,” he continued, referring to Mr. Trump’s vow to sign an executive order canceling birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. “That’s not how the Constitution of the United States works. That’s not how the Bill of Rights works. That’s not how our democracy works.”

“I’m assuming people must get upset,” he went on, “when they see folks who spend all their time vilifying others, questioning their patriotism, calling them enemies of the people and then suddenly pretending they’re concerned about civility.”

The current president fired back later in the afternoon. Mr. Trump, who has made more than 6,400 false or misleading statements since taking office, according to a count by The Washington Post, said his predecessor had lied by telling Americans they could keep their doctor under his health care plan, which ultimately turned out not to be the case.

“Twenty-eight times he said you can keep your doctor if you like your doctor,” he told a small crowd at a West Virginia airport hangar. “They were all lies. Used it to pass a terrible health care plan we are decimating strike by strike.”

He also criticized Mr. Obama’s trade policies and treatment of the news media. “Lie after lie,” Mr. Trump said. “Broken promise after broken promise. Unlike President Obama, we live under a different mantra. It’s called promises made, promises kept.”

Since leaving office, Mr. Obama has risen in the esteem of many Americans, as former presidents often do. A poll by CNN this year found that 66 percent had a favorable view of him, far more than those who approve of Mr. Trump’s performance in office.

When he left the White House in January 2017, Mr. Obama said he intended to follow the tradition of his predecessors by staying out of the spotlight unless he perceived what he considered broader threats to American values. Advisers said Mr. Trump’s performance in office has qualified, justifying his decision to abandon restraint this fall.

“He cares very deeply,” said Valerie Jarrett, his longtime friend, and adviser. “His language has been very direct and he’s made an appeal to citizens across our country that now’s the time to stand up for our core ideals.”

He has issued 350 endorsements that candidates then trumpeted on social media and he has helped raise millions of dollars for Democrats. A video op-ed he taped generated 17 million views and a voter registration video drove nearly 700,000 viewers to Vote.org, according to his team. He is taping dozens of recorded telephone messages that will be sent out this weekend.

Mr. Obama’s red-meat speech on Friday delighted the crowd at the Ice Palace Film Studios in Miami. But if he has become the Democrats’ “forever president,” as Andrew Gillum, the party’s candidate for governor of Florida, called him, there are trade-offs for an opposition party trying to groom a new generation of leaders as the start of the 2020 presidential election approaches.

“President Obama wants to make room for the next generation of Democratic leaders to step up, which is why he’s largely stayed out of the day-to-day fray over the past two years,” said Eric Schultz, a senior adviser to the former president. “But too much is at stake in these midterms and this moment is too consequential to sit out.”

To Republicans, Mr. Obama’s decision to directly take on his successor smacks of violating norms just as he accuses Mr. Trump of doing.

“I was taken aback by the amount of space in President Obama’s speeches that are devoted to a full frontal assault on Donald J. Trump and his administration,” said Karl Rove, the political strategist for former President George W. Bush. “He spends a considerable amount of his time to get up there and trash Trump.”

Ron Kaufman, who was White House political director for the first President George Bush, said Mr. Obama’s language had been strikingly harsh from one president about another. “If you go back and dig up some of the pretty nasty things President Obama has said, I think you would be a bit surprised,” he said. “He gets away with it because of his style.”

Not since Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover has a president hit the campaign trail after leaving office to actively take on his successor in quite the way Mr. Obama has. Roosevelt actually mounted a comeback against his handpicked replacement, William Howard Taft, while Hoover castigated Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program as “despotism” at the Republican convention in 1936.

Other former presidents have been critical of their successors, too. Jimmy Carter became a vocal opponent of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, calling his administration the “worst in history.” But with Mr. Carter and others, these were one-off comments in interviews or other public settings, not a systematic indictment on the campaign trail.

Until this cycle, Bill Clinton has been a regular campaigner for fellow Democrats, not least his wife, but even as he assailed Republican ideas, he generally refrained from directly attacking his successors. As in previous years, the younger Mr. Bush has been out on the trail this fall but has largely kept his post-White House campaigning to closed-door fund-raisers and studiously avoided criticizing either Mr. Obama or Mr. Trump.

Mr. Obama’s criticism of Mr. Trump reflects a deep antipathy he feels for his successor, whom he called a “con man” and a “know nothing” during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump was the leading promoter of the lie that Mr. Obama was not born in the United States, a conspiracy theory that irritated the 44th president.

Mr. Obama has never been effective at translating his own popularity to other Democrats — the party lost all three elections while he was president when his name was not on the ballot — but he seems liberated as he finally unloads on Mr. Trump. “He wants to be in the game and he’s really energized doing it,” said Bill Burton, a former aide who caught up with Mr. Obama at a campaign stop in California.

Now 57, Mr. Obama has turned even grayer on top but has otherwise not changed much. For rallies, he still doffs coat and tie for his trademark white collared shirt with rolled up sleeves. He has dispensed with the professorial history lessons that slowed his stump speech down at the beginning of the fall and sharpened his argument into an animated, finger-pointing, crowd-riling indictment of his successor.

While he did not use Mr. Trump’s name in Miami on Friday, Mr. Obama left no doubt who he was talking about. He pointed to Mr. Trump’s use of a cellphone that advisers have told him is being monitored by foreign powers, contrasting that with the Republican criticism of Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecure email server.

“You know they don’t care about that because if they did, they’d be worrying about the current president talking on his cell phone while the Chinese are listening in,” Mr. Obama said. “They didn’t care about it. They said it to get folks angry and ginned up.”

“Now in 2018, they’re telling you the vestigial threat to America is a bunch of poor refugees a thousand miles away,” he added, referring to a migrant caravan in Mexico. “They’re even taking our brave troops away from their families for a political stunt at the border. And the men and women of our military deserve better than that.”

In just a few days, he will find out whether voters see it his way or Mr. Trump’s.

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting from Huntington, W.Va., and Alan Blinder from Atlanta.

Follow Peter Baker on Twitter: @peterbakernyt.

[beinglibertarian]

Fighting Inequality Means Fighting Government – The Lowdown on Liberty

With June being celebrated as Gay Pride month, every year around this time we seem to experience an increase in conversations and media attention regarding the fight against inequality. Across the country, massive celebrations are held, often meant to highlight the differences human beings can have with one another while maintaining a peaceful coexistence, as equals. And while I applaud this mindset of peace and tolerance towards others, there is a growing issue in this fight against inequality.

More and more people have begun to buy into the notion that the current societal problems ailing us are a direct consequence of inequality. Now, whether you believe this to be the case, these problems, we’re told, “require” the all-too-eager hand of government to resolve, which is its fatal flaw. Because, as we’ll see, if fighting inequality is your goal, applying a bit of an objective lens to your campaign will uncover that government, as it turns out, is the largest purveyor of inequality that has ever existed; and fighting inequality means fighting government.

Let’s start by highlighting the fact that government itself is inequality, in that it falsely grants some individuals the arbitrary authority to rule over others, essentially creating at least two classes of individuals; rulers and the ruled. For obvious reasons, they have tried to blur these lines over time by creating alternative forms of governance like democracy, whereby they repeat nonsensical idioms like “we’re all the government” until the ruled class begins to believe it. If you need proof, simply walk up to your local police officer and proceed to order them around by telling them you’re the government or try walking into your state representative’s office and tell them you’d like to speak on the floor today using the same line. You’ll either quickly learn which class you belong to, or chances are end up in a jail cell if you persist long enough.

Throughout history, the most successful groups that have pushed for inequality (such as the Ku Klux Klan, slaveholders, etc.) all used government institutions to further this unequal divide, oftentimes under the guise of pushing for equality – think Jim Crow’s “separate but equal.” It’s important to recognize this division if we wish to quash inequality. Because too often, solutions put forth to combat this inherent flaw in government are met with opposition from those ignorant of the facts, making outrageous claims to keep government programs in place because private solutions could possibly yield inequality.

A good example is when we’re told we can’t privatize the police because it will result in inequality, with rich neighborhoods receiving exceptional service from their ability to pay, while poor neighborhoods would get none at all. Except that two-tiered policing already exists and is arguably much worse due to government’s monopoly control of it. We continuously see those with money and governmental connections getting away with crimes, often involving a multitude of victims unable to shoulder the cost to fight back. Meanwhile, those in low-income neighborhoods are routinely profiled and preyed upon by police for victimless crimes, which regularly carry draconian sentences thanks to mandatory minimums and the War on Drugs; all because they can’t afford to endure the arduous court battles. And when it is pointed out that police do make a mistake, it’s nearly impossible to ensure they are held accountable – unless paid leave is to be considered punishment enough for wrongful deaths.

This one-size-fits-all governmental approach to policing leaves those worst off among us the least represented. And, thanks to government regulation, it’s difficult for private alternatives to easily enter the market. Even so, we’re still seeing people opt out of using police, instead choosing private security companies wherever possible. So much in fact, that private security officers now outnumber police in many countries around the world. And that’s not the only place we see government fostering inequality.

The same arguments used to defend the monopoly on police are also used – even more aggressively – against those who wish to end public schools. Rich neighborhoods, we’re told, would hire all the good teachers, have the best equipment, etc., while poor neighborhoods would be left with sub-par teaching staff and a shortage of necessities, resulting in poor students being uncompetitive after graduation; ultimately ending up in an inter-generational cycle of poverty. Which sounds terrible, until you realize that’s already the exact system we have today. With public schools, students in low-income neighborhoods are forced to attend the schools within their dictated borders, while state-mandated accreditation and licensing restrictions keep cheaper, alternative schools from coming in and alleviating part of this problem. It’s so bad in fact, that the inter-generational poverty gap exists in large part thanks to government. Whereby kids in inner-city, public schools are more likely to go to prison than college due to gangs and other criminal activities that have crept into these poorly-run government schools; effectively turning them into “lack of” concentration camps.

Healthcare is also an instance in this country where an entire industry is granted a governmental monopoly in the all-too-logical hopes of avoiding a monopoly. With Obamacare adding more than 20,000 pages of regulation to our healthcare system alone, they have effectively created the same, unequal system we’ve shown already exists in police and education. Prices have sky-rocketed for insurance and simple medicines like Epi-pens, while the “free” market is blamed, rather than the labyrinth of red-tape mandated from the FDA, which resulted in the cost of bringing new drugs to market to hit more than $2 billion dollars. This leaves the poorest among us unable to get the medical care they need, while simultaneously making it harder for free-market oriented hospitals to enter the market and alleviate this crisis. When we couple all that with the infuriating notion that those who passed the ACA made sure they themselves could opt-out if they’d like, and the Orwellian tactic of naming it “The Affordable Care Act”, it becomes almost indefensible to say that government is not a nefarious source of inequality today.

We need to continuously point out these egregious scenarios forced on us by governments trampling on the rights of individuals and highlight the hypocrisy of asking them to fix this inequality in our society. But most of all, if we ever hope to improve the well-being of the most vulnerable and poorest among us, we need to realize that inequality isn’t the cause of our problems, but rather a symptom of a much larger disorder: The State.

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[arecomicsevengood]

BERNIE 2020

This time last year, everyone who announced they were running for the Democratic nomination was running using chunks of Bernie Sanders' 2016 platform. Everyone supported a $15 minimum wage and Medicare-For-All. It was then announced that the health insurance industry was going to go all out in terms of the money they were going to spend against a single-payer system, and as the months went on, not only did all those people walk back their support, or attribute the phrase "Medicare For All" to their own plans which were not that, more people announced they were running, who never claimed any of these beliefs. Many candidates have dropped out, many more have joined. While once it seemed like everyone was claiming Bernie's policies, but offering a more diverse slate of identities, now everyone is running to the right of him, with more and more people joining to be even farther right still.

Honestly, the very fact that Bernie has not caved, when everyone else did, in the wake of all the money which is very clearly stacked against him, should put you in his corner, if you believe that integrity matters in the slightest. What's going to drive me insane is that it feels like the forces arrayed against him are specifically AGAINST integrity, the very idea that someone cannot be bought. I am aware my ideas might seem like "conspiracy theories," but it's all so out in the open that it genuinely feels more like terrorism. Anti-abortion activists killed Dr. George Tiller, and now less people receive the medical training to perform the procedures he performed. What we are witnessing now is that money will be spent to kill your career, if you want to get money out of politics. A few months ago I was insisting no one under forty was going to vote for Joe Biden. Now, to take his role in the race, of "old white man with right-wing politics who is ostensibly electable in terms of being able to win over voters who are undecided between Democrats and Republicans despite the fact that no one likes him" is Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg is, somehow, worse than Joe Biden; arguably, perhaps even probably, worse than Donald Trump. Like Biden, there's a long history of racism and sexism in terms of policy he has pushed and things he has said. Michael Bloomberg spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2004, in support of George W. Bush, at the height of the Iraq war. He also supported stop and frisk in New York City, and changed the laws so he could run for a third term as mayor: Everyone worried about Trump declaring himself "president for life" and not retiring quietly should look to Bloomberg's example of how plutocrats bend the rules in their favor. I don't believe he would win an election, he is a truly sub-John-Kerry proposition. However, it is arguable Bloomberg would be a worse president than Donald Trump, able to impose right-wing policies without any of the opposition Trump enjoys. That opposition, as it is, feels pretty nominal, and the fact that Democrats seem to prefer Bloomberg be the nominee over Sanders points to why. It feels like the idea of insisting people vote for Bloomberg for the sake of "beating Trump" is psychological warfare, not a "compromise" but intentionally designed to degrade and demoralize not just "the left" but anyone with any sort of historical understanding or basic opposition to right-wing hegemony. I will not vote for Michael Bloomberg in a general election. If offered the false choice between Bloomberg and Donald Trump, two Republican plutocrats, we should give up on the idea that democracy exists and all become full-on anarchists. It is in both the Democratic party's interest, and my own personal psychology, to avoid making me feel this way about the assorted other candidates running. I basically avoid learning too much about Pete Buttegieg, though I already resent that I know how to pronounce his last name. I truly hope he goes away forever. Elizabeth Warren would've been, at one point, an "acceptable compromise" between the left and more moderate wings of the party, who I would be happy to support, but her campaign is now being run by people interested in the paradigm of degrading the left and it's pretty depressing to think that she has no interest in actually passing Medicare-for-all or any of the other large, sweeping changes this country sorely needs. I think all these people, Bloomberg and Biden especially, would lose an election. Regardless of my vote, I believe that Bernie Sanders is the only person who can win, although perhaps he can only win if the entire media apparatus is not violently opposed to his campaign. To his credit, he is not actually publicizing this conspiracy for the sake of his campaign. He did so in 2016, when he was running against Hillary Clinton. It is considered "divisive" to do so. Sanders instead is basing his campaign on how many people his policies would help, how painful our current society is, how much pain there is in our society. I feel like I have made it obvious, in other places, how this includes me. I've written often about being poor, and having limited options in this society, despite my assorted privileges. What's funny is that I feel like something I have in common with Sanders, besides our Jewish heritage, is a disinterest in talking about ourselves. I don't want to say "My life is pathetic, I am poor, and voting for Bernie would help me out." And Bernie doesn't want to say "All these bastards are arrayed against me, vote for me so they can lose power and we can start to have a functioning democracy." So it's my role to say what Bernie won't. There are people who think talking about Sanders, and his obvious integrity contrasted with other politicians, is akin to believing in a cult of personality. I don't want to accuse everyone of participating in acts of projection, but what's interesting is I think centrists largely believe that every politician has integrity. That's why they don't think it matters when someone takes high-paying gigs giving speeches, or whatever. There isn't the same understanding of power acting to protect itself by maintaining a status quo. Without this basic belief in what integrity is, the whole fact of Sanders' popularity seems suspect. There are pundits who describe the fact that Sanders has large crowds of passionate supporters as in itself Trumpian, whereas Bloomberg and Biden, with their histories of racism, sexism, mental decline, lying, and support for the rich, actually manifest the parts of Trump's being that are the problem. Bernie Sanders is real, he's genuinely what every person who has professed liberal opinions over the past thirty-odd years claims to be. The people who hate him are not all political operatives, but they're people who think like those operatives do, fake as hell smiling backstabbers who are allergic to the real. There are huge contradictions between the values they claim to have and how they act, and so they are unable to see the lies of the politicians they support. However, the rest of us, the vast majority of society, see through all of it, and recognize Bernie Sanders as being genuine. This is why Bernie Sanders can win, and why he should win, and why he'll be able to be a good president once in office. He's right, when everyone else for the past forty years has been wrong. Bernie Sanders is right because he's the only person who is not lying to themselves, and that gives him an enormous advantage in terms of his basic relationship to reality.