#being against genocide and not wanting to vote is not a moral failing of the people

[777greywolf]

Hey, this is not a great take. Also at least one of the ppl on this thread is a Zionist.

Just a thought for the night, but remember in 2016 there were all these accounts that seemed really really telling you all the ways Hillary Clinton was some kind of demon woman, just the worst, and really Trump wouldn't be worse and maybe he'd even be better?

and then it turned out they got banned for being literally Russian agents and never came back because spoiler they were?

does it feel like that all over again? just a thought.

[qqueenofhades]

What do you think of the movement to vote "uncommitted" in the primary? Personally I think it's a good idea as a protest vote, while not "allowing Trump to win" since it's, ya know, the primary. You're voting for "the Democrat you want to be the candidate for president" not who you actually want to be president. Most of the arguments I've seen against it seem to forget primaries exist...

Well, since you came to me and presumably do want my honest opinion on this topic, I'll share it with you. However, this will also be very blunt and candid, including some things which I haven't yet said in the 4+ months since the whole Israel/Hamas situation kicked off, and therefore also frustrated. This frustration should not be read as/taken as being directed at you personally, but since you're the conduit for this question, that's just something I want to highlight.

So. Why should you vote for Biden in the primary, and not "uncommitted" or whatever else?

First of all, what I desperately want to ask all these self-righteous VOTE UNCOMMITTED IN THE PRIMARY TO SEND BIDEN A MESSAGE types is: what exactly the fuck do you want this message to be, and what action do you expect Biden will take as a result? Is this actually based on an expectation of what he can/and or will actually do, or is it just a froth of misguided Online Leftist "rah rah this Bad Thing Happening Is All Biden's Fault," as we also notably went through when Roe was overturned by the Trump-stacked SCOTUS selected precisely for the purpose of overturning Roe? My god, the amount of bad "THIS IS BIDEN/THE DEMOCRATS' FAULT" posts that appeared, and are still circulating on the particularly idiotic corners of this site. Nothing could ever be Trump/the Republicans' fault in that case; it was the same old same old "DEMOCRATS DON'T CARE ENOUGH TO STOP THIS!!!" puerile fantasy. That's what we are getting now with Israel/Hamas. This isn't Hamas's fault for attacking Israel on October 7 (god forbid; the online left loves Hamas) and it isn't even the state of Israel and Netanyahu's fault for responding with full-scale genocide on Gaza. Or it is, somehow, but not so much that Biden personally couldn't magically reach in and stop it "if he really wanted to." I'm sick and fucking tired of this bullshit sixth-grade bad-faith disingenuous approach to playing Super Moral Social Justice Yahtzee and refusing to acknowledge the thousands of complex factors at play, especially when it involves blaming literally anyone other than Biden, personally (just like the Trump cultists, for whom "IT'S BIDEN'Z FAULT" is the beginning and end of their political theory, just like the Online Leftists). I'm sure this will get me called a genocide apologist by the Very Smart Moral Twitter Thinker types, but I don't think "Biden has failed to magically single-handedly solve this crisis, which stems from one of the most major and long-running issues in post-WWII and indeed pre-WWII world history, in four months" is actually a good reason to vote against him.

Likewise: withholding your vote might make more sense as a strategy if Biden was still only blindly supporting Israel and refusing to do anything to pressure them, which is demonstrably untrue. I know it's hard for some of these people to actually read the news and/or anything outside their ultra-curated Twitter feed, but it's been well-reported and well-documented that he is. If the US was directly involved in the bombing campaign on Gaza, sure, tell Biden that you will vote uncommitted to increase pressure on him to pull out. None of that is actually true, and the "information" about Biden's action in re: Gaza on both Twitter and Tumblr is basically just entirely malicious lies. So again: what message are you sending when you decide to be all precious and announce you're not voting for him? You don't want him to pressure Israel? You're willing to blow this up entirely and increase the media nonsense about BIDEN WEAK DEMOCRATS DIVIDED and give Trump an opening to exploit? You really want to announce to the Trump/Putin/Netanyahu axis of evil that their anti-Biden propaganda is working (since all three of them are working as hard as they fucking can to get Biden out of office, and as someone who opposes all three of them, I think this is a good idea to vote for Biden!) and they need to hammer harder on this wedge issue? Because that's all your oh-so-moral Uncommitted vote is doing. It's not a protest. It's not leverage. It is the withdrawing of leverage. If you want Biden in office so he can be pressured to listen to you and take action that you agree with, you will vote for him. Yes, in the primary. Yes, when it's not directly against Trump.

You want a ceasefire, you say? GREAT! WE ALL WANT A CEASEFIRE AND/OR ACTUAL PEACE AND RECOGNITION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE! That's in fact why you should be busting your fucking ass to make sure Biden gets re-elected, and to give him a strong show of support in the primary. Biden is the only candidate with a credible long-term (and like, baseline functional sane adult) plan for Gaza. Biden is the one who has been pressuring Netanyahu in every single contact to tone it down and stop acting like an insane murderous maniac and therefore torching any remains of sympathy for the attack Israel suffered in October. Biden is the one who has his entire diplomatic team working on high-level contacts with the Israeli government and the Hamas representatives via Qatar, while sufficiently threatening Iran to back down from frothing at the mouth to destroy Israel (once again, just like the rest of the antisemitic western left). Biden is the one who is pushing for this not to be World War III, and yet we get Baby's First Social Justice Activist screaming at him for being GENOCIDE JOE and blaming him personally for not, as I keep putting it, shapeshifting into Netanyahu's body and making this stop. "He should publicly call for a ceasefire!" Or, and this is just a suggestion, he should DO HIS FUCKING JOB and continue to work on serious problems that don't have instant socially media marketable catchphrases and won't come with instant gratification. Also, please tell me how you plan to get both Hamas and Israel to accept the same terms for a ceasefire, abide by it, and do exactly what Big Daddy Biden told them, because you, the dedicated anti-western anti-imperialist, think that's the best course of action?

Like. I mean. As vice president and now as president, Biden is actually one of the least foreign-intervention-happy leaders the US has ever had. He was originally against the Abbottabad raid to take out Osama bin Laden in 2011; he wound down the overseas drone assassination program (at which the Online Leftists screamed bloody murder at Obama, ignored in Trump, and then refused to give Biden any credit for ending) to almost nothing, he pulled the US out of Afghanistan, and even though he's been supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, he's also been extremely slow and cautious (in my opinion, too slow and cautious) at giving them all the military hardware they need, even before this latest blockade of aid in the House by Putin's favorite little bitch Mike Johnson. He has already presided over a historic shift in US policy toward Israel, in terms of conditioning the use of lethal aid, imposing reporting requirements, starting to criticize them publicly, and calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state and more humanitarian aid to get into Gaza. Yet in the Online Leftists' mind, because he is not personally out there Captain America-ing away the Israeli bombs and/or calling for Israel to be totally destroyed "from the river to the sea" as the Tumblr activists are fond of using no matter how often Jews ask them to stop, there is nothing he's actually doing! GENOCIDE JOE!!!!! Like, I thought the anti-western anti-American crowd thought all overseas American influence was evil (but all overseas Russian and/or Chinese influence is fine). When Biden actually doesn't recklessly intervene in foreign conflicts like Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Reagan/Bush 1/Bush 2/pretty much every American president in the latter half of the twentieth century, you'd think that would get him plaudits? NAH.

"Biden should stop selling Israel weapons without Congressional approval!" Okay, sure, he should. Which he did one time, and he also repeatedly promised to veto and/or not pass any only-Israel aid package that didn't also help Ukraine and Taiwan. He's also not beholden to the frothing antisemitic Online Leftists position that Israel should just lie down and let all of its citizens be killed and its state wiped from existence. Like. We also remember that Jewish voters exist in America, right? And that Jewish lives are something which are repeatedly and demonstrably under threat in the rest of the world, including from Hamas and the Houthis (who are genuinely terrible people and the western left's warm embrace of them as principled anti-Israel actors is all we need to know about their inherent brainrot and moral vacancy). We know that maybe going full masks-off antisemite (which Biden isn't going to do anyway, for any number of reasons) isn't the greatest plan and nothing to which you should be conditioning your vote? Likewise, please tell me how you plan to make Congress (especially the GOP-led clown car House) "do what Biden wants," since you're still beholden to that being the be-all-and-end-all of moral action? Or how you account for Congress at all, and not just think The President is An Almighty King?

Aside from all this, I am sick to my fucking back teeth of the Precious Moral Princesses (gender neutral) who have spent four years lying about everything Biden has done. We had the personally blaming him for Roe ending (he could unilaterally overturn SCOTUS if he really wanted!) We had the endless bashing about student debt, only to ignore him actually making the most major effort to forgive student debt in all the post-Reagan years. We have had a complete ignoring and/or distortion of his domestic policy accomplishments, which are some of the most momentous since FDR and LBJ. We have had an utter ignoring, revision, and downplaying of the damage Trump did in one term and how very much worse his second would be. We have had to endure "WELL YOU CAN'T ASK ME TO VOTE FOR BIDEN" at every single second for every single thing, because this is such a terrible onerous thing to ask them to lift one single fucking finger to give us some more time to come up with a better solution. And yet, as astutely pointed out by one of my anons yesterday, they utterly don't care whether the obvious outcome of this action is to help Trump get back into power. Apparently that's not a moral reach too far, but straining their delicate tender moral sensibilities to fucking do the goddamn bare minimum to help us out -- both in America and around the world -- no, no. We can't have that.

Like. These people allegedly want a ceasefire, and they want it to come about by asking literally nothing more of them then posting snide anti-Biden diatribes on social media. That's the extent of the effort they're willing to put in. They can't even trouble themselves to take the first step of voting for people who want to address this crisis in a constructive way. So yeah, I have a hard time believing this is anything deeply felt in regard to opposing genocide, and just wants what makes them look morally superior. Also: I don't care if your feelings are genuinely pure and strong and you obviously oppose what's happening in Gaza (we all do!) and want it to end. In that case, why the fuck aren't you throwing your support (yes! Even in the primary!) behind the one guy who's actually working to fix it and not just posting empty platitudes on Twitter? It likewise does not excuse you from the harmful consequences of your rhetoric and actions, if you decide that the best way to act on your deep-seated and genuine desire to stop the genocide is just to blindly bash Biden all day every day. Not voting for Biden in the primary does not excuse the fact that this election is against Trump and everything horrible that he represents, and that we are in this situation largely because the online left has learned literally fucking nothing from 2016 and is eager to do it all over again. Not voting for Biden in the primary does not give you a special Gold Star Moral Activist sticker announcing that you were too virtuous to engage in the process now, but if you're sufficiently placated, you maybe will do it in November. Miss me with that bullshit. I've spent eight years pleading with people to help us fix this mess, by -- yes! engaging with the flawed process that makes partial changes!!! -- and all I hear is that same fucking nonsense. That is a large part of why this response is so steamed.

Anyway. In short, I don't think voting "uncommitted" is a good idea, I think it only helps Trump in the short and long term, I think it protests nothing, I think it represents the same old tired anti-voting schlock that I have had more than fucking enough of, and I don't endorse it by any means. However, you will see that while I can strongly and unequivocally give you my opinion that it is a bad idea, I cannot actually reach through the screen, take control of your body, and force you to obey me one way or the other. So maybe, just maybe, Biden can't do the same with Netanyahu. Weird.

[beardedinfluencerdestiny]

Please read the whole thing!!!!

Let's be very clear we need to stop blaming 3rd party, indigenous and more groups. They didnt have much affect on the votes with 3rd parties accounting for 0.04%. To start off, These are why Kamala wasnt electes

1. The democratic party were very problematic aiding in a war and genocide.

2. Kamala is a woman and biracial

3. importantly 87 million didn't vote most of which were in the democratic party as well as trump supporter actively having a reason to vote after they felt "wronged". As well as indigenous and brown people feeling betrayed for what the administration have done but not wanting to vote for Trump and i understand that america is basically a 2 party country but it still had a big impact. Trump didn't even have much of an increase but Kamala had a significant decrease.

4. Kamala didnt explain her policies enough to people instead driving of a fear of trump

5.However the main problem is the rise in extremism in the West that allowed trump into presidency and created a cult like facist regime,which will most likely continue.

Back to the people who chose not to vote: it was because they either did not care, didnt have a driving motivation to vote or felt failed democratic party's actions because they preached for equality but when it came to support indigenous communities, kamala being a cop or the explotation of the environment they failed severly. Or people where in a comfortable position of priveledge which is the main problem.

Moral we need to stop the conviction against 3rd parties and smaller indigenous communities

So how do we change this:

4 year plan: disclaimer i am british so if you have any advice send it on the plan. And this is rushed so i will put a full plan in detail out later but it will take a while

We start by promoting 3rd parties in our communities.We start with smaller sections of communities. Vote 3rd party or democratic party in smaller sections.

We focus on promoting the youth through education and tiktok to vote and why it is resourceful in change.

We send petions and protest to elected official or chosen officials on manditory things we need.

If you dont want to get pregnant get the implant now.

If you need medicare try by all means to move out of the country or to a blue state.

Disabled, poc or immigrants move to blue states. Your more likely to get help.

We need to have community discussion to start funds or community charities.

Promote to the youth. Socail media is powerful.

Make an organised voting system ensuring palestinian supporters, congo and sudan supporters to put stress on democrats whilst advocating for their vote in a 2 party system.

Simultaneosly promote 3rd parties as we start to over 8-12 years put them up as viable candidates BUT explain that it isnt vaible for 2026.

Read the democratic plan and explain it because that was their biggesf failure and explain the harmful rhetoric in far right administrations, that will be easy over 4 years. We need to prevent the youth from extremism.

I will edit and go into more detail adding an 8-12 year plan to keep a government that is beneficial for us and the world as a whole but, if you cant tell i have been rushjng

[jyndor]

You’re so right about West Papua. Javanese colonizers are in the comments of the original tweet like “you don’t understand, these guys were arrested because they had weapons :( “ while celebrating the Palestinian right to armed resistance. You can’t say that you stand against genocide while ignoring or justifying the one that you happen to benefit from. The West Papuans should be able to resist Indonesian colonization in any way they see fit.

anon, this is one of the most bitter truths about all this, and I'm sorry I don't want to speak out of turn but I think perhaps for a lot of people in the west it can be odd to realize that for many people in the world Palestine is an issue that transcends ideology for the most part.

so even though we in the so-called west are used to solidarity with Palestinians being a leftist thing because ain't no centrist or conservative here giving a shit about them, that's not the norm globally.

obviously the Arab and Islamic worlds are largely in solidarity because they see Arabs and Muslims having been colonized by a western proxy, a settler colonial project that is also very hostile to most of them, even though of course Palestinians are not oppressed because they are Muslim (and Christian) but because they are Palestinians. and Palestine is very diverse - many people racialized in many ways. and as we see with the treatment of Sudanese people in Egypt and other largely non-Black Arab countries, people may hold onto solidarity with one group sincerely while failing another group going through similar brutality.

I think conversations like this are best left to communities to have because they have a better understanding of their communities and these issues than I ever could, but also if we are going to ally ourselves with anti-colonial struggles for self-determination and liberation, that means ALL of them. all peoples, all cultures, no matter what what the governments occupying their homes and oppressing them are doing for Palestine or any other oppressed people.

I am so happy that so many countries are standing up for Palestinians but let's not be fooled into thinking they're just doing it because they care about liberation period - if they do at all, it is because of internal pressure from their peoples. I appreciate South Africa's work on this matter and the decades of solidarity they have had with Palestinians - but South Africa abstained from a vote condemning Russia for its annexation and invasion of Ukraine, which notably puts indigenous Crimean Tatars at significant risk. this is about geopolitics of course, not just morality... and people need to understand that.

a lot of the global south has been... not terribly great on this issue, and I mean I get it because Ukraine hasn't exactly fostered great solidarity with the global south but tbh if people are going to care about liberation, anti-imperialism and indigenous rights it really should not matter if for once the US is actually on the right side of that issue, which is really what it comes down to lbr. Ukraine is a western, white-racialized country that has benefited from white European supremacy (never gonna forget that English reporter going ~bUt ThIs iS EuRoPe~~~ lol) and that is not something that can or should be overlooked by supporters of Ukrainian self-determination as it often is. and then there's the overwhelming support for Israel from Ukraine, which is abhorrent and I know there is also support for Palestine there too. But it's very telling that when push comes to show, that solidarity is lacking.

when it comes to Indonesia and West Papuans, there is no room for ambiguity - it is genocide, it is colonialism, it is occupation. one thing I have learned through this is that cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.

people BELIEVE there is a real substantive difference between whatever resistance movement they support and whatever groups that their own governments are oppressing, or that are not geopolitically "aligned" with their politics. as if their politics shouldn't be informed by liberation PERIOD.

every time there is a big post about multiple genocides/atrocities in general, there's always people in the comments going "Well actualllyyyyy x is not being genocided because y" and it's like... how do you know that? how do you know that the uyghur cultural genocide* is not happening???? we literally say all the time that genocide doesn't always mean the complete murder of every single person in a group, why are we being like this??? cultural genocide is genocide, and it can easily escalate into mass murder. how is this up for fucking debate.

anyway, I have to go to work but yeah anon I get it. people need to unlearn nationalism and learn how to critically engage with their governments' histories. all of us. sorry it's coming from a us american but I think I know a little something about that.

*I understand the US is full of shit on this and has pushed some propaganda but that does not mean I do not have solidarity with the Uyghurs.

[obiternihili]

there's a class of shitbag that are incredibly wrong on some issues but happen to make noise for a just cause now and then by accident

and i kind of want to fully examine the ethics of boosting them when they're accidentally correct

twitter is just. "ignore them". ok. yeah they're liars. they'll use the audience they're grifting to weaponize against the good causes they're against.

but like

the victims in the conflict du jour have less power. the media is united in trying to manufacture consent against them. entire states are lining up to drink the blood. their supporters in their diaspora or just generally abroad are lynched, silenced, or disappeared. (am I talking about the Palestinian genocide, the Uyghur genocide, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine war, who? this should be understood as a generic situation with a generic problem).

can you really afford handicapping the just cause by not allowing it to use the shitbag class? death isn't a temporary setback you can just make up for with the power of anime and hardwork. being a better person isn't going to bring anyone back by itself. every death is an incredible loss, both in the human sense and the game theory sense of losing.

And like the reverse of the shitbag class exists too. Like, say you agree generically that the shitbags' usual supporting team is warmongering and evil, but on one of the situations they're accidentally correct, which makes a whole lot of people really against the shitbags take a wrong position? An example for a progressive leftist who sees the Ukraine as actually fighting against an invading fascist state might be the way people like Roger Waters or Jeremy Corbyn reacted to supporting Ukraine. shit like https://aeon.co/essays/settler-colonialism-is-not-distinctly-western-or-european but you could generalize the moral problem to other ideologies i think

so like

strategies, right?

you could do the right thing and just cut off the shitbags and litmus test away the people like corbyn or said or whomever and handicap a dialogue

you could do the wrong thing and just unquestionably support antisemites or racists or islamophobes or whomever

it seems to me that there's a third strategy

just block people knowingly speaking false information because that's a more immediate issue orthogonal to the bigger ethical issue I'm trying to get at

selectively support honest shitbags when and only when they're saying something important and worthy

attack them when they try to pivot to things they're wrong about

like the issue with platforming them is obvious. but it's a high stakes game and sometimes you need to say things you don't believe but your audience would believe in order to convince them of something.

like i don't believe the us government actually exercised due diligence to highest of international standards in our pursuit of alqaeda. I don't believe the monetary cost to the taxpayer supplied Israel with weapons is a major moral issue compared to the civilians being bombed. but if i'm writing a republican congressman trying to get him to call for a ceasefire I'm gonna have to use arguments he might be convinced by, like, "israel is being irresponsible with our money, they should be using a surgical tactic like we used against bin laden" even if i don't believe we were particularly surgical invading iraq or afghanistan or bombing weddings or torturing people without trial or the rape of fallujah or whatever.

but does it really matter if a ceasefire vote were ever to pass if the voter did so because of humanity or because of ghoulish solely-financial reasoning? do the dead care because the vote to ceasefire failed because one guy who might have been swayed by the ghoulish argument so beneath us didn't hear it? Would the dead really appreciate whether it were a social justice motivated politician or a financial responsibility motivated politician casting a vote for ceasefire?

the mixed strategy's problem mostly seems to be it's ability to failure mode into the "wrong thing"

but like. the "wrong thing" is going to happen anyways. some child or idiot is going to get wrapped up in shit, and respond by becoming a terrible person. the grifters are going to grift even if they always grift for good causes.

there is no litmus test for goodness. palestine doesn't work obviously. you can't just take palestine and ukraine or palestine and armenia or uyghurstan and tigraya or whatever.

there's no litmus test. alternatively every thing is yet another step in an increasingly terrible litmus test. every single issue at this scale is mind breaking and people are going to overreact to the trauma at some point, and learn things like "turks are untrustworthy fundamentally" as an armenian tried to tell me or "japanese things are disgusting" as a woman who lived through the japanese occupation of shanghai accidentally showed me.

is there even a way to soberly, analytically assess the danger of the mixed strategy? how do you quantify the number of lives saved by letting your pet bastard have a go at the podium? how do you quantify the number of lives damned by letting your pet bastard have a go at the podium?

etc

[mypatchworkreflection]

Fuck Genocide Joe, but fuck Trump harder

To say I'm angry with President Biden over his continued support for and general failure to stop the genocide in Palestine is quite an understatement. He has the blood of countless innocents on his hands. That said, while I'll be cursing and grinding my teeth all the while, I'm still going to vote for him. The bottom line is that with our current political system, it's going to be him or Trump. I see people say sometimes that Trump actually managed to do less harm while he was in office, but let's be clear: Trump only cares about Trump. He's hopelessly corrupt, and straight up said he'd do whatever the fossil fuel industry wants for enough money. (and I'm sure for anyone else who's willing and able to pay.) He's said that he plans to be a dictator if he gets back in (for his first term, but like he'd stop?) He's also said that Israel should "Finish the job".

I saw this earlier on another social media platform, and I think it's a good summary of the issue. Professor Barrington Wolff wrote on Threads (bolding mine):

"A note to progressives who resist voting for President Biden:

There are policies and moral issues on which I disagree with President Biden, including the largely unqualified nature of the support he has provided to the Netanyahu regime after seeing the way they are conducting the war. I think about a vote for Mr. Biden partly as support for the policies and moral issues where we do agree, the climate crisis and the urgency of bending the carbon curve while it is still possible being foremost among them. But I also think about a vote for Mr. Biden as a question of which opponent I want to fight when we disagree. When I disagree with a President and an administration, do I want to be fighting Mr. Biden and the people he will hire when he makes what I view as bad decisions on immigration or foreign policy — a President and administration who respect the rule of law, will not try to destroy institutions and undermine the independent judiciary in order to get their way, and can be negotiated with on areas of disagreement? Yes, that is who I want to be fighting on these issues. The alternative is a corrupt, society-destroying sociopathic fascist who will fill his administration with criminals and destroy anything in his path to stay in power.

If you revile President Biden and can never forgive him for actions he has taken, recognize that this election is about picking which opponent you will be struggling against to try to accomplish your goals -- which enemy you will be fighting, if that is how you think about it. And if you want to win these fights, you want to be contending with an opponent who will respect the rule of law, respect the authority of courts, and negotiate with the advocates who disagree with him. Choosing to empower an enemy who will burn down everything you care about is not a righteous way to express your outrage at President Biden's failings, it is just an orgiastic act of self-immolation and it is always the most vulnerable people who are the first ones to get burned in that kind of conflagration.

Even if you view President Biden as an enemy, recognize that he is the enemy you want to be fighting against for the next four years."

[horizonsstandstill]

Cop city too. Subsidising big oil as well. The imperialist project inside. Anti homeless laws. Lack of healthcare access to trans and GNC people. Disabled people dying due to lack of COVID policies. Historical high police brutality rates. Inhumane border law. Increased incarceration of Black people and prison slavery. Indigenous land destruction for environmentally suicidal extraction industry. Surveillance state and brutal censorship. If you want to see a fascist look at everyone who supported KOSA.

What do we expect from a guy who has been behind several segregationist policies and who wanted to wage war on Iraq before Bush Jr. did? The lies that are called state propaganda is at Bush Jr. levels already. The ones who think that we have a democracy left to save are deluding themselves, buried un white privilege and imperialist self righteousness. What will voting change if people pick between two mass murderers one being a genocide happy geriatric fascist who ignores every evil act he is deliberately committing against innocent people of all kinds and the other being an overt fascist who openly declares hatred and wages war on everything good?

Biden is not the only one to blame. Those who support him and bully other people into doing that because "Trump is worse" are also to blame. Their love for status quo is above any morality if they have it, and yet they blame people for having clear principles. At least the red fascists are coherent and less hypocritical about their hatred of others and desire to keep their privileges. Blue fascists are the worst hypocrites for pretending that fascism hasn't been unleashed upon us all. What they are implicitly saying is that "You all have to care about my comfort regardless of how much I ignore yours, and of course all the calls for decency."

Funny thing is that they think they are smart, when all they do is to attempt converting people into their own partisanship without any convincing arguments. The logic dictates that in a failing economy where the cost if living is not manageable, with highrocketing rents and betrayal about the promised increase in minimum wage; along with the government splurging on a genocidal campaign that 70 percent of population regards with contempt, then suppressing all the dissent through violence while trying to make believe with propaganda that everything is fine and nothing is going to change if you vote blue, you are going to fail. Spectacularly. That's how Hitler came to power. And we don't blame German left enough for not doing anything to improve the lives of people instead of sitting on their asses and violently subduing protests. The only difference is that we already have Hitler in power and the next election is framed as us having a choice between different flavours of Hitler. A third choice might not be able to stop us from getting a Hitler elected, but it will make a statement. "We don't want a Hitler governing us, we won't accept it and you're not alone.". It's a start if nothing. Whoever wins we lose anyway, and that might be a signal to self claimed progressives to become actually progressive.

As a side note, Trump making America a dictatorship type of fear mongering is a little unrealistic. There's a huge dislike among Republicans towards him that cannot be ignored and the over white supremacist demographic is shrinking at a fast rate. These racists will never be able to win over enough Black and Latine support to keep any white supremacist authoritarian regime going, and they won't be able to suppress riots if they erupt.

The curious question is whether the status quo loving white privilege deniers that are walking around as liberals will pick the imperialist side or the progressive side. Regardless, they will be ineffective in their support because they have this contempt going on with either side and a weird superiority complex with nothing solid to base it upon. My bet is that they will start blaming both sides for not picking their flavour of genocidal imperialism and that's why nobody is living like they lived(?) in the good(?) old days.

I am so sick and tired of seeing all these “I know biden is bad, I know biden has done some bad things but vote for biden because trump will destroy our democracy” posts bc a) clearly our democracy is a sham and b) STOP DEFENDING BIDEN, STOP DOWNPLAYING WHAT HE HAS DONE! you do not need to, nor should you, defend biden to any degree. you can say that we cannot let trump win without that other bullshit. biden is pure evil, he is scum. and part of what makes him so horrendous and disturbing is the charade he puts on like he’s the good guy and trump is the evil, the bad to his good. quite literally the only thing that he has going for him is that his opponent is somehow even worse than him. that his opponent has no pretense of even trying to act like he doesn’t want to fully be a dictator. stop fucking defending biden. stop fucking downplaying all the horrendous, despicable, evil things he has done and is continuing to do. he is fully funding and supporting and enabling a genocide. it helps no one.

and if/when biden loses, he only has himself to blame.

ideally we would all rally behind a third party candidate and the electoral college wouldn’t exist. ideally these wouldn’t be our “choices”. idfk what to do because trump cannot win but how can any of us in good conscience vote for biden’s evil, fascistic, decrepit ass ??

what makes biden so different from or better than trump? nothing!!

- he is unconditionally supporting netanyahu and his genocide of Palestinians

- democrats have done nothing to protect nor help us as roe v. wade was overturned, we still have student loan debt, the cost of living is unaffordable and the minimum wage remains unchanged, biden has increased police presence and funding for police (more so than in 2020, despite the eruption of BLM protests and the murder of George Floyd and his promise to George Floyd’s family that he wouldn’t let his murder become just another number, another hashtag), and so. much. more.

- biden is building off of trump’s policies - specifically and most recently, biden has just announced an executive order to deny asylum requests. the increase in police funding and the further militarization of police was also built off of trump’s policies

the u.s. is an evil sham of a country.

as ethel cain said …

[mitchell2606]

Also specifically for the Democrats who didn't vote because of single issues like the economy or Gaza. Please leave a material reason for why in the comments (not the tags/reblogs)

This is my perspective:

I cannot fathom people hearing about the plans Trump has and going "they're both the same". The dude who said he would "bomb the fuck outta them", the dude that actively did shit to raise tensions overseas, the dude who actively wants to be a dictator. Y'all think abstaining is morally neutral or good when he openly wants to "finish the job" in Gaza.

I hated hearing the rhetoric like "I understand why you don't want to vote for Kamala because of the genocide" like NO I reject that completely. If both sides are going to continue the genocide, then you have to think about all the other issues that are being decided. It's not a moral victory to check out of the political process when trans rights, women's rights, immigration, lgbt rights, mass deportation, foreign affairs, climate change, and so many others are also on the ballot.

Like "I can't support democrats because of Gaza" is the same as being like "This issue is more important than any other issue, trans rights can't be fought for while there's a genocide, women's rights are fine to regress because theres a genocide, immigrants can be thrown out of the country because there's a genocide, any violence against minorities in the US is fine because there's a genocide" I understand that most people who are against the genocide don't want violence over here either but in no way is not voting going to stop the genocide. There is a sliver of hope when we elect Dems but no chance in hell when we elect Republicans (and they get to screw over minorities even more in the US.) there is no moral high ground to not voting; at best its a cowardly shitty thing to do, at worst you are actively contributing to the world's decent into fascism.

I just don't get why it's an all or nothing with the more far left types or twitter leftists, like if you actually believe in socialism and a democratic rise to power then, *surprise*, it's going to take awhile. The Dems really fucked up electing Hillary as the candidate in 2016 but they failed then, learned nothing, put up Biden in 2020, learned nothing, now they've failed again and learned nothing. Maybe we need to actually get involved in politics, actually work our way up like all the far right Republicans.

Or let's just fantasize about how morally correct we are as thousand of people lose rights, get deported, kill themselves, and get killed because we can't possibly show up to the fucking Poll once every four years. Can't be bothered to vote early, can't be bothered to have any actual praxis. And I'm snitching on myself like I definitely wasn't as involved as I should have been these last 4 years, so I'm sorry.

This is more of a rant than a discussion, I just need to get out my feelings. I have a friend that was very Jill Stein, protest the vote pilled and I'm just so angry at that type of person right now. I know they didn't really affect the election (at least from those that voted) but the rhetoric is just frustrating coming from people who say they support leftist ideas.

[taxbywaxworth]

Here’s my political hot take: if you don’t consistently vote in not only your local elections, but your local primaries, I do not give a shit about your opinions on the current state of party policy nationally. I was 17 in November of 2016, it was the last election I was unable to vote in, and it crushed me, made me feel like I was powerless to help people around me, so I have made a point to learn about candidates in every local primary and general election and actually vote for progressive change at every level.

I’ve seen this fail, of course, there was a progressive candidate for state senate from my district who lost to a more moderate incumbent, there was a clerk of courts candidate this year who was pushing hard for justice system reform who got blown out by a 20 year incumbent. I’ve also seen this work, that state senate candidate ran for city Councelor a few years later and won a seat by less than 20 votes.

What I’ve never seen is someone within 10 years of my age at a voting booth during a local primary election. My voting district encompasses a college, I vote on a college campus and have never seen any college students voting in the local primaries.

The one thing politicians care about above all else is keeping their jobs, especially on the national level you have to appeal to a large enough group of people who actually vote in order to have a chance at winning. If you don’t show them that you’re someone who goes out and votes they will not try to appeal to you, and I get why people don’t want to vote for presidential candidates who are at best complicit in genocide, but I guarantee that there are candidates on your local primary ballot who agree with you enough to be someone worth fighting for.

If young progressives turned out for local primaries at the same rate that old conservatives do the candidates at the state level would have no choice but to move further left to attempt to capture that new voting block. And once that happens at the state level enough it would begin to be reflected nationally.

I get that all that sounds overly optimistic, but we exist within a system, and the ONLY way to actually have leverage against politicians is to be someone who they could count on to vote their way who is threatening to not vote for them. If you never vote and are threatening to not vote that’s not a threat, that’s the status quo and you’re maintaining it.

Especially on the local level this can work extremely effectively, the young progressive who won a city council seat by less that 20 votes? The Councelor he unseated had tied himself closely to a mayoral candidate who was spouting off dangerous rhetoric. I had voted for that Councelor in the previous city council election, but 20 of us who did before didn’t this time because we disagreed with where he’d aligned himself, and that was enough to ACTUALLY MAKE CHANGE.

If you don’t vote at every opportunity then you don’t get a say, literally, that’s not me being rude that’s me explaining how the system works. Ideologically, leftist ideals are more popular now than ever, but that isn’t reflected in elections because young progressives have incredibly low voting rates.

“I’m sick of voting for the lesser of two evils” great news you don’t have to if you actually bothered to learn about your local primary candidates. There are actual opportunities to not only mitigate harm but to ACTUALLY CHANGE THINGS FOR THE BETTER and A LOT of people in my generation with similar ideals just sit at home when given that opportunity.

If someone who consistently voted came up to me and said “I’m not willing to vote in this presidential election because I cannot support Kamala Harris because she supports genocide” I would disagree with them because while I believe that any amount of genocide is morally repugnant I also believe that less genocide is always preferable to more genocide. But I would listen, I would care about their opinion and I would be willing to let myself be swayed.

But when someone who never votes tells me they’re sitting out this election for whatever reason I don’t give a shit, because they’re not taking a stand, they’re doing nothing, which they always do, and that’s not activism that’s just lazy.

TL;DR: I don’t care about your opinions about the status quo unless you’ve actually taken the simplest step possible to try and change it.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor

https://ift.tt/2URb21b

As recently as September 2020 David Tennant topped a Radio Times poll of favourite Doctors. He beat Tom Baker in a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine poll, and was voted the best TV character of the 21st Century by the readers of Digital Spy. He was the Doctor during one of Doctor Who‘s critical and commercial peaks, bringing in consistently high ratings and a Christmas day audience of 13.31 million for ‘Voyage of the Damned’, and 12.27 million for his final episode, ‘The End of Time – Part Two’. He is the only other Doctor who challenges Tom Baker in terms of associated iconography, even being part of the Christmas idents on BBC One as his final episodes were broadcast. Put simply, the Tenth Doctor is ‘My Doctor’ for a huge swathe of people and David Tennant in a brown coat will be the image they think of when Doctor Who is mentioned.

In articles to accompany these fan polls, Tennant’s Doctor is described as ‘amiable’ in contrast to his predecessor Christopher Eccleston’s dark take on the character. Ten is ‘down-to-earth’, ‘romantic’, ‘sweeter’, ‘more light-hearted’ and the Doctor you’d most want to invite you on board the TARDIS. That’s interesting in some respects, because the Tenth Doctor is very much a Jekyll and Hyde character. He’s handsome, he’s charismatic, and travelling with him can be addictively fun, but he is also casually cruel, harshly dismissive, and lacking in self-awareness. His ego wants feeding, and once fed, can have destructive results.

That tension in the character isn’t due to bad writing or acting. Quite the contrary. Most Doctors have an element of unpleasantness to their behaviour. Ever since the First Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara, the character has been moving away from the entitled snob we met him as, but can never escape it completely.

Six and Twelve were both written to be especially abrasive, then soften as time went on (with Colin Baker having to do this through Big Finish audio plays rather than on telly). A significant difference between Twelve and Ten, though, is that Twelve questions himself more. Ten, to the very end, seems to believe his own hype.

The Tenth Doctor’s duality is apparent from his first full appearance in 2005’s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. Having quoted The Lion King and fearlessly ambled through the Sycorax ship in a dressing gown, he seems the picture of bonhomie, that lighter and amiable character shining through. Then he kills their leader. True, it was in self-defence, but it was lethal force that may not have been necessary. Then he immediately topples the British Prime Minister for a not dissimilar act of aggression. Immediately we see the Tenth Doctor’s potential for violence and moral grey areas. He’s still the same man who considered braining someone with a rock in ‘An Unearthly Child’. 

Teamed with Rose Tyler, a companion of similar status to Tennant’s Doctor, they blazed their way through time and space with a level of confidence that bordered on entitlement, and a love that manifested itself negatively on the people surrounding them. The most obvious example in Series 2 is ‘Tooth and Claw’, where Russell T. Davies has them react to horror and carnage in the manner of excited tourists who’ve just seen a celebrity. This aloof detachment results in Queen Victoria establishing the Torchwood institute that will eventually split them apart. We see their blinkers on again in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, when they take Mickey for granted. Rose and the Doctor skip along the dividing line between romance and hubris.

Then, in a Christmassy romp where the Doctor is grieving the loss of Rose, he commits genocide and Donna Noble sucker punches him with ‘I think you need somebody to stop you’. Well-meaning as this statement is, the Doctor treats it as a reason to reduce his next companion to a function rather than a person. Martha Jones is there to stop the Doctor, as far as he’s concerned. She’s a rebound companion. Martha is in love with him, and though he respects her, she’s also something of a prop.

This is the series in which the Doctor becomes human in order to escape the Family of Blood (adapted from a book in which he becomes human in order to understand his companion’s grief, not realising anyone is after him), and is culpable for all the death that follows in his wake. Martha puts up with a position as a servant and with regular racist abuse on her travels with this man, before finally realising at the end of the series that she needs to get out of the relationship. For a rebound companion, Martha withstands a hell of a lot, mostly caused by the Doctor’s failings. 

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Series 4 develops the Doctor further, putting the Tenth’s Doctor’s flaws in the foreground more clearly. Donna is now travelling with him, and simply calls him out on his behaviour more than Rose or Martha did. Nonetheless the Doctor ploughs on, and in ‘Midnight’ we see him reduced to desperate and ugly pleas about how clever he is when he’s put in a situation he can’t talk himself out of.

Rose has also become more Doctor-like while trapped in another reality, and brutally tells Donna that she’s going to have to die in order to return to the original timeline (just as the Doctor tells Donna she’s going to have to lose her memories of travelling with him in order to live her previous life, even as she clearly asks him not to – and how long did the Doctor know he would have to do this for? It’s not like he’s surprised when Donna starts glitching). Tied into this is the Doctor’s belief in his own legend. In ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ he holds a gun to Cobb’s head, then withdraws it and asks that they start a society based on the morals of his actions. You know, like a well-adjusted person does.

What’s interesting here is that despite presenting himself as ‘a man who never would’, the Doctor is a man who absolutely would. We’ve seen him do it. Even the Tenth Doctor, so keen to live up to the absolute moral ideals he espouses, killed the Sycorax leader and the Krillitanes, drove the Cybermen to die of despair, brought the Family of Blood to a quiet village and then disposed of them personally. But Tennant doesn’t play this as a useful lie, he plays it as something the Doctor absolutely believes in that moment, that he is a man who would not kill even as his daughter lies dead. It’s why his picking up a gun in ‘The End of Time’ has such impact. And it makes some sense that the Tenth Doctor would reject violence following a predecessor who regenerated after refusing to commit another double-genocide.

In the series finale ‘Journey’s End‘, Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into weapons. This is because the Doctor’s friends have used weapons against the Daleks who – and I can’t stress this enough – are about to kill everyone in the entire universe. Fighting back against them seems pretty rational. Also – and again I can’t stress this enough – the Daleks are bad. Like, really bad. You won’t believe just how mindbogglingly bad they are. The Doctor has tried to destroy them several times by this point. Here, there isn’t the complication of double-genocide, and instead the very real threat of absolutely everyone in the universe dying. This accusation, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, should absolutely not land.

And yet, with the Tenth Doctor, it does. This is a huge distinction between him and the First Doctor, who had to persuade pacifists to fight for him in ‘The Daleks’.

In ‘The Sontaran Strategem’ Martha compares the Doctor to fire. It’s so blunt it almost seems not worth saying, but it’s the perfect analogy (especially for a show where fire is a huge part of the very first story). Yes, fire shines in dark places, yes it can be a beacon, but despite it being very much fire’s entire deal, people can forget that it burns. And fire has that mythical connection of being stolen from the gods and brought to humanity. The Time Lord Victorious concept fits the Tenth Doctor so well. Of all the Doctors, he’s the most ready to believe in himself as a semi-mythic figure.

Even when regenerating there’s a balance between hero and legend: the Tenth Doctor does ultimately save Wilfred Mott, but only after pointing out passionately how big a sacrifice he’s making. And then he goes to get his reward by meeting all his friends, only to glare at them from a distance. His last words are ‘I don’t want to go’, which works well as clearly being a poignant moment for the actor as well, but in the context of Doctor Who as a whole it renders Ten anomalous: no one else went this unwillingly. And yet, in interviews Russell T. Davies said it was important to end the story with ‘the Doctor as people have loved him: funny, the bright spark, the hero, the enthusiast’.

It’s fascinating then, that this is the Doctor who has been taken to heart by so many viewers because there’s such an extreme contrast between his good-natured front, his stated beliefs, and his actions. He clearly loves Rose and Donna, but leaves them with a compromised version of happiness. They go on extraordinary journeys only to end up somewhere that leaves them less than who they want to be, with Russell T. Davies being more brutally honest than Steven Moffat, who nearly always goes the romance route. Davies once said to Mark Lawson that he liked writing happy endings ‘because in the real world they don’t exist’, but his endings tend towards the bittersweet: Mickey and Martha end up together but this feels like they’re leftovers from the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. The Tenth Doctor doesn’t, as Nine does, go with a smile, but holding back tears.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

It’s a testament to how well written the Tenth Doctor is that the character has this light and shade, and with David Tennant’s immense likeability he can appeal to a wider audience as a result. It’s not surprise he wins all these polls, but I can’t help but feel that if the Doctor arrived and invited me on board the TARDIS, I’d want it to be anyone but Ten.

The post Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3iaqbDk

[horizonsstandstill]

As if Biden doesn't kill the kids in cage, kill disabled through lack of Covid prevention measures, kill indigenous people through environmental harm to their lands, kill citizens of colour through police brutality, kill trans people through deliberate inaction and violently suppressing opposition, protests while installing censorship and surveillance everywhere.

Why would people think he would do as he says when he hasn't kept a single campaign promise? Any vote for him is actually aiding and abetting these murders too, aside from the several genocidal campaigns he's leading from Congo to Puerto Rico and obviously Palestine.

Doesn't matter Trump is worse. Consenting the mass murderer with lesser count of kills(doubtful because Biden has been in politics for decades compared to Trump he was a staunch segregationist) doesn't make the act ethical. You don't support the guy who says he will kill less orphans in the orphan killing machine. It will make you a murderer apologist.

Electoral defeatism of liberals will get us another term of Trump. Especially when there are several campaigns by lobbyists asking for the senile murderer to step down because Trump is more popular in the polls. Currently, the plan has to be to get Biden step down and have an electable democrat as a candidate that will appeal to the demands of social and political circles that would be willing to vote for him. Directing the funds from an ethnic cleansing campaign towards social services and disenfranchised people.

Anything less than that is consenting to murders of above mentioned people. There's not a single thing ethical about it. Liberals who pretend to be that are hardcore hypocrites. They would never vote for green candidates in house and senate either, in which there's no danger of getting Trump elected. They would never demand democrat senators to be more proggressive and they would accept any atrocity that doesn't harm their privileges.

Reminder, the oppressed minorities are not the one that have to work for your election. If you can't manage the art of compromise for your election that only you and Trump supporters care about, you'll lose big time. The responsibility is on you. It's you guys that should work to meet the demands of minorities to change their minds. Minorities don't owe nothing to their murderers other than retribution. If you don't spare sympathy for the oppressed, don't expect oppressed to have sympathy for you. They are already emotionally worn out to care about the people who support their oppressors.

Actually you should be grateful that people aren't spite voting Trump so that democrats are erased from history to be replaced by more progressive people or to get the liberal whites to their side in rebelling against the regime. Because unlike most of the privileged liberals, these people have moral backbone. You can't terrorise people with more fascism when they are already dying under fascism. Getting a new nonfascist candidate is the only way. Don't blame Palestinians for your candidate being a thorough senile idiot that's widely unpopular across the political spectrum.

Otherwise Trump is going to win big, mostly because of the economic failures of Biden and you guys will blame it on activism against genocide as if Biden didn't fail to keep his campaign promises. Maybe it's time for you guys to plan what to do in Trump's second term because the polls are saying he's almost certainly getting elected if you don't want to think about replacing Biden.

Work on making a difference instead of complaining that people who don't see any difference because they don't experience it are morally bankrupt instead of your candidate and people who support it. Victim blaming and shaming people into helping genociders won't work against those who hate all kinds of oppression.

VoteBlues will literally

A. Tell you that democracy in this country is completely broken and

B. Insist that's why you need to vote for the guy who is killing your family.

[mehrauli]

The wildly disproportionate attention being paid to the am*rican election vs the Bihari election is a naked confession of what democracy actually is and how it actually works. The american election has to be blasted over the entire world to legitimise liberal “democracy” in the third world and postcommunist states. The ads aren’t actually for D*nald Tr*mp or J*e B*den, they’re for democracy itself, they’re for the spectacular shared experience and the drama of it all. People follow the american election like it’s Game of Thrones and they get moral lessons out of it which are that democracy is great because the people choose the leaders and your vote matters and team Edward or team Jacob etc. Basically the same infrastructure goes into american pop culture that goes into american elections and their ridiculously high production values and the intended range of emotional effect is about the same: they want to create a demographic with brand loyalty while cutting into the market of their competitors. They’re not looking to convince each and every individual American by reasoned discussion, they’re looking to create market conditions which coerce brand loyalty.

What you don’t see from outside the country is the way every single person in the country becomes gradually weaponised into an agitated ball of neuroses, which is why the yanks on twitter are all like “check in on your american friends right now and make sure they’re alright uwu” and shit; because they’re turned into lunatics for one out of every four years arguing about something that they know is next to pointless because of gerrymandering, the electoral college, the corporate stranglehold over the media, etc. It makes a powerful psychological impression and constitutes the central ritual of the american civil cult; it’s the eucharistic rite by which they become a shared national body. The rest of us, watching in amusement or dread or “solidarity” or whatever it is we tell ourselves, knowing damn good and well that the american election has more influence over our countries than we do, internalise the fake news that the american election has anything to do with what kind of government americans want to have and one day the benefits of democracy will trickle down to us where our votes will matter like americans’ supposedly do if only we become educated and enfranchised like they are and our democracies just aren’t old enough yet but this is how they look when they get older, you can always tell the best political system because it creates decades and decades of perpetual instability in the third world; just a few more civil wars or genocides and it should be smooth sailing from then out, promise.

Indian state elections, on the other hand, are intentionally depoliticised because the aim of the Indian ruling class at this point is not to secure their hegemony but to naturalise it by calling it religion, etc, and by hiding how the sausage gets made which is through wonton violence against Muslims which doesn’t leave, and preferably doesn’t even make, regional press. The Bihar election has no greater lesson to teach the world or even the rest of India or even really Bihar, it doesn’t have the same role in global liberal ideology and isn’t produced in the same way or for the same reason.

For the american ruling class, Tr*mp created a crisis of legitimacy from which american empire has not recovered not because he was particularly evil (his body count is almost definitely the lowerst of any US president in my lifetime) but because he didn’t manage it effectively. The US elections are so spectacular because USA’s ruling class proactively needs to legitimise whoever it is they want to be in power for the next 4 years, and B*den was a particularly hard sell. While in Bihar the current power arrangement is something that’s basically consented to by every segment of the ruling class. It should be noted that Bihar doesn’t have the same kind of mass media propaganda infrastructure of an american federal election, but the reason it doesn’t have that is because it doesn’t need that because the Bihari ruling class frankly doesn’t want young social media people getting involved like we did in Hathras. And so we won’t, because the reason we’re all so involved in US elections isn’t because we as individuals all decided to be but because there was a herculean weaponisation of american capital to get us all invested, and Bihar can’t and doesn’t want to match that.

In both cases, we fool ourselves to think that what anyone is and isn’t paying attention to is a result of our organic genuine interests as people or intellectuals or whatever. The fact is we’re watching an american superhero movie instead of Rwanda Radio; either way we’re just eating up bullshit but one’s clearly more entertaining.

Democracy is a method of engineering human attention and civic engagement; it’s something that manipulates us, not something we manipulate, and that’s why people act so apparently irrational around it. It is a system that consistently produces irrational behaviour and so irrational behaviour in and around it is not a moral failing or even a personal choice; you can’t treat people like moral or rational actors in a democracy without reproducing the logic of the system in the first place.

[a-student-out-of-time]

April Fools Special Review: Part 5

Twisted Metal

Of course, Session 2 hasn’t ended but even this session had a lot of growth for Hibiki. While she has more or less accepted the true nature of her sister, and has decided to payback the kindness and support she got into helping others, there is still doubt and regret within her mind. Though Hibiki’s career is currently over, she still wants to get back into music eventually once things die down but now on her terms and not what Kanade decided, and there is still a part of Hibiki that loves Kanade like a sister. We also see that people who brush off music like a certain 11037, earn her ire as seeing him low key seeing music as a ‘easy route’ irritated her enough to confront the Future Ultimate Baseball Star himself on the matter. Despite the serious risk of exposure that she could have had, Hibiki might have been wearing a disguise at the time but there was already a scare in Session 1 when a date between her and Hajime was interrupted by a /r/niceguy fan, Leon wouldn’t have been into Hibiki’s genre of music so he didn’t realise he was actually talking to Hibiki Otonokoji. However, he was appreciative of Hibiki’s advice on the matter, and given that Sayaka would be in his class, someone who Hibiki has great respect for, she would be able to set him straight on the matter. When Hajime and co go back to school for their second semester, Hibiki, living alone in Hajime’s house decides to make an announcement on Twitter.com that she is still alive and is busy trying to sort her life out, but will go back into music eventually. The response she got was overwhelming positive as all her fans are pleased to see her alive, some apologising to her for any mean comments they might have made about her in the past, and others said they were worried that Kanade might have killed her. This brought Hibiki to tears as it’s not just the love she gets from her friends and lovers, she’s also got support from her fanbase. Her new emotional maturity is put to the test when Hajime loses his second life because a certain controversial Neurologist decides to test his time travel theory by killing him and Umeko, and of course the pain and trauma that comes from seeing a beloved friend’s dead body and himself getting stabbed. I don’t think the old Hibiki would have been able to comfort Hajime but this new and improved Hibiki was definitely able to comfort and calm him down. She’s not 100% mature yet as at one point she offers to lose her virginity to him, and despite certain lemony Anons wanting to see some spicy action, Hajime was like ‘No, just no’ and stated that no sexual matters will take place until they become 18, which in Japan is the legal age of sexual consent, and protection will be used.

Hibiki’s new fighting prowess had two intense trials throughout Session 2. The first is in Hide and Seek when she had to fight against Monaca’s robots. While she had the option of either joining Chiaki’s group in stopping Monaca from aging herself to death, or joining Hajime’s group in taking down Genocider Syo, she decided that she didn’t want to take on another serial killer, especially after being told that unlike her sister, Genocider Syo actually has some teeth to her and not just that one sprite of hers, and besides, Monaca is hellbent on making herself a adult and given her prowess in robotics, the likelihood of Team Monaca having to fend off robots are high and that group didn’t have a lot of fighters on them. She was able to seriously do a number on the robots, seeing as Chiaki and Emma get seriously injured at various points, Sora is more or less nullified due to the Anti A.I. Black boxes and Kyoji isn’t really a fighter, making her the main fighter on the team. Though like everyone, she is angry that they failed and Monaca is now a biological teenager, though thankfully not that deformed or dead, and that Emma’s and Chiaki’s injuries were for nothing. This again also showed how much she matured as while angry about it, especially about the fact that the aged-up Monaca is again taller than her, cursing her to always be the shortest female, she didn’t get too angry about it as Monaca clearly regrets her decisions and it’s a product of being in a very unhealthy environment and now that she is under Kyoji’s care, it’s not going to happen anymore.

But of course, the biggest test for her was in Twisted Sister, when Kanade was released from prison by Juu and via the aid of a mysterious person who might be a time traveller but one with darker goals then Hajime and co, was giving serious weaponry, technology and combat prowess. With this she was able to tear a bloody path through the Hope’s Peak halls and decimate any Hope’s Peak people who gets in her way. Upon finding out that her sister has broken free from prison and is on her way to ‘reclaim’ her, Hibiki’s first thoughts was to get some armour and then charge in to attack Kanade and just in time as she managed to incapacitate a grief stricken and enraged Nikei, and had just recharged herself with some Red Bull X. Not only is Kanade her own twin sister who she has zigzagged between being utterly terrified of to blaming herself for the monster she turned out to be, but thanks to the upgrades she became an equal match to Hibiki. In addition, this also says a lot about Hibiki herself because Kanade had advanced weaponry, dosed up on an addictive that could kill sleep for a week, advanced armour AND was able to defeat Sonia, Akane, Nekomaru AND Peko who all ganged on her with little to no effort, and yes she had been weakened by Nikei beforehand but said addictive rendered most of his attacks moot point, and despite ALL of that, Hibiki was able to equal with her and eventually with the help of Hajime, finally defeat her. And I didn’t mention the ‘puppet state’ because she never not even once regressed back into that, more or less confirming that is dead. Then again, the ‘puppet state’ may have not that hard to break as Kanade’s main motive for killing Setsuka in SDRA2 is that she could have reversed all the damage that Kanade had done to Hibiki and years of hard work, gone within a few weeks or so. And our lovely ronin sword-wielding vocalist had about 3 months to break the ‘puppet state’. While Kanade’s rampage was eradicated thanks to the third reset, the first one done on purpose, even in the current timeline when Kanade gets beaten deathless, Hibiki was able to knock a gun from Kanade’s hand, throw tear gas in to blind her and direct the rest of Class 77-B, and Juzo, into piling on Kanade and knocking her out, this being the last time we see old Kanade.

But despite all the carnage and pain that Kanade dealt her, there is still a part of Hibiki that cares for her like a sister and wishes for the Kanade she thought she knew back. And she got her chance when Yasuke offered to mindwipe Kanade and turn her into a gentlehearted girl. While the QC were deeply divided on the issue, when Hibiki was offered her input, she said that she was conflicted. Part of her wanted her sister back and Yasuke could quite literally grant her deepest desire at that point, but she is also aware that this is a form of execution, as while physically Kanade is still alive the Kanade that had existed prior to this is dead and never coming back, hopefully. As she isn’t a thinker like some of the QC members and understands the deep moral and ethical divides between them, she decides to hold a vote and whatever wins is the one they go for. Of course, the readers voted for Kanade to be mindwiped, and thus Yasuke got to work remaking Kanade while Hibiki helped to round up the other criminals that got out. I’m not dwelling too much on this as we’ve seen Hibiki’s greatest physical feat already and if she could take out swabs of armed headmen to some traffickers, escaped convicts shouldn’t be hard to deal with. Once the carnage dies down and we move into the Twisted Sister Aftermath Arc, Hibiki is hit with immense guilt. While she is grateful for that the sister she thought she had is back, she also knows what had to be done to ensure this occurs. But now that Kanade is back, she could make amendments as she was a rotten sister to Kanade beforehand and now she could try to reconnect with her, preventing her monstrous self from resurfacing itself. Of course, she has to juggle being with Kanade with also being a member of the Cuddle Puddle and general hero work, but life is never dull when you are with the Quantum Crew.

[agentem]

Weirdly religious thoughts from Emily

I don’t talk about it a lot. When I was a teen I thought about becoming a nun. I was in Catholic school and pretty into it. (I also knew I didn’t want to get married but didn’t know the term “asexual” yet and that seemed like an acceptable option.)

I guess I have been thinking about it since Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. The pro-life stuff. I was very “pro-life” at the time. I had taken a class called “Social Justice” (so I been a SJW since before it was cool) and we had to study Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae. The main metaphor I remember from this writing was that life was like a shroud or a piece of cloth, and by accepting deaths at either end we were fraying the cloth and eventually it would fray more. Basically a slippery slope metaphor.

I feel like many Christians remember the talk about abortion and contraceptive use, but forget about the other threats to the cloth of life he speaks of.

Some threats come from nature itself, but they are made worse by the culpable indifference and negligence of those who could in some cases remedy them. Others are the result of situations of violence, hatred and conflicting interests, which lead people to attack others through murder, war, slaughter and genocide.

And how can we fail to consider the violence against life done to millions of human beings, especially children, who are forced into poverty, malnutrition and hunger because of an unjust distribution of resources between peoples and between social classes? And what of the violence inherent not only in wars as such but in the scandalous arms trade, which spawns the many armed conflicts which stain our world with blood? What of the spreading of death caused by reckless tampering with the world's ecological balance, by the criminal spread of drugs, or by the promotion of certain kinds of sexual activity which, besides being morally unacceptable, also involve grave risks to life? It is impossible to catalogue completely the vast array of threats to human life, so many are the forms, whether explicit or hidden, in which they appear today!

In particular, I remember falling out of step with a lot of my fellow Catholics around the nomination of George W. Bush. When Bush was governor of Texas, he executed more convicts than any other governor ever at the time (I believe Rick Perry surpassed him). Pope John Paul II even personally intervened on the behalf of one woman, but Bush mocked her and executed her anyway. I remember we called him the “Texecutioner” and he was enemy #1. He violated the Geneva convention.

Because of course if you are pro-life then you are anti-death penalty. Right?

It wasn’t until I got to college that I found out this wasn’t generally the case. People seem pretty indifferent to the death penalty where I was taught that it was cruel and unnecessary.

I think some people seem potential in an unborn baby that “needs” to be protected. But in a criminal? A lot of people see only wasted potential and think it’s fine to execute that person.

Anyway, rambling on. I was thinking today about all the talk about “thugs” in the media and Mike Brown having possibly stolen some cigars so he deserved to die.

And I think JP2 May have been right about the fraying of the fabric of our society. But it’s fraying from the other end than Evangelicals would have you believe.

People voted for Trump to get this Supreme Court seat. They say it was to save the lives of unborn babies. They are prolife. But 200,000 Americans died in this pandemic, soldiers had bounties on their heads from Russia, children at the border were ripped from their families.

To cheer the death of RBG?

What greater proof that the culture of death is already upon us?

[marvelousgameofdisneythrones]

It's true that both parties could run different candidates and refuse to give us the same options as last time. They COULD. But they won't.

Parties don't generally change from their incumbent unless there's a MAJOR problem with the candidate (although what that could be now I don't know, the GOP ran their incumbent despite him having been impeached, giving away our secrets, failing to pass any meaningful legislation, and just generally being a douchecanoe), so I wouldn't expect Democrats to run anyone but Biden, despite what the general populace wants.

And the GOP didn't force Trump to disappear into the background like most other past presidents have done. They refused (and still refuse) to take a stand against him and denounce the stuff he does. So it looks like he will probably be their candidate again, despite the majority of the country hating him - but he lets the worst of us have a voice and they love it.

And given how so many people vote, the chances of anyone outside the two major parties getting enough votes to claim victory is nearly impossible. Large swaths of the country vote strictly based on party, because it's what they have always been told to do (more conservative people may hate what Trump does, but he's a Republican so they feel the HAVE to vote for him, and the same goes for more liberal people).

Whereas if we went to something more like ranked voting and required EVERYONE to vote (with exceptions if needed), you'd get a turnout that actually represents the United States.

Back to the topic at hand though - we will NEVER get a morally pure candidate. Full stop. So you have to look at the candidates presented, because you can't control how others vote. On one hand, you have someone who is, yes, unfortunately aiding a genocide by one of our 'allies,' but he's making (or trying to) progress on a bunch of other areas that need attention. On the other hand you have a guy who would GLEEFULLY throw our resources at the current genocide, and allow certain countries (Russia) to attack and conquer several of our other allies and would not do ANYTHING to stop it, not even condemn it verbally. Oh, and essentially refuse to do anything to help the working people of this country, and do everything in his power to make things worse for us.

There's...not really a choice here. This isn't about finding the morally pure candidate. This is about mitigating the harm to our country and the world. Can we push for more? Absolutely, that's what the primaries are for. But when it comes to the general election, you're going to be offered two choices, and to stand by and do nothing because 'They're both bad!' is effectively siding with the worse choice.

Evil will triumph if good people do nothing.

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

[anthonychiozza]

The Genocide Of The Innocent: Reprint From 12/19/15

    Written by: Anthony Chiozza

Hearing about babies dissected alive could lead one to despair easily. Those that are still in touch with their own soul feel an anger, and deep pain that can not be adequately communicated with the pen. Children of God for Life’s facebook page states the following: “Dr. Ian Donald explained what he witnessed at Karolinska Institute to Fr Paul Marx at HLI several years ago: Experiments were being performed on near-term alive aborted babies who were not even afforded the mercy of anesthetic as they writhed and cried in agony, and when their usefulness had expired, they were executed and discarded as garbage.” Difficult words to read for those with a soul. (1) For the record, the Karolinska Institute is located in Sweden. (2) However, the United States, Planned Parenthood, and the citizens of this country have enough blood on their hands as well, as revealed by the recent Planned Parenthood “scandal.” The only scandal that I am aware of is that millions of babies have been exterminated for years.

    There are not enough human tears to be wept that can make up for the atrocities committed against the weakest of the human species. Perhaps you have considered that I sound more like a humanist than a Catholic, but let me assure you that I fully expect God’s wrath to pour out upon this disgusting, “modern” society sooner rather than later. Some people hear, “God’s Wrath,” and they assume that this is some kind of evil God that enjoys punishing people. My theology might be off on this, but in any case, this is how my perception of this concept works itself out in my mind. God loves us so much that He weeps while having to destroy us, because we have rejected His love. If we think back to Scripture Jesus sheds tears on Jerusalem. His own people did not accept His Love, and Rome would decimate the city precisely as Jesus prophesized. Further, God’s Chastisements can also lead many to repent before death, and spare them an eternal death in hell.

For the record, I used to vote for politicians that murder babies. I was once  a full functioning member of the “Culture of Death,” in almost every regard. I have, through God’s mercy, had the good fortune to be slapped awake by Him, and I confessed those sins. These are just some of my sins, but how many pretend there is some subtle discussion to have about voting for millions of babies being slaughtered, while weighing the economic pros and cons? This cannot be considered clear reasoning. Considering if one should vote liberal to stop war is a more valid line of reasoning to follow, but also a line of reasoning that ultimately fails. Surely, liberals would continue to vote democrat if we were murdering Jews at home, but wanted to avoid killing others in wars abroad? I can hear the discussion now. “Well it is true that ‘Feel the Burn’ Sanders and Hillary want to keep murdering Jews in our country, but at least people won’t die in war abroad.” There is no subtle discussion to be had here.

    War is upon us, and it has been upon us for a long time, and many lives will be lost in war. Even under supposedly liberal leadership the slaughter of war continues, and whose fault is that? Those that have held the reigns of power in the past are guilty. Specifically, the Bush administration, which was fully stocked with a gaggle of neoconservatives. We cannot leave out Hillary Clinton, as she voted for the unjust war as well. The neocons didn’t listen to Saint John Paul II when he said they could not go to war in the middle east! “John Paul has insisted that war is a "defeat for humanity" and that a preventive strike against Iraq is neither legally nor morally justified.” (3)

     News flash for the Liberals out there laughing at the Neocons’ clouded reason, and disobedience to the Holy Father. Democrats have supported genocide much longer than any Republican Neocon, that didn’t listen to the Pope concerning the wars in the Middle East. This is not an excuse for the Bush administration’s disobedience to the Pope, but an important theological point! War is a punishment for the very crimes Liberals continue to support, by voting for leadership that is willing to sacrifice babies at Lucifer’s alter. When Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three shepherd children she confirmed Scripture, that war is indeed a punishment for sin. (4) (5)

    Again, why do Liberals continue to vote this way even though many of them are Catholic?  This vote is in trade for some false perception of economic advantage, or a misguided line of reasoning thinking we will spare lives by preventing war. I hear the emotional counter arguments now: “But if the economy is better, women will kill less babies.” Studying the statistics it does seem that the majority of abortions are happening for a lack of affordability. However, upon further investigation of the reasoning behind these decisions, and breaking down the data into subcategories, one must admit that affordability is highly subjective in the mind of the individual. The following statistics began being collected in 1986 and were published in 2005.

“Nearly three-quarters said they could not afford to have a baby.

Of those women who gave two or more answers, the most common response -- inability to afford a baby -- was most frequently followed by one of three other reasons:

Pregnancy/birth/baby would interfere with school or employment.

Reluctant to be a single mother or experiencing relationship problems.                       Done with childbearing or already have other children/dependents.

Below is

a breakdown of women's responses that

specified reasons that led to their abortion

decision

(percentage total will not add up to 100% as multiple answers were permissible):

74% felt "having a baby would dramatically change my life" (which includes interrupting education, interfering with job and career, and/or concern over other children or dependents)

73% felt they "can't afford a baby now" (due to various reasons such as being unmarried, being a student, inability to afford childcare or basic needs of life, etc.)

48% "don't want to be a single mother or [were] having relationship problem[s]" (6) (8)

  Only one reason listed seems to actually correlate with, “inability to afford a baby.” That reason is, “inability to afford basic needs of life.” The rest seem to be highly westernized ideas about “affordability.” There are women in dire poverty all around the world having babies, including the United States. For the sake of argument I will admit it is possible that these other categories might include some legitimate economic reasons, but that, of course, does not excuse the sin. When the statistics are broken down further we begin to get a clearer picture that these reasons are westernized reasons. Only twenty-three percent of abortions are because of affordability. Sixty-six percent of these abortions are happening for reasons other than affordability and that is without the health of the mother, or rape included! (7) In fairness two categories, or more, could be chosen by the woman filling out the form. Sixty-six percent is the best estimate that can made.  The percentage could be less.

Why Women Have Abortions:

The reasons they gave in 2004

25% Not ready for a(nother) child/timing is wrong

23% Can't afford a baby now

19% Have completed my childbearing/have other people depending on me/children are grown

8% Don't want to be a single mother/am having relationship problems

7% Don't feel mature enough to raise a(nother) child/feel too young

4% Would interfere with education or career plans

4% Physical problem with my health

3% Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus

<0.5% Was a victim of rape

<0.5% Husband or partner wants me to have an abortion

<0.5% Parents want me to have an abortion

<0.5% Don't want people to know I had sex or got pregnant

6% Other (7)

   Did voting Democrat ever stop 23% of these babies from being murdered? It would be interesting to break the statistics down further and see if the number of abortions in that category rose during the years of Democratic presidents. We obviously know that babies were murdered for that reason, in those years despite the numbers, so voting Democrat will never stop this from happening.  We always hear from Liberal Left about how much the government cares for everyone. Why don’t they care enough to use tax money to save babies instead of funding their genocide? Catholic Democrats hold up a magic economic key and argue they can stop allowing genocide, or at least most of it, if you will just vote for their party. I can hear the conversation with them continue, “We can save some of the Jews, even though we are the ones throwing them in the ovens, if you just vote for our party.”

    Turning back to the Republican side of the isle, can any Catholic clearly give me Donald Trump’s position on abortion? He seems to be all over the place.(9) Right now, apparently, it is not ok to kill babies in the Don’s mind, except for certain situations. This flies in the face of his previous position of being pro-abortion. He wouldn’t consider defunding Planned Parenthood, but maybe he will now? Who really knows? (Update: Thank God for President Trump. Could he still be critiqued? Yes, but he has done more than any other sitting POTUS that I can recall.) 

     Meanwhile we have candidates like Rand Paul, willing to stand on the Senate floor for hours filibustering, in order to defund Planned Parenthood! How can Conservative Catholics even seriously consider Trump when there are candidates that are more experienced, in regards to defending the country, and trying to save the unborn? Not only are they experienced, but they have proven they will fight the good fight! If Rubio shows up he might fight, I don’t know, probably not...I digress...The story recently broke that Planned Parenthood will be fully funded. Go back and read Dr. Donald’s witness testimony about babies screaming in pain as they are torn apart.

    What should Catholics be doing other than praying the rosary, to end this nightmare? I have personally heard at least two Priests, and read on EWTN that it is a mortal sin to vote for someone that supports abortion. The voters guide on EWTN by Father Taraco, Ph.D. states, “Except in the case in which a voter is faced with all pro-abortion candidates (in which case, as explained in question 8 above, he or she strives to determine which of them would cause the let damage in this regard), a candidate that is pro-abortion disqualifies himself from receiving a Catholic’s vote. This is because being pro-abortion cannot simply be placed alongside the candidate's other positions on Medicare and unemployment, for example; and this is because abortion is intrinsically evil and cannot be morally justified for any reason or set of circumstances. To vote for such a candidate even with the knowledge that the candidate is pro-abortion is to become an accomplice in the moral evil of abortion. If the voter also knows this, then the voter sins mortally.” (8)I would respectfully recommend that Trump supporters click the link in the source list below to the Catholic Answers article and consider if they are making the right moral decision weighing all the other candidates positions.

    It would follow that a good Catholic would make a prudent decision, even if they were still unsure, and follow what these good sources of Catholic teaching are saying. Unfortunately, Catholics in the United States continue to march us backwards into darkness. It would be impossible for politicians that condone the genocide of babies to be elected in this country if Catholics would actually be Catholic. For some inexplicable reason they choose not to follow the Church, but their own wills, desires, and political leanings. If only they were obedient like the Queen Mother Mary, to her Son, they might not only find that abortions end, but that the economy would also improve. Perhaps we might get more worthy candidates to vote for on both sides of the narrow political spectrum in this country as well! How many Catholics will continue to do their will and not the Father’s Will?  For now, “we the Catholic people,” seem to want more bread and circus in exchange for the blood of the innocent. Update 1: Ladies and Gentleman, I have a serious question, and thought experiment. Apparently the five non negotiables are not Catholic teaching when it comes to voting. Pope Benedict said, in a letter, that one could vote for a pro-abortion candidate, but NOT because they are pro-abortion. I can find nothing that carries the weight of encyclical that says otherwise. However, I still feel in my heart, very strongly, that it is wrong to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. My thinking relies on a statement from Pope John Paul II: "That is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition of her

survival, yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person,

especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn."

-Pope John Paul II 

I feel Saint Pope John Paul II's desire for America will never be accomplished here if Catholics are free to vote for pro-abortion candidates because they like other parts of that candidates platform. The analogy I think of to explain this to people follows as: Do you think everyone would be trying to make the best choice while people are being marched off to the ovens and just kind of toss their hands and their air, and say, "Well, I don't agree with them burning those Jews, but they have a great economic policy, so I'll vote for them." Anyway, these are just my thoughts on why I think it should not be allowed for Catholics to ever vote for a pro-abortion candidate, but I accept that I am probably wrong. My heart tells me never to vote that way personally. Thanks for the thoughtful consideration. I offer my sincere apologies to those Catholics that choose to vote for pro-abortion candidates. God bless.

Update II: A good friend of mine sent me another article today from a Priest on the issue of abortion. I feel it is important for everyone to form their conscience appropriately on this issue. I would respectfully ask that everyone read this, whether conservative, or liberal. When Pope Benedict said it would not be a grave evil to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, it was in the context of a letter. This is far from an encyclical, or words spoken from the Chair of Peter. This was his opinion. While I respect his opinion, and believe he was a great Pope, my heart tells me he is very wrong. A Pope is a man as well, and can be mistaken in matters of the Faith. Even a great Pope like Benedict. It is important that we all SERIOUSLY consider our position on this issue before casting a vote that could possibly send us to hell. I am so concerned about this, specifically because of the salvation of my soul, and other souls, I am considering writing a second piece on abortion and voting. Please pray for my soul. LINK: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2016/03/03/can-catholics-support-a-pro-abortion-candidate/

​Citations:

Debi Vinnedge, President and Executive Director, “Children of God For Life,” Nov. 9, 2015, accessed Dec. 17, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=905776096177162&id=223315007756611&fref=nf&pnref=story

(2) Dr Cecilia Götherström, Associate Professor, “Unique stem cell brittle-bone study starts,” Oct. 12, 2015 0 2:00 EST, accessed Dec. 17, 2015,

http://news.cision.com/karolinska-institutet/r/unique-stem-cell-brittle-bone-study-starts,c9844692

(3) Associated Press, “ Vatican Strongly Opposes Iraq War,” March 12, 2003, accessed Dec. 17, 2015, http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/03/12/vatican-strongly-opposes-iraq-war.html

(4) Father Nicholas Gruner, “ Part I – The Urgency of the Fatima Message,” unkown, acessed, Dec. 19, 2015,

http://www.fatima.org/books/divimp/dichap1.asp

(5) Catholic Answers Staff, “ Does God Send War As Punishment For Sin,” unknown, accessed Dec. 19, 2015,

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/does-god-send-wars-as-a-punishment-for-sin

(6)  Lawrence B. Finer, Lori F. Frohwirth, Lindsay A. Dauphinee, Susheela Singh and Ann M. Moore “Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions :  Quantiative and Qualitative  Perspectives,” September 2005, accessed Nov. 17, 2015,

https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf

(7) Gudrun Shultz, “The Real Reason Women Choose Abortion,” unkown, accessed, Dec. 19, 2015,

http://www.actionlife.org/index.php/life-issues/abortion/item/124-the-real-reason-women-choose-abortion

(8) Linda Lowen, “Why Women Choose Abortion - Statistical Breakdown of Reasons For Abortion,” Dec. 16, 2014, accessed Dec. 17, 2015, http://womensissues.about.com/od/reproductiverights/a/AbortionReasons_2.htm

(10) Fr. Stephen F. Torraco, PhD, “A Brief Catechism for Catholic Voters,” 2002, accessed Dec. 17, 2015,

https://www.ewtn.com/vote/brief_catechism.htm

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(Statue)_Stop_Abortion._University_of_Ilorin.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

Women’s Rights Photo: Kenneth John Gill

(9) Bethany Blankley, “Donald Trump’s Abortion Muddle,” Dec. 5, 2015, accessed Dec. 18, 2015,