#biggest democracy in the world folks

[lostbrazilian]

I can't help but find it kinda funny, on a morbid sort of way, how apparently the average American, when faced with choosing between a Mentally Unstable Fascist and a Woman, will still elect the Wannabe Dictator TWICE

[gemsofgreece]

Hello, could you tell us about Kalymnos and the history of weaving in Greece?

Hi! They are both broad topics, however I will do my best to summarize the most important and interesting information about them.

KALYMNOS

Kálymnos is an island which belongs in the Dodecanese, the southeasternmost islands of Greece. It is 26th in the list of the 50 largest Greek islands. It is the third most populous island of the Dodecanese.

Kalymnos was first inhabited by Carians and Phoenicians. By 1100 BC the island was inhabited by Dorian Greeks. Kalymnos participated in the Trojan War and Homer mentions it with the name Kalydnae. In the late Archaic period, Kalymnos was a democracy. For a time, it was captured by the Persians. When liberated again, Kalymnos remained an ally of Athens, however it did not meddle much with the Peloponnesian war. Like all the other regions of Greece, it fell under Roman rule and was a part of the Byzantine Empire in the middle ages. In the 13th and 14th centuries it came under the control of Venice and the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (Ιωαννίτες Ιππότες - Ioannites Ippotes in Greek) AKA the crusaders, just like most of the Dodecanese islands. The knights expanded and reinforced the original Byzantine fortress of the island which was there since the 10th century.

The ruins of the castle above the main town (Chora) of the island.

The Ottoman Turks attacked the island for about 80 years until they conquered it in 1522. Kalymnos was relatively privileged in the Ottoman Empire - islands were always more privileged compared to mainland Greek regions. In 1881, the Ottoman General Census found that the island had an overwhelming Greek majority (9,482 Greeks out of 9,716 overall population). In 1912, Italy conquered the island during the Italo-Turkish war and kept it until 1947, when, in the form of reparations after the Axis Occupation, Italy ceded the Dodecanese islands to Greece. The Dodecanese were the last region to get united with the Modern Greek state.

Kalymnos has a diverse, arid landscape. It is hilly and very rugged, while its coastline is very indented, forming numerous cliffs, caves and coves. This is why Kalymnos is an internationally popular rock climbing destination with more than 3,000 climbing routes. Kalymnos also has a small archipelagos of its own.

Kalymnos' economy is not based on agriculture, but rather tourism, traditional head scarf painting production and, most notably, sponge diving, which is the best known tradition of the island. Greece is the biggest exporter of natural sponges in the world, largely thanks to Kalymnian spongedivers and the island's seabed. Traditional sponge diving is extremely dangerous and potentially fatal and involves wearing a very heavy suit and holding your breath underwater for extended periods of time.

Artwork depicting the life of a Kalymnian spongediver © Francesco Zizola / NOOR

A folk song sang by Kalymnian sailors and divers has become popular around the world after French singer Dalida made a cover of it with romantic lyrics in 1970. The actual song however was sung by the ship's crew and it was meant to rouse a reaction from the spongediver so that if he struggled underwater, he would have the will to fight and manage to come to the water's surface. For example, the song makes references to the little joys of life, food, a comfortable sleep in a warm bed, sex, making a family, it mentions women (who could be real islanders the spongedivers were interested in), it mentions taking the City back (AKA Constantinople!), it mentions turning against the privileged lords of the island, it "threatens" the spongediver with unfairness ("you lads, I will give violets to you all, I will give two to each, but hey I am giving none to Yoryis (the spongediver)!"), it criticizes the spongediver's unresponsiveness (not pulling the rope) and implies his sister is with the crew, so anything that could potentially make a young man's blood flow and rouse a reaction from him and help him rise to the surface. I link the song below, performed by an actual crew from the island.

After the 60s a lot of Kalymnians emigrated to the USA and Australia, where they were usually employed in hard jobs, like constructing and painting bridges, used as they were in the demanding job of their island.

WEAVING IN GREECE

Weaving is a big, broad topic, especially because it was a well attested practice in Greece even in the Homeric Age. Therefore, and because the post is already long, I found some links that are very helpful and detailed and way more informative than whatever I would write here!

In this link here, there is a pdf about Byzantine weaving and textiles.

[misfitwashere]

Donald Trump has crushed his rivals in the Iowa caucuses. Should they drop out and let him take on Biden?

From Quora:

Let’s be honest, we all knew this was going to happen and the entire country and by extension the world were bracing themselves for it. However, the biggest news were the exit polls, 2/3 say they feel Trump won the 2020 election and the Biden Presidency is illegitimate, 44% said they were MAGAS and they would vote for Trump even if he was convicted of a crime.

DeSantis and Haley are road kill at this point. They had their chances, Haley could make it a little closer, DeSantis will stay in only for the inevitable losses to come and drop out within a month, 2 at the most.

The real issue is this one:

Joy Reid accuses White Christian Iowans of wanting to have people of color 'bow down' to them

Reid argued that evangelicals support Trump because they believe 'immigrants' and 'brown people' are 'illegitimate Americans'

Ok so what is it going to be folks. Trump has a 90% probability that he is going to win the Republican nomination, what are the Democrats going to do about it. Trump owns the evangelicals, all the mocking about him not being a Christian, the anti-Christ, none of them give a damn. He is their guy, their Jesus and he can say and do anything that he wants.

The General election effectively began last night.

The Republicans have made their agenda clear. Biden stole the election, doesn’t matter that everyone knows he did not, doesn’t matter how well he has led the country, doesn’t matter that Trump inspired and led an insurrection against the USA, what matters is what they believe.

Now what do the Democrats believe. Don’t even bother trying to convince evangelicals who have their Jesus martyr victim grifting them for money. Don’t think about those MAGA hatted folks, they want Trump.

There are 40% who are now ‘independents’ in the USA, they hold the balance of power. The Iowa caucuses have very few people but they have spoken for the Republicans, they want Trump, they worship and adore Trump. Trump could shoot them all on 5th avenue and they would gladly bow down. That is the GOP today.

Democrats, start your engines. No more whinging about Biden didn’t manage to overturn the Supreme Court decision to get your student loans cut, sorry kids you will have to pay, not as much as he did get you $50 billion back but not enough for you perfect kids. Millennials ditto, your raises were only 20% this year in your nice cushy jobs. Same for you African Americans, you are complaining the loudest, we hear you, you want more but you won’t get more if you don’t get up and vote for Biden, you will get nothing as Joy Reid has pointed out, you are illegitimate Americans to Trump supporters.

Same for you Latinos, you want to ‘bow down’ to Christian evangelicals. How about you classic Liberals, you like that Christian theocracy because if Trump wins it is surely coming. Oh and you Israel supporters bitching and moaning about Biden who is the strongest Presidential supporter of Israel ever, you don’t like him? Think about what Trump will give away.

Ditto to Ukraine and European supporters, you don’t want Trump, then you better wake up. How about those transatlantic Brits, you and the Aussies who are so dependent and deep in on AUKUS and everything else Biden has done for you, time to step up and support Biden.

I could go on but on the other side, the Saudis will clearly screw around with oil to raise the price of gas to push for Trump who will give them everything. They hate it that Biden is focused on renewables and the lies of Trump on Biden and oil? Hahaha what a joke, Biden is pumping more than Saudi the most oil pumped in the history of the world.

Putin is dancing in the street, he feels he just won the war in Ukraine. Make no doubt about it, Putin wants Trump as does Xi Jin Ping and every other authoritarian including Netanyahu. You like war, you like death you like the end of democracy on a global level, vote for Trump. He will take you down with him.

Oh and yes; Lies, lies and more damn lies you can see them coming. Daily, hourly ever more outlandish than the last ones.

This is the beginning of a 10 month campaign, buckle up, it is going to be the wildest and most important one in US history. Not hyperbole, reality.

Let’s get to work and make sure Trump gets crushed right back in November, 2024.

Henry R. Greenfield ·

Former Senior Consultant Global Digital Twin Technology at Integrated Facility Management (2019–2023)

[tiodolma]

Gaius and Merlin were the most powerful class traitors of magic who were complicit in the actions of their genocidal bigot bosses just because they believe in one big dumb prophecy.

Gaius taught Merlin to distrust other magic users, to not help them, to hide himself and just devote himself to the crown.

Tbf to merlin he was just 16-18 when all these just started. He was too young. He wasn’t ready. He was sent to the most dangerous place for people like him. He was impressionable. His heart was too good. He was too moldable.

He took “I will not fall into anger and rage like Morgana” too far to the point where he couldn’t even find his voice against Arthur who was still relentlessly chasing down and killing his people anymore. He put all his eggs into the biggest bigot in their universe because the magic world told him that the guy was the hottest sht. Merlin was so broken down, so brainwashed, so indoctrinated that he still continued to forgive even after years of getting dismissed, insulted, derided and abused and only shown rare bouts of kindness by his supposed best friend in the universe.

Arthur didn’t deserve any of that devotion. As king he still persecuted and treated magic folk like shit. He blamed them for their own oppression, never accepted his father’s actions as wrong, showed no remorse in arresting and killing their women and children (shut up he only made promises to a frkn ghost), refused to learn more about their ways despite having the biggest knowledge base in albion, continued to imprisoned them for existing, calling them the most disgusting slurs, using their magic techniques recklessly for himself and still called magic “evil” when they don’t work.....and then played victim when he got called out by the oppressed magic folk.

It’s such a shame that Merlin hoped and believed in his potential after everything. Merlin could never truly relate to magic folk after all. The only people left alive who truly loved him made sure of that. His mother raised him to fear and hide himself. His mentor taught him how to be the judge and be the arbiter of life and death not only over the kingdom but also the magic folk. He was overworked and pressured to the point that he had no free time for himself. He was supposed to be the strongest warlock but he only had enough time to receive education from the dude who hasnt practiced sorcery for 20 years when he should have beenseeking out other magic users and learning from them. His life was constantly dictated by the big magic institutions who never give him the tools to actually start their liberation, only empty promises.

Merlin’s sense of self died gradually throughout the span of the whole series every time he lost a loved one and every time Gaius/Kilgharrah/Hunith asked him to forget himself and serve the crown. The kid who wanted to be seen and recognized for his talent, kindness and potential turned into a biggest self-sacrificing royalist who truly believed that his life was valued lesser than a king.

It’s a monarchist story. It’s a divine right of kings story. It’s a fascist story. It’s an anti-radicalism story, it’s a defender-of-the-status-quo story.

It is NOT a story of acceptance, of positive change, of equality, of democracy.

I thought we learned from Diogenes for fuck’s sake.

[loominggaia]

Ima be honest after reading Zoe’s article and all th{ other normalized stuff of Evangeline, I think genociding most of Evangeline’s population is the only reasonable option because Jesus fuck are most of the people there despicable! Like… yeah there are a few decent and even good folk obv’s but their culture is completely unsalvageable and too entrenched into their lives to allow for peace.

While I don't fully agree, I totally get where you're coming from with this. You can thank the House of Humanity for mangling Evangelite culture to this wretched point...Life in Evangeline Kingdom was actually quite peaceful and relatively egalitarian at one time, until these sick fucks rose to power and started aggressively preaching hate.

I think a surprising number of Evangelites don't agree with the House of Humanity and the ways of modern Lindism, but they stay quiet because the loudest, most obnoxious Lindists are also the most aggressive. These are cultish people who are quick to report "traitor-talk" to the authorities. So the more reasonable Evangelites just keep their heads down and go with the flow, maybe protesting in small ways here and there that won't be noticed on a large scale.

The stupidest, most violent, and most outrageous Evangelites are of course the loudest, so they get the most attention. But it really is a small minority at the top of Evangelite society that's pushing all this twisted bullshit, and these same people gaslight the public into thinking it's what the majority wants.

Remember, there is no democracy in this kingdom. Just because policies are happening doesn't mean they are policies the people want...they're just policies the overlords want, and the people are forced to go along with it or else be punished.

I think Evangeline Kingdom can be salvaged, but the first step is to either destroy or reform the House of Humanity. This corrupt church is the kingdom's biggest obstacle blocking any kind of social progress.

While Evangelite culture does appear to have a unique reverence for violence, it's actually not all that unique to them. What I mean is, Evangelites are just more honest about their bloodlust than many other cultures. If you travel the world, you will find just as much violence and depravity in other lands, it's just swept under the rug. Meanwhile Evangeline proudly displays its violence on the mantle for all to see.

I will also mention something about Evangelite slave-fighting culture: this isn't unique to Evangeline Kingdom either. It's most prevalent there, but only because the lax slavery laws allow it to be. But other lands have just as much demand for this sick bloodsport, and you will find that the problem is actually global.

Yerim-Mor arguably has a worse problem with this than Evangeline. At least in Evangeline, the slave-fighting is somewhat regulated by laws, meaning there are things you can and cannot legally do. This sport is illegal in Yerim-Mor, but almost totally unenforced, so slave-fighting over there is the bloodiest, most depraved free-for-all you can imagine. There are no rules in Yerim-Mor, literally anything can happen with zero consequences.

Mogdir Kingdom also has a terrible slave-fighting problem in its eastern territories. Slavery and slave-fighting are also illegal here, but unlike Evangeline, you will mostly find commoner slaves rather than gaian and fae. But because it's illegal anyway, it's possible to see any species enslaved and forced to fight in this land. By contrast, you will never see an enslaved commoner anywhere in Evangeline Kingdom due to the enforced regulations.

It's also a notable problem in Seelie and Unseelie territory, and really every Great Kingdom to a certain extent.

Despite how popular this sport is on a global level, it's still not the type of thing regular society engages in. It's very much an "underground" activity relegated to seedy neighborhoods. Most of the fans are morally corrupted young males; you really don't see many women, children, or family-men at these events. It's the type of sport that sailors, soldiers, slavers, bandits, mercenaries, and other rough-around-the-edges types like to watch and gamble on.

If you ask the average Evangelite family what they think about slave-fighting, they will most likely tell you it's barbaric, pointless, and low-class. I imagine this opinion is shared by most people globally, and those who engage with it are a loud and dedicated minority.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Read the Series

[missmayhemvr]

So the US plans to send 105 billion in aid to fascist enthostate who's currently doing a genocide, proxy war with Russia, and the place where they are trying to start a proxy war with China. You can feel how you feel about Russia, falling for a bait doesn't make you a good guy, but being the bait doesn't either. China just been doing it's own thing and the us fabricated all sorts of insane things to try and get into a war with them and they just wouldn't bite.

But like do you guys realize that money is just weapons? you realize the biggest prevention of peace in the world right now is the same as the last like 400yrs? Ya'll notice how Kwame nkrumah was right about their being infinite aid money for warfare? Ya'll notice how so much of the so called western left, especially the breadtubers are just siding up with the US state department and being highly opportunistic? How about how said breadtubers like vaush, keffals, Ryan burns, have taken this moment in particular to attack leftist that actually do the work, to attack organizations and to proclaim their racism to the world(that black people been telling you about for years).

Have you noticed the liberals trying to equate Hamas to nazis, while all Palestinians are under seige in Gaza and under attack in the west bank. Have you noticed how the refuse to even think about Sudan, the Congo, or the Armenian.

Biden and the dems didn't save democracy, they quitely ushered in fascism around the globe while ya'll were out to brunch. Or it would be quitely if not for the screams and crying of black and indigenous people ya'll been ignoring since Obama.

A lot of ya'll, especially white folks have to ask themselves very seriously what lessons they learned from history, have to ask themselves what they will do when the next ss comes to power, are you going to side with whiteness or with humanity. Cause that day is fast approaching.

[talkingpointsusa]

Michael Knowles compares trans identity to cancer and praises conversion therapy

Out of all these Daily Wire guys, I tend to be the most dismissive of Michael Knowles. That’s mainly because he has comparatively low viewership compared to all the other Daily Wire grifters and he isn’t always as openly monstrous as guys like Matt Walsh. He usually talks about the dumb stories that nobody else at the Daily Wire seems to want to cover. Stuff like lab grown penises or AI that can predict your death.

Unfortunately, this is one of those episodes where he IS monstrous. Naturally it has to do with the rights favourite boogeyman; trans people trying to live their lives. The main story of this episode is a report the CDC put out on October 10th about trans youth and where he decides to take it is absolutely disgraceful.

But before that, did you guys know that someone tried to assassinate Trump again? Strap in folks because this is the weakest “assassination attempt” narrative yet.

CW: when we get to the anti-trans narratives Michael gets extremely bigoted. Also, suicide is mentioned. If you don’t want to read that, I totally get it. Stay safe out there.

01:49, Michael Knowles: “Before we get to what I think is the biggest news story in the world right now, which is about how one in eighteen American high school students doesn’t know what his gender is, I guess I have to mention there might have been a third assassination attempt on President Trump over the weekend. This was at Trump’s massive Coachella rally, that looked bigger than the Coachella Festival that’s been going on for years now, it was a huge rally. There are reports that a half a mile outside of the security gate a man was arrested with a bunch of guns potentially trying to assassinate President Trump again.”

We’ll get to the stuff about high schoolers later but for now let’s take a look at this so-called “assassination attempt”.

This is about a man named Vem Miller who was arrested outside of Trump’s Coachella Rally with multiple illegal firearms. Miller claimed that he was a journalist with “VIP status”. A search of his car found the guns as well as multiple passports. The car was also unregistered. Evidence from the fake license plate ties Miller to the far-right extremist “sovereign citizen” movement.

It’s pretty likely that this was just one of Trump’s extremist fans trying to bring his guns to the rally. It’s not exactly unheard of for Trump to be popular with the sovereign citizen gun nut crowd.

Even if this was an assassination attempt, he was caught before Trump was even in his field of vision making this a complete non-story. This kind of thing is quite common, just look at all the attempts on Obamas life.

This is weak stuff and a clear attempt to get the Trump is a victim ball rolling again.

02:26, Michael Knowles: “The man denies it, he says that he’s a Trump supporter and he was there to protect himself because there were so many attempts on Trump’s life and so I don’t know, there’s not a lot of information about this one. The only reason I even mention the story yet with so few details is it is a crazy thing that ‘President Trump Almost Assassinated Again’ is the kind of headline that we don’t even bat our eyes at.”

Because this was barely an assassination attempt. We didn’t really pay attention to all those attempts on Obama’s life either.

The reason why the first one got so much press was because Trump was actually shot. The other two (if you can even call this Coachella one an assassination attempt) were just huge nothingburgers.

03:09, Michael Knowles: “Democrats have so normalized trying to assassinate Trump that we don’t even really pay attention to it. There were prominent leftists, the first time that Trump was very nearly killed and the bullet actually did hit him in the ear, who said ‘well you know, that’s the consequence of spreading hate. Well, what do you expect when your a threat to democracy. When your Hitler 2.0 you know, that’s what happens.’”

Yeah, nobody was saying that. The closest incident to that was an MSNBC clip that came out after the second assassination attempt that the right collectively freaked out over. But, as we discussed on this very blog earlier, that was just a very standard broadcast news pivot.

03:48, Michael Knowles: “Now I want to get to our most important news story of the day that is being completely neglected and I — I guess you’d say even suppressed by the establishment media. Over 3% of American high schoolers now identify as transgender. Over 3%, I guess 3.3. So you have a one in thirty chance, if you are an American high schooler today, of identifying as transgender. And there’s an additional 2.2% of students on top of that who are questioning their gender identity.”

Yeah, there’s a reason that the legacy media is “neglecting” this story. It’s just warmed over culture war garbage.

Michael is getting these numbers from a recent CDC report entitled “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance —United States, 2023”. More specifically, it comes from a section of the report entitled “Disparities in School Connectedness, Unstable Housing, Experiences of Violence, Mental Health, and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Transgender and Cisgender High School Students”. Click the link to read it for yourself.

So for starters, Michael tries to later turn this into an anti public school narrative but as it turns out some of the students polled for the report came from private schools. But that’s not the important part of this study.

So, 5.5% is still the very small minority of students. I know that Michael’s trying to turn this into some kind of massive sweeping thing but it really isn’t. 94.5% of students do not identify as trans making the ones that do an extremely small minority. However, this study took a closer look at the mental health outcomes of that 5.5% and what it found was absolutely heartbreaking. Quote:

“Transgender and questioning students experienced a higher prevalence of violence, poor mental health, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and unstable housing, and a lower prevalence of school connectedness than their cisgender peers. Compared with 8.5% of cisgender male students, 25.3% of transgender students and 26.4% of questioning students skipped school because they felt unsafe. An estimated 40% of transgender and questioning students were bullied at school, and 69% of questioning students and 72% of transgender students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, a marker for experiencing depressive symptoms.”

The report goes on to state that 26% of transgender students attempted suicide in the past year, a number that’s more than double that of their cisgender peers. But the most heartbreaking statistic of all is this, 10.7% of transgender students reported experiencing unstable housing. This number is extremely high compared to cis males (2.1%) and cis females (1.8%).

You know who’s creating the conditions for this kind of thing to thrive? Michael and everyone else in the right-wing media who persistently spread bigoted narratives about the trans community. These narratives turn trans identity into a thing to be ashamed of as opposed to just a part of who these high schoolers are. No wonder they’re getting bullied at such a high rate, no wonder their parents seem to be throwing them out of the house for being who they are, no wonder that their suicide rate is so high.

Michael is essentially taking a report that talks about how trans people are struggling due to stigma and then using it to stigmatize trans people. This is just disgusting. And guess what? Michael knows these stats because he goes through some of them here.

04:48, Michael Knowles: “Now, what do we know about students who identify as transgender or who are questioning their gender? We know that they try to kill themselves at extraordinarily high numbers.”

Because of the bigotry that YOU spread dipshit. I know I might sound a little passionate here but I have a lot of friends who are trans, many of whom undoubtedly went through similar experiences that the kids in this study did.

Michael naturally ignores the parts about trans people experiencing extremely high rates of bullying, or the parts about how most trans students skip school because they feel unsafe in their own classrooms, or the parts about how the parents of trans kids (who no doubt consume a lot of right-wing media) are more likely to kick their kids out for being who they are. No, it’s just that being trans naturally causes suicidal ideation so we have to isolate kids so that we can try and crush the trans identity out of them.

The fact that Michael knows the numbers about suicidal ideation in the trans community tells me that he read this report and actively chose to ignore the parts that disprove what he’s saying. He knows what he’s doing here and that makes it so much worse.

06:28, Michael Knowles: “You need to find alternatives to regular American high schools for your kids. You have to find alternatives. Whether it is an orthodox religious school, you know I’m a big supporter of traditional Catholic education, Christian education broadly, but whatever. Let’s say you’re Jewish, let’s say you’re Muslim, let’s say whatever you are, an orthodox — a serious religious school that doesn’t follow the religion of liberalism or leftism, that isn’t going to fall into this kind of craziness, is going to be a much better option for your kid. Or homeschooling, obviously.”

Except that private schools were included in the YRBS data, it wasn’t just public schools. As for homeschooling, there are valid reasons to homeschool your children but “isolating them from everyone left of Donald Rumsfeld in case they become trans” isn’t one of them. If one of those kids being homeschooled turns out to be trans, they’ll have grown up exclusively in an environment that stigmatizes trans identity which will increase their risk of depression and suicidal ideation.

Accepting trans kids saves lives.

07:27, Michael Knowles: “What the schools are teaching now, the schools are teaching that your boy is not really a boy, that your girl is not a girl.”

Than why are trans people still a really small minority? If all this fearmongering was true, we wouldn’t live in a world where 94.5% of students are not trans.

08:20, Michael Knowles: “Conservatives have to take control of the schools back again. We have to fire the leftist activists who are trying to lead your kid to suicide, we have to fire them. We have to ban them from being around children ever again, certainly in a classroom setting.”

So basically, take away any hope of trans kids being accepted in schools which will almost certainly increase the amount of bullying they experience and that suicide rate.

Here’s Michael Knowles comparing being trans to cancer. You can’t even make this stuff up.

08:51, Michael Knowles: “It’s like — it’s like having a kid go to Fukushima high school after a nuclear explosion and you say, well what are the odds of him developing a cancer”

Presented without comment.

09:55, Michael Knowles: “LAUSD, the Los Angeles School District, has just celebrated thirty-five years of National Coming Out Day. Coming Out Day is a day when school staff encourage kids to identify as gay and now trans and queer and questioning or whatever the initialism has come out to.”

That’s not even close to what National Coming Out Day is. Accepting LGBTQ youth when they come out isn’t the same thing as pressuring them to adopt a queer identity. Your sexuality is what you were born with, there’s nothing that changes that. Plus, as we discussed earlier, LGBTQ acceptance in schools seems to be extraordinarily low if we’re going off how much these kids are being bullied.

Also, in case you’re curious, only 3% of trans people experience some form of regret around their decision to transition.

Not content with comparing trans identity to cancer, Michael decides to defend conversion therapy.

10:43, Michael Knowles: “There’s a real irony — is the libs in recent decades have invade against what they call ‘conversion therapy’ which is when someone, you know, has disordered affections and desires and they go to a therapist, they say ‘I wanna have normal desires’ or ‘I’d like to mitigate some of these disordered and harmful desires I have’ and the therapist says ‘Ok, well here’s some ways to work on it’ or whatever, I don’t know.”

Well, I guess we’re partying like it’s 1986 because apparently conversion therapy is back on the table over at the Daily Wire. I didn’t expect to hear a pro-conversion therapy argument here. “Disordered and harmful desires”, again I don’t see how you could view this as anything but extreme anti-LGBTQ bigotry.

Conversion therapy is pseudoscience that does nothing but traumatize the people that it claims to “help”. There is a mountain of research that proves that and the only reasons why you’d still support conversion therapy are either extreme ignorance or extreme bigotry. With Michael I’m going to go with both.

11:04, Michael Knowles: “The libs have presented this as though kids are being like, electric shocked or something which is not occurring.”

Yes it is.

11:12, Michael Knowles: “But what would you call National Coming Out Day in the public schools? That is a kind of conversion therapy.”

Again, acceptance does not equal forced change. Comparing LGBTQ acceptance to forcing people to change their sexuality is an absolutely ridiculous argument to make.

We’re now done with Michael’s hot takes on queer identity, thank god. He does an ad for steaks and then talks about some teachers who were thankfully suspended after being caught giving kids melatonin patches.

I’m not going to cover Michael’s take on this story (this post is already long enough as is) outside of saying that what these teachers did was wildly inappropriate but that doesn’t mean that this is a practice that’s been widely adopted by the school system at large. The teachers involved were dismissed, as they should have been, and if you want to make an argument that this specific school should have had more oversight I would 100 percent agree with you. However, projecting this one incident onto the entire public school system is just silly.

He also later talks about Venezuelan gangs in Aurora Colorado. Since this is a big narrative going around in the right-wing media I decided that we might as well get it out of the way. Here’s what Michael says.

17;43, Michael Knowles: “Speaking of libs endangering your family, unbelievable news story out. There is a Venezuelan prison gang, this sounds like it’s out of the Onion or the Babylon Bee, there is a Venezuelan prison gang called Tren De Aragua that has taken over a town in Colorado. Aurora Colorado has been overrun with a prison gang from Latin America. They’ve apparently overrun several apartment buildings, they’ve been expanding their reach in the US, because Kamala Harris as the border czar is letting them all in.”

Boy, Michael’s really never going to let that made-up border czar thing go is he?

This story is about an apartment complex in Aurora Colorado that was the target of false claims that stated that Venezuelan gangs took it over. The initial source of the claim was the owner of the building, CBZ Management. The reason why this is important is because company is sketchy as all hell.

There have been numerous reports detailing building code violations at the complex that have dated back years. CBZ has accrued more than $44,000 in fines at one of its properties. These included fines for mice infestation, ceiling damage, and illegally parked vehicles. CBZ said this year (despite the fact that the complaints go back years) that they could not address these concerns because they felt it was unsafe to send their employees into the building. Suuurrreeeee. The game that these guys are playing here is pretty transparent.

Aurora police stated that CBZ was attempting to “fabricate false narratives” about a gang takeover at the building but did acknowledge that some elements of Tren De Aragua have operated in Aurora in the past.

This was then amplified when surveillance footage from a CBZ owned property of armed men entering an apartment went viral. There is zero evidence tying these men to Tren De Aragua nor is there evidence that this was part of some shadowy gang takeover. From the looks of things this was just a burglary. The Aurora police have identified ten members of TDA in the city and arrested nine of them.

Essentially, this is the story of a really sleazy developer trying to weasel their way out of managing their building properly and someone’s apartment possibly being robbed. Immigrants haven’t taken over the town.

Conclusion:

Yeah, that was just a really gross affair. I don’t really have words for it because it kind of speaks for itself.

If you’re a trans youth or just a trans individual reading this post, remember that you ARE valid and stay safe out there. Hopefully the next post is more fun.

Cheers and I’ll see you in the next one.

Original video:

Ep. 1594 - Venezuelan Prison Gang Conquers Colorado Town, Oct 14, 2024.

[djhamaradio]

On Immigration

Immigration is central to the human story. I thought of this because I was listening to an interview with a population geneticist who talked about how genes 🧬 are very clear evidence of how humans have scattered around the world, and how these movements have shaped, and continue to shape the modern world.

If you are interested in the convo here it is above.

This also got me thinking about the current immigration crisis around the world be it folks crossing the Mediterranean, folks on the US southern border, and little-known problems like folks trying to get into South Africa or Colombia. For the first time in the history of our species people cannot just move about in the past your biggest hurdle was probably weather, time, and maybe the presence of other people. In the modern world, the places we want to go to are places with the highest standards of living, and the best chances at living somewhat free lives. Usually, this means Western capitalist democracies or countries that have succeeded under these conditions. The movement mostly involves people from the global south moving due to issues of governance, economic uncertainty, and issues around global warming.

[iwantjobs]

2/3/2024: I, Trang, a former short-term American highschool social-studies teacher (American and world history) said (this excerpt will be used in my future PHD paper in philosophy as a hardcore heterosexual female with hardcore heterosexual eggs philosopher)), "1945 was when the idea of genocide democracy was created. This radical and hypocritical was was created by a group of democratic nations (unknown if Russia was involved, but England, America, and France are the biggest heads involved) who won WWII against the genocide fascism of Germany headed by Hitler and his Nazi regime. This genocide democracy idea was hidden from majority of humanity for nearly 78 years, but finally exploded on October 7th, 2023 when a militant indigenous Palestinian group called the Hamas (known to the West and Israel as a terrorist group backed by Iran) broke out of their Israeli-apartheid-fencing city called Gaza and imposed the second most destructive and animalistic casualties of 1,135 (number is still being confirmed by Israel) on the Jews since the 6 millions deaths of Jews by Hitler and his Anti-Semitism fascist in Germany. Genocide democracy is a human gathering system that includes the use of a smaller genocide (Palestine) to house the victims of a bigger genocide (Jews of Germany and in Europe). Trang's work at 50.8 years old. Ok folks as soon as I am able to get of Tumblr, I'll start typing my thinking for I finally fixed my computer.

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Another week, gone. We’re picking up the grandkids this morning so I’ll have to get this put together quickly this morning. Sorry, grandpa duty calls! 👴🏼

I’m finishing this off in the car as we go to get them. 🤣

Hope you enjoy the links.

Max Boot • The Washington Post

The GOP’s abandonment of Ukraine makes me ashamed to be an American

This is gut wrenching. Ukraine is standing between Russia and Europe. That nutter in Russia isn’t going to stop at Ukraine. He’ll go until someone can stop him.

Come on G.O.P., get your crap together and defend democracy. Oh, right, you no longer care about that.

Ananya Bhattacharya • Quartz

Spotify is ending 2023 with its third and biggest layoffs of the year

Man, 2023 has been a crummy year for tech workers. Here’s hoping 2024 is much, much, better.

James Verniere • Boston Herald

“Leave the World Behind,” which is based on a 2020 novel by American author Rumaan Alam and produced by among others Barrack and Michelle Obama, is nothing less than a modern-day version of Alfred Hitchcock’s unforgettable 1963 hit “The Birds.”

I watched this last night and I really liked it. If you have Netflix check it out.

Ashur Cabrera

Once upon a time — way back in, like, 2004 or something — I used to turn my nose up at sites that served an RSS feed with only an excerpt. It felt, I think I would have said, like a sleazy way to drive clicks. (“Information wants to be free!” etc. 🙄) Twenty years on I still read a ton from RSS feeds, but I found recently that I’m starting to thaw on that position quite a bit.

Ashur, what happened to the curmudgeon in you? 😃

As a developer of a feed reader I get request to display the full article and it’s what I prefer so I don’t have to visit the website. That’s a feature on the feature list for Stream. One of these days.

Bart Decrem • Mammoth Blog

Introducing Mammoth 2: The easiest way quit Twitter/X for good and join Mastodon

It’s nice to see developers strive to make Mastodon work for old Twitter, non techie, users to get started with Mastodon. That’s been the biggest barrier to entry. Folks can’t figure out how to join and they also tend to like recommendations.

Jacob Kastrenakes • The Verge

Earlier this year, a developer slid into Eric Migicovsky’s DMs with a spectacular claim: that he had reverse engineered Apple’s iMessage, allowing any device — Android, Windows, whatever — to send messages as a blue bubble. Migicovsky didn’t believe what he was reading.

This is an interesting read. Bravo to the 16-year old who figured it out!

Daring Fireball

But Overcast does exist, and it’s the app where most people with exquisite taste in UI are listening to podcasts.

Poor Castro has languished and definitely doesn’t have the geek recognition Overcast does. I’d imagine that’s why it’s the number one podcast player in John’s stats.

As far as UI preferences and paradigm go, Castro fits me better.

I’d love to be able to buy it from Tiny and keep working on it. I’ve already shared my opinion on the matter.

Aldous J Pennyfarthing • Daily Kos

House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose grand vision for America includes transforming every uterus in the country into a Pez dispenser, is convinced he’s the North American Moses who will lead his people to the Promised Land.

Yeah, this guy wants a theocracy. No thank you.

Sure, the Christians might agree with you but what about Jews, Muslims, Buddhists? Name your religion. It’s not right. Our First Amendment was setup to protect us from a theocracy, but we all know the G.O.P. doesn’t really care about the Constitution.

Susana Polo • Polygon

The Comixology app, the mobile incarnation of the digital comics platform owned by Amazon since 2014, has finally shuffled off this mortal coil.

I’ve had ComiXology for a number of years but I never went for the subscription. I just don’t read enough. I don’t see this as a bad move. Comics are just another type of book and the Kindle App is fine for reading.

ESPN

While four teams are celebrating the opportunity to play for a national title on the field, undefeated ACC champion Florida State is on the outside, becoming the first unbeaten Power 5 conference winner to ever miss out on the College Football Playoff.

This broke a lot of hearts and it’s a real shame the 12 team — why not 16 — playoff wasn’t in place this year.

Of course I say that and my own thoughts on the matter didn’t include Florida State.

I also thought Georgia should have been in. Off by one error. We got Alabama from the SEC instead.

Apple

Apple TV+ today shared the first images from “Constellation,” a new eight-part, conspiracy-based psychological thriller drama starring Noomi Rapace (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “You Won’t Be Alone”) and Emmy Award nominee Jonathan Banks (“Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul”).

So, yeah, I’m looking forward to this! Anything with Noomi Rapace in it is good in my book.

Danijela Vrzan

Let’s implement a custom dark mode color in our app - dark blue.

Really nice SwiftUI article on how to change the colors used for Light and Dark mode for your app. Well done.

[thisismenow3]

Online leftists suck at being leftists, part a million

As with most things I post, just shouting into the void so I waste less time on this bs. So many people have no nuance to their thinking I wanna ask “how the fuck you think we can unfuck our situation then?” Cause if a military or country that’s done any horrible shot equals “anything they do must be wrong and the opposing side supported no matter what” then we are all fucked and no betterment for minorities of faith, ethnicity, no betterment for labor, children, etc is possible. Y’all can’t even see how supporting Ukraine is the first step to fighting fascism here in the US? If y’all think their 2014 election weren’t fair, why did Russia do an ACTUAL FALSE FLAG before giving up the pretense and taking over Donbas and crimea immediately afterward? After all these different countries and groups that oversee elections approved it?

And the Azob thing has me steamed about peoples’ lack of comprehension skills being used to make fucking chumps of them. If a right wing militia using nazi regalia existing means a country is deserving of its civilians being curb stomped literally and it’s children who survive being trafficked for sex or adoption than fuck you. That means you think it should happen here dipshit. And if you’re saying “well the neo nazis wanted the impeachment and a new president!” Then I say “And did they actually do anything forcing this?” “No”

Look into the details jack ass. If you’re a leftist you have to know thy enemy. Right wing militias can often support things you wouldn’t expect because they’re in “long game” mode. Hell, right wing anything can do that. Neo nazis in Cali supported gun control back in the day. If I was like y’all online leftists without media literacy I’d think “oh so gun control bad and the neo nazis forced that in Cali.” Instead, you read up just a little and you realize “oh, they’d rather make a tactical retreat as Governor Reagan and the FBI break up and assassinate the Panthers even though they want to have more guns, kinds of guns, types of armaments period.” Why do you think Azov, to the extent they are doing anything, would like about impeaching a Russian stooge who fled a popular uprising? That their country is sticking it to Russia!!!!!!! They’re cool with democracy now cause in many ways they are much further from taking over and then getting rid of democracy in their country than the right wing in the US is towards the USA. This is why people who actually know anything about the politics and situation of Ukraine and ain’t right wing think online leftists calling for capitulation are the biggest idiots. Cause y’all are.

So it shouldn’t be surprising these same bumble fucks parrot China’s talking points. Should China get to take over other weaker nation’s territory? Fuck no. Should the USA be the world policeman? In a just world (not even a perfect one) fuck no. Is the UN capable of doing this job for the world? Hahahaha that’s a good one! Oh, you’re serious. The UN is to world betterment and adjudication what US courts are to renter’s rights and empowerment. Which is to say it’s not impossible but we all know they’re dead weight at best and it’s something way more powerful using them whenever they’re at all a part of something good. And usually, they ain’t.

The other big issue is that real leftism is about more democracy, you know; messy, long term politicking with lots of moving parts. But online leftism (derogatory) is all about big, crude imposed actions! In short online leftism (derogatory) is still stuck in the mistakes of communist thought from a century ago. No dictatorship willingly or cleanly gives way to democracy, full stop. The unpopular opinion amongst people who want leftist change is that centrists, neo liberal Econ folks, liberals (derogatory), whatever label you want to use are correct to a point; they say all of the communist thought that ain’t about describing the system as it is is wrong. And in reality they’re very close to right. The proletariat is more disparate and multifaceted than any communist thinker gives credence to and at best actually centrist on average politically. So there can’t be a magnificent revolution just like a dictatorship that ends itself is an obvious idiocy. But online leftism (derogatory) doesn’t want to hear that or similar critiques about things like anarchism, etc. Combine that with conservative purposeful mismanagement of literacy programs (not just being able to read at a high level, but being able to read a source and still glean things from it despite bias and even, gasp, be able to use many sources to find reality through this process!) and you have people who you can’t tell if they’re being intellectually lazy because it allows them to do nothing but post (America always bad, therefore America should just do less or do things that it can’t because I’ve forgotten about how bureaucratic systems work) or just not literate enough to realize they’re getting played. With the online left (derogatory), porque no los dos?

This is going all over the place but it’s really just coming from a place of seeing how people who actually do want to make the world better are indistinguishable from people who are actually selfish lazy nihilists pretending to be something else the same way libertarians are conservatives with no real agenda other than simplistic ideas about how power should be distributed. And this sucks cause there’s real hope that if we build now we can succeed long term even if movements don’t coalesce right now to better our society and save our world. Online leftism (derogatory) doesn’t talk in any real way about unions except as power fantasy. Because unions, like military aid to democracies, is way to messy and yet necessary. So just like military aid is seen as always bad by them, unions are only thought about as strikers. That’s one fucking aspect y’all! There’s many moves before the strike is even threatened! Do you know how t use existing unions to help create ones for a union less industry or company? Do you know how unions and their members can be called upon to help fight for environmental justice? How about school boards? Who’s up for doing with school boards in America what the right wing has been doing for decades? Who’s up for joking the Democratic Party as an actual member and trying to politics you way into the back rooms of power at the state level? Then when there’s enough of us there, flipping the radicalism switch? Who’s for brokering deals with democrats in states they rarely get much local and no state power to mutually support each other when democratic socialist independents or independent communists or whatever else get a sizeable local base of support? Online leftism is derogatory as a term in the same way these people and others use liberal; cause they ain’t doing anything to build up the good shit they say they wanna build up. They just wanna claim and then go back to whatever socializing makes up the rest of their mom work time. For those of y’all that ain’t online left (derogatory), or for whom the label don’t fully fit, I got one question… y’all organizing offline? Cause it’s seems like online is poison for leftism up until the point it’s got enough steam to whether a bunch of blows from all sides.

Rant over. Gonna continue to try to see how I can protect/unfuck my city IRL

[dipperdesperado]

Social Democracy isn’t Liberation…it’s Liberalism

One of the biggest challenges that our world, shaped and twisted by the ideologies of domination, coercion, power over, and hierarchy, is a poverty of imagination. Humans have this great ability to adapt to their reality. This can be very useful for surviving hardship but becomes an issue when it becomes time to change that reality. Social democracy is an example of how this poverty of imagination stifles the liberatory possibilities that people envision.

Something important to understand is that I don’t blame people for having a reformist (or even revolutionary in a way that I don't align with) stance on how to achieve liberation, autonomy, and abolition. This is why I say it’s a poverty of imagination. It’s not the fault of the victim that they’ve been victimized; of the minority that’s been marginalized. These greater systems and networks of relations at play shape what people think is possible and make it difficult to imagine brighter futures. Hopefully, we can unpack what social democracy is and why I believe that it’s insufficient in meeting liberatory ends.

Social Democracy?

Social democracy is as if capitalism and socialism had a baby. It takes a mixed approach, using capitalism as the foundation (since it’s meant to be introduced into current paradigms) and making it more economically equitable and socially just. When socially democratic policies are enacted in a country, it usually is a net positive for people in that country, but, we have to think of these ameliorations as just that; they are slowing the bleeding of an unstable system. Think of it like this; for many Americans, what they think of as socialism is just social democracy. The “welfare state”, so things like Medicare for All, Social Security, and some other social programs that I can’t think of are examples of social democratic policies. Now, hearing those, you might not be very convinced. This might not yet sound like a bad thing. You might also realize that other countries are revered for doing it better, like the Nordic countries. There’s literally even something called the Nordic model. This, to me, is about as far as I see social democracy going. While, especially in its heyday, whether we’re looking at the early years after the New Deal or the mid-20th century for the Nordic model, things were pretty nice, you can see in both of those spaces that you couldn’t describe the societal reality as liberatory.

This is because social democracy operates within the existing political and economic system, rather than fundamentally challenging or transforming it. This means that while social democracy may, in theory, provide some short-term relief for marginalized communities, it ultimately does not address the root causes of systemic oppression and inequality. The systems in place were not made to provide for uncentered folks, so any aberrations to the status quo will trend back towards benefiting those the system was made for. That’s how you can have the two-pronged effect of resistance to these policies from conservatives, while they are more likely to benefit from social programs due to the rest of the structure that still exists. Affirmative action is a perfect example of this kind of thing. Once you also think about the neoliberal hellscape that we currently find ourselves within, you realize that even if these programs are expansively supportive, they can be deregulated and defunded out of existence, and the people who needed them are left without support.

Social Democracy as Liberalism

Social democracy is one of the ways that not having the space to imagine more radical futures stifles us. While it started off as a way to bring about revolutionary change, it has become interested in modifying the current system. This is ultimately seen as a "necessary compromise", as "pragmatic". This should show just how embedded in the status quo liberal thought is. Liberalism is so pervasive as an ideology. Liberalism is a political and economic philosophy that values individual(istic) freedom, individual(istic) rights, and free markets. That's what people who are trying to fight against current paradigms are contesting. Whether to uphold those ideals (conservatism), maximize them within a current framework (reform or bourgeois revolution), or truly question them at their core (social revolution)

Social democracy tries to bring about socialistic ideals within the framework of capitalism and the ideologies of liberalism. If individualism (instead of individuality or individuation, or hell, even the collective/community) is the prevailing unit of our philosophy, then it makes sense to focus on “individual freedoms and rights” in a way that stifles the power of the collective, upholding things like private property, which only benefit one person at the expense of many.

Even when social democracy truly and earnestly seeks to promote greater economic equality and social justice, it often does so within the confines of individual rights and freedoms. This means that social democratic policies will be limited in their ability to address systemic issues that require a collective response, toward the direction of abolition, autonomy, and liberation. Those grassroots ideals are directly opposed and even endanger the ability of a state or authoritative body to choose who gets support. Since it can’t, social democracy does not fully challenge the underlying power structures that enable economic exploitation and oppression to occur.

It also upholds the relationship between the state and its citizens. The state is often controlled by those with wealth and power and can be used to reinforce existing inequalities rather than challenge them. This happens over, and over, and over again. The state is counter-revolutionary.

This liberal/neoliberal focus on the individual leads to the top-down approach to social change that may (in very limited circumstances) be better than no interventions at all, but without a grassroots-led design and focus, things meant to address certain inequities will be by their design incomplete. You can’t successfully design things for people without those people having at least as much of a say in the process as you. This is how we get one-size-fits-all solutions to problems, rather than agile and bespoke responses to issues.

Where Imagination Poverty Comes From

Social democracy was designed by people who weren’t explicitly anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist to address the issues of capitalism through “democratic” processes. This leads to blind spots, where those who thought up the policies leave out those who would benefit the most… I mean, there were a ton of ways that the New Deal excluded Black folks.

This also leads to an incrementalist, reformist, orientation. If one believes that they can vote in the revolution, then their entire sociopolitical framework revolves around legitimizing the system (and implicitly many of the things that result from that system), waiting around for changes. The relationships that emerge from interacting with the system are inherent to it. The system was not designed for equality. Maybe, in some theoretical world, if there was enough energy to insert into the system at once, you could make it substantially more equitable, but the system itself would buck those notions before it was endangered. The root causes of oppression cannot be fixed using the tools of oppression. There has to be some honesty and understanding about what is causing oppression, along with what has to be done to entirely stop it. An impoverished imagination leads to a lack of political will.

Closing Thoughts

Liberation is more than government support. Liberation is a completely different way of looking at the world than what is happening now. It’s a true commitment to a holistic strategy and horizontality, fighting the roots of oppression.

I want to let y’all in on a secret. If you’re interested in “social democracy” type reforms, the way to get those is to think past them. Just in case this wasn’t clear, I don’t think that subsidized housing, government-sponsored retirement plans, or even healthcare are bad. They’re good! What I want y’all to realize is that instead of begging the people who rule over us for what we need and deserve as humans for simply existing, we can build those structures ourselves. We are much more likely to get what we want by putting pressure on governments through grassroots action than by waiting for it to be voted in. We don’t have to accept the logic and imagination that they set for us. We can dream much larger, and gain those policies along the way. They’ll give concessions when we put them in danger. We just have to be willing to take nothing less than what we can fully yearn for.

[aulunthe]

How did we get into the mess we're into today? Today's focus is on right wing extremism, how we got to the mess we are in right now with right wing extremism and the threats on democracy. It started early in the 60's but became a big focus during the Reagan era in the early 1980's. At the same time the Council For National Policy (CNP) started up. It's a who's who of elitist religious extremists, christofascists or *faux christians, whatever you want to call them, from several denominations, along with corporate big shots, bankers, politicians, judges, etc. And since the Obama was elected, but more prevalent during and since the 2016 election cycle they have melded with the alt-right and conspiracy theorist world. I had many posts regarding the CNP during the 2016 election cycle but I cannot find any of them. But I did find many other posts which I did repost prior to this post. I came across the Al Franken Podcast on TuneIn but I am sure it is on many podcast platforms. He was a former U.S. Senator representing Minnesota until he was pushed out due to a gag photo found during a time period where he did USO shows to entertain our troops abroad. He was one of the biggest obstacles to the Kentucky Senator Moscow Mitch McConnel's goal of filling the Federal bench and SCOTUS with right wing extremist judges. That's why he was targeted. The episode in this post is a replay from a previous broadcast. He is doing a replay for this post because he contracted COVID during a West Coast tour. The episode: BEST OF: Anne Nelson on the Right Wing Shadow Network 12/17/2022

Franken starts out touching on recent legislation including The Respect For Marriage Act. Then he and Nelson discuss the CNP and other afflictions of modern day democracy and the threats to it. It is well worth listening in.

* When I talk about faux christians I am not talking about your every day religious folks who rely on their beliefs to provide some structure in their lives, and who are good people. I'm talking about your religious hate groups, hypocrites, white ISIS, conservative Jr. Nazi groups, and domestic terrorists, radical lead heads, school shooters, extremist anti-choicers, etc.

[mouthpiece]

ithink i have the right to add my

point of view since Mouthpiece was mine ti start and d write for some time Right now twitter and Musk have really pissed me off as a noted truth teller who worked for liberalism and Democracy for sixty years and recruited by a Kennedy on my return from Two Wars that i volunteered for Musk and the new f regime believe it’s okay to play God But don’t worry the triad of trump musk and Kenye won’t last! Haters don’t build anything,don’t make things better and don’t last! Remember it was okay to publish Trumps hysterical hate screeds and lies but the Twitter folk think they have theDivine Right to deny truth Don’t let them have their way And Kenye’s scrambled brain that denies the Holocaust shiws he’s not qualified to hold my dogs leash let’s start using our brains again guys, there’s much work to do to make our world living e and come visit my biggest Twitter site at les Friedlieb Thanks gang let’s make a difference by embracing our differences!

[badass-at-fandoming]

I've read some of your tags that you wanted to redo the Vampire The Masquerade lore so that it's not so grimdark bleak all the time. What sort of ideas are floating in your head?

OOF, you be diggingggggg. I post a lot of nonsense. 😂🥰 

I’m going to be That ™️ Brujah ™️ Bitch ™️  here and say my main goal would be to make Vampire: the Masquerade not just disapproving of players being racist, homophobic, ableist etc, but have the lore be actively hostile to it. Grimedark stories are not for me, but some people like them. I’d want to erase elements that make tabletop campaigns needlessly harmful to the players and Storyteller. As a white woman, I think my biggest goal with re-tooling the lore would be to hire black, indigenous, and other people of color to re-tool it.

For example, the Gehenna Crusade in the Middle East. My God, those v5 lore bits were painful to read and I’m not even Asian or Muslim. I’d hire a group of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan--heck, Iranian, Israeli, and Palestinian writers would be amazing--to formulate the undead view on the atrocity that is the War on Terror. I thought Night Road touched on a interesting point with the concentration camp and Catholic hospital chapter: the horrors humanity creates are far, far worse than any Elder could do. Humans are set to destroy the world, more so than any magical creature. The question is not “will bad things happen?” so much as “how will I react to the bad things around me?”

Other ideas:

Moving the v5 section on content warnings and respectful playing to the front of the book. Read about how every fascist character MUST die or be reformed. That’s literally a rule.

A more careful analysis/explanation of NPC motivation. Let there be specific reasons Kindred do to not band together. It’s not arbitrary Backstabby Disease. There’s a reason why such-and-such hates so-and-so. “Power” is too nebulous a motivation and used too often to pit Kindred against each other. What type of power do they want and why? If they got it, what would they do with it? What is preventing 90% of Kindred getting along and hosting Neftlix parties, is what I’m saying.

handing over the Ravnos lore to writers and game devs who are Roma and/or Travelers, and putting in huge ass, lime green letters that “If you have the Ravnos be Roma or Travelers, you are playing the game incorrectly!” Because, my goodest dudes, I am le tired. Even though the Ravnos have been soft-revamped a couple times now, fans are still using their super harmful origin.

More environmentalism and combating climate change, with crossover to Werewolf: the Apocalypse. This ties in with the “humans are causing an apocalypse better than vampires ever do/did” theme.

In general, more of the different magic species interacting. They all inhabit one world, one globe! They all have a vested interest in protecting the earth!

It’s been beaten to death on here, but divorcing the concept of liking sex and/or having sex etc with the Humanity mechanic

In general, just let the vampires be sexy

Hire indigenous writers to write their own vampires (if that’s the term they’d want to use) for their tribe. The whole narrative that the Americas were empty of supernatural beings is like. No.

Shift to a more international focus with the “By Night” books. The USA, unfortunately, exists, and I think we’ve heard enough about it. What about By Night books set in South America? Written by indigenous folks there? And other folks of color? I’d love Cassandra Khaw and a team of Chinese writers to be hired to re-do the Kuei-jin, and for the many, many talented African fantasy writers to re-do the Laibon. Lagos by Night anyone?

Give the Anarch cause more specificity. You’re telling me that the Anarchs don’t have a constitution? In the year of our Lord 2021??? No Bill of Rights? No judicial system? No social programs or schools?? No democracy?? Like!!!! Have them keep up with the progressiveness of the time we’re living in. It’s been proven over and over and over that true anarchy is not sustainable.

This turned into more of a “what would I do with v5″ sort of thing, but here we are. If you wanted to ask about a specific tag or post, let me know. Thanks for the ask!