#but a lot of it is just how much democracy does this country have

[vamptastic]

whoever scheduled european history (favorite subject, only history class offered beyond the basic required curriculum) and the fourth (and final, and very important!) year of my drafting class for only one class period each at the same time needs to die. my heart is divided in two and every time my drafting teacher lectures me about the quality of my air conditioning plans i daydream of charts of monarchies.

[qqueenofhades]

I don’t have any words right now for what’s happened. Where in the fuck do we go from here?

I don't know. I really, truly don't know. We can't sugarcoat how bad things are going to get, and we can't pre-emptively give into it anyway. This is going to be an unprecedented time in American history (if, sadly, not world history) and the forces conspiring to make you obey will gain much of their power from you doing so in advance, without a struggle. It seems fair to say that America as it has always been historically constituted is over, and may not return in our lifetimes, but we also do not know that for a fact. If nothing else, the fascists will find it very hard to cancel competitive elections, and we cannot sit back, throw up our hands, conclude that voting is clearly meaningless, and let them do that. There are a lot of other things that we need to do, but that's one.

There are various postmortems to be written and nits to pick, but Harris was thrown into an impossible situation and did the best she could in 100 days. Even her critics agree she ran a pretty much flawless campaign. But this country simply decided that a well-qualified black woman could not be preferred over the most manifestly and flagrantly unfit degenerate to ever occupy the office. They decided this for many reasons, not least because large swathes of the country now live in curated misinformation bubbles that, under Government Czar Musk, will only get much, much worse. They were helped by the cowardice and complicity of the "mainstream media" that could have ended Trump's career exactly like they did to Biden after the first debate, but chose to preserve the profits of their billionaire oligarch owners and did not do so, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and normalization at every turn. They also hounded Biden relentlessly over the four years of his presidency, never reported on the good things he did, and drove him to the historically bad approval ratings lows for a president who was by any metric, quite successful (and will quite possibly be our last ordinary American president for a very long time). Along with the searingly ingrained racism and misogyny and misinformation, Harris could not overcome that.

Democrats clearly had a messaging problem, but it's also true that the country, quite simply, does not care about "democracy" when the economy is perceived to be at stake. Not to over-egg the Hitler parallels, but yeah. This is how Hitler returned to power in 1933 -- on the backs of widespread economic collapse of the Weimar Republic; voters decided they just didn't care about the overtly fascist stuff, which he then proceeded to you know, do with genocidal vigor. Except the American economy in this case was actually doing well, which makes it even more baffling and indefensible. Enough people simply memory-holed Trump's crimes (aided at every turn by SCOTUS, Mitch McConnell not convicting him after January 6, Merrick Garland being far too slow and timid, the corporate media), liked the racist fascist behavior or felt that it wasn't a dealbreaker, and decided that in this election, he was the "change" candidate. It's insane by any metric, but that's what happened.

The country is deeply sick. We do not know what will happen. It's going to get bad. Barring a miracle, we will not have federalized abortion rights again in my lifetime, and there will be widespread attacks on public health, women's rights, immigrants, transgender people, and other vulnerable people. Even and especially the ones who voted for Trump. Never Thought Leopard Would Eat My Face, etc. Alito and Thomas will swiftly step down and allow their seats to be replaced by 40-year old wingnuts hand-selected from the worst the Federalist Society has to offer. SCOTUS is gone for the next generation at least. There is very little prospect of it being ever fixed in the foreseeable future.

Trump will never face a scintilla of consequences for his previous crimes; all the open federal cases will be closed as soon as he takes office and fires Jack Smith. The best we can hope for is that he dies in office, but then we get Vance and the cadre of alt-right techno billionaires ruled directly from the Kremlin. Putin is celebrating this morning and with good reason; he's gotten everything he wants. Trump will egg on Netanyahu in Gaza and abandon Ukraine. Democracy across the world will remain even more fragile and badly under threat. Authoritarians will be empowered and American withdrawal from international systems will percolate in very dangerous ways that cannot and will not be fixed in the short run. I really hope all the leftists who celebrate this as the "defeat of the genocide candidate" will enjoy all the genocide and suffering that's about to come. And yes, I do think the Israel-Palestine war fucked us in a large way. Jewish voters perceived the Democrats as insufficiently pro-Israel due to the presence of far-left antisemitism, even as the far left attacked the Democrats relentlessly and never targeted the Republicans. Arab voters abandoned them, possibly deservedly. What would have happened without the war? We don't know. You get the historical period that you get. Netanyahu and Trump can now do anything they want. Hope it was worth it.

As I said, I can't sugarcoat it. We are going to be paying for this in some form for the next decade, and probably longer. I'm not as absolutely shattered as I was in 2016, but I am much, much angrier. We all thought, we all hoped, America was better than this. It isn't. That, however, is something that has also happened before. What we decide to do next will shape how the next chapter unfolds.

This would be a great time to stock up on needed medicines, renew your passport online, and anything else you need to do in preparation for next year. Many of us simply do not have the wherewithal, whether financial or otherwise, to leave the country. I don't know what will happen with me. I don't know what will happen to any of us. This was utterly avoidable and yet, America didn't want to avoid it. At some point, there's nothing else you can do. You can point to media cronyism, Russian influence, etc etc., but the fact that two of the most qualified presidential candidates who happened to be women have now lost to Trump twice makes it unavoidable. The virulent rightward shift of young men (of all races) in particular paints a grim picture as to how the reactionary misogyny of the 21st century is going to essentially undo most of the progress for social and gender equality in the 20th. The patriarchy has been a problem for most of human history. Doesn't really seem like it's going to change.

The end result of this, however grim: we're still here. We are still living within our communities. If (and this is a big if) Democrats can retake the House, they can put some checks on the process for the next two years. At this point, we are in full-out buying-time, trying-to-prevent-the worst mode. We could have continued fixing things, but we won't be doing that. We will only be trying to preserve ourselves and our friends and our smaller spheres of influence. It sounds very trite to say that we have to have courage, but we do. There's not much else.

It's going to be an awful winter. We have two and a half months to see this coming and know how bad it's going to be, and... yeah. I don't know how soon the buyer's remorse will inevitably set in, but it will. Tough luck, people. You voted for him. You get the country that you decide to have. But the rest of us are also here, and what Gandalf says is still true. We wish the Ring had never come to us, we wish none of this had happened, but we still have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us.

I don't have a lot more. I'll probably be logging off for a while. I don't need to look at the internet for.... yeah, a long time. (Will I do it anyway? Probably.) I don't know what else to leave you with, aside from again:

Do not obey in advance. Do not act as if everything is foreordained and set in stone. Fascist regimes end. They always do. We are going to have to figure out how, and it will suck shit, but the alternative is worse.

Take care of yourselves. I love you.

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Are you a Tankie?? Do you think the USSR was a good nation? Do you maybe even defend Stalin somewhat, not just Lenin? Do you support Mao or ''commuist" nations in the modern age like China or North Korea? I think Commuism is a good ideology, but anytime it's been attempted alongside a government, it's been used as an excuse to control and oppress people. I think it can only work feasibly under anarchy because a government will never release control of its citizens.

I used to be an anarchist myself. I'm not going to say there's some magic phrase that will convince you to become a "tankie" like me, but I will say that if you haven't read some of the core works by Marx, Engels, or Lenin, you should give them a try sometime. "State and Revolution" especially. There is no magic "abolish the state" button that can be pressed to do away with all authority in one stroke. The material conditions must be changed first before the state can disappear.

I would also recommend checking out Pat Sloan's "Soviet Democracy", and pretty much anything by Anna Louise Strong but especially The Soviets Expected It, The Stalin Era, and In North Korea. On the subject of North Korea, you should also watch the democracy "Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul".

There is a lot of propaganda surrounding actually existing socialism in the West, and it is important to separate truth from fiction. People do not fight in revolutions only to turn around and accept new oppressors. Every currently existing socialist state is democratic, and that includes the DPRK. Democratic does not mean ideal, but it does mean that people have a say in who is running the government. Even more than that, in every existing socialist state the people have the right to recall elected officials at any time, something which is not guaranteed in most bourgeois democracies, including the US.

Can you imagine members of the ruling party meeting with the people directly on a regular basis to discuss and debate the issues that matter most to the people in the US or any other bourgeois democracy? Can you imagine government officials whose top priority is the material welfare of the most disadvantaged citizens? You look at government meetings in China, in Cuba, in Vietnam, in Laos, and in North Korea, and that is what you see time and time again. That is the crux of politics in these countries, the material conditions of the people and how to improve them. They are dictatorships of the proletariat and thus the proletariat are the class for which the state exists to benefit.

Finally, you should read the 1986 paper "Capitalism, socialism, and the physical quality of life" by Cereseto & Waitzkin. While it is nearly 40 years old, it used World Bank data (clearly not a source biased in favor of communism) to demonstrate how on average socialist economies outperformed capitalist ones at similar levels of economic development in terms of actual material conditions for the average citizen. Being 40 years old, it also has the advantage of comparing data at a time when the number of socialist nations was at its highest. If you want to see more recent examinations that take a similar approach, you should read any papers by the economist Jason Hickel, but especially his 2016 paper "The true extent of global poverty and hunger", where he demonstrates that capitalism has by and large failed to improve material conditions outside the imperial core, and that the only nations that buck the trend in the developing world are the ones who have rejected neoliberal economic policy, most notably China, whose socialist economy has been responsible for the vast majority of people lifted out of poverty in the last decades.

[psychotrenny]

There's a real unearned confidence to the way that Social Democrats talk about their ideology, like they've cracked the code and found the perfect way forward and the only reason people disagree is because they're misguided or evil. Like they'll correctly point out problems within Neoliberal Capitalism before spouting some absolute nonsense about how uniquely evil and dysfunctional Communism was (nearly always in the past tense too; they take it for granted that the end of the USSR was the end of all Communism) and then going "Don't worry though, there's a third way; a mixed regulated economy. We can have a free market in consumer goods while making sure that corporations pay their fair share in wages and taxes that can fund the welfare that looks after everyone". And like putting aside the fact that such a model relies on the super-profits of imperialist exploitation to actually function, and the inherent instability of an arrangement where the Bourgeoisie make concessions even while maintaining ultimate control of the economy, there's the simple fact that much of the Imperial Core did indeed had Social Democracy but does not anymore.

Like these Social Democrats never think about why that might be, why their ideology failed and what they can learn from it going forward. They just act as though some dumb individuals (i.e. Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman etc.) managed to slip into power and make bad decisions and like the best way to fix this is to vote good people in who'll change it back. Like hell a lot of these people take the previous existence of these policies as like a good point, the whole "We had them before so we aren't being radical by wanting them back. We don't want anything crazy we just wanna bring back The New Deal or Keynesian Economic policy or whatever". There's never any thought about why those policies failed (how often do you hear these people even talk about "stagflation" or "the oil crisis" let alone the impact of the fall of the soviet union) and what implications this might have on the viability of bringing it back. They also love talking about how Social Democratic institutions are still largely intact in the Scandinavian countries, but rather than even consider what specific factors in their political-economic situation led to this these people just go "Damn isn't Sweden great. Why aren't we doing exactly what they do?"

And sure some people might compare this to Marxism-Leninism, the whole "trying to bring back a defeated ideology", but for one it's stupid to treat the dissolution of the USSR as the end of Communism as a global political force. It may have been a major blow, but even if you write off like Cuba and Vietnam as too small and insignificant to matter you can't just fucking ignore that over 1/6 of the world's population continues live under a Marxist Leninist party. Whatever concessions these countries may have made to global Capitalism, it's just plain ignorant to act as though Communism suffered anywhere near the humiliating loss of global power and credibility that Social Democracy has. Sure the latter may be more politically acceptable to toy with in "The West", but "The Western World" ≠ The Entire World. Also, nearly every ML on the planet is painfully aware that Soviet Communism collapsed and that it collapsed for a reason. There might be plenty of contention about why exactly it died and what exactly we can learn from this, but nearly everyone agrees that we need to learn and ideologically grow. No serious Communist wants to "bring back the USSR" in the same way that many Social Democrats want to "bring back The Welfare State". Far from being a form of "best of both worlds" mixed economy, Social Democracy is nothing more than a flimsy tool to stabilise Imperialist Capitalism at its moments of greatest strain. And if people are still gonna promote it wholeheartedly as the best possible solution, I wish they'd be a little less arrogant about it. It's not as though they have history on their side

[a-student-out-of-time]

An Important Reminder In Trying Times

Hey everyone, Mod Bubbles here.

I know that I've said over and over that I don't like talking about politics on here, but I really feel the need to say this:

This Is Not The End.

I understand things probably seem really bleak right now. A lot of people are going to be hurt by this, and the sheer amount of fearmongering and worst case scenarios are inescapable. But the country and the world are not going to change overnight. To be honest, it may not change very much at all in the next four years. I'm not a political scientist, so I can't tell you that for sure. There's a lot to be concerned about.

What I can tell you, as a student of history, is this: not only have we survived this once, we have survived this every time.

Think about it this way: every single tyrant, every single right-wing representative, every single emperor and colonial power, every corporate scumbag and power-hungry lunatic. No matter how many of them have ever come to power, held onto power, and tried to make themselves seem invincible, not a single one has ever held back humanity's progress and not a single one has proven to be invincible.

There were countries throughout history, especially in the 20th century, that fell under brutal dictatorships and saw countless lives lost. Did the people just give up and accept it? Fuck no they didn't. They fought back. Many of them lived to see democracy restored to their lands in their lifetimes, or fought to see it restored in their children's.

From Europe to Latin America, while many countries still have their issues, they endured and their people have survived. Their governments were not invincible, just as none ever have been.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, the world will go on. People will not just roll over and accept whatever horrible things happen, the fight will continue and we will do everything in our power to carry on as we always have. We'll carry on to achieve bigger and better things.

Let me also be clear: if you feel the need to cry, please cry. If you're afraid, don't pretend you're not. If you're angry, allow yourself to feel that anger. But if you're seriously contemplating giving up or hurting yourself, please don't.

You may hear all this news and ask yourself, "Bubbles, what's the point? What can I do about all this?" I've felt that way too, I have for a long time. I understand completely. It's scary and overwhelming, but I'll tell you exactly what you can do to fight against that: you can be kind.

Do you want to know where the most tangible change in the world begins? It's never at the top. It begins with people like us on a communal level, where we reach out to help others. Whether that means we help our neighbors, our friends, or any strangers we can.

Going out of your way to start fights, looking for someone to blame based on the flimsiest justifications, and just being cruel because you're angry, those aren't how you change anything. Those just add to the problem.

Here's just some ideas on what you can do instead:

Get away from the news, stop doomscrolling, mute doomers, and turn the TV and news apps off. This will get you out of a negative feedback loop that'll make you feel worse and more powerless, which is what they're designed to do in order to maximize traffic.

Remember to eat, sleep, brush your teeth, take a shower, take your meds, and do everything else you need to do to stay healthy.

If you or someone else really feel like leaving the country for your own safety is best, you can still work do so. But please don't convince yourself that if you can't, it's over.

Give back to people as much as you can. Show the people in your life who support you that you care, and that all that they do for you matters.

Donate to good causes you believe in.

Stand up to bullshit whenever you see it.

Do not give up on your dreams and ambitions. One bad leader does not mean your future automatically ends. Stop worrying about any potential apocalypse in the future, because you can do that even on the best days, and instead work toward a future that you CAN achieve.

There's this pervasive and very inaccurate idea that it's only the president who gets to enforce policies on the country. This ignores governors, the House of Representatives, Congress, mayors, and the countless other leaders involved. And it ignores you.

You do not have to spend the next 3 years and 364 days doing nothing but feeling miserable. In fact, that's the last thing you should do. Fear and despair are the weapons they wield, and they only have as much power as you allow them to have over you.

If your view of politics is that you just have to vote for the "right one" and then everything will be utopian, or that if people vote for the wrong one" then we're headed for a terrible dystopian nightmare, I have to tell you that that is incredibly reductionist and also very dumb. I can also tell you from personal experience that it's not them who make the real changes where it's needed.

A friend sent me a video that really opened my eyes on this situation: Adam Conover, the guy behind Adam Ruins Everything, said he's not worried about all this. Why? Because he and some friends were able, through their own power, to make real positive changes in their community. They were able to bring homelessness down in their district by over 38% through their own efforts.

And he's right that, as a silver lining to all this, it made more Americans than ever take a stand against all the horrible shit they were seeing and get involved with solutions.

Speaking from my own experiences as well, when Hurricane Helene devastated my area, it wasn't the politicians who came and repaired roads and power lines, it wasn't them who brought in food and supplies to everyone, and it wasn't them who worked tirelessly to save people still in need. It was everyone in our local communities.

The people at the top have never really cared about anything more than your money and your vote, but the people around you care more than you may believe they would. Hell, even strangers on the internet care more than you'd believe.

Now, even if you've made it this far, you may be wondering "What about when he starts outlawing and banning things?" To that, I say look at Prohibition and see how well that went. Politicians have only ever operated under the idea that banning something will make it go away, and it always does the exact opposite. And if you're still worried, you can get involved with organizations that fight to support these things being available and regulated.

But by now, you may also be wondering "What if I can't get involved? What if I'm too young or I don't have the money, or my parents won't let me?"

Then just be kind.

Stop looking for enemies to blame. Don't martyr yourself for some nebulous cause or the idea that your suffering increasing means the rest of the suffering in the world will go down. Don't torture yourself by telling yourself that you didn't do enough.

Show compassion, show support, show love and genuine care toward people who need it, including yourself.

"But there's so many shitty people in this country and the world, why should I-" Stop thinking that way. This isn't about them, this is about you and how you can make a difference. There will probably always be shitheads and power-hungry morons, but that does not negate the fact that you can choose to be different. You can choose to be kind.

Kindness is a sword that you have to learn how to wield. Wield it responsibly and use it to help others. No matter how small or insignificant it may be, YOU DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

I say all this as a 29-year-old who spent most of his life feeling scared and miserable about so many current events, convincing myself I'm useless and selfish because I was worried about so much and I hated myself for all of it. And I've decide I'm not going to do that anymore.

During the last right-wing era, I managed to help build a whole community out of my love for Danganronpa. I created friendships, relationships, and there are people alive right now because I chose to do so. Because I chose to use that community for kindness. I want to keep building from there by going into streaming and reaching out to more people.

I won't lie to you and say that I'm not scared, because I am. But I'm also not going to let fear change who I am. I want us all to be better to ourselves and others, because that is how you defeat hate. It starts with you.

And if you're still concerned, let me share with you a quote from The Great Dictator, a movie made in 1940, when World War II wasn't even at its height yet:

To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…

Please take care of yourselves out there, everyone. We'll get through this, just as we always have.

[kanagenwrites]

So. Tuesday sucked.

We've all had a chance to come down from the "what the fuck" of it all, and we're starting to see the usual circular firing squad. Lots of lib centrists are doing everything they can to throw trans people, minorities, and basically anyone who isn't a finance bro under the bus, as is (very tiresome) tradition after both victories and defeats in the Democratic Party. I will be 42 years old in a few months, so this is far from the first time I've seen it, and sadly, I'm sure it won't be the last. To the lib centrists and those carrying water for them: This never works. Please stop trying it. Trans issues were not a major motivator; I'll get into that below. Sit down, kids, it's time for Auntie Kana's Fireside Dialectics.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of my followers are significantly younger than me. (Imagine that, an audience that skews young on Tumblr.) A lot of you folks probably haven't been following politics for very long, and you've been able to participate in them for even less time than that. For some of you this is probably your first election as an adult, and it kinda feels like everything blew up in your face, doesn't it? I was about your age for 2000, when the election was nakedly stolen by George W. Bush, and not much older for 2004, when despite his disastrous presidency Bush the Younger rode a wave of 9/11-brained racism to the last popular vote victory the GOP had prior to (likely) this year. So I get it. I really do.

If you're living in the USA you have probably had a subpar education in politics and civics. This is largely by design - education is horrendously underfunded and there is a sustained attack on the ability of teachers to even discuss things like the Civil Rights Movement, the legacy of slavery in the United States, the genocide this country was founded on, and so on and so forth. Economic education isn't much better; you very likely got a short lecture on basic supply and demand and an argument-from-authority that "socialism doesn't work." All this combines to leave a lot of folks totally baffled as to how something like this election happens.

But it's pretty simple. It's just material conditions. That's it. What the media isn't telling you (because there's no profit in it, and the media is nothing but a clickbait engine when they aren't open propagandists) is that there has been a massive anti-incumbent wave of elections across the world. How massive? Japan's LDP, which has held power almost uninterrupted since the establishment of Japan's postwar democracy, managed to lose their recent election.

And why are material conditions so shitty? That's a complicated question, but a lot of it is the fact that we had a lengthy period of low inflation followed by a period of extremely high inflation due to the absolutely botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A bag of Doritos used to be 2.50, and now it's like 6 bucks. That's worse than all the inflation (and naked price-gouging, because there's a lot of that going on too) I experienced in my life prior to 2020, squeezed into the space of a year or two. This smacks everyone in the face every time they buy groceries, and while the government and the Federal Reserve were doing everything they could to manage inflation (and understand what a big deal it is for me, the anarcho-communist, to say that the US actually did an extremely fucking good job of doing it, because every other country on Earth had it worse than we did), they did fuck all to actually improve the material conditions people were experiencing. Wages were not keeping up with the cost of living, and price-gouging wasn't being dealt with.

Remember the 600 bucks Joe Biden still owes you? The American electorate sure the fuck does. Invisible backrooms liberal wonkery does not connect, regardless of whether it works or not, but going back on a promise? People remember that shit.

It's a rare incumbent that could win in an environment like this, especially when tied to a track record of doing exactly fucking nothing to actually help people from the perspective of the vast majority of the population. Kamala Harris was not that incumbent. She was a singularly uninspiring candidate who failed to connect with voters so thoroughly that she was on track to lose her home state in the 2020 Democratic primary. Nobody liked her (except a few very eager and very loud fans in the K-Hive), and speaking as someone who lives in California, I am not surprised she ate shit. She was a terrible choice for VP and a terrible choice of successor for Biden, but because Biden('s handlers) insisted on pretending he wasn't obviously declining before our very eyes, Harris, a singularly uninspiring candidate, had three months to build and run a campaign.

And it was still weirdly close.

Now, there's two possibilities: Either she actually ran an amazing campaign and it's incredible that it was even this close, or Trump is just so loathsome that even in a massively anti-incumbent environment he didn't bring anyone new to the table. Given that Trump is on-track to receive less votes this time than he did in 2020, and how many of those votes seem to have been cast for Trump and no one else down-ballot, I think it's more of the latter than the former. Trump brought the usual suspects, while Kamala successfully drove away voters that even Joe fucking Biden and Hillary fucking Clinton were able to bring home. Not on the left, not in minority demographics, but across the board. After all, if things are horrible and you're being promised that "nothing will fundamentally change," (literally an early-presidency quote from Joe Biden, whose agenda Kamala Harris 100% aligned herself with) and keeping in mind that the average American voter is not nearly so plugged into the minutiae and the day to day of politics (as evinced by the sudden peak in google searched for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" on Tuesday), why the fuck would you bother to vote?

Hopefully you have a better idea how we got here now. The question, of course, is where do we go from here? I will probably continue posting about this from time to time, especially if there's interest, but my advice is this:

We are still here. We will be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and so on. Plan accordingly.

Things will get fucked up. Things will always get fucked up. That is the nature of things no matter who is running the government. Plan accordingly.

Organize. Develop parallel structures of power and assistance, because the government is likely going to be even more useless to directly assist you than it already was. Our greatest strength is each other, and our ability to care for and help one another.

I have been here before. You will be here again. It always feels like it's the worst thing ever to happen. That never really goes away, but your ability to deal with it, to plan around it, to endure it, and to rise up again on the other side of it and say "No, fuck you" is entirely under your control and within your capabilities. And you will get better at it as you do it. And you are not doing it alone. None of us are.

Do not give up. Do not surrender. This isn't the end, or the beginning of the end, or even the end of the beginning: it just is.

Now go watch a video of a cat doing something cute, or read some smut, or whatever gives you joy. You can't take care of others unless you take care of yourself. That's General Order #1: Take care of yourself.

Solidarity, y'all.

[reactionimagesdaily]

Reaction images aside, how are you holding up?

Aww, thanks for asking. :P

To be honest, I'm probably doing better than most. I'm a healthy cishet white man who lives in the UK, so I don't have nearly as much to worry about as I know a lot of people do. (Also hey, I'm enjoying the new Dragon Age game, so that's been nice.) But I also know what kind of ramifications this election is bound to have, both inside the US and beyond.

(I mean, the world's biggest democracy is getting overtly more hostile and authoriarian in real time (y'know. again), and I know on this side of the pond we've got some real brain donors who'd love to see something similar happen here. I'm worried about what Trump could do once he's back in charge, and I'm worried about what might happen to my own country, with it's 'special relationship' to the US, as a result. And I'm not alone in that.

All this on a fuckin' Wednesday...)

Anyway, I had a longer thing written out here about the concept of orthopraxis (just while I was trying to get my thoughts in order, lmao) but the core of what I want to say is this:

I think we're about to see an uptick in people being shitty

I'm going to counter that by doing un-shitty things

What do I mean by un-shitty things? Well, I've been meaning to participate in Amnesty International's 'Write For Rights' campaign for months - I just fired off my first email today. I've already donated to causes supporting Gaza in the past, but now I'm also planning to write to my local MP about how annoyed I am that my country is still culpable in genocide. Make my voice heard, you know? I also want to keep making art that people enjoy, because I think that's important. And I'm going to buy another commission from an artist I like, because they could probably use something good in their life right now. And... to be honest, I'm not sure what else I'll do yet. When I figure it out, though, I'll try and actually do it.

Maybe for you, un-shitty things mean something smaller scale. Hugging your loved ones for longer, or giving that loose change you always carry around to the next homeless person you see. That's good too. Maybe it's something larger in scale, and that's awesome! But to anyone who's reading this, I'd definitely recommend doing something that not only feels good, but is also TANGIBLE. Not only does doing feel good, but it means that you're improving someone else's life, in however small a way. Which, y'know. Net positive, innit.

(Yes, I'm aware this is basically the 'when you see someone being so mean it inspires you to be kinder meme', lmao. No, I don't really care.)

You asked me how I'm holding up? Well, the first thing I'd like to do is respond to your question in kind: how are you holding up? In a general sense? In specific ways? Hopes, anxieties, plans?

And the next thing I'm going to do is tell you that I'm more than holding up.

I'm locking in.

[uboat53]

Forget who won or lost last night's debate, let's face it, vice-presidential debates rarely do much to alter a presidential race and it's just an excuse for pundits to milk more paycheck. No, I want to talk about something a bit more important, did anyone else notice that J.D. Vance got very offended when the moderator dared to state factual information relevant to something he said?

This isn't a one-off either, Trump and most of his supporters have been outraged at fact-checkers generally ever since he started campaigning back in 2015. They've been working tirelessly ever since to try to define fact-checking out of the job of journalism.

In doing so, they use excuses like "well, if the other side disagrees then they can fact-check", but I want to make sure that every single person is clear as to why that's a terrible idea, because it is. Let's talk about the Gish Gallop.

Dwayne Gish was a creationist in the 1980s and, as was the style at the time, he would travel the country participating in formal debates with proponents of evolution. Over time, he developed the method that eventually was named after him, the Gish Gallop. The idea behind Gish Gallop is very simple, you make a bunch of statements in rapid succession. Each statement takes only a second or two to say, but would take minutes or longer to disprove. In a debate where only two sides are allowed to speak, this forces the other side to either let your statements go unchallenged or to spend all of their time disputing them, failing to make any points or their own and probably also failing to disprove all of them in the time allotted.

In other words, a debate where there is no requirement to make factual statements or back up anything you say with factual evidence is a debate that favors the liar.

Now, I reviewed a few fact-checks of the vice-presidential debate and one thing becomes immediately clear, J.D. Vance lied a lot more than Tim Walz did. Politifact checked Walz at 6 true statements to 2 false while Vance was at 6 false to 1 true, the AP had Vance at 5 false statements to Walz's 2, and Factcheck.org had Vance at 10 to Walz's 2 false staments.

Should Walz have been forced to use all of his debate time rebutting Vance's lies? More importantly, even if he did, was there any reliable way for the audience to tell, without outside information, which of them was telling the truth? Without a moderator whose job it is to point out factual information when one side or the other lies in their argument, there's no way for the side that is being truthful to win.

Now, if you're a Trumpist, that's obviously the goal, Trump lies a lot and everyone who follows him does too; setting the rules up for liars to win is obviously good for them. For the rest of us, though, anyone who isn't mindlessly dedicated to the cult of Trump, why would we want a system that rewards lying and penalizes the truth? I hope you can see that we wouldn't.

More importantly, think about what it means that one side is relentlessly pushing for rules of debate that massively advantage liars. The media itself also isn't blameless here, the Gish Gallop has been well known since the 1980s and the fact that the news media after nearly a full decade of Trump still hasn't taken the most basic lessons of how to deal with it is absurd and it's a huge failing of the so-called "bulwark of democracy".

Ultimately, though, you, as a citizen of a democracy, have the ability to make up your own mind. Whatever else you think, whatever policies you may prefer or whatever your political preferences may be, I want you to ask yourself one question:

Do you want people who incentivize lying to govern this country?

[adainesfroggieboggy]

siobhan thompson appreciation post because her characters just make me so happy and they're so. good. she's so good at characters! spoilers for every intrepid heroes season of d20. i could do a whole other post about her sidequest characters bc they're so good.

Adaine Abernant. The Elven Oracle. She's always been one of my absolute favorite characters ever. Her anxiety representation in the first season makes me feel more seen, understood, and represented than any other character ever. She's literally so cool! She starts freshman year as an awkward nerd and becomes a cool nerd! Her anxiety never goes away, but the medication makes it manageable. She hates her parents because they're awful! Just the rep of having awful parents and hating them and that's okay because they suck! You should hate your parents if they suck as bad as the Abernants! Not everyone gets a redemption arc. If they suck, they suck.

Misty/Rowan. Misty is the perfect representation of an old lady who gives no fucks. She flirts so hard with that guy at the pixie wedding. She openly admits to having been friends with John Wilkes Booth. But at the same time? Will not give her age. A lady never tells. She's absolutely ancient and doesn't fucking care, but she also has this undertone of absolute existential panic because she needs adoration to survive! She stays relevant because she has to! Don't get me started on Rowan. I have a crush on Rowan Berry. She's reborn and immediately starts flirting with Pete, which is iconic in its own right. She's a bard who gives bardic inspiration by either flirting or complimenting, and sometimes the lines blur just a little bit. Absolute queen shit. She defeats the queen of Faerie and has no desire to go back until the Fae court tells her hey. You left us with no leader. And then brings democracy to Faerie! President Rowan!

Ruby Rocks! She starts the season as a kid who loves her sister just so much. That's the most integral part of her character. She's a princess and a rogue, and she loves her sister. She has a lot of development over the season! She ends as a woman who fights for her family and her country. She hates Saccharina when they first meet, a new sister on the tails of the loss of the most important person she's ever had. After Jet's death, she's overcome with grief and takes a level of shadow sorcerer because of it! Her development is amazing, a truly wonderful arc.

Iga Lizowski! Oh. My. God. She's the first pc that is a mom in d20, or at least in the Intrepid Heroes. Her relationship with her kids is so fun to watch, from urging Jessica to engage with the chest to bringing her into another part of the Unsleeping City. Then Nick, who she hadn't pressed at all to take responsibility for the chest, decides to become another defender of his family's magic! Not only is she an amazing mother, she's a fortune teller by trade! She knows full well that everything she does has merit, and that magic is real, but makes it all seem like a lie to cater to her clientele. It's not her intention to become a part of the Dream Team, but when her family is threatened, she fights like hell. Also she has a pseudodragon that's just a magical chihuahua and that's so old ladycore it's such a perfect choice.

Riva. They're just on their gallivant, honestly. They decorate their psychodrone with magnets. They're trying to sell pleasure putty. They make their own hours, but they don't know how. Riva is sweet and fun and naive. They love their friends and they love the outside world and they're having a great ass time on their gallivant.

Rosamund. Du. Prix. Quick little shoutout to Siobhan's princess voice because no joke she did my favorite accent. It borders on transatlantic (my favorite accent) but is very Disney princess. She starts as a Disney princess, too! To have a character looking for her true love wake up, search for him, and ultimately sacrifice her chance at having him is *mwah* beautiful. True love isn't real! She directly confronts this, and a member of her party is living proof of it. She has to see the prince who came to save her, and upon meeting him, she realizes how fucked the idea is. He kisses her once and that's all? She doesn't know him, she doesn't love him. How can she live happily ever after with him? Her story is about having things happen to her, but she wrenches the pen from the authors' hands and writes her fucking own! Once upon a time, there was a princess who tried speed dating!

[quixoticanarchy]

Ok I read a book on degrowth by jason hickel (Less is More) and I still need to read more but. preliminary thoughts:

I appreciate the quantification of by how much current resource and energy consumption overshoots sustainable limits, and the excoriation of the absurd demand for compound growth on a finite planet; and the book has a decent history of capitalism and the violence and dispossession it rests upon. There is some similar quantification for how proposed degrowth measures would affect resource consumption, though (understandably) piecemeal, so it’s unclear what the full impact of these measures would be vis-à-vis climate meltdown and ecological tipping points, or on what timeline the degrowth transition would have to occur.

Degrowth measures - resource use caps, a shorter work week, basic income, healthcare, income caps, re-localizing supply chains, killing planned obsolescence, moving to a shared rather than personal ownership model for things like vehicles, etc. - are broadly “good” and have been promoted and supported outside of a specifically degrowth context already, which speaks to their appeal but also their pitfalls. Implementing all these measures and more has to carry the explicit intention of improving human and ecological welfare, GDP be damned, and has to be tied explicitly to a commitment to reducing growth and capping profits; otherwise, the trap I see is attempting to enact some of these measures while keeping the capitalist edifice intact - which, as Hickel acknowledges, would spur a new ‘fix’ in which some other domain or market is forced open for exploitation so that growth can continue.

This is obviously at odds with degrowth and it isn’t anything degrowth advocates don’t know, but it seems naïve to envision states whose existence and operation are so inextricable from capitalism being capable of doing such reforms to the degree and with the ideological shift necessary. It would be suicide. Which I’d welcome, but just saying we need to tackle corruption and have more real democracy so that governments can serve people’s actual needs does not convince me that these policies could be sincerely and radically adopted by any state that exists today.

The book seems to walk a line between “degrowth is very radical since it would require ditching the demand for economic growth and probably most of the profit motive itself, which is a huge mindset and ideological shift - if not to socialism per se then to post-capitalism” and also “degrowth isn’t that radical/outlandish since what it takes is all these commonsense reforms that people already want anyway”. Sometimes the degrowth policy package sounds a lot like just welfare-state capitalism, except with resource and energy consumption dramatically scaled back, and without the economic growth imperative. So… no longer capitalism as such, but still using many of the master’s tools to retrofit the master’s house.

In principle, a world exists in which wealthy countries consume far less and the rest of the world is freer and not (or at least less) exploited. In principle, degrowth measures could help us realize that world. Saying it’s not a revolutionary process might keep some readers from being scared off, etc, but I’m left wondering then: where does the force come from to make these changes happen? Are wealthy countries and individuals and corporations going to just agree to resource caps and wealth caps and redistribution? The argument that degrowth is a kind of decolonization and requires the demise of the colonial and capitalist view of people and nature is compelling to me, but that seems to conflict with the idea that degrowth can be implemented as a set of reforms to the systems that exist now, without the messiness of revolution and without somehow being co-opted by capitalism or packaged as ‘green growth’ (which Hickel makes clear would be bad and is bullshit). The ideological shift and end to growth is the big ask here - without that, the reforms are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, or maybe on the lawn of the master’s house, if you will.

[moonshynecybin]

#prince of a small country addressing the nation concerning his recent marriage to italian motogp superstar valentino rossi <- oh. OH !!!!! genuinely i need more….. how did they meet…. is marc giving up his title to marry vale….. much to think abt…..

i love this one it’s about marc like. putting down the pr mask and realizing he can have something for himself…

so! much like our marc, in his youth he was a tiny adrenaline junkie obsessed with motorcycles, valentino rossi, and valentino rossi’s y2k bisexual swag. unlike our marc, he was not allowed to continue racing past a certain age bc he is the crown prince of a nation and it was considered too dangerous for him. he rides too hard, he doesn’t want to put that on alex if anything happens to him, etc

but our brave marc is not a complainer! ever! even when he absolutely should be! so he grits his teeth buckles down and does his duty. for his family. for his country. for his brother. for years. but he still keeps tabs on vale, allows himself that small joy. catches races whenever he can—watching them on his phone in airports and the back of cars all over the world. instagram stalking him like a weirdo. trying to covertly attend races with alex in silly disguises SURROUNDED by security, hat pulled low… a wistful thrill in his stomach as he hears the bikes roar past… eyes on valentino the whole way

and then they meet! marc is in his early twenties and they’re at some party marc hates but he’s keeping the big smile on his face as he greets people and vale (here for sponsorship obligation comma bored) notices him across the room and goes hey. that guys hot and looks equally bored! so he goes up, does a silly bit, and is immediately confronted with a full frontal assault of marc’s big dumb smile and shining eyes <3 also realizes he is a fan IMMEDIATELY even though marc is trying to keep it on the DL which he reallyyyyy enjoys so they spend the whole night snickering in their own little world…

whirlwind romance ensues!! and they have history’s least carbon neutral affair over the next few months with the amount of plane rides they charter anshshsgg… truly marc learning to love life and ignore some of his responsibilities for once… insane sex in expensive hotels bc vale wants to show him a good time… extravagant rich people gifts…. personalized helmet tribute only the two of them get… lots of references to marc in interviews that only marc and him understand. like FULLY inside jokes with themselves excluding the press so the other will smile when they watch the interview later when they’re apart… and the CROWN JEWEL PUN NOT INTENDED: ranch visittttttttt where they have a BLAST. vale gets to excercise his clear love of teaching and praise marc, be impressed with his raw talent on the bike. and marc is. SO happy. looks valentino dead in the eye at the end of the day vale’s big hands on either side of his face and tells him this is the best day of his life… and he looks at vale and loves him SO much but feels so trapped by the monarchy (his advisors know this and have been quietly maneuvering the nation towards democracy… marc does not know this) and something cracks in him and he’s just like. i don’t think i can do this anymore. and vale’s face DROPS and marc’s like. do you want to get married. bc he’s insane <3 and it’s the only way he can think to bind vale to him permanently in a way the monarchy/his duty can’t interfere with… like no one can argue with a royal wedding!

SO THEY ELOPE!!! scandal of the century!!! and then marc’s advisors (everyone say thank you to his fictional advisors who create democracy in a nation not bc it is a better form of government but for pure love of the yaoi game) pass the resolution to change the government and marc is FREE to follow vale around the world and get really good on the bike again and learn that it is OKAY to love things and not sacrifice your whole self at the alter of duty :)

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

Hello. I'm not American, but I followed the last election pretty closely, and it raised a lot of questions for me. I was hoping you could share your perspective on a few things. For example, why does American politics seem so focused on personality and spectacle rather than actual policy? Is this because of a broken system that can't foster meaningful dialogue, or does the focus on "character" reflect a deeper cultural preference for spectacle over substance?

lmaooooo. i assume you are a european? because this ask reeks of european smugness. but it's fine. it's an interesting question and i'm happy to share my thoughts. and boy, do i have a lot of thoughts.

tl;dr: why? because americans are based.

"keep reading" at your own risk (it's gonna be long)....

first of all, i don't know how other countries run their democracies. so it seems like you're suggesting that your country is different from america. that y'all focus more on policy rather than "spectacle". i am skeptical of this claim but for the sake of this discussion, i'll grant it and assume it's accurate. so you come from a policy-heavy democracy. okay. this just further confirms to me that you're a european.

okay. so you live in a country full of nerds and policy wonks. good for you.

here in america? we are men. we are loved by the gods. and we are alive. we like to kill and we like to fuck. there is still red-hot blood in our veins! it's called the political arena for a reason. like the colosseum. arena means "place of sand," because gladiatorial arenas were covered in sand to soak up blood. american democracy isn't some mundane policy debate. boring, lame, and soulless.

no, american democracy is spirited and mythic. it is a place where men do (political) combat. a test of wills and destiny as much as skill. where not just survival is at stake, but everlasting glory too. the (political) arena is a sacred stage. a hallowed ground upon which the fates of men and nations are decided. you cannot even begin to comprehend the power of the american people. count yourself lucky to be able to bear witness to the divine struggle.

yes, yes. it's spectacle. it's theater. it's performance. so what? this is all to say that it is an art form. american politics is politics as art. fuck your spreadsheets. we're mythmaking here! and here, in the land of heroes, the lines between myth and reality are blurred. american politicians aren't policy wonks here to give the people policy briefs. no, they are larger-than-life symbols that represent the very complex and tangled psyche of the american people. they are vessels through which the people's hopes and fears can be expressed. they are an embodiment of the collective soul of the nation at a particular time.

and this is why i take some issue with the idea of it being "spectacle" because the term implies that the people are just passive observers but i don't agree. the people are active participants and co-creators in this mythmaking. casting votes, doing activism, attending town hall meetings, writing legislators, donating, volunteering, etc. these are all deeply engrained in the american psyche. and when they vote they're not just doing some rationalistic cost-benefit analysis of the policies. they are curating a particular national character, an emblem of their vision of what america is or should be. in this way it is literally collaborative mythmaking.

and a great people (like we americans) admire greatness. and so it's not enough for a person to have good policy. they need to be great and inspiring. policy isn't going to get people fired up. but a great leader will. he will ignite, move, and seduce the people's imagination. and truly, i think this is part of what makes america so great.

yes, policy is important. but it's not the most important thing. policy doesn’t make the hair on your arms stand up, doesn’t fill a stadium, doesn’t pull people out of their beds and into the fire. americans understand this. we the people are the directors casting the symbolic figures who will stand at the heart of america’s ever-unfolding story, in a way that is raw and passionately human. american democracy is a never-ending collaborative ritual of becoming.

you want to paint it as something shallow but it's actually the opposite. it's as deep as you can get. it's primal. it's reaching into the depths of the human soul. you call it a spectacle; i call it a mystery play. a dramatic unfolding of archetypes and primal forces, a cosmic pageant where the ideals of freedom, justice, fear, and power are constantly manifesting, clashing, and transforming.

and this isn't to say that every american politician is great, obviously. or that every election will present us with great politicians. it is a sliding scale and there are obviously lulls and low points. but honestly, even at its "worst" it still manages to be very sacral. i mean, just look at kamala. she was a deeply unpopular nobody, painfully banal and unimpressive, and yet she was still elevated to some kind of notability by the dems' party apparatus (again, pageantry and theater is a key part of this) and you had ordinary citizens who really loved and believed in her. i've seen videos of young women approaching her and sobbing with a mix of fear and hope. kamala, like many politicians, was a mask. a ceremonial persona that channels a force larger than themselves. each political figure is a vehicle for the expression of the archetypes lurking within the public psyche.

the "spectacle" of american democracy, then, is not shallow or trivial but profoundly alchemical: a process through which the invisible forces and latent desires of society become visible, embodied, personal. every campaign, every rally, every soundbite is an incantation in this larger ritual, a symbolic offering that speaks to the fears, the aspirations, and the boundless imagination of the public.

and even the controversies and scandals should be thought of in this context. not as distractions from governance but as necessary rites of purification and trial. the political arena is where these figures are tested; subjected to ritual humiliation or exaltation, challenged to expose themselves and submit to judgment by the people.

ours isn't a democracy of facts and figures but myth and memory. like i said earlier, it's politics as art. and art is about redemption. american democracy is about the peoples' need to see itself reflected and redeemed. like in any play.

our leaders aren’t simply decision-makers (though they are certainly that too)—they’re dream-bearers, keepers of the national spirit, actors summoned to embody what is essential, unspoken, even taboo. they’re the protagonists of a public dreamscape where american ideals aren’t just principles but living gods, bending and twisting to reflect the collective will of the people in real-time.

and so this isn’t just a political process. it’s a public initiation, a ritual that binds the people not through rational calculation but through shared mythmaking. policy might structure society, but it’s this ritual of personality, this living myth, that keeps the american spirit alive, forever restless, forever reinventing itself on the sacred stage.

and i think this captures the original, ancient, most authentic sense of democracy. i can't imagine ancient greek, roman, or even germanic leaders going around giving policy briefs. no. they were men of charisma and vision, capable of inspiring and igniting the people. they made promises, sure. "i promise i'll get you, my soldiers, land." but this is different to having a strict policy regime. a promise is so much nobler and sacred. maybe they didn't have all the details of how they'd achieve it figured out. but they made the promise. and there's the expectation they'd keep it. if they didn't, they were doomed. and even their rhetoric was more like a magical spell than rationalistic discourse. i think that's what y'all are missing. the art of rhetoric. appealing to reason is important, but it's only one part.

i think you policy wonk types are too logos-brained. not enough ethos or pathos. and i think america has all three in spades. indeed, i kinda take umbrage with this idea that americans somehow don't care about policy just because it isn't the only thing we're preoccupied with. because if you look at the world, america seems to have a pretty excellent track record. our policies and our institutions have turned our country from a colonial backwater into a global hegemon in a couple centuries.

and that's the other thing. our leaders aren't obsessed with policy, sure. but they do make promises. and yeah many promises are broken. but others are not. but that's all part of the drama. promises made, promises kept, promises broken. it isn't some empty spectacle like you're suggesting. just because americans aren't obsessed with policy like you doesn't mean we don't care about policy at all. we just approach it from a different angle. these promises are sacred to us. the "spectacle" can't just be empty. it has to be meaningful. there has to be something tangible/substantial.

american's aren't just tuning in for the show. they expect very real transformation and change, obviously. it's not always presented in some rigid policy brief, but still. the expectation is there. the promises represent a broader vision. the details are less important. and the execution of this vision is dependent on the greatness of the leader. a great leader will make these promises and present a vision to the people and then carry it out. and they'll make whatever policy changes they need to do so, most of the time. in this way, great leaders are like alchemists who can turn abstract policy into something material, translating the mythic into the real. it gives weight and purpose to the "spectacle".

so yeah i reject this idea that americans don't care about policy. i think we do just in a different, more holistic way than you do.

yes we americans elect our president in a fashion similar to my ancient german ancestors elected their kings; in roaring assemblies of freemen possessed by frenzy joined together through a moment of communion and electing our leader by acclamation; bestowing upon him the responsibility of guarding and guiding the wyrd (fate) of our people. i feel no shame about embracing this ancient spirit of democracy, when our leaders were more than mere soulless administrative policy-makers.

last thing i'll say. american democracy, as mentioned earlier, is a ritual of becoming. because america itself is a nation of becoming. it is not a calculation. it is a movement. from the very moment of our birth america has been defined by dreaming and yearning and creating. a nation of possibility and boundless potential. always asking "what if?" and achieving the impossible. the american ideal of freedom, of freedom of expression, is so deeply romantic. it cannot be understood rationally. we americans have a promethean fire in us. insert "you wouldn't get it" meme.

america is a land of new beginnings, where reason, society, and even government are bent and shaped by human passion, a place where history can be remade because the people are driven by ideals rather than chains of tradition.

i mean, look at our founding document. the declaration of independence. it's a poetic manifesto more than anything else. a titanic declaration of defiance and the promise of a new vision of a new world. and my great-spirited ancestors were willing to die for this. and you're really surprised that americans today are a people driven by passion and heroic ideals and myths?

we are americans. we are men. we still have red-hot blood in our veins and fire in our hearts and i won't apologize for it!

[gaybd1]

BREAKING UPDATE [Tuesday Night 5/28] : Taiwan's Controversial Legislative Reform Bill PASSED

A democracy-threatening bill passed in an undemocratic way.

Here is what this means and what happens next...

(For full context on this, please refer to this post)

What specifically passed?

The president will be "invited" to give a state of the nation address every year and must answer questions on the spot

People can be summoned to answer questions to lawmakers, no "reverse questioning" allowed (the meaning of this term has still not been specified)

If people being questioned refuse to answer or do anything in "contempt of the Legislature" they can get a huge fine

The legislature can conduct investigative hearings and can request documents from the government, military, companies or actually anybody. If you don't provide them, you get fined.

Hearings will be public unless they need to be secret for national security/trade secret/etc reasons

If you don't show up for your hearing, you get a big fine

If you lie you get fined

For other details, please refer to this article.

Separately, "Contempt of Legislature" was added to the Criminal Code.

How did it pass so fast?

Interestingly enough, it did take three days to get through the second reading of the bill, and that was WITH undemocratic show-of-hands votes and only allowing the DPP to speak for three minutes at a time, one speaker per article.

Today's third reading took less than an hour.

Furthermore, some legislators allege that there were changes made to the wording of the bill before they even had time to read it. They were voting on something they hadn't read.

What does the KMT want to do with these new powers?

A big part of this is about political theatre, which is a huge part of Taiwanese politics, and humiliation. It's also important to note the discussion that has been going on about how it will not be necessary to have a lawyer present to answer questions.

KMT leadership has already announced plans to establish a "special investigative unit" to deal with fraud from the DPP, basically punishing their enemies. First on their list will be officials from the most recent presidential administration, but the extent of their aims is unclear since they frequently use "fraud" as an explanation for things they don't like. They claimed, for example, that the tens of thousands of protestors showing up in front of the legislature lately were hired by the DPP.

The KMT has also tonight called for the abolishment of the Control Yuan, one of the five branches of government in Taiwan, demonstrating their willingness to dismantle the system of checks and balances keeping Taiwan's democracy in place.

The president can't veto, so what happens next?

For now it seems that the protests will continue. 30,000 protestors showed up outside the legislature last Tuesday, 100,000 last Friday, and 70,000 today. This coincides with growing actions in many other cities around the country.

This bill has been publicly condemned by over one hundred legal scholars and also the Control Yuan.

The next options now are:

The Executive Yuan has ten days to basically send the bill back to the legislature. At that point the LY could vote to uphold the bill within 15 days and then it pretty much would have to be law.

More feasible at present would be to go in the constitutional direction. The Constitutional Court could review the law, suspending it in the process before their decision is announced.

A referendum could be held to repeal the law. This would be time- and resource-consuming but it would be an option. It's hard to say if it would pass because the people would overall vote to repeal but the KMT has a lot of influence with powerful families and gangsters, so it's not for sure what the votes would say.

The point is there are still options! The Bluebird Movement now is going to start focusing on more local actions, and we'll have to see what those will be.

Why don't we just occupy the Legislative Yuan? It worked for the Sunflower Movement in 2014.

While it seems direct action may now be necessary, that wouldn't work again. A huge reason the LY occupation was successful in Sunflower was because the people in charge of the LY didn't let police in. Under current leadership that... almost certainly wouldn't happen. Think back to the attempt to occupy the Executive Yuan in that same movement and how it brought out the most devastating use of police force sense the martial law period.

Any occupation likely to take place would probably just be the continued presence of protestors outside of the legislature like we've been seeing.

We'll have to see what action is called for in the future. There's still hope for now!

This is a developing story, but one thing I urge as the Bluebird Movement continues to gather steam and garner more international attention: Be careful of misinformation! Try to read sources from inside Taiwan!

Further Reading for Now

Taiwan's legislature passes major reforms amidst controversy (TVBS)

[cazort]

I've heard a lot of people express frustration that they don't know how to help Harris and the Democrats win this election. They say that everyone they know either already supports Harris, or are Trump supporters who seem impossible to reason with because they don't agree on basic facts.

Here's the thing. You're not going to convince many people by talking to people who are already talking about politics. These people have entrenched views. Don't waste time talking to someone who is vocal about supporting Trump.

But there are A LOT of people out there who are quiet about politics, and don't follow politics much. They might be registered to vote but not always vote. They might be planning to vote, but not have a strong opinion and are just going along with the opinions of the people close to them.

These are the people you need to talk to. Talk to everyone. Ask random people you come into contact with. Reach out to people you haven't talked to in a while, especially people who live in swing states.

Share information with people that will speak to them. If someone is Puerto Rican, ask them if they heard about the insults made to Puerto Rico at Trump's rally in New York and how Trump and Vance didn't really apologize for them. If someone is concerned about the economy or stressed with finances, talk to them about how economists and reputable media like the Wall Street Journal agree that Trump's tariffs will hurt the economy and drive up prices. If talking to people with family in the military, talk about how Trump disrespects people in the military, and how he spoke ill of the two generals he himself appointed. Share John Kelly's remarks about Trump wanting his generals to be more like Hitler's, tell them how you trust Kelley because of his service record, and how that concerns you.

Trump is so unhinged that there is literally something he has already said or done to alienate just about every possible demographic. The only way that his movement is maintaining power is by keeping the people ill-informed. The information isn't reaching people, and Trump has gotten people to distrust even reputable media.

The people who read and trust reputable media have already accessed all this information, and we all already support Harris. We understand that Trump is a threat to our country and democracy and our world. And we understand this regardless of our political views, whether we're liberal, conservative, or anywhere in between.

We need to talk to the other people. We need to talk to those who aren't as engaged, and we need to be like: "Hey, did you hear about this? Did you hear about that?" Use that personal connection. Talk to people who know you to be a reasonable person.

If people are skeptical you can share with them how you check what is sound and what isn't. Show them the website Media Bias / Fact Check and use it to look up specific sites. Be like: "I don't believe everything I see online, but I trust this source." if they ask you how you can know something. Explain which sites you consider biased if they saw something that you think is fake news. Tell them why you don't trust a particular site.

Don't argue with people. If you share a thing, and get pushback, you can use understatement. Don't be like: "You're wrong!" and start arguing. Rather you can be like "I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that." and then drop it and move on if the person keeps arguing. You have other people you can talk to, and you might have started the wheels churning in this person's brain.

If people generally agree with you, ask if they are voting and planning to vote for Harris. If you're able to help like by offering a ride to the polls if they need it, or to help watching someone's kid, or anything else that would help them vote, offer it. Ask if they are talking to other people, if they know if people around them are also voting for Harris that they could encourage. Tell them that you think this election really matters, because it does.

We can make a difference by talking to people. Don't believe the polls that say that there are few undecided voters left. The polls often report as few as 1% undecided voters. But here's the thing. In the past week alone, I've heard from Puerto Ricans who said they had been planning to vote for Trump, and then those comments came out, and they changed their minds. You might also convince someone who is not planning on voting to vote for Harris. Or you might convince someone who was planning on voting for Trump to not vote. One of my friends from high school who initially liked Trump and voted for him, has become frustrated with him and this election, recently said he is voting third-party. I've been talking to him about my frustration with Trump for quite some time, and he has agreed with some of what I've said.

Each and every change like this matters. There are a few days left before the election. We can still make a difference. Focus your energy where it matters most, which is talking to people who you know or interact with who respect you, and who are not talking a lot about politics.

[misfitwashere]

Freedom and safety

A lesson from a demining test

TIMOTHY SNYDER

OCT 18

Maybe, for you Americans out there, it's time for a little break.  We are wonderful at talking to, for, about and past ourselves, and not so good at listening to other people.  So maybe for just a few moments we could pause to remember some of the people who allow us to have our quarrels, to have our election season, to have our elections, some of the people who are actually taking risks for the words like freedom and democracy that we throw around so casually, especially this time of year.

This could many groups, of course! I mean the Ukrainians. They are doing us a lot of good, as we tend to forget. They are holding back a Russian army so that other countries can keep all of their soldiers in the barracks.  They are deterring China from invading Taiwan by showing that offensive operations are risky and unpredictable.  They are making nuclear war less likely by ignoring Putin's bluffs.  They are defending the international order, which is based on states and borders.  And, yes, they are defending democracy as such, including our own.  They have bought us time since 2022 to recover from Covid and economic collapse by bearing the brunt of this crisis on their own.

This month the Biden administration is decising how much it will help during its last three months in office.  President Biden has a chance to leave with a legacy, by creating structures that will allow for aid to Ukraine to continue, and by inviting Ukraine to join our most important institutions.  Given the uncertainties ahead, though, the question goes far beyond that of how President Biden will be remembered.  If we allow Ukraine to lose, or if we vote for Putinist candidates who want Ukraine to lose, the costs will be horrible in Ukraine, but will be felt around the world.

So of course we can hope the president does the right thing.  And we can vote for the right people the next time around.  And if you are American and care about Ukraine, voting, canvassing, and donating for pro-Ukrainian candidates in American elections is likely the most important thing that you can do right now.  But if you are not American, or if you are American and can spare a little money, there are plenty of other ways to make a direct difference.  

You can do something to help Ukrainians be safer, even as they help us to be safer. Let me just suggest a specific step that I know something about, having seen the tools for myself.

When I was in Ukraine last month, I visited a competitive test for mine-clearing robots.  The moment was one of cooperation: private companies had brought their robots for a test organized by a couple of government ministries, with the participation of a presidential tech platform, in connection to a fundraiser supported by people around the world.  Along with Mark Hamill, I am supporting this fundraiser, called Safe Terrain, because mine-clearing robots can save human lives and prepare the way for humans to return to their normal lives.  Mark and I announced the fundraiser on my birthday, two months ago, and we are three-quarters of the way to the goal ($307,000 of $441,000 -- thank you to all of you who have donated!).

There were some fascinating moments at the test.  The detonation of anti-tech mines is very loud. I learned a great deal about the demining technology.  But I wanted to share with you a human detail that has stayed with me.  After it was all over, after the three robots had detonated mines safely, we all took some pictures together: the tech and corporate teams, the officials, the visitors.  Just as the photographer was about to begin, one of the corporate representatives told him to wait: one of the robots was blocked from the shot.  But here is the interesting thing: it wasn't her robot.  It was the robot of one of the other, competing firms.  She wanted to make sure that it was in the picture.

A small thing, perhaps.  Just a momentary gesture, it might seem.  But it was someone doing something for someone else, amidst the pressure of a competitive trial, under the stresses of a war.  It was someone who, for that moment, was not thinking about herself, but about fairness, about the good outcome.  Sometimes people do have to fight for democracy, as the Ukrainians are doing right now, but democracy itself is not a fight.  Freedom is not all about just doing what we feel like doing, just because we want to, right at the moment.  It is about seeing other people, hearing other people, working together, creating a world in which we can all be more free. 

I'm in southwest Ohio now, and I see that spirit here too, not of course in everyone, but in many people, the ones who care about the country, the ones who are not just arguing, the ones who are doing the little things they can do, the ones who want to open things up rather than close them down.  I'm trying to do the little things I can do, too, in my own country, but I don’t want to take for granted that I can. Along the way, today, I am also going to make a donation to those robots, or to the people behind them.

[hello-nichya-here]

Do you think Lula might try to patch things up with Israel considering the rally that just happened in Brazil?

Let's make one thing clear here: the rally was not pro-Israel. Not really. The flags had a pentagram instead of the star of David, and people in said rally were saying shit like "We support Israel because they're CHRISTIANS like us."

The rally was really about a bunch of useful idiots that sympathize with fascism and straight up neo-nazis (some of which were friends with or direct descendents of the actual nazis that fled to Brazil after WWII, including the monster JOSEF MENGELE himself) who support the wanna-be dictator, and sadly Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, PRETENDING to give a shit about the Israel situation solely because Lula finally grew a pair of balls and called out the genocide against palestinians - and thus the supporters of Bozo the clown are now trying to use that as an excuse to impeach him, as yet ANOTHER attempt to ignore the results of the elections in which Lula defeated the fucker in 2022.

There's video recording of Bolsonaro (who has never been shy about wanting to turn Brazil into a dictatorship again and actually said the words "I'm pro torture, and this country won't be fixed until at least 40.000 people are dead") full on saying "We can't allow the elections to happen, otherwise I'm gonna lose."

The police tried to prevent people in the northeast region of Brazil (where nearly everyone is pro-Lula) from voting, to try and tip the escala in Bolsonaro's favor. They STILL claim Lula's victory was a fraud.

Finally, on January 8, 2023, his supporters tried staging a coup, fully inspired by the shitshow the USA had when Trump lost (and something that Bozo the clown had ALREADY said he wanted his supporters to do were he to ever lose an election) by invading government buildings. They stole and destroyed lots of valluable art-pieces - lots of which were from jewish people that either fled from nazi Germany before they were sent to concentration camps, and some that actually BEEN in said concentration camps.

And this was not a case of "Maybe they just didn't know what it was", not fully at least, because like I said, Bolsonaro's supporters have VERY strong ties to the nazis. They have done the sieg heil in his homage, say Brazil should have a nazi party, and have tried to make schools say the holocaust never happened. Some of Bolsonaro's ministers have also said shit like "Brazil's economy won't get better until we get rid of all the jews" and a fucker actually copied one of Hitler's speeches, on camera, wearing a nazi-inspired uniform, with one of Hitler's favorite classical pieces being played in the background.

As for Bolsonaro, the slogan he chose for himself "God above everything, Brazil above everyone" is clearly inspired by "Deutschland über alles" (Germany over everything). After his victory in 2018, SBT, one of the TV channels that supported him the most, used the slogan "Brazil - love it or leave it" which the dictatorship Brazil was under used for 21 years as a not so subtle threat to exile people who opposed them (and exile was the KIND fate they could be given, considering the people tortured daily in prison, or full on murdered).

So no, I don't see Lula trying to patch things up with Israel to try and win the support of these people, because they don't actually care about Israel. This was an anti-democracy rally, filled with nazis, and if they were to rise to power again, and not destroy themselves from the inside like they did during the pandemic, it would be the worst case scenario as it'd mean one less government calling Israel's genocide against palestinians AND a bunch of antisemites in power trying to make their own reich, putting all the jewish communities of Brazil in danger.

Remember folks: Israel does not represent all the jews in the world, no matter how much it desperately tries to pretend that it does. Calling it out for commiting genocide is not antisemitic, and supporting it does NOT mean making sure jewish communities will be safe - as you could see, in my country's case, it could mean nothing but a stepping-stone in making said communities the targets of actual nazis, pushing them to exile or something way, way, way worse.