#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.

[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

[hazeltongzhi]

how to know which communist party/org to trust? I live in a country with many of them calling themselves communists but then there are a few transphobic ones (automatically out for me) and the biggest one is not but they seem.... quite liberal. Like, their statutes (I'm unsure if that's the word, this isn't my first language) seem alright, but then their practice seems to just try to get a good result in the elections to then complain about stuff in parliament and... do nothing else.

There's many things to check. I've been following my personal guidelines and it may help you root out the opportunists from the actual organizations striving for change.

It's always good to check the party program, as it lays out what should be their goals and primary beliefs. In many cases, this will rule out a lot of parties. But, of course, taking the party at their word is not enough. Actions speak loudest above all so take note of what they do, both within the bounds of liberal democracy and without. Do they organize/join in protests? Do they do community outreach/mutual aid? Do they do defense and education sessions? Do they work with other parties and organizations to combine forces on a united front? All important questions that can illuminate a party's true intentions.

Does the party have/follow revolutionary theory and put that theory into its practice? This is also one that's hard to tell from first sight but can also be identified through conversing and observation. A party which dogmatically does one or the other or which fails to match theory with practice is going to flounder versus actually effecting change.

A good party will have an active internal political system. Does the party follow democratic centralism, have recalls, practice the mass line? This is harder to gauge outright but after some discussing with long time and new members and seeing for yourself, you should be able to answer. See if the consensus at the local level matches with the national level. If not, find out why. If it's from a lag between surges of new member, it may be a benign contradiction that resolves itself. However, if it's from institutional rot, revisionism, or opportunism, you might want to find a new party.

Are they or have they been targeted by your country's police/investigations units? Have they been identified as a legitimate "threat" by the bourgeois state? This is a double edged sword as it increases your risk of getting exposed to law enforcement, but a good party also has measures to root out or prevent (as much as reasonably possible) further infiltration/increase security for its members.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, are they active in your local area, and if not, how easy is it for you to organize with them to start a local chapter. It's nice to be a card carrying member of an organization, but it is useless if it a local org of one. A party that may be lacking in certain points, but is active in your area can be a good starting point to get beginner organizing and agitating experience and a good place to meet other comrades you can organize with, should that org not be the right fit.

Organizing doesn't have to be with a party, per say. It is most beneficial if you do, as the resources, manpower, experience, and knowledge a party has will be significantly greater than smaller groups, but it doesn't mean small groups are useless. Student groups like SJPs spurred the Palestinian encampment movement, for example. A small group can grow into a large party as well. If no solid, revolutionary organization exists in your area or country, perhaps you can be the spark that starts the prairie fire.

[1-d-a]

Hope? Hope often does that; its bright colors bewitch you like a child, anesthetizing your memory. Then the inevitable happens and suddenly there you are, going through an old painful cycle again. Reality becomes an unbearable De javu: same consequences, same broken heart, same impotence followed by anger.

But we must keep in mind that in certain circumstances, Hope is just another name for Desperation.

Quite sad how during this last year of 'election campaign' many people in my country again clung tooth and nail to the illusion that we're still a democratic nation… and not one tortured by an authoritarian regime that has hijacked all public powers —including the electoral one — for more than 25 years.

Whoever has paid attention to the patterns knows this: for years any election exercise in Venezuela is just a show organized by the government itself, necessary to legitimize its mandate before the world and thus continue in power under a poor disguise of democracy that legally protects its leaders while they commit their abuses.

And the opposition leaders know that. They know it very well. By postulating their candidates, they are not actually betting on winning, because they know it's impossible for the government to recognize it. Patterns don't lie; what the opposition is actually betting on (without any remarkable success) is that the exposure of the electoral fraud to the world will bring some kind of external help while the social revolt in the streets exerts considerable pressure. But that's not honest, because regardless of the final intentions of such political leaders, they always end up using the crowd in the streets as sacrificial cattle.

With elaborate speeches full of heroism and patriotism, opposition leaders emotionally manipulate civilians (mostly kids), inciting them to protest in the streets without any kind of organized resistance to protect them from the violent repression that always, always happens, no matter how peaceful the rally has started.

If we had an organized /armed resistance that, in the face of repression, protect the most vulnerable civilians as a huge shield, other birds would sing… but we don’t have it. Civilians protest defenseless in the streets, risking their lives; not to mention those unfortunate ones who end up in nightmare prisons unjustly accused of terrorism, with their future totally tarnished…

Worst part of this situation is watching helplessly how the crowd makes the same mistakes of the past: idealizing political leaders, abusing patriotism, being too emotional, leaving common sense aside, underestimating the oppressors and the imposed system, expecting too much from international entities, trusting too much in 'divine justice', praying without acting, and especially… not building a solid resistance.

It's been more than 25 years dealing with this shit, we should have learned something; it's ridiculous.

Responding to electoral fraud with pressure in the streets is beneficial for the opposition cause in the media, but it's counterproductive in the reality of the common citizen who doesn't want to be another pawn in a convoluted political plot.

How dangerous it is to be seduced by the emotional euphoria of manipulative speeches. Heroism and patriotism caress your wounded ego, your sense of belonging, your craving for meaning… and that bloody need for catharsis… only to leave you tempting death in front of a bunch of armed police and military who know nothing about ethics and honor. Excessive hope and anger have that effect, they blind reason.

The average Venezuelan is too effusive, more passionate than rational, more idealistic than pragmatic. We also love drama and spectacle, and we have an innate weakness for the archetype of the liberating hero. All of this always works against us.

Burning and destroying things as a tantrum can make you purge a lot of anger after an injustice, the relief is ineffable. Smashing statues of tyrants, as well as the icons and properties that represent them, can also work as a moralizing symbol for an oppressed community…. But actions of this kind alone are not enough to combat an authoritarian government. It is fought through an organized resistance, with expert lawyers and hackers, with double agents in the police and militia; it is fought by stopping begging for attention from international entities and working the weaknesses of the imposed system; it is fought by presiding over the effusive youth who hinder the plan with impulsive acts, etc.

One more time: we don't need defenseless people on the streets risking their lives again without reliable guarantees. Since there are no significant variables in our situation, if the mistakes of the past are repeated the result will be the same. Or maybe worse.

[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 :)

[transboysokka]

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)

[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.

[alpaca-clouds]

You cannot fix a broken System (but you can build a better one)

Let me finish the entire week on politics and revolution with one thing that I wish for people to understand: Sometimes systems are too broken to fix them. Sometimes they are so broken, that any fixes are basically just ducttape on a car that is slowly breaking down. Like, sure, it will allow it to somehow rattle along for a couple more months, but in the end it is going to break down and no amount of ducttape is gonna prevent that.

For example, I see the current western education system as such a case. We can fix the curriculum in one way or another, but that does not change the fact that the system itself is very broken. We need to completely rethink how we do schools and education, instead of fixing little issues here and there.

And, yes, democracy I consider the same case. Our democracy is broken. In some countries (like the US) more than others. But it is broken everywhere. Part of the reason it is broken is capitalism. Because capitalism in any degree on a long run is going to make democracy into a plutocracy. There is no way around here.

And of course, our economic system is broken. Well, to be honest, it is not broken. It works as intended. The issues are not bugs, but features. But it does not work in favor of most people participating in it.

People always look like easy, quick fixes for all those things. Maybe one more rule will fix the economics. Maybe one more law will make democracy fair. But it never does. On the contrary. Often it ends up getting worse. Because the system is so broken, that those who make the changes have an interest in keeping the system broken in this way. So their fixes actually entrentch the issues existing within the system already.

This is also where the entire thing with sabotage and respectability politics come in. Because when people just go onto peaceful protests and all those things... Well, the system is so broken that it does not really concern the politicians.

A couple of years back on one of the climate protests in Germany about 5% of all Germans were on the streets on the same day taking part in the protests all over Germany. Which is huge. In some cities it was even a bigger percentage. In my own city there were 12% of all people on the streets that day according to the police!

So, how did the politicians react to that? Well: "95% of all Germans were not on the street, so they agree that our current way of dealing with this is good." Ignoring that of course a lot of people were unable to go out to protest on a workday. While at the time I was working at a company who decided that companywide we would get the day off to go to that protest... that was not true for most people. So, yeah, 5% of all people being on the streets that day is MASSIVE.

The same goes of course for stuff like elections. It does not matter what you vote for. Like, of course you need to vote for the lesser evil, but in the end... It will not change much about how politicians act.

And that in the end is the issue. See, those who currently hold the power and use it for their own advantage want you to do those nice and peaceful little thingies, because they can just ignore it. I do not remember who said it, but there was a nice thing one civil rights leader said once: "If they allow it, it will not get us anywhere." And that is the thing.

The system is broken. But it is build in a way that people cannot fix the system from within it. The system is broken. But we can build a better one. One that actually works for the people. One that is actually just and actually democratic.

We cannot be too afraid of the system to change. Because right now the horror of the system is too large to ignore.

[televisionenjoyer]

i know you made that post like a week ago but the idea of the u.s. having unobstructed democracy is literally just one of the myths used to convince people that its a morally superior country. like black people and immigrants and poor people in general have to jump thru so many hoops to register to vote. and the bipartisan system is so forced that quite literally it does not work to vote third party in federal elections. i really fucking wish it did but it doesnt. the usamericans online who are all fighting over voting for biden or not voting at all are a tiny minority and they couldn't get a third party candidate elected even if they all magically agreed on one. if it was a real democracy than they would be doing what you want them to do, not agonizing over all the other shitty options that they have

AND leftists wouldve actually been successful in voting against imperialism for the past 200 yrs.. like this is not our choice. i know most americans are total pieces of shit about everyone else but the actual allies and sympathizers of the u.s.'s victims really are powerless within the system

Hi! I've left this ask simmer in my head for a whole day because I really wanted to digest it and put it down in a way that made some sense.

Fair warning I'm about to get rlly political about imperialism under the cut

I've received a lot of comments in that post about how democracy in the US is not as straightforward as it appears —I've gathered as much, which is why i referred to it as a perfectly crafted illusion of free will. But what I think most people missed from the post is that I was referencing, in its opposition, countries that literally had to bounce back from nondemocratic, violent governments through popular organizations rebelling against the system, which put their lives at immeasurable risk.

Throughout history all types of seemingly unmovable systems rose and fell. Kingdoms, dynasties, dictatorships, monarchies, caliphates, colonies, republics, you name it, its been made and destroyed. A common denominator within revolutions such as the french revolution, the haitian revolution, the american civil war and countless others was an overpowering sense of necessity within its "rebels". An overwhelming amount of people were poor, starving, and/or getting killed left and right because of their stations, races, ideologies, religions, etcetera.

It is my deeply cemented belief that the American Dream is in fact a device of the empire to keep the average usamerican content and compliant. As long as you have food on your plate, Netflix on your TV and an iPhone in your hand, you're not going to pay that much mind to which happens outside. You have the luxury to see an update on the current situation in Palestine, reblogs it, say to yourself "thank god it isn't happening to me", and move on to another amiable day in the suburbs. I'm not saying the life quality is anywhere near perfect, but it by far surpasses that of the "global south", "the third world" or however you'd like to name us.

It's strategic, calculated, a small sacrifice that the empire has to make to protect its exploitative endeavors: provide for those who have actual civic impact (reminder: puerto rico still can't vote). It's a necessary dent in the empire's funds, one they'd like to keep to a minimum, hence the dubious immigration policy and carefully crafted housing crisis in a country of such an extent — The American Dream can't be for everyone, otherwise there'd be no one else to exploit.

In essence the reason why the current democratic system has not yet been overthrown is quite simply that the usamerican people, those who have actual civil impact on the inner politics of the country, are not motivated enough to make it change. There is a reason why a significant number of the people who are most involved in the political cause of palestine happen to be marginalized sectors: people from the global south, arabs, people of color — understanding this imperialist oppression firsthand makes it harder to ignore. There is a reason aaron bushnell self immolated: his occupation put him in a position that made it outright impossible to ignore the horrors.

Furthermore, there is the knowledge that one win against the empire helps ton for the overall cause of mitigating this regime. A damn good motivation for us, not so much for the people who benefit from the current system.

TLDR you can always overthrow the government and demand a fairer system, but the the average american finds no strong real reason to.

[creacherkeeper]

lost township: the homegame

howdy yall :D i made a post like this a while ago that very much needed to be updated and i simply talk about and tag characters from lost township a lot so i wanted to have an easy place to reference for what in the hell im talking about and something to throw at people when i want to infodump. so!!

the game:

lost township is a d&d homegame set in a fictionalized, magical 1880s wild west. its set in the american-equivalent country the democracy of silver and includes all of the magic that we know from typical d&d games. it's based in the town of lost, in the state of undersun, sandwiched between harsh deserts and the mountains

the pcs:

cass bluebell - she/her - human drunken master monk - played by @strangetorpedos

cass is the owner of the saloon in lost and mother to adopted 6 year old davey. she's stoic, fair, and always just a little too weary for all the things on her plate. she took over the saloon about 5 years ago after the murder of her mother by the mysterious assassin the brownbird, and spent years trying to solve the murder to no avail (until recently). middle aged repressed lesbian on main, didn't sign up for this shit - art

divine shook - she/her - aasimar eloquence bard + oath of the bear paladin - played by @masculinepeacock

divine is the schoolteacher in lost and lives with her wife sarah and brother-in-law hawk. former southern belle of the rich intervention family, now barely scraping by as the breadwinner of the household. chronically babygirl coded, ultimate bambi lesbian. is the angel of the deer god of poetry but currently follows the bear god of fire and families and talks to her god like she's her mom (she is in their hearts). currently dating(?) sheriff lizzie - tag

maeve marigold - she/her - kalashtar psychopomp sorcerer - played by kaity

maeve is a former sex worker turned recently hired psychopomp of the raven queen, soon to be doing the psychopomp thing full time. she always has the most insane response possible no matter what the question was and does not know how to read. she also did not know what a psychopomp was when she agreed to be one. is currently under the tutelage of latrowe, the raven queen's current psychopomp, and has been being plagued by dreams and nightmares she knows aren't her own

morel - they/them - firbolg knowledge cleric / spores druid - played by @floralprintshark

morel is the local witch doctor and prophet of the god of fungi and decay. lived on the outskirts of lost for many years, providing free healthcare to the vulnerable townsfolk who weren't safe with the town's stuffy doctor. after pining for years, finally in a relationship with cat after the "unfortunate" murder of her former husband, and jointly raising her daughter kitten and their mysteriously delivered baby juniper. goth sad cow - tag

onion - they/he/she - fey shepherd druid / fey wanderer ranger - played by @paladinbaby

onion is a smuggler and deliverer of changelings who was introduced to the party with the task of safely transporting them from lost to the neighboring state. he's Fey Neurodivergent and a bit of a grumpy messy dyke (gender neutral) who doesn't have a ton of connections but cares about his people very deeply. chosen family with waylon squad and best friends with brandi - tag

will orville - he/him - werewolf gunslinger fighter - played by @punkbarbarian

will is an "investigator" (mercenary) who was brought to town under instructions to find and kill the brownbird and then ended up staying because he is a big old sad puppydog who needed to learn to love again and is. he is so so autism dad on main and cries at the drop of a hat (affectionate). currently dating scruggs, the first relationship he's been in since his husband was killed 13 years ago - tag

the npcs:

brandi carlile "the brownbird" - she/he - aasimar wild card rogue + arcane archer fighter + vengeance paladin

white hat assassin and angel of the jackalope god of chaos and death. her father was the singular prophet of her god who was responsible for raising the jack to godhood until he was assassinated when she was a young child. now she kills mostly bad men, mostly other followers of the jack. despite that he's both very excitable and very wet n pathetic babygirl hours and pretty much just wants to be cared for. long-time best friends with onion and in a Situationship (derogatory) with lizzie - tag

sarah shook - she/they - human wildfire druid

divine's wife and hawk's sister, golden retriever wife guy on main always. excitable, loving, intensely adhd, spends their time gardening, talking folks ears off at the market, and reading smutty books with her wife. refuses to process any of her childhood and she's so normal about it. has a bear cub made of fire named honeysuckle that she was gifted by the bear god. currently making eye emojis at morel and cat - tag

hawk shook - he/him - human wild magic artificer

sarah's brother and divine's brother in law. trying his best but unfortunately his best is not great, fiercely protective and caring but not good at the whole adulting thing. so far unsuccessful at holding down a job but is now working (hopefully long term) for cass at the saloon. slutty, gay, too autistic for his own good. was the originator of the plan for him, sarah, and divine to leave their homestate and find a new place to live after working for divine's awful parents for years - tag

cat clyde stevens - she/her - orc life cleric

former wife of bobby clyde, now partnered with morel, mother of half orc kitten and newly adoptive mother of baby juniper. married bobby and had kitten very young, and was mistreated for years before developing a relationship with morel and finally gathering the courage to call the brownbird and have her kill bobby. shy, nervous, very caring, new to the cleric thing - tag

lizzie no - she/her - coyote shifter crown paladin

former big city reporter, currently the sheriff of lost. protective, prickly, observant, and more than a little neurotic. bitchy dyke fr fr. religious trauma on main. managed to make it to lost after getting shot and got adopted and taken care of by waylon. now sister to kelsey and scruggs. has been in love with divine for Years and is not quite sure what to do now that theyre A Thing. in a Situationship (derogatory) with brandi, and is former friends, almost lovers, enemies, to somethings, queerplatonic idiots with onion (they'll figure it out,,,) - tag

earl scruggs - he/him - orc tundra storm herald barbarian

former child criminal and enemy of the state turned refugee, now waylons "bodyguard" (read: gets paid to do fuckall). big burly russian man, chronic big brother disease, gentle giant who loves to cook and be silly. tboy swag. has to keep up a reputation around town for being mean and tough but is way more emotionally intelligent and caring than most people give him credit for. currently in Some Sort Of Relationship with will (read: they uhauled and haven't talked about it) - tag

kelsey wilson - they/them - changeling inquisitive rogue

delivered to waylon at age 5 by onion after their parents died, now his secretary but actually just professional babiest sibling. so incredibly autism creature, goth lolita stan always, very anxious about interacting with anyone outside their family so simply Doesn't. does not want to grow up because of The Circumstances TM and so keeps themself young using fey magic which is unfortunately giving them chronic fatigue. kind of a bitch - tag

waylon jennings - he/him - zombie, former lore bard

former professional muse, now the benefactor of lost. bitchy old gay man, doing his best to take care of his kids even if isn't always a peaceful house. got turned into a zombie during an outbreak but somehow managed to keep his consciousness and a little of his magic. has been friends with onion for decades but as he's gotten older has come to view her more like a daughter - tag

latrowe - he/him - coyote psychopomp

used to be just a regular coyote, got chosen by morel's god to be a gift to the raven queen and become her psychopomp. showed up in maeve's dreams for a while and is now in the process of training her to be the new psychopomp cause he really misses being. just a dog. very formal and stoic when he's not eating out of your trash, fights with a cool glowing dagger

roo panes - he/him - tiefling scribes wizard

a religious researcher who was supposed to be cataloguing the pantheons of the democracy but ended up parking in lost for a while to study the jack (autism special interest alert). ultimate nerd, way too talkative, twink who's one stiff breeze away from having his bi awakening. currently has a puppy crush on kelsey and hasn't put together that's why scruggs is mean to him

the gods:

ama - she/her - bear god of fire, families, and the home - worshiped by divine and cat, divine is her paladin ata - he/him - bison god of food, families, and the home - worshipped by sarah dakota - he/him - deer god of poetry, beauty, and magic - divine is his aasimar the jack - no pronouns - jackalope god of death, chaos, trickery, survival, and alcohol - worshiped by many townsfolk in lost, including cass's late mother, brandi is the jack's only aasimar kathairein - they/them - vulture god of fungi, decay, and disease - morel is their prophet nidaash - they/them - salmon god of sex, transformation, and journeys the raven queen - she/her - raven god of life and death, knowledge, divination, and the moon - maeve and latrowe are her psychopomps sidewinder - he/him - rattlesnake god of protection, safety, medicine, and the sun - lizzie is his paladin

ship tags:

divine/sarah divine/lizzie lizzie/brandi lizzie/onion will/scruggs + 2

[christabelq]

'SOULSTAR' BOOK REVIEW...

I haven’t done a review for a while, but I felt I should for this book, as I didn't like it and wanted to explore why. The book’s about a necromantic witch called Robin, who is fighting to make the country of Aeland a better place. At first she tries to do this by working with the new king, who appears to be quite progressive, but as time goes on, it becomes clear he’s not the person she thought he was and she needs to take a different route. She takes over as the head of the Free Democracy party when the previous leader Jacob is assassinated and ends up bringing about a revolution. The blurb for the book describes it as A WHIRLWIND OF MAGIC, POLITICS, ROMANCE, AND INTRIGUE, which sounded right up my street, but it totally didn't live up to my expectations and here are some of the reasons…

One of the villains (a terminally ill old man) is tried near the end and sentenced to hang. I find the idea of capital punishment deeply troubling, so this was never going to sit well with me. I think it’s inhumane, and when mistakes happen (which they totally do), there’s nothing you can do about it. The trial also left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s what I believe is commonly referred to as a kangaroo court, when the accused isn’t given a chance to defend himself and the verdict’s pretty much decided before anyone says a word. To make matters worse, Robin traps the man’s soul in a tree for a thousand years after he’s been hanged. This isn’t part of the court’s decision and there’s no consultation. She just does it. For me this little display suggests that power has totally gone to her head and Aeland has simply traded one arrogant despot for another, which I’m sure wasn’t what the author had in mind.

The pacing feels off. Parts of the book seemed rushed (e.g. the revolution and a lot of the magic stuff), while other parts felt bloated and unnecessarily drawn out. The author seemed unable to tell what to focus on to best serve the story, and if there was any editorial guidance, it must have been pretty poor judging by how it turned out.

Complex issues are dealt with in what for me seems like a totally simplistic way. The revolutionaries are holier than thou and the people they’re fighting against are like pantomime villains, when in the real world, almost everyone is somewhere in the middle. You only really hear one viewpoint about stuff and the whole mess gets cleared up in a ridiculously short amount of time.

The character of Zelind. Zelind is non-binary, which on the face of it sounds great, but the sense I got was that khe was a token character. I had no clue about kher appearance or what kher life as non-binary was like (e.g. the specific challenges khe faced). I noticed that the author used the wrong pronouns for kher a few times (usually SHE/HER, but also at least one THEY), which made me wonder if KHE was once a SHE and the non-binary element was added quite late in the writing process to be on trend or something. It certainly doesn’t add to the plot in any way. If it wasn't a late change, then it's another example of sloppy editing. You expect that kind of slip in self-published books, but not when they're from a big company like Tor and not when its something people might be sensitive about. I also wondered how everyone the character meets seems to immediately know which pronouns to use for kher. I don’t have any direct experience of this myself, but I’m guessing it doesn’t always work that way for real non-binary people, so it doesn’t ring true. Another thing that didn’t seem realistic was the way the character rustled up a machine to generate electricity at the drop of a hat, when others have been trying for years and utterly failing. It’s not properly explained how khe is able to do it and it all happens off camera so to speak, so you don’t get to see what it actually involves. This character could have been so much more and for me was a big disappointment.

The plot feels contrived. I knew all along where the book was headed, so getting through it felt like a chore. There were also quite a few times when seemingly hopeless situations were quickly resolved by unlikely events, e.g. Robin happening to know there would be a hidden door which would allow her and Grace to escape from a burning room, or footsteps lying undisturbed on a snowy rooftop for days, so Robin can solve the mystery of Jacob’s assassination (luckily there hasn’t been any snow in the meantime and it hasn't melted either). Magic also felt a bit convenient at times and the rules around it seemed to shift to fit the plot.

So those are my biggest gripes. I won’t tell anyone they shouldn’t read the book, because I’ve seen a lot of glowing reviews and I’m sure a lot of people will 💜 it, but for me it just didn’t work. I haven’t read the other books in the Kingston cycle and I won’t be doing now. This one was more than enough. 2/5

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tim Dickinson and Asawin Suebsaeng at Rolling Stone:

Donald Trump was slamming his fist on the Resolute Desk and, once again, calling for blood.  It was the second year of his presidency, and Trump was seething about gang members and drug lords. He wanted to see their bodies piled up in the streets. Specifically, he sought a series of mass executions — with firing squads and gallows, and certainly without the quaintness of an appeals process — to send a chilling message about the scope of his power.  Trump, who’d taken office inveighing against “American carnage,” wanted to create some of his own.  This violent fantasy became an obsession, according to former Trump administration officials. The 45th president brought up the topic so often during the early years of his presidency that one former White House official tells Rolling Stone they lost count. “Fucking kill them all,” Trump would say. “An eye for an eye.” Other times he’d snap at his staff: “You just got to kill these people.” Invoking the brutality of dictatorial regimes that Trump wanted to emulate, he’d add, “Other countries do it all the time.” 

For Trump, the spectacle was crucial. “He had a particular affinity for the firing squad,” says one of the former White House officials. He’d say, “They need to be eradicated, not jailed.” Administration officials privately referred to this demand as Trump’s “American death-squads idea,” comparing it to the drug-war bloodbath carried out by Filipino strongman Rodrigo Duterte. (The sources, some still very much within Trump’s circle, requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about sensitive conversations.) That mass executions were not a feature of Trump’s term is a credit to the American justice system and the more sober-minded government officials who were unwilling to be complicit in his mad schemes. These aides and advisers typically put the president off, making vague promises to “look into” the idea, long enough to let Trump’s tyrannical tantrum blow over. 

But if Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris this November, America will encounter a Trump unbound, a man whose darkest impulses will not be checked by “adults in the room” — ­creating potentially catastrophic consequences for the American experiment. “This election is about whether or not we remain a democratic society or we move to authoritarianism,” Sen. Bernie Sanders tells Rolling Stone, insisting that Trump “does not believe in the basic tenets and foundations of American democracy.”  The safeguards that kept Trump in check during his first term have collapsed — starting with the MAGA-fication of the Republican Party. “We know from the first administration that Trump was an amateur and lots of people stopped his most radical actions,” says Jason Stanley, a Yale professor and author of How Fascism Works. He underscores that Trump’s darkest ambitions were present from the beginning — from the Muslim ban to the coup attempt of Jan. 6. “The only thing that stopped him from being a full-on dictator was other people,” Stanley says. “We know that that’s not going to happen anymore.” 

Trump’s campaign to retain power after losing the 2020 election only collapsed because Vice President Mike Pence proved more loyal to the Constitution than to Trump’s cult of personality. But for 2024, Trump has a vice presidential candidate who appears even less committed to the democratic process than he is. J.D. Vance is a protégé and plaything of the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who has written that “freedom and democracy” are not “compatible.”  A second administration will not feature advisers in the mold of former Chief of Staff John Kelly, or Defense Secretary Mark Esper — establishment Republicans with a stake in keeping Trump constitutionally in bounds. “These are going to be all MAGA people,” says Michael Klarman, a Harvard law professor and an expert in executive power. “Some of them are much more ideologically committed to the agenda than Trump is,” he says, listing deputies like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, as well as masterminds of the Heritage Foundation’s extreme policy agenda, Project 2025.

[...]

Dictatorship Threat

TRUMP HAS BEEN PUBLIC about his plans, vowing to be a “dictator” — though just for a day, he claims, so he could supercharge fossil-­fuel production and seal off the border. How any of this would work is likely beyond Trump’s understanding, but he’s certainly going to pull every lever of power within his grasp. And the targets of his authoritarian ambition are not single-day, or even single-year, projects. Trump seeks autocratic power to implement his draconian immigration policies, including starting “the largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history and reinstating the Muslim travel ban. He’s called for ending the constitutional right of birthright citizenship with an “executive order” — a notion backed by Vance.

Trump also seeks to remake American energy policy to benefit the fossil-fuel industry, a plan he shorthands as “drill, drill, drill.” And he’s put criminal justice on the agenda, vowing to free the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, calling them “hostages” and vowing to “sign their pardons or commutations on Day One.” For those who have studied the rise of authoritarian leaders throughout history, the playbook of Trump and his allies dictates they will push through as many new laws, executive decrees, and emergency orders as possible before anyone understands what is happening. “They want to have a blitzkrieg — and then all you need to be is a dictator for a day,” says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall and a professor at New York University. “It’s not just a change of methods, it’s a change of political system — a vast expansion of the powers of the executive, so that Trump will be able to rule as an autocrat.”

Get Out of Jail Free

TRUMP’S EFFORT TO REGAIN power is driven substantially by his desire to stay out of prison — part of a long pattern of putting his own interests ahead of the nation’s. He is a felon convicted on 34 counts stemming from the cover-­­up of a hush-money payout to a porn star at the height of the 2016 election. He also faces federal charges for election interference, as well as a Georgia indictment for his demand that GOP election officials “find 11,780 votes” to reverse his loss in that swing state.  Regaining the White House would put a naked abuse of power at Trump’s fingertips. Trump has long been open about his desire to meddle in his criminal cases, having called on Congress to defund the Justice Department until it dropped charges against him. No one in MAGA world denies that Trump would begin a second term by ordering federal charges against himself and his cronies dismissed. In a more normal time, such a brazenly corrupt act might define a political era. 

Trump’s tightrope walk to keep out of prison is a hallmark of autocrats. “Regular politicians wouldn’t even run for office if they had big legal problems. But strongmen are not normal politicians,” says Ben-Ghiat. “They have to run; they have to get back into power and make their legal troubles go away.” She points to the examples of Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who faced dozens of criminal trials, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. “This is how these guys think. And it’s why they all denigrate the press and the judiciary as corrupt, because that’s their enemy.” 

Retribution Agenda

TRUMP HAS POSITIONED HIMSELF as an avatar of a collective revenge fantasy for his followers. During a 2023 speech in Waco, Texas, site of the fiery 1993 standoff between the anti-government Branch Davidian cult, led by David Koresh, and federal authorities, Trump told the audience: “I am your warrior, I am your justice.… For those who have been wronged and betrayed … I am your retribution.”  The Waco setting was chilling ­— and no accident. The FBI’s deadly siege of the Koresh compound inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by militia member and anti-­government extremist Timothy McVeigh, the deadliest domestic terror attack in U.S. history and a horrific act of vengeance. McVeigh and Koresh are seen as martyrs by the far right, and Trump was speaking directly to the most radical core of his base.

Trump has already threatened to turn the Justice Department into a vehicle for retribution for what he perceives as unjust political persecution — for election interference, hush-money payments, as well as his alleged mishandling of classified documents. He has posted on Truth Social, for example: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump has long blamed Biden for all of his legal woes, despite the president’s hands-off approach to the various cases against him. Trump has vowed to appoint “a special prosecutor” to go after President Biden and his family over what Trump describes as “bribes, kickbacks, and other crimes,” insisting, “Justice will be done.”  Trump associate and former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee Mike Davis, who has been talked up for a top post in a new Trump administration, said on a recent podcast that if he were selected as acting attorney general, he’d carry out a “three-week reign of terror” before getting “chased out of town with my Trump pardon,” pledging to “indict Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and James Biden and every other scumball, sleazeball Biden.” 

[...]

Controlling Families

LIKE MANY ASPIRING AUTOCRATS, Trump is a threat to families, seeking to impose government power on personal choices about reproduction. He’s “proud” of his success in overturning Roe v. Wade, which led to state-level, near-total abortion bans affecting millions of women. Trump has said he’ll personally vote to preserve Florida’s six-week abortion ban, and has even endorsed the idea of states choosing to punish women for seeking abortion care. The GOP platform, moreover, includes a declaration of fetal personhood, asserting that fetuses are entitled to 14th Amendment protections — logic that could lead to a court-imposed nationwide abortion ban. Vance, meanwhile, has opposed abortion even in the case of rape and incest: “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term,” he said in a 2021 interview. “It’s whether a child should be allowed to live — even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient to society.” Vance has also accused people without children of lacking a “direct stake” in the country and proposed that those with kids be given greater voting power. (His mentor, Thiel, has blamed his loss of confidence in democracy, in part, on “the extension of the franchise to women.”) Controlling reproduction is yet another hallmark of fascism, says Ben-Ghiat, whose expertise is in Benito Mussolini’s rule in Italy. Il Duce equated population growth with national strength, and restricted birth control and outlawed abortion while providing loans to married couples that would be forgiven in stages with the birth of each child. “Vance may not know that he’s repeating Mussolini proposals, but it’s the same stuff,” Ben-Ghiat says. “You have women seen as an enemy if they’re not contributing to the state by having babies.” Ben-Ghiat points out that this type of rhetoric doesn’t just impact women: “Mussolini actually passed a measure that taxed bachelors because they weren’t doing their duty” to reproduce. “It’s never just one target,” she warns. “The number of targets always expands.”

[...]

‘Real Danger to the Rule of Law’

TRUMP’S AUTHORITARIANISM ISN’T going to look the same as Putin’s in Russia or Xi Jinping’s in China. Think more of a WWE-style circus mixed with former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover-style crackdowns and Newt Gingrich’s limited-government fantasies. Much of what Trump and his government-in-waiting are plotting — including invading and even bombing Mexico to supposedly send a message to drug cartels — is rooted in Trump’s impulse to wallow in the spectacle of cinematic violence. The sheer cartoonishness of Trump’s vision for America can make it hard to accept as real. But Klarman insists that Trump and Co. must be taken at face value: “There’s no reason to doubt it. They admire Viktor Orban; Trump meets with him at Mar-a-Lago. He admires Putin’s strength. He admires Xi. They are authoritarian. There’s no reason in the world to doubt this.”  It is seductive to dismiss Trump’s darkest calls for revenge and bloodshed as red meat to rally his troops, and to doubt the likelihood of follow-through. “It’s a very common theme in the history of fascism that lots of people think that the fascist leader is joking,” Stanley warns. “People don’t want to believe what’s right in front of their eyes. Let’s take Trump seriously this time.” Trump allies like Davis call fears of an autocratic Trump term “silly.” He points to the fact that Trump never had Hillary Clinton arrested, despite the pervasive chants at his rallies to “Lock her up” — which he contends offers assurance that the former president’s most troubling rhetoric won’t translate into action: “Trump has already proven that he’s not going to be vindictive as president.” Others who have seen Trump operate up close, however, are strident in their warnings. Pence refused to endorse Trump on the grounds that “anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.” John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, has blasted Trump’s admiration for “autocrats and murderous dictators,” while insisting the former president has “nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”  But the surge of excitement and creative energy for the candidacy of Kamala Harris — and a Democratic agenda centered on Tim Walz’s call for Americans to both root for their neighbors and to “mind your own damn business” — provides hope of defending against Trump’s threat to democracy.

Rolling Stone had an insightful column about how America would be a nightmare if Donald Trump wins. If you want a safe, free, and prosperous America, vote Kamala Harris!

Read the full story at Rolling Stone.

[bottlepiecemuses]

Comparing The World Government (And General One Piece Governments) And Terrible Writing Advice’s Episode On Governments And Politics

Seriously, the world government is a mix of fascism and oligarchy. It’s also a bit of theocracy since the world nobles are treated like deities. Overall, it pretends to be a federation of governments when it’s really an empire under a secret king no one knows is still alive except for Wapol and the Five Elder Planets. When you read the series it dabbles in censorship, misinformation, suppressing dissenting views, slavery, whole-scale genocide, wiping out islands, and any authoritarian act you can think of. Despite how One Piece on the surface looks it really is a dystopia dressed up in bright colors and only feels off when you look close at what is really going on. 

For the general governments in One Piece, they are usually one absolute monarch after another. And when you look at the track records you have ones with really bad kings like Goa or you have really good ones like with Alabasta. One Piece engages in a lot of common fantasy tropes, but it does actually look at how much one ruler having power could affect the country. The Goa Kingdom dabbles in atrocities like burning down the homes and poor residences themselves to get in the graces of a visiting world noble.  As said before, if you have a really bad ruler then it sucks for the people but a good one really always will help. And interesting enough we have had people choose if they want to get a king back like with Dressrosa after King Riku was framed by Doflamingo or when Dalton was chosen after Wapol left the country so in a way showing that kings at times can be chosen if a people want to replace them with another. 

For small islands, you usually have just mayors of a town. However, in Water 7 it’s one of the few nations to have a mayor and it could be considered a democracy. As a whole it does seem that democratic states seem to be rare in One Piece unless it’s a small place. But I have a feeling i’s not unheard of but just not that common. 

With the “Eight Nation Revolution”, I could see a shift in One Piece where more and more people are becoming discontent with monarchies and just want more say in their government. I could see more monarchies being turned into constitutional ones or do the Russian thing and just get rid of the monarchs. In my opinion, I really hope is the former than the latter. Funny enough Japan itself has a constitutional monarchy with a figurehead royal family. But yeah, it would be interesting if these people form their own versions of congress/senates/parliaments. 

[ikebanaka]

You're the one who brought up voting on that post, though. Presumably anyone with your same "they're both awful but vote for the less awful one" should also want everyone to hate Biden, since your argument for voting for him relies in no way on actually liking him, so why do you have a problem with someone pointing out how he, in specific, sucks shit? And back at ya bud, if you can dismiss anyone who can't give you a 4-month revolutionary outline, how about you give us a foolproof plan for protecting trans kids, abortion rights, and ending the several foreign genocides currently going on? I bet you can't, but for some reason you get the luxury of saying that doesn't matter.

Hi! You seem to have a misunderstanding about how politics works. And also how logic works, so let's start with that.

First, not approving of Biden's actions wrt to the current genocides does not mean I want people to hate him. Those things are not A=B. I understand that that might not really make sense, but I'll explain why.

The reason I want people to avoid spreading hatred of the old bastard and think it is unproductive to hate on him is that shitting on the most progressive viable candidate, i.e. the lesser evil, plays directly into the kind of mindset that will keep people from voting. This is why all those goddamn psyops in previous elections keep fucking doing it. And lo and behold, it fucking worked in 2016.

Second, the problem isn't that quick radical change isn't possible or that I hate the idea and think it'll never work. It will, and people are already taking steps to make that happen. The protests are making a difference, the direct actions are making a difference, the people stepping up to help their community and make it strong enough to survive the ways this country is determined to tear them down are making a difference. The letter writing campaigns, the fundraisers, the calls to representatives, the voting in local elections, it all makes a difference.

But we're still laying the groundwork for more radical change. In the leftist bubble it seems like support is near unanimous, and we're all arguing about semantics, so talking down about enacting radical change right now sounds like being all talk and getting in the way of actual change. And it's true that the idea is gaining traction nationwide! Unfortunately, there's a whole lot of people who exist outside that bubble that don't have the same knowledge or perspective and aren't even aware that radical change is an option, let alone where they stand on it. Enough people to make most catalysts of revolution fizzle out and die.

What I'm saying is, we need more time. Change can happen fast, but not that fast. And the only guaranteed way to get that time is to elect the guy who has proven himself willing to uphold at least the veneer of democracy. And who, frankly, has made a lot of positive changes to infrastructure that just don't get as much press because righteous anger about buzzword topics sells better.

Which, circling back around, makes doing the same things as Russian psyops, who have successfully used them to get Trump elected once, a bad idea. To clarify, the things in question very much include constantly shitting on the more progressive main candidate and insisting both candidates are actually equally shitty and denying or ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

I hope you consider everything I've said here seriously, without immediately rejecting everything out of anger. I hope you can see where I'm coming from, even if you don't agree with everything.