#but being completely unsuited to a leadership role himself

[sincetheducksleft]

Just found out from Sopranos Autopsy that Junior misquotes Shakespeare on a couple of instances without seeming to know it.... that's such a brilliant character detail for a guy who's so wise and yet so, so, so dumb. Especially because no one picks up on the mistake, but only because they don't realize it's Shakespeare in the first place.

[kissingcullens]

Ok, so the moment when the crew unanimously elects Oluwande as Captain? “It’s you.” “No other choice.” “The best Captains are the ones who hate being captains...”  INCREDIBLE. SHOWSTOPPING. And I’m thinking about how that moment ties together some of the biggest overarching themes of the season, ie: masculinity, power, leadership, violence... Like... I’m thinking about the “Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis” story structure:

THESIS

The story’s beginning thesis is shown with STEDE’S leadership style. IE: “We talk about our feelings and do arts and crafts, etc...”  Stede’s stated goals establish the big themes of the story; gender roles, self-expression, masculinity, violence, etc... he’s expressing a desire to subvert toxic masculinity and abuse...

But his actual leadership is deeply flawed and naive... based in a thirst for glory and renown, mixed with an arrogant notion that he knows better than anyone else and can just recreate his pampered lifestyle on the sea.   He thinks he can have his cake and eat it... He wants luxury, ease, softness and gentleness, while ALSO idolizing and romanticizing an inherently hyper masculine and violent lifestyle... not seeming to grasp the downright dangerous naïveté and hypocrisy of his position. He’s a naive rich guy who’s “playing pirate,” and his arrogance and incompetence is actively dangerous and harmful to his crew. ANTITHESES And then we see the “Antithesis” of Stede, represented most clearly in Izzy Hands’ leadership style, which is intensely violent, petty, tyrannical, egotistical... Izzy is the opposite of Stede, and he hates everything Stede stands for with a burning rage... but Izzy is ALSO an ineffectual and terrible leader.   He wields force, but doesn’t have the respect of his crew, even for a moment.  -Maybe an even starker contrast is Calico Jack... his “leadership” is a frenzied, almost “Lord of the Flies”-level mayhem in which he pressures and shames everyone around him to PROVE that they’re a Real Man Pirate... but he commands neither respect or love, and can’t keep authority.

Blackbeard is tough to summarize; we see him at SUCH a strange and transitional time of his life... ...But I think the one thing that’s clear is that he’s DISTANT with his crew.  He has his crew’s respect and admiration, but no warmth or true closeness, because to maintain authority he has to BE Blackbeard at all times; the pinnacle of masculine confidence, strength, self-sufficiency, stoicism, etc...  (“Hard to say because I don’t feel fear.”) Even Black Pete is an example of ideas about leadership... he CRAVES authority and glory, but is completely unsuited to it because of that... and his abject Hero-Worship of the IDEA of Blackbeard... Fearless, bloodthirsty, hyper-masculine, without emotion... SYNTHESIS: And with all this... the crew DOES come to be the family that Stede wanted; coming together to protect and save him, and embracing the Arts and Crafts Expressiveness of Fuckery and ghost stories, etc... And when finally the show ends with the crew rejecting Izzy’s leadership, they unanimously select Oluwande as Captain! Oluwande, who is a Synthesis of the best traits of leadership; caring, honesty, openness, competence, and willingness to truly take responsibility.  He has no ego or thirst for power for its own sake.  From the first episode, he makes it clear that he does not romanticize violence or machismo. As he tells Stede: “Me and Jim don’t do this because we LIKE it; we do it because we have to.” -and he basically tells Stede there’s no shame in being a soft and gentle person, while also pointing to the vast disparity of wealth and privilege that makes Stede’s “Gentleman” lifestyle inaccessible to himself and the rest of the crew.  Olu is the voice of reason and peace-making in most scenarios, from his defense of Stede against mutiny in the first episode, to his attempts to avert needless violence (refusing to throw Lucius overboard, trying to avoid Spanish Jackie, etc...) He’s open and expressive with his feelings, good-natured and friendly with everyone, but able to make tough decisions and willing to make painful sacrifices for the good of others. So I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THAT the season ended with such a pointed vote of confidence in Oluwande as the crew’s chosen leader... It felt like such a great synthesis of all the conflicting examples and messages about what makes a “REAL” man, about what good leadership looks like, and what behavior is deserving of respect and authority.   After navigating between these extreme examples of ultra-violent people who keep claiming that openness and warmth are NOT the way to get things done, and seeing that, while he has his good points, Stede’s leadership style is an ineffectual mess... Oluwande is a beautiful embodiment of a GOOD leader who can provide a truly different model... not abusive or violent, but not naive or detached either... and I PRAY that in Season 2 we get to see Oluwande’s leadership arc really get a chance to blossom and shine center-stage. <3 <3 

[chatterbox-meta]

On Narrative Consequence

Or, a meta on how every single one of Katsuki Bakugou’s and Enji Todoroki’s misdeeds have directly or indirectly resulted in their misfortune.

Before I begin, I would like to say sorry for postponing other metas I’ve promised to write in favour of this meta. Well, I say meta, but this is more of a rant than anything. Namely, by writing this, I am mostly venting my frustration with a certain belief somewhat widespread in the MHA fandom - that Katsuki and Enji have never been properly punished for anything they did.

First, let’s examine what “proper punishment” even means. The answers probably vary from person to person, but the most consistent ones I’ve seen centered around legal punishment, verbal calling out and, sometimes, an “eye for an eye” type of retribution. I’ll get to the last two later, but the first one - legal punishment - is genuinely not something either Katsuki or Enji have gotten.

“But Chatterbox! That means the people who say they weren’t punished properly are actually right!” Well, yeah, if this was real life then legal punishment would be the only appropriate response for crimes like spousal and child abuse, as well as certain bullying tactics like suicide baiting.

However, My Hero Academia is not real life and Katsuki and Enji aren’t real people. They’re fictional characters within a narrative and that narrative has a way of dishing out its own punishment. Just because the two of them haven’t been sent to jail/juvie doesn’t mean they were immune to karmic narrative punishment. Such punishment is obviously not possible in real life since karma doesn’t exist, only direct action, but in a story like MHA, the author can write events to serve that purpose.

With that in mind and to put it bluntly, you’d have to ignore large chunks of canon to claim the two weren’t punished. In fact, many events in MHA are designed to hit Katsuki and Enji specifically where it will hurt them the most and in a way that will make them learn their lessons and retain them. Let’s go over the things that happen to them and what actions led to that.

Katsuki Bakugou starts off the series as a bully convinced he’s standing at the top and determined to keep our loveable protagonist Izuku down because, deep down, he (perhaps irrationally, at that point) believes Izuku has whatever it takes to surpass him and fears the failure and loss of identity that would mean for him. Of course, this merely explains his actions and doesn’t justify them, so what is his punishment?

Well, the punishment the narrative decides for him is making those fears come true.The entire story until about the end of S3 (so, for the first 120-ish chapters of the manga) is about Izuku being built up and Katsuki being torn down.

Sometimes this is done incidentally (the Sludge Villain case, which both shakes up Katsuki’s belief in himself as the strongest and leads to Izuku earning One For All, while also serving as karmic punishment for Katsuki going too far with his bullying earlier*), but most of the time it’s a direct result of his mistakes (his loss to Izuku in the Heroes vs Villains excercise/DvK1, him being unable to reach out to Shouto to bring out his full power like Izuku did at the Sports Festival, his temper tantrum attracting the League of Villains and costing him any respect he might have earned by winning, his attitude making him fail the provisional license exam while Izuku passed, etc.).

*(Obviously this only works as punishment from a narrative standpoint, anyone who says a real 15-year-old deserved to almost be murdered because they were a bully is, uh, not someone I’d want to associate myself with.)

I already went into depth about precisely what and how Katsuki loses over the course of the series in this very long character analysis, but the tl;dr version is that he goes from believing that he is the strongest and Izuku is the weakest to believing that he is the failure who caused All Might’s end and Izuku is the prodigy chosen to be All Might’s successor. Izuku keeps building up his self-esteem while Katsuki keeps losing it. In other words, his punishment for trying to tear down Izuku is being torn down himself.

Some would argue that this doesn’t count because Izuku didn’t tear him down personally and instead that this is just the natural and inevitable result of Izuku getting stronger and Katsuki having to face reality. Putting aside that a character like Izuku wouldn’t want to personally tear him down, here’s where we go back to the verbal calling out, the “eye for an eye” and the more “direct” punishments.

A shocking amount of people believe that Izuku has never called out Katsuki for his behavior, some even going so far as to say that Izuku doesn’t realize what Katsuki’s doing is wrong due to Stockholm Syndrome or something. This infuriates me because it is supposed Izuku Stans doing a disservice to Izuku’s character. While it’s true that Izuku doesn’t hate Katsuki himself (I go into detail about why here, along with the reason why he’d forgive him), but he absolutely hates a lot of his actions and can and will let him know that.

Even way back in S1, when he is still a meek terrified kid, he stands up to him. When Katsuki confronts him after the entrance exam and threatens him, Izuku doesn’t budge, he tells him that he’s going to UA and there’s nothing he can do about it, causing him to back off.

During DvK1, despite Katsuki acting more unhinged than usual and trying to either beat him up or provoke him into using OFA, Izuku looks him in the eye and tells him the insulting nickname he gave him is now the name of a hero. He even kind of taunts him by saying he has Katsuki’s weaknesses recorded in the notebook Katsuki burned and threw away!

And he keeps doing it! When they have to work together to fight All Might and Katsuki refuses to do so, even lashing out violently, Izuku yells at him right back and even punches him hard eventually. Granted, it was mostly because it looked like Katsuki would give up on the one thing Izuku admires about him instead of for revenge, but still.

Izuku accepts Katsuki’s challenge in DvK2 not just because he wants to give Katsuki a chance to let out his emotions and find answers, but also because he wants to air his grievences (what he really thought of Katsuki, how it felt to chase after him) and give Katsuki answers in the form of a resounding “I’ll surpass you” and an OFA powered punch to the face.

Another common claim is that the adults and kids around Katsuki never do anything about him. This may have been true in middle school, but UA? Aizawa restrains him and negates his Quirk the second he tries to attack Izuku during the Quirk Apprehension test and tells him to stop wasting his talent after DvK1. When Katsuki grabs an unconscious Shouto by the shirt after their match, Midnight knocks him out and then he’s chained and muzzled.** All Might spells out what he’s been doing wrong after DvK2.

**(Sidebar: it amuses me that this is called out as inhumane treatment and too harsh punishment, even though the adults had no way of knowing whether Katsuki would attack again or what it would take to calm him down, by the same people who claim Katsuki isn’t punished enough. Well, which is it?)

The adults absolutely intervene when he steps out of line. And even when they don’t, they tend to have a reason. All Might didn’t stop the Heroes vs Villains excercise because he knew that if he stepped in, Izuku wouldn’t feel like he’s proven anything, to himself or to Katsuki. He didn’t step in for Izuku’s sake, not Katsuki’s.

As for the End of Term Exam, Aizawa didn’t put Izuku on a team with Katsuki because he “wanted Izuku to get along with his abuser,” but because he knew that Izuku had great leadership and cooperation skills except when he’s with Katsuki and his inability to force difficult people to work with him would cost him in the field. Besides, neither Katsuki nor Izuku can afford to have bad blood between them in high-stakes situations. It might be harsh, but Aizawa was doing it for both of their sakes.

The only thing the adults could have done differently is come up with a more long-term solution to the problem, preferably by actually talking to the people involved, but this was aknowledged after the duo broke curfew to fight.

In conclusion, Katsuki has, in fact, absolutely been called out by the people around him and punished by the narrative thouroughly.

Phew, that got longer than I planned... Where was I? Ah, yes, Area Man Misplaced In The Role of Father.

Enji Todoroki spent his life desperately trying to reach All Might’s spot as number one hero. When he feared his own skills would never be enough, he hatched a plan to get into a Quirk Marriage and then make one of his offspring surpass All Might in his place. Why he thought that was a good idea, I don’t know, but it fits the psychology of the typical Stage Mom, living her, uh, I mean his dream vicariously through his child, Shouto.

In any case, in order to accomplish his goal, Enji was willing to use any means necessary, icluding brutal training of a toddler, physical violence against his wife whenever she tries to interfere and... whatever... happened to Touya. Nothing outside of that goal mattered to him, “unsuited” children like Natsuo and Fuyumi (who presumably only or mostly inherited Rei’s Quirk) were tossed aside and ignored.

So, how does the narrative punish this sorry excuse for a hero, father and husband? By giving him exactly what he wanted, the number one spot? Apparently so!

“But Chatterbox! Isn’t that Endeavor being rewarded by the narrative?” You would think so, but interpreting it that way is actually completely missing the point of Endeavor’s Arc! Because everytime I think of how it’s presented, I’m reminded of a line I might have heard in Disney’s Princess and the Frog: “Did you get what you wanted? S’ what you got what you need?”

After All Might’s retirement, the number one spot was left open for Endeavor to take his place. This is what he’d wanted for a long time and believed he would never get himself. But Endeavor didn’t earn that spot, he was given it, and he knows it. He may have taken his place, but he never truly surpassed All Might and, now that he’s out of commission, neither he nor Shouto (who doesn’t seem to care anyway) ever will.

In other words, every single one of his efforts, every horrible thing he’s done to his family up until that point... It was all for nothing. He may have been at least somewhat aware that what he was doing was indeed horrible but just surpressed that knowledge for the sake of achieving his goal, but now that his goal has amounted to nothing and he feels lost and aimless, he’s finally forced to reflect on his deeds.

But even asides from that, who is Endeavor, the hero with the most solved cases in history, the one who saved countless lives? Well, not much of a number one hero, even with his family situation not being public knowledge, it turns out. After Kamino, the people didn’t just need a hero who would defeat villains, but a hero who would reassure them that everything will be okay and discourage criminals by his mere presence. That he would uphold Peace. Endeavor’s victory never felt more hollow, because the people don’t need him, they need another All Might.

So, Endeavor approaches the man himself for advice. But Toshinori tells him he can’t be him, nor should he attemt to. The age of All Might is over and the public needs to accept that, if they want to prove to Shigaraki that they can go on without him. Toshinori thinks Endeavor should be his own hero, the kind of hero people like Hawks saw in him, the only one who wasn’t lured into complacency by All Might; the tenacious, dedicated and efficient powerhouse against whom villains wouldn’t dare stand against.

And yet, that, too, feels hollow. Because even if All Might and Hawks believe in Endeavor, even if the rest of society comes to believe Endeavor... What does any of that matter for Enji Todoroki? The man who ruined his family for the sake of his own ambitions? Enji now knows that he’ll probably never be a true hero, let alone number one, because of what he’s done, even if the entire thing remains a secret.

Still, he has no other choice. He’s number one, understanding for the first time the enourmous pressure and burden that comes with the position. And, of course, the villain attacks, leading to Enji getting his face torn open by High End, coincidentally (really, within the narrative, it’s not a coincidence at all) on the same side that Shouto got his burn scar. But that is fine, because for the first time he’s fighting not for the sake of his ambitions but for the society that needs a pillar, no matter how unstable or rotten it is beneath its shiny and sturdy marble surface.

For that reason, though this is never expicitly stated, he can’t even “properly” punish himself by going public with his crimes - imagine the utter trainwreck the new number one hero revealing himself to be a former abuser would be, in the wake of the chaos and uncertainty caused by All Might’s fall? When it comes to his family, atonement really is the only option at this point.

So Enji’s punishment is getting exactly what he wanted, at the cost of carrying the world on his shoulders knowing he’ll never be what it needs, getting disfigured and having to face his broken family. Speaking of, what about that family? Aren’t they letting him get off scot-free? Contrary to popular belief, no.

Natsuo doesn’t want to forgive him or even aknowledge his efforts to change and be the hero they can be proud of, he wants nothing to do with him. Shouto is willing to see those efforts and is curious to see what the results will be, he wants Enji to make good on his words, but he still agrees with Natsuo and doesn’t forgive him or want him in his life beyond the pragmatic uses of his experience as a pro. Above all else, he wants to carve an identity outside of his father’s former wishes and outside his hatred for him.

Fuyumi does forgive him unconditionally, but it has less to do with Enji genuinely earning her forgiveness and more to do with her desire for a happy, normal family. Rei also seemingly forgives him, but for her, it might simply be a desire to let go of the hatred that made her scald her child’s face. It would be so easy for her to simply blame all of it on Enji, but she can’t, not all of it.

And Enji himself certainly hasn’t forgiven anything, nor does he demand forgiveness from others and fully accepts the consequences of both his sins and his dream.

I don’t think Enji’s quite done paying his debt yet, there is still the issue with Touya and I bet the LoV would be salivating at the chance to expose him if they found out (in fact I hope that happens, not because I have a thirst for punishment but because I think it would be a fantastic plot), but so far, he definitely hasn’t gone unpunished.

Before I end this long-ass rant (holy shit, this has gotten way out of hand), I have one more thing to address: what is the purpose of a punishment? It’s to stop bad behavior and make the perpetrators realise what they’re doing is wrong. In that way, I believe the narrative punishment of Katsuki and Enji was successful.

So, what, exactly, would even be the point of “properly” punishing them further? Vindication? For whom, the characters or certain audience members?

Again, in real life, learning your lesson, feeling regret and trying to do better isn’t a get out of jail free card (though certain places do prioritize rehabilitation over punitive justice, finding that the former significantly lowers the rate of re-offending), but in fiction, priorities are different. It’s not about making things even (would anything ever make them even?) or treating characters “fairly” or teaching the audience basic morals, it’s about what would be the most interesting to read about.

Everyone’s opinions are different, but honestly?

The story of two boys growing past their relationship as a bully and a victim, past even the destructive rivalry of tearing each other down, and embracing the relationship of pushing each other past who they are now by borrowing each other’s best qualities?

And the story of a man who wants to be a father and a hero even though it might be impossible, of a family that might just one day find closure in the belief that all the years of suffering amounted to something in the end?

I’d take those over some sanctimonious, heavy-handed morality tale of an ao3 “fix fic” any day. Yes this entire rant is actually me being salty after seeing too many self-righteous “I’ll adress what Horikoshi won’t uwu” fic authors, fucking sue me.   

[canchewread]

Editor’s note: earlier this afternoon I managed to smash my foot into a coffee table and I’m increasingly starting to suspect that I broke at least one toe. As a result I haven’t had time to write a full edition of “The Skinny” today; in the meantime here’s a short essay on history, propaganda and the CIA.

In a recent essay about changing mainstream attitudes towards Edward Snowden and the national security state, I talked a little bit how the business of recording and analyzing history is riddled with class-based structural barriers that largely serve to protect and support establishment power and as such, elite capital. Obviously where I deal with this most in my writing is in the real-time record of history reported and analyzed by the media - after all, this type of orthodox, pro-establishment propagandizing happens every day on the evening news.

Today I'm going to switch gears and talk about books, specifically actual history books about war, foreign policy and espionage. After finishing Edward Snowden's new biography “Permanent Record” I went back to my shelf and pulled down Tim Weiner's 2007 book "Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA" - a volume I've reference many times in my writing but have never sat down to read from cover to cover until a couple of days ago.

While this isn't exactly a normal book review, I like to note up front that I’m not here to explicitly trash Legacy of Ashes - it's not like Weiner's tome is an objectively bad or horrifyingly inaccurate history book; it did after all win a Pulitzer Prize.

Based on hundreds of direct interviews and massive hordes of (then) recently declassified documents, Legacy of Ashes is mostly what it purports to be - a complete history of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency from its formation up until roughly 2006. Obviously different scholars have different primary sources but if you're in mainstream liberal media or military scholarship and you write about national security, this is a book you'll be expected by most informed observers to be familiar with; as I said, I've referenced it quite often in my work as well.

Of course, in light of the fact that the book was released right around the same time as the full exposure of CIA's staggering failure in the lead up to and aftermath of 9/11 and its complicity in Bush's secret prisons hiding America's torture program, the author understandably takes an overall "dim" view of the CIA. From cowboy covert operations in the fifties and sixties, up on through to the horrifying failures that lead to the invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction our government knew they couldn’t find (because they didn’t exist), Legacy of Ashes tells the tale of a wayward, out of control intelligence agency that has never been capable of its supposed primary function – keeping the President informed of what is happening beyond America’s borders.

In the general sense then, it’s fair to say that for the average reader the book almost certainly comes off as a shocking indictment of the Central Intelligence Agency and many of the men who have had leadership roles inside the agency - so what's the problem? It almost sounds like I'm recommending it - doesn’t it?

Unfortunately however Tim Weiner is an affluent former New York Times journalist with a Journalism degree from Colombia and a career's worth of contact with minions of the national security state; in other words Weiner is about as "establishment" as they come and the effect that has on both his overall worldview and his study of the CIA's history, screams off virtually every single page in Legacy of Ashes.

Like all too many national security "muckrakers" Weiner starts with the basic hypothesis that the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies in general are good, justified and necessary for the defense of the country - the whole mom and apple pie American feel good story. The repeated abuses and failures of the agency, from the author’s perspective, are simply an obvious byproduct of the arrogance, incompetence and personal failings of individual leaders - failings that are often magnified by the byzantine bureaucratic structures inherent to a "free" and "open liberal democracy” like the United States.

In Weiner's account the CIA itself is not the problem, but rather the faulty individuals entrusted with its sacred task. Catastrophic failures in intelligence that have all too tragic consequences are a result of individual hubris, mission drift and plain old American cultural arrogance; the question of whether or not there should have even been a Cold War for example, simply doesn’t come up - even as the author openly admits that everything the CIA and the US government thought it knew about the Soviet Union turned out to be wrong and was based on lies produced to order by, yes the CIA. Leader after leader and planner after planner are revealed to be flawed human beings consumed by petty emotions or false assumptions and thus wholly unsuited for the job. Every U.S. president is a poor helpless dupe, grasping to extend his power to protect America from harm without realizing what he's now empowered the wayward CIA, lead by "the wrong men", to do next – even as those same men continually empower the CIA to do more and more damage in the “service” of protecting American interests abroad. In this worldview American “cloak and dagger” imperialism comes off as a sort of tragic accident; rather than a purposeful activity designed to bolster American power not just in a military sense, but in a global economic sense on behalf of American corporations as well.

In particular, Weiner's curious assessment of Allen Dulles as a bumbling incompetent obsessed with reckless covert military actions and derisive of the CIA's real work, gathering intelligence, paints a very different and somehow less harmful picture of the former CIA director than previously released accounts that delve deeper into the control Dulles exhibited over American media and the ruthlessness with which he marched men to their deaths in the dubious service of the Cold War on communism. While anyone who has read Dave Talbot’s “The Devil’s Chessboard” will have no real problem accepting that Allen Dulles was an unhinged psychopath whose vision was clouded by myopic hatred of the Soviet Union (and anti-capitalism as a whole), Weiner’s portrait of a gout-ridden dilettante withdrawing into a world of public relations and spy-novel trickery doesn’t line up very well with Dulles’s staggering level of (malignant and xenophobic) influence over multiple U.S. presidents and American foreign policy. We are after all talking about a man who might have had a hand in assassinating an American head of state to not only save the CIA but also prolong the Cold War in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Another good example of how the author’s proximity to his subject influences the way he presents the history of the CIA can be found in the way Weiner's suggestive prose repeatedly implies, but does not directly state, that Fidel Castro killed John F Kennedy; an extremely unlikely if not almost impossible scenario in light of the secret peace talks the Kennedy administration has since been revealed to have been trying to conduct with both Castro and Nikita Khrushchev.

It would be one thing if Weiner were just repeating information from CIA interviewees who believed Castro had Kennedy assassinated, but the problem is that Weiner himself is clearly purposely leaving a trail of clues towards his own belief that Fidel Castro had John F. Kennedy killed in retaliation for the CIA's botched plots to assassinate Castro; clues that are scattered throughout the entire book - it comes up at least a dozen times in the first 250 pages for example.

Naturally this theory has the benefit of not only indirectly absolving the CIA itself (and shifting the blame to Robert Kennedy) but also supporting the author’s primary thesis – namely that the CIA is horribly run and has at times been completely out of control but ultimately the agency is worth salvaging; a position that undoubtedly makes Weiner’s ex-CIA friends and sources happy no matter how much they protest otherwise.

In the author’s worldview, even the existence of the CIA is an unfortunate compromise for the pure as snow “democratic” Pig Empire, a result of America’s desperate need to fight the more talented, sophisticated and ruthless Soviet intelligence machine - an admission of inferiority that may seem scandalous on its face, but likely serves the CIA and its efforts to obscure the real, decidedly imperialist purpose of the agency just fine on the whole. Weiner could have and quite probably should have named the book “Legacy of Ashes: Confessions of the real CIA” or something similar because this feels like a confessional, or perhaps national therapy more than it feels like excoriation and condemnation.

Legacy of Ashes uses the agency’s own records and officers to gleefully point out all of the CIA’s already admitted mistakes, but the larger questions of how and why the world’s only superpower keeps letting dangerous cowboy intelligence officials “lead it” by the nose into “accidental” atrocity after “accidental” atrocity is left wholly unasked and unanswered. In the end you’re left with a book that largely consists of a full and detailed chronicle of the CIA’s known public history from the perspective of an exasperated but ultimately sympathetic parent who just wishes the agency would stick with the important work of gathering intelligence. 

So that simply leaves one question; did Tim Weiner sit down to write a limited hangout for the CIA at the time of its greatest need? I can’t definitively answer that question but truthfully, I doubt it. The lens through which Legacy of Ashes views the CIA seems to me wholly a product of who the author is, or rather who he’d simply have to be to end up a world renowned national security reporter for the New York Times; an influential media figure with the resources, time and gravitas to speak to hundreds of former CIA employees.

Weiner comes from a lived experience and professional environment where American imperialism is a dirty foreign smear, the CIA’s purpose is purely defensive and questioning whether or not the problem is American global hegemony itself, as opposed to rogue cowboys running an unsupervised spy shop, is strictly verboten. If the author were the kind of guy who thought the CIA deserved to be shattered into a thousand pieces and American imperialism is a source of global suffering, not global stability - well I highly doubt you’d have ever heard of his book.

All of which isn’t to say that Legacy of Ashes is a worthless book; if like myself you’ve read dozens and dozens of other books on not only the CIA but also U.S. imperialism, it’s fairly easy to tease out the facts from Weiner’s strictly liberal orthodox opinions and desire to ultimately preserve the agency. Unfortunately however if you are not an accomplished history student or largely unfamiliar with the minutiae of CIA’s history as a whole, it’s safe to say that Legacy of Ashes is only going to tell you part of the story - the what, and not the why.

This is because if you ever did figure out the real reasons why, you’d see no justifiable reason for America to even have a CIA.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog. Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord! 

[toshootforthestars]

via Lyta Gold and Nate Robinson, posted 20 May 2020:

ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases.

ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.

Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor.

Cuomo initially “reacted to De Blasio’s idea for closing down New York City with derision”, saying it “was dangerous” and “served only to scare people”. He said the “seasonal flu was a graver worry”. A spokesperson for Cuomo “refused to say if the governor had ever read the state’s pandemic plan”. Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say “Be careful, there’s a virus in China that may be in the United States?” even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that “had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more”.

But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests.

The mask mural is yet another publicity stunt mistaken by the press as a sign of leadership. On 29 April, Cuomo unveiled a wall of handmade cloth masks that had been sent to his office by concerned citizens all over America. He called it “a self-portrait of America. You know what that spells? It spells love.” Since the arrangement of masks doesn’t form words, the mural doesn’t actually spell anything, but it is a perfect symbol of Cuomo’s leadership failures. Handmade cloth face coverings are not as effective as N95 masks, of course, but if unsuitable for healthcare workers they would still have been perfectly appropriate to distribute to New Yorkers (some of whom have been brutally arrested for not wearing masks).

But Cuomo, rather than putting the needs of New Yorkers first, chose to tack hundreds of cloth masks on a wall as a monument to himself.

As the state now staggers to its feet, Cuomo has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” (which almost certainly means privatization), and with the ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt to – as Naomi Klein puts it – “permanently integrat[e] technology into every aspect of civic life”. All of this has happened without the democratic input of New Yorkers, who would likely prefer that the progressive legislators they elected could govern without interference, that their hospitals have enough money to function and that billionaires don’t infiltrate and control every element of civic life.

  .

There’s something disturbing about Cuomo being hailed as the hero of the pandemic when he should rightly be one of the villains. As Business Insider notes, he is now only able to attain praise for his actions because his earlier failures made those actions necessary.

He’s lauded for addressing a problem that he himself partly caused. Of course, part of this is because Donald Trump has bungled the coronavirus response even more badly, so that Cuomo – by not being a complete buffoon – looks like a capable statesman by contrast. But this is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by “whether they are better than Republicans”.

This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again.

(link to above chart & article)

[gwydionae]

Keith, Leadership, & Why the Writers Took It from Him and Gave It to a Clone

(Because I am a huge fan of overanalyzing characters that occasionally gets bored and wants to get such thoughts out of my head, I present to you this ridiculously long essay. I will be shocked if anyone manages to make it to the end without their eyes glazing over. Also a thanks to @chickadeecrowns for unknowingly helping me gather my final thoughts - I was losing steam after, like, two weeks of research and writing until our discussion helped me refocus. Do not feel like you have to read this monstrosity just because I tagged you. XD

Disclaimer: This was written by someone who is not strongly attached to any ships, so if you are looking for evidence supporting anything in particular, knock yourself out, but any you find is completely unintentional. Have a nice day.)

The more I think about it, the more I find myself loving Keith's character arc in Voltron: Legendary Defender. Early on I'd been ignoring some really interesting little nuggets of information that would get expanded on through season 4, so every time I've gone back, I've caught something new, something that would really help put Keith's character and motivations into focus. Why does Shiro think he'd be a good leader? Why is he so reluctant to become one? How on earth could the writers removing Shiro and forcing Keith into leadership only to demote him to not even a Paladin only a few episodes later possibly push his growth forward? Well, what happens beyond season 4 is, of course, anyone's guess, but let's see if we can't dig up some clues as to what the future just might hold for Keith in terms of leadership.

- Why doesn't Keith see himself as a leader? -

To start with, let's look at how the missions with Keith as the leader go. As we all know, he had a bit of a rough beginning. In "Red Paladin" he was having trouble piloting Black, and when Pidge continued to ask what they should do to take down Lotor's ship, he didn't have much of a strategy. It went further downhill in "The Hunted" when he ignored his teammates' advice and ended up rushing them all into danger. While they do eventually manage to escape and form Voltron, it was Allura who brought them all together, not Keith, and the mission was technically a failure as Lotor escaped.

But if his refusal to listen to his teammates was a self-admitted mistake in "The Hunted", it seemed he overcompensated for that in "Hole in the Sky". Rather than stepping in as leader, he constantly allowed Allura to make ill-advised decisions throughout the episode, even after seeming to know that the Alteans from the alternate reality weren't to be trusted. The mission was, again, a failure as Lotor got the comet like he wanted. And the events of "Tailing a Comet" only make things worse. While we do finally get to see him leading a successful mission at the beginning - the only one we as an audience are shown - in the end Lotor again ends up one step ahead and flying off with the Sincline ship. At this point, Keith has yet to lead a successful mission in which Lotor is involved, and Shiro is back with the group.

Keith being adamant about Shiro taking back the Black Lion in "Code of Honor", therefore, shouldn't be much of a surprise. For now, though, let's look at the decisions he makes on his second mission with the Blade of Marmora that we are shown. While he is not the leader of this team, he still offers up his advice to Kolivan - stay and plant the tracker despite how fishy the whole situation is. Kolivan trusts him, and in the end Regris gets killed and the mission is - again - a failure. In fact, to further put salt in the wound, Kolivan had warned Keith previously about risking his life to save another and endangering himself. Keith wanted to drag Regris out before the bomb went off which would have gotten himself killed, but Kolivan stopped him, saving his life. Both decisions he tried to make on this one mission would have lead to disaster, and with as poorly as his choices as the leader of Voltron have panned out so far, this really ends up feeling like the straw that finally broke the camel's back. We don't see Keith take on a leadership role again until the very end of the season.

Alright, so Keith's stint as a leader wasn't exactly successful from a results standpoint, that's not too hard to see, but while that might explain why he didn't think he was a good leader by the time we hit the 4th season, why did he think he was so unsuited for it before that? Well, these aren't the only decisions he's made that could be deemed questionable, especially in retrospect. Back in "Fall of the Castle of Lions" we see Keith make his first mission-based decision since becoming a Paladin - check on the Arusians' village which they claim is being attacked. While in the moment this seemed important, it turned out to be a ruse which caused both Keith and Allura to be trapped outside the castle while Sendak took it over, and ultimately, as Lance would comment later, even "the mice did more than [him]". The choice itself wasn't wrong, but hindsight is always 20/20, and someone like Keith would likely look back on his uselessness during the situation and deem the decision to leave the castle defenses severely thinned a poor one.

Later in "Collection and Extraction" he runs off on his own - against his teammates' wishes - and winds up needing to be rescued. They end up losing Allura during this mission, and while Keith's extraction may not have played any part in that, it's also possible the Green Lion could have gotten to Shiro and Allura before she was captured had Pidge not have had to make a detour. Keith would go off to do his own thing against the wishes of his teammates twice more, once in "The Black Paladin" where he decides to go head to head with Zarkon himself, and again in "The Ark of Taujeer" where he feared his presence was putting the team in danger. Against Zarkon he nearly got himself killed and the Red Lion destroyed, and when proven wrong about his fears of Zarkon tracking him, his impatience to make up for his mistake pushed him to use the booster fuel on the pod which promptly exploded and left both him and Allura stranded and the rest of the team without Voltron. There were bright sides to both decisions - Keith did save the Black Lion from Zarkon in the former, and they were able to pinpoint how they were being tracked as a result of everything that happened in the latter - but both could easily have lead to disaster.

"The Black Paladin" was not the only time he put himself, and subsequently Voltron, at risk, either. The entirety of "The Blade of Marmora" is about Keith risking his life for personal knowledge, and in "Best Laid Plans" he volunteers to go on what Kolivan calls a "suicide mission". The latter, of course, gets sanctioned by Shiro, but the former is the exact opposite. While Shiro may not have stopped him from going through with the Trials of Marmora, it was clear he was against them, a "selfish" endeavor as the illusionary Shiro puts it. The results of "Best Laid Plans", however, are more comparable to what happened with the Arusians back in season 1. The Galra had already switched the codes in an attempt to lead Thace into a trap, so while Keith did make it to the central hub, he was unable to complete the mission. Thace was the one who rigged the room to blow and sacrificed himself while Keith had to hurry back to his Lion. His declaration of "Thace did it" diminishes his own hand in everything, same as Lance's comment did after defeating Sendak.

While a lot of these decisions didn't really end up being a detriment, and some, in fact, had quite positive results, it's easy to second guess all of them after the fact. Nearly all of these decisions were made based on his instinct, and as a leader, such instinctual decisions will now have direct effects on his team. It is no longer him offering to do something dangerous or risky by himself, it is him instructing others to do so as well. The additional responsibility can make such choices seem like bad ideas even if he did actually get some good results.

It is interesting to note how all of his decisions, both before and during his stint as leader, affect how Keith acts during the final two episodes of season 4. In "Begin the Blitz" we see him comfortably back in the role of a follower, a member of the Blades taking orders and doing his part to make sure the mission is a success until the cannon they've taken over ceases to be operational early on in "A New Defender". Once that happens, we can see he gets a bit antsy, asking Coran if anyone needs back up, getting suspicious of the stopped battlecruiser, and even sounding a bit panicky when he can't reach Voltron. He then jumps back into the leadership role - this time voluntarily - taking charge of the situation by leading the rebels against Haggar's ship.

That is, until his own ship is damaged. After that, his countenance changes and we can visually see his confidence wane. It's almost like that hit woke him up, reminding him of all of his previous failed and/or dangerous missions, and instead of leading others into a risky situation based on his instincts, he puts his own life on the line. For a moment, in the heat of battle, he was a true leader, but by the end he chose to sacrifice himself instead of potentially leading others to their deaths. Based on the examples from earlier in the series I listed above, it's not hard to guess why.

- How do Keith's relationships with the others affect his leadership? -

Keith, however, does not live in a void. While it is important to view his own personal decisions, it is even more important to understand how he reacts to others and why. I don't think anyone would argue the fact that Keith feels closest to Shiro - they have a shared, unknown history that has been hinted at in multiple episodes. All the way back in "The Rise of Voltron", Keith admits to feeling lost once he disappeared on Kerberos and in "Across the Universe" implies that his life would have been worse if Shiro hadn't been in it. We see him opening up to Shiro emotionally in "The Blade of Marmora" as well - while he's not actually talking to the real Shiro, Keith is willing to be frank with him about his connection to the knife and why it's so important to him, getting visibly upset when Shiro finally turns his back on him. And once Shiro is gone, we hear Keith admit that he was the one person that never gave up on him in "Changing of the Guard". Aside from that, we also see that Keith is willing to take his advice to heart; repeating "patience yields focus" at the beginning of season 2 when Shiro first recited it to him in the first episode of season 1 is a prime example.

Keith is likely able to open up to Shiro in such a way thanks to how much faith Shiro is constantly showing in him. In “Fall of the Castle of Lions”, when Keith makes the decision to help the Arusian village, Shiro allows him to go, trusting him to handle that situation while he stayed behind to watch the castle. In “Best Laid Plans” Shiro again trusts Keith with an important mission. When Keith volunteers to shut down the central hub, rather than trying to talk him out of it like Kolivan, he accepts Keith’s conviction and not only allows him to go but helps clear a path so he can get there. Even when Shiro clearly doesn’t like Keith wanting to go through the Trials of Marmora, he still trusts him, allowing him to do it rather than forcing him to back down. Shiro being so willing to trust Keith is what allows Keith to be so open with Shiro in return.

Keith does not share this sense of comfort with anyone else, however. He winds up living in the desert all by himself once he's booted from the Garrison, and while not unfriendly with his fellow Paladins once he meets them, he often keeps to himself, trying to hide things that are bothering him from the rest of the team. The first big example we have of this doesn't appear until season 2 when he conceals the fact that he has a knife with the Blade of Marmora symbol on it, even going so far as to try and secretly investigate it without anyone finding out in "Space Mall" and running off without explaining the real reason why in "The Ark of Taujeer". Even when Allura directly confronts him and it's just the two of them, he still doesn't actually share what is really bothering him, like the knife, where it came from, what it means, and if Zarkon is somehow tracking him through it. "The Belly of the Weblum" is another example of Keith avoiding a heavy conversation, keeping quiet and to himself before heading out on the mission with Hunk and then trying to drop the subject of his Galra heritage once Hunk brings it up.

What is interesting, though, is that once Shiro is gone, we see the others actively approaching Keith more, and not just because he's the leader. In "Changing of the Guard" we see a Keith who is ready to blow up at anyone at any moment, but by the end of the episode, we still see the rest of the team going to him, trying to talk to him. In the past, this was Shiro's "job". Keith still doesn't open up, but he does acknowledge their support by agreeing they have to move on. In "Red Paladin", while everyone supports the Black Lion's decision to make Keith the leader, Lance actually expands on that, giving him a little pep talk and not just a quick "congrats". Keith, however, still doesn't say anything. It's not until "The Hunted" when it's just the two of them lost on a strange planet that Keith finally breaks his silence, opening up and admitting to Lance that everything is his fault, that he should have listened to everyone else - and, again, Lance does his best to help. He doesn't sugar coat it, he agrees it's Keith's fault, but he also doesn't allow him to dwell on it. After interacting, literally living together for 27 episodes, this is the first time Keith allows himself to seek out and accept emotional support from anyone other than Shiro. This should be a big turning point.

But then Shiro comes back. This was his rock, his emotional support for a long time, but instead of returning to that role, Keith finds himself immediately at odds with Shiro. After the failed mission to get the comet back from Lotor in "Tailing a Comet" in which Shiro constantly overruled Keith's decisions, we see Shiro trying to talk to him about it. But this conversation is different from those previous. In the past, Keith would apologize and try to take Shiro's criticisms to heart, like in "The Ark of Taujeer" and "The Blade of Marmora", but this time he merely says that he thought he had it under control. When Shiro clearly does not agree, his words, instead, turn self-destructive: "I'm no good at this." And this time not even Shiro trying to tell him otherwise will convince him that it's not true. After all, Shiro's actions - not allowing Keith to lead as he sees fit - speak louder than his words.

By "Code of Honor", it is obvious that, in Keith's mind, he has lost all of his emotional support. He is openly talking back to Shiro, trying to voice his concerns about the new form of quintessence, and Shiro not only brushes him off but berates him for not instantly following his orders. The only glimpse of this sort of behavior we've had previously was during the tense mission to get the comet/ship from Lotor, otherwise always treating him with the utmost respect. This shift in their relationship is huge.

But it's not just Shiro. Everyone is giving him the cold shoulder, and Keith, in turn, has gone right back to bottling everything up. Even when Allura directly confronts him about it, he tries to cut off the conversation. When she continues anyway, he remains silent. The walls he used to let come down around Shiro on occasion, the walls that Lance, at least, had finally made a dent in, were back up and stronger than ever.

But what exactly lead to this, and why does it matter in terms of his leadership capabilities? That's simple - while the team may have attempted to support Keith emotionally, they never really trusted him as their leader. And for someone struggling in a position he was forced into, that lack of trust says a whole lot more than the occasional pep talk.

When they first decided to find a new pilot for the Black Lion in "Red Paladin", initially no one wanted Keith to be the leader. Sure, once he was given the job they went with it, offering polite congratulations, but after stuff like this:

Lance: Keith would be the worst leader of Voltron! Pidge: Yeah! We all have our thing! Keith's the loner...

Lance: I'm being completely serious when I say I do not want you to lead me anywhere!

Can you blame him for not seeming to believe their acceptance of him as leader? Not to mention the second guessing or completely shooting down all of his ideas when on a mission. In "The Hunted" this makes sense as Keith is genuinely acting reckless, though a less abrasive approach might have had a better chance at working than insults, sarcasm, and yelling. But in both "Hole in the Sky" and "Tailing a Comet", two of the three remaining missions in which we see him actively leading, they still don't actually let him lead. Taking advice from teammates is one thing, but they aren't giving advice; they are undermining his authority.

Now, the first thing to bring up about the situation in "Hole in the Sky" is that there's only one person ignoring Keith: Allura. And, to be fair, she has challenged Shiro in the past as well ("Collection and Extraction" and "Shiro's Escape"), but in the first case, Shiro simply agreed to let her go on the mission, and in the second, no matter how stubborn she - and everyone else - was, Shiro still had the final say. You could also cut her some slack in that this is the first time she's seen another Altean since waking up on Arus, and that obviously is going to be deeply meaningful to her. But it is still true that at least five times Keith voices his concerns over what is going on ("I think this might be a trap." "But you're taking away their free will!" "Maybe you should think about this, Allura." etc), and every time she ignores his advice. This shows a distinct lack of trust in Keith's leadership, choosing to trust strangers instead, and her talk with him at the end of the episode doesn't help. While it's likely that Allura was talking out of her own guilt for what happened, try to think of what she says from the perspective of a new, young leader that doesn't feel up to the task and has yet to be shown leading a successful mission:

Keith: Allura, you did the right thing. Couldn't let Hera get that ore. Allura: But now Lotor has it. Keith: You didn't know. Allura: That is the problem! We never know. And that is exactly why my father sent the Lions away so many years ago, to avoid this reality. I finally understand... Keith: We'll get it back. Allura: But if we don't? Lotor is always one step ahead of us. He has a plan for that ore, and if he succeeds, the Galra will finally have a weapon as powerful as Voltron.

I doubt what she said was meant to be taken this way, but her words can easily be misconstrued as a distrust in Keith's leadership, an open declaration that she thinks he isn't up to the job of stopping Lotor as he has been the one in charge since Lotor first appeared and they’ve come up empty handed. I'd be surprised if he didn't take them that way considering her brushing off his advice ever since getting the distress call, on top of his own misgivings about being a leader.

"Tailing a Comet", however, is different, because it not only showcases the lack of trust the other Paladins have in him, it specifically highlights how much more trust they have in Shiro as their leader. We know from the first two seasons that they completely trust Shiro; I don't think I have to list evidence to prove that. But this episode pits Keith and Shiro against each other, and there is a very clear winner.

Every member of the team shoots down one of Keith's ideas in favor of what Shiro wants at least once on just this single mission. Keith wants to check the ship for Lotor, but Shiro says to go back to the Lions to form Voltron; Allura agrees with Shiro. Then Keith wants to stay behind and keep looking while sending the rest of them back, which, again, Shiro disagrees with; this time Lance, Hunk, and Pidge all side with Shiro. When fighting the ship made from the comet, Keith wants to destroy it first and then the teludav while Shiro says there's no time for that; Allura is again the one who backs Shiro's plan. At the end of the mission, we know at least both Keith and Pidge wanted to go after the ship made from the comet, but Shiro stops them, telling them to come back so they can figure out what is going on. We don't actually see who agrees with Shiro, but it's obvious they don't all get on board with Keith and Pidge's idea as they ultimately do abandon the pursuit of the ship.

The only decisions Keith makes that do not get questioned are 1.) him telling the team to leave Lotor's generals and get to the Lions - which, might I remind you, was Shiro's plan to begin with - and 2.) Keith's plan to destroy the teludav, which no one could question as he didn't tell anyone what he was planning to do. And, to be fair to Lance, he is shown going directly to Keith for his advice as a leader twice in this one episode (once before the mission to talk about the "extra" Paladin and once during the mission where he specifically says, "Keith, what should we do?" only to have Shiro cut in with an answer); the only time he openly agrees with Shiro is when Keith wants to split from the team, a decision everyone disagrees with. But the amount of trust shown for Shiro's leadership is still far greater than what is shown for Keith's, and this is all just from one mission.

By "Code of Honor" it is clear that Keith has no control whatsoever, despite still being the pilot of the Black Lion, and the biggest indication of this is not in any actual mission but rather the unknown status of Lotor and how Shiro treats it. In "The Hunted", "Tailing a Comet", and "The Legend Begins", Keith makes it very obvious that Lotor is his number one priority. He states this directly several times, ending season 3 by saying, "No matter what, we have to stop [Lotor]." But it is obvious by the beginning of season 4, months later, that this has not been Voltron's priority. They are escorting cargo ships and putting on shows while the Blades are the ones actively trying to investigate the Galra and Lotor. In fact, when the Blades contact them about an important, covert mission involving a Galra ship far off the normal supply routes - one that Shiro apparently deemed important enough to be willing to send Voltron out on, might I add - Lance gets upset at Keith ditching a show for it, Shiro allows him to go but also tells him to hurry back and then looks unhappy when he doesn't make it to Reiphod, and Allura, while acknowledging the Blades' work as important, still lectures him on choosing it over the show-of-arms despite knowing exactly where his priorities have been all along - hunting down and stopping Lotor.

Between Keith losing his emotional rock in Shiro, the support that he was just beginning to open up to from the other Paladins disappearing upon Shiro's return, and the obvious way they trust Shiro to make important decisions over him, Keith's bond with his teammates reaches an all time low. He feels more disconnected from them than ever, and while it may be easy to think that his distancing himself from them is the cause, this is something we are shown that he is struggling with before he joins the Blades. The people that are supposed to be on his team back Shiro. How can one lead when they don't have the trust or support of their teammates?

- Why would Shiro think that Keith would be a good leader? -

With everything presented so far, it seems pretty obvious that Keith isn’t wrong in thinking the Black Lion made a mistake in choosing him to lead Voltron, doesn’t it? But Shiro said several times (“Across the Universe”, “The Blade of Marmora”) that he wanted Keith to be his successor, so he must have seen something in him that supported that. While it’s possible that some of this belief stems from a time before the Kerberos mission, there is actually a fair amount of evidence in the show already that proves that Shiro isn’t simply playing favorites.

The earliest sign comes all the way back near the beginning of season 1 in “Return of the Gladiator”. It’s not a very long scene, and if you zone out for a moment you could miss it, but once Keith, Hunk, and Lance are all in their Lions and on their way to help Shiro and Pidge, Keith is the one to speak up, directing the other two with Lions to "lay down some cover fire so [Shiro and Pidge] can get out of there". It doesn’t feel like a big thing, but it is important to note that he voluntarily steps up and neither Hunk nor Lance question it; they instantly follow his lead.

And this isn’t the only time this happens. It occurs again in “Blackout” after Shiro and the Black Lion are incapacitated. Keith is the one to rally everyone else into protecting Shiro and preventing Zarkon from getting the Black Lion. At this point he is well aware that Shiro wants him to succeed him if necessary, but the audience doesn’t know whether or not Keith is thinking about this when he takes over. But whether he is or not, he still does it, and the four of them do in fact manage to hold off Zarkon long enough for Shiro to return and steal the black bayard.

The third time I have already touched on. In “A New Defender”, when he finds he is unable to contact Shiro and the rest of Team Voltron, he takes matters into his own hands. He takes a ship and manages to convince Matt and the rebel fighters to follow him to Haggar’s battlecruiser. They barely know each other, but he is still able to quickly gain their trust, allowing him to lead them into what they have to know is going to be a tough battle. Not just anyone could pull this off. Keith’s conviction and confidence are all it takes to convince others to follow him.

But that doesn’t just apply to the rebels. 26 episodes previous Keith showed this same conviction and confidence to another: the Black Lion. We know full well that not just anyone can pilot any Lion, and this goes for Paladins as well. But in “Across the Universe” when Shiro was being attacked by creatures and Keith was without his own Red Lion, he didn’t even hesitate to walk up to the Black Lion instead.

“I know I’m not Shiro, but he’s in trouble. We need to help him.”

This was not a command or a request. Keith simply stated the facts, never doubting that the Black Lion would allow him in the pilot chair in order to save Shiro. This is the confidence we see lacking from his actual time as the leader, and clearly it’s not because he lacks it altogether, but we’ll cover why it might be missing a little later.

Aside from these instances, there are at least two other times in the first two seasons where Keith is with another team member while Shiro is not around. The first is in “Return to the Balmera”; he and Lance are sent off together as part of the mission, needing to stop the Galra fighters from leaving their hanger and then head further into the Balmera. Despite the fact that these two aren’t exactly getting along super well at this point, when Keith tries to rush in and Lance stops him, revealing his plan to shut the doors, rather than protesting, Keith admits that Lance is right and follows his lead. This is proof that Keith is willing to listen to his teammates’ suggestions and take them to heart.

A similar thing happens in “The Belly of the Weblum”. Keith understands that he needs to follow Hunk’s instructions if they are going to have any chance of getting the scaultrite, and he is constantly looking to him for advice. Alternatively, Hunk isn’t always good at staying on task, and while Keith may have rushed them a bit, he does manage to keep Hunk focused on the mission even when he starts to freak out, even going so far as to tell a joke to calm him down. And by the end, Keith openly acknowledges how important Hunk was to the mission, making sure to tell him so. Hunk may have been more helpful, but Keith was definitely in command during this episode.

Now, I bring those two points up, but they clash quite a bit with what we see in “The Hunted”. I feel like the reason for this is because in both of those cases Keith had nothing to prove while once he actually becomes leader he feels like he has to take charge. This is the first mission that he initiates, and backing down would make him seem unsure of himself. However, by the end of it we do see him turning a corner. He admits to Lance that he was wrong and then works to fix it, praising Allura for reuniting them all and then rallying everyone into forming Voltron. This is where he starts to learn that he has to balance his desires as a leader with the will of his teammates, not simply rule them with an iron fist because he’s in charge.

And, finally, we do see him as the leader of a successful mission of his own. The first few minutes of “Tailing a Comet” go smoothly, with everyone working together as a unit, and once it’s over he makes sure to praise Pidge for completing their objective. It took him a bit to fine tune it, but we do see solid evidence that Keith is able to trust his teammates, listen to their advice, act accordingly, and even give them positive reinforcement when it’s all over. Having this connection with his fellow Paladins is essential to not only forming Voltron but just simply being a great leader in general.

On top of all of this, there is one other sign we get that indicates that, if nothing else, Keith’s heart is in the right place. In “The Blade of Marmora” we see Keith constantly going after what he wants, choosing to seek knowledge rather than genuinely try to form an alliance with the Blades. But at the very end of his trial, what he wants is finally right there waiting for him, his illusionary dad holding out the knife and telling him to wait for his mom who will tell him everything. Except there’s a large Galra attack literally right outside his window. Keith does stall for a bit, trying to get the answer now rather than waiting, but in the end, he turns to leave. Keith leaves his absent father who he hasn’t seen in years, who has all the answers he’s been searching for, and returns to the Red Lion because while he was putting his own self at risk, it was ok, but now? Staying would have meant more deaths at the hands of the Galra, and he wasn’t going to selfishly stand around when he could do something about it. In the end, Keith chooses to risk his life to save people, even at the cost of what he most desires. He chooses to fight for the sake of others, and that most certainly is a quality the leader of Voltron should possess.

- What does all of this mean for Keith's future? -

So now we know that Keith does have the potential to be a good leader, but for various reasons he wasn't quite able to pull out the fullness of that potential while piloting the Black Lion. Why is that? If you look at all the evidence brought up earlier, it all centers around one key concept: trust. Keith does not trust himself and the others don't trust him. The times he has had success rallying people around him is when he has no time to doubt himself and shows the confidence and trust in others needed to inspire them to follow. So why is he only like this sometimes? What is holding him back? There are honestly probably a lot of things that contribute to his overall trust issues, but there is one person specifically during seasons 3 and 4, the ones he was meant to take charge, that held him back, even if it wasn't always intentional.

Shiro.

As I mentioned before, Shiro was Keith's emotional rock, someone he deeply respected and looked up to. It is so important that he had a figure like this in his life. But the problem comes in when Shiro disappears at the end of season 2. There is no body, no sign of an actual death, no closure. Keith is left unable to accept that Shiro is gone because there is no evidence that he won't someday return. Rather than being handed a team when he is ready to take the reins, Keith is thrust into the leadership role unwillingly, having to follow in the direct footsteps of someone he trusted more than anyone else, someone who had just lead the team in a battle to defeat Zarkon himself. Keith is at a loss as to how to handle this as he doesn't want to mourn Shiro as he may not actually be dead, he doesn't want to take Shiro's team as he might someday come back, and on top of that he doesn't think he has a chance of being a successful leader if even this person he deeply respected didn't come back from battle. Keith could not keep Shiro, the person he cared about the most, safe, so how can he look after an entire team?

This is why the trust issues crop up from the get go. Shiro's support is what buoyed Keith's confidence, and now that rug has been pulled out from under him. He has never had a very strong, personal connection with his team members previous to this, and if you combine that with his own doubts in himself, it leads to a downward spiral. And worse, he doesn't seem to understand how to build that connection with anyone else.

Luckily, Keith has Lance on his team, and as it's been pointed out, Lance specifically offers his support on a number of occasions. It takes Keith a while to warm up to the idea, but he does actually start to be more open around him, and this in turn starts to build his confidence back up. Not a lot, as evidenced in his inability to take charge in "Hole in the Sky" despite his misgivings, but enough that he does forcefully assert his opinions in "Tailing a Comet", even if to no avail.

But this is the point in his development that most seems to confuse people. After showing that trust slowly starting to build, why would the writers take it away again by reintroducing Shiro? Isn't this just a huge step backwards? What sort of rebound could they give him that isn't a rehash of what just happened in season 3 or putting him right back where he was in seasons 1 and 2? What was the point? There is at least one possibility that would not only tread new ground but would also directly confront the biggest obstacle keeping Keith from growing.

We the audience knows there is something wrong with Shiro - the clone theory, I feel, having the most evidence in its favor. Keith, however, does not. Not yet, anyway. But imagine for a moment the sort of things that would go through Keith's mind if he found out. He says he believed that Shiro was the rightful leader of Voltron, but that's not what his actions say in "Tailing a Comet". If Keith really felt that following Shiro's orders was the best course of action, he would have done so without hesitation. But he is so used to trusting Shiro that after weeks, months of being overruled, it's easy for him to think that it's because he must be wrong and Shiro must be right. But if Shiro is a clone planted among them by the Galra, that turns everything on its head. If Shiro's actions, which conflicted with Keith's, were made to further the Galra Empire, then Keith wasn't wrong after all. It wasn't that he was being a bad leader and making poor decisions, it was that he was so blinded by his trust in Shiro that he just assumed he was.

This is exactly the sort of thing that would galvanize Keith, remind him that the real Shiro listened to him, the real Shiro left Voltron in his care, the real Shiro trusted him. This fake had caused him to doubt himself, but if there's anything that could convince Keith to return willingly to a position of authority, it's standing up and leading the other Paladins against the person defiling Shiro's memory.

But it's not just about regaining the confidence in himself. The rest of the Paladins would also be reevaluating how they acted, realizing that Keith's instincts hadn't been wrong, and they too had simply been swept up in following Shiro simply because he was Shiro. I have my own theories as to who would suspect this Shiro was a fake first (Lance)/last (Allura)/etc, but the evidence supporting them are a bit thin to say the least; luckily, that's not really important. What is important is that unless Keith is the last to convert because he's stubbornly refusing to accept this Shiro as a fake and admit the real Shiro never came back (which would mean I evaluated him all wrong and he has far less confidence than I give him credit for), the others would very likely turn back to him, rallying around him to take down the impostor. This alone would help to rebuild their trust in each other, but obviously there would have to be more to it than just that.

Keith would have gone through losing his emotional support, slowly gaining a new group to lean on only to lose it to a Galra plant, detaching himself from anyone who cares about him as an individual, to suddenly gaining it all back and then some. You can't tell me that Keith wouldn't look back on his time of relative isolation with the Blades after that and feel blessed to have Team Voltron back in his life, likely comparing it to his time in the desert before they all found the Blue Lion and became Paladins. We don't know much from that time, but it's obvious he was happier with Voltron. And I feel his strengthened confidence combined with the joy from simply being back with everyone would make Keith a stronger, more open person, finally confiding in the team like they had tried to do for him when the Black Lion first chose him.

So why did the writers force Keith into leadership, take it away, and give it to a clone? In order for him to get a clear understanding of what trust really is, become "someone whose men will follow without hesitation", and discover exactly why Shiro was so willing to put his faith in a hot-headed fighter pilot.

(If you somehow made it this far, feel free to let me know of any mistakes - whether I missed conflicting evidence or just had grammar issues - and/or even add your own thoughts. Not everything I thought to put in made it into the final cut, and there were SO many tangents I was tempted to go off on that ultimately would have veered a bit too far off the main topic. Anyway. I’m sorry. XD)

[kingdomofbretonxrpg]

Congratulations Jo! We are delighted to welcome Felix LeTallec to provide self defence and martial arts training to the intrigued citizens of the City of Vannes in the Kingdom of Breton. Please complete our after acceptance checklist. We are looking forward to seeing you develop him! Please send in his blog within 48 hours!

Alias: Jo

Preferred Pronouns: They/Them

Age: 25

Timezone: (MST

Anything else? N/A

Character

Name: Felix LeTallec

Birthdate and Age: May 23rd, 47

Preferred Pronouns: He/Him

Faceclaim: JR Bourne

House Affiliation: Maine

Profession: Former Military Hand-to-Hand Combat Specialist, Self-Defense and Martial Arts Instructor

Claim: Unclaimed

Children: No Children

Designation: Dominant

Sexuality: Pansexual

What is their symbol?: Sword tattoo behind his left ear, Leather bracelet with sword emblem

Kinks: Rough sex, dirty talking, wrestling, power struggle, cat-mouse games, bondage, oral (giving and receiving), weapon play.

Anti-kinks: Partner sharing, bathroom play, age play, blood play.

Biography:

Felix was rather wild from a very young age. Full of energy and always climbing trees or getting into things he probably shouldn’t be. The household he grew up in meant he never experienced much hardship, a fact that both encouraged his somewhat reckless behavior but also afforded him the opportunity to explore the world without reservation.

Never particularly inclined to school or anything academically related, it was easy for Felix to make the decision to not pursue higher education and instead start a career with the Breton military. Though he’d never had the best grades, his parent’s money and perfect scores on all the physical tests allowed for him to enroll in an academy and begin a career as an officer. During this time, Felix discovered a certain passion for hand to hand combat and the various fighting styles of different nations around the world. After completing a year at the Breton academy, Felix found he was craving more involvement and was growing tired of remaining mostly idle. He didn’t have it in him to just be the good soldier, despite all of the training he was receiving.

Taking on a leadership role at a relatively young age, Felix quickly came tasked with the training of many others. Focusing on teaching them the skills they might need to survive if they got caught in a situation where they were forced face to face with one of their enemies. Only, as the years continued to drag on, Felix found himself growing tired of the politics he was forced to handle. He was training people to be machines designed to kill, when all the basis of the forms of martial arts he studied weren’t about being a weapon, they were about protecting yourself.

Retiring from his position from the military, Felix returned to Breton and realized just how much of his life he had put on hold. He was of a certain age, without a claim and without children. Socially, Felix felt out of his element and unsuited for a life that wasn’t fully focused on his craft. After years of living a disciplined life, adjusting back to regular life was much harder than originally expected.

Turning all his attention to a more positive outlet, Felix decided to focus on something that had once brought him joy. Studying as many martial arts styles as he could manage, collecting various knives and swords from around the world, and eventually beginning to teach classes with the hope that some of his knowledge would help others and reach back to the point of why he loved it in the first way. Still struggling to adjust and live a civilian life, he could at least focus his energy on his craft.

Writing sample: (Only required if using a premade bio so we can get a feel for how you write.)

[teeky185]

His record was terrible before coronavirus, but his abysmal handling of the crisis should get him thrown out of officeAndrew Cuomo may be the most popular politician in the country. His approval ratings have hit all-time highs thanks to his Covid-19 response. Some Democrats have discussed him as a possible replacement for Joe Biden, due to Biden’s perceived weakness as a nominee. And there have even been some unfortunate tributes to Cuomo’s alleged sex appeal.All of which is bizarre, because Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases. ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor. Cuomo initially “reacted to De Blasio’s idea for closing down New York City with derision”, saying it “was dangerous” and “served only to scare people”. He said the “seasonal flu was a graver worry”. A spokesperson for Cuomo “refused to say if the governor had ever read the state’s pandemic plan”. Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say “Be careful, there’s a virus in China that may be in the United States?” even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that “had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more”.But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests. As Business Insider documented:“Testing was slow. Nonprofit social-service agencies that serve the most vulnerable couldn’t get answers either. And medical experts like the former CDC director Tom Frieden said ‘so many deaths could have been prevented’ had New York issued its stay-at-home order just ‘days earlier’ than it did. On March 19, when New York’s schools had already been closed, Cuomo said ‘in many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.’”The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying “governors don’t do pandemics”. (Actually, some governors just don’t read their state’s pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo’s aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about “taking responsibility” (even when he obviously hasn’t), and his invisible good looks.> Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus beganThe mask mural is yet another publicity stunt mistaken by the press as a sign of leadership. On 29 April, Cuomo unveiled a wall of handmade cloth masks that had been sent to his office by concerned citizens all over America. He called it “a self-portrait of America. You know what that spells? It spells love.” Since the arrangement of masks doesn’t form words, the mural doesn’t actually spell anything, but it is a perfect symbol of Cuomo’s leadership failures. Handmade cloth face coverings are not as effective as N95 masks, of course, but if unsuitable for healthcare workers they would still have been perfectly appropriate to distribute to New Yorkers (some of whom have been brutally arrested for not wearing masks). But Cuomo, rather than putting the needs of New Yorkers first, chose to tack hundreds of cloth masks on a wall as a monument to himself.Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus began. He enabled the IDC (Independent Democratic Conference), a group of conservative Democratic state lawmakers, in allying with the Republican minority to block progressive legislation. (Cuomo denies any role in the IDC, but that stretches credulity.) Before the pandemic, he pushed through Medicaid cuts which shut down necessary hospital space in the name of “efficiency” despite the warnings of medical professionals. And on 3 April, as 3,000 New Yorkers already lay dead from the virus and hospitals like Elmhurst in Queens were overwhelmed with cases, Cuomo forced through further Medicaid cuts, slashing $400m from hospital budgets.As the state now staggers to its feet, Cuomo has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” (which almost certainly means privatization), and with the ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt to – as Naomi Klein puts it – “permanently integrat[e] technology into every aspect of civic life”. All of this has happened without the democratic input of New Yorkers, who would likely prefer that the progressive legislators they elected could govern without interference, that their hospitals have enough money to function and that billionaires don’t infiltrate and control every element of civic life.There’s something disturbing about Cuomo being hailed as the hero of the pandemic when he should rightly be one of the villains. As Business Insider notes, he is now only able to attain praise for his actions because his earlier failures made those actions necessary. He’s lauded for addressing a problem that he himself partly caused. Of course, part of this is because Donald Trump has bungled the coronavirus response even more badly, so that Cuomo – by not being a complete buffoon – looks like a capable statesman by contrast. But this is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by “whether they are better than Republicans”. This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again. * Lyta Gold is the managing editor and amusements editor of Current Affairs. Nathan Robinson is the editor of Current Affairs and a Guardian US columnist

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2WNadEE

[7newx1]

His record was terrible before coronavirus, but his abysmal handling of the crisis should get him thrown out of officeAndrew Cuomo may be the most popular politician in the country. His approval ratings have hit all-time highs thanks to his Covid-19 response. Some Democrats have discussed him as a possible replacement for Joe Biden, due to Biden’s perceived weakness as a nominee. And there have even been some unfortunate tributes to Cuomo’s alleged sex appeal.All of which is bizarre, because Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases. ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor. Cuomo initially “reacted to De Blasio’s idea for closing down New York City with derision”, saying it “was dangerous” and “served only to scare people”. He said the “seasonal flu was a graver worry”. A spokesperson for Cuomo “refused to say if the governor had ever read the state’s pandemic plan”. Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say “Be careful, there’s a virus in China that may be in the United States?” even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that “had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more”.But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests. As Business Insider documented:“Testing was slow. Nonprofit social-service agencies that serve the most vulnerable couldn’t get answers either. And medical experts like the former CDC director Tom Frieden said ‘so many deaths could have been prevented’ had New York issued its stay-at-home order just ‘days earlier’ than it did. On March 19, when New York’s schools had already been closed, Cuomo said ‘in many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.’”The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying “governors don’t do pandemics”. (Actually, some governors just don’t read their state’s pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo’s aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about “taking responsibility” (even when he obviously hasn’t), and his invisible good looks.> Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus beganThe mask mural is yet another publicity stunt mistaken by the press as a sign of leadership. On 29 April, Cuomo unveiled a wall of handmade cloth masks that had been sent to his office by concerned citizens all over America. He called it “a self-portrait of America. You know what that spells? It spells love.” Since the arrangement of masks doesn’t form words, the mural doesn’t actually spell anything, but it is a perfect symbol of Cuomo’s leadership failures. Handmade cloth face coverings are not as effective as N95 masks, of course, but if unsuitable for healthcare workers they would still have been perfectly appropriate to distribute to New Yorkers (some of whom have been brutally arrested for not wearing masks). But Cuomo, rather than putting the needs of New Yorkers first, chose to tack hundreds of cloth masks on a wall as a monument to himself.Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus began. He enabled the IDC (Independent Democratic Conference), a group of conservative Democratic state lawmakers, in allying with the Republican minority to block progressive legislation. (Cuomo denies any role in the IDC, but that stretches credulity.) Before the pandemic, he pushed through Medicaid cuts which shut down necessary hospital space in the name of “efficiency” despite the warnings of medical professionals. And on 3 April, as 3,000 New Yorkers already lay dead from the virus and hospitals like Elmhurst in Queens were overwhelmed with cases, Cuomo forced through further Medicaid cuts, slashing $400m from hospital budgets.As the state now staggers to its feet, Cuomo has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” (which almost certainly means privatization), and with the ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt to – as Naomi Klein puts it – “permanently integrat[e] technology into every aspect of civic life”. All of this has happened without the democratic input of New Yorkers, who would likely prefer that the progressive legislators they elected could govern without interference, that their hospitals have enough money to function and that billionaires don’t infiltrate and control every element of civic life.There’s something disturbing about Cuomo being hailed as the hero of the pandemic when he should rightly be one of the villains. As Business Insider notes, he is now only able to attain praise for his actions because his earlier failures made those actions necessary. He’s lauded for addressing a problem that he himself partly caused. Of course, part of this is because Donald Trump has bungled the coronavirus response even more badly, so that Cuomo – by not being a complete buffoon – looks like a capable statesman by contrast. But this is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by “whether they are better than Republicans”. This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again. * Lyta Gold is the managing editor and amusements editor of Current Affairs. Nathan Robinson is the editor of Current Affairs and a Guardian US columnist

[newsfundastuff]

His record was terrible before coronavirus, but his abysmal handling of the crisis should get him thrown out of officeAndrew Cuomo may be the most popular politician in the country. His approval ratings have hit all-time highs thanks to his Covid-19 response. Some Democrats have discussed him as a possible replacement for Joe Biden, due to Biden’s perceived weakness as a nominee. And there have even been some unfortunate tributes to Cuomo’s alleged sex appeal.All of which is bizarre, because Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases. ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor. Cuomo initially “reacted to De Blasio’s idea for closing down New York City with derision”, saying it “was dangerous” and “served only to scare people”. He said the “seasonal flu was a graver worry”. A spokesperson for Cuomo “refused to say if the governor had ever read the state’s pandemic plan”. Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say “Be careful, there’s a virus in China that may be in the United States?” even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that “had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more”.But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests. As Business Insider documented:“Testing was slow. Nonprofit social-service agencies that serve the most vulnerable couldn’t get answers either. And medical experts like the former CDC director Tom Frieden said ‘so many deaths could have been prevented’ had New York issued its stay-at-home order just ‘days earlier’ than it did. On March 19, when New York’s schools had already been closed, Cuomo said ‘in many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.’”The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying “governors don’t do pandemics”. (Actually, some governors just don’t read their state’s pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo’s aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about “taking responsibility” (even when he obviously hasn’t), and his invisible good looks.> Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus beganThe mask mural is yet another publicity stunt mistaken by the press as a sign of leadership. On 29 April, Cuomo unveiled a wall of handmade cloth masks that had been sent to his office by concerned citizens all over America. He called it “a self-portrait of America. You know what that spells? It spells love.” Since the arrangement of masks doesn’t form words, the mural doesn’t actually spell anything, but it is a perfect symbol of Cuomo’s leadership failures. Handmade cloth face coverings are not as effective as N95 masks, of course, but if unsuitable for healthcare workers they would still have been perfectly appropriate to distribute to New Yorkers (some of whom have been brutally arrested for not wearing masks). But Cuomo, rather than putting the needs of New Yorkers first, chose to tack hundreds of cloth masks on a wall as a monument to himself.Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus began. He enabled the IDC (Independent Democratic Conference), a group of conservative Democratic state lawmakers, in allying with the Republican minority to block progressive legislation. (Cuomo denies any role in the IDC, but that stretches credulity.) Before the pandemic, he pushed through Medicaid cuts which shut down necessary hospital space in the name of “efficiency” despite the warnings of medical professionals. And on 3 April, as 3,000 New Yorkers already lay dead from the virus and hospitals like Elmhurst in Queens were overwhelmed with cases, Cuomo forced through further Medicaid cuts, slashing $400m from hospital budgets.As the state now staggers to its feet, Cuomo has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” (which almost certainly means privatization), and with the ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt to – as Naomi Klein puts it – “permanently integrat[e] technology into every aspect of civic life”. All of this has happened without the democratic input of New Yorkers, who would likely prefer that the progressive legislators they elected could govern without interference, that their hospitals have enough money to function and that billionaires don’t infiltrate and control every element of civic life.There’s something disturbing about Cuomo being hailed as the hero of the pandemic when he should rightly be one of the villains. As Business Insider notes, he is now only able to attain praise for his actions because his earlier failures made those actions necessary. He’s lauded for addressing a problem that he himself partly caused. Of course, part of this is because Donald Trump has bungled the coronavirus response even more badly, so that Cuomo – by not being a complete buffoon – looks like a capable statesman by contrast. But this is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by “whether they are better than Republicans”. This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again. * Lyta Gold is the managing editor and amusements editor of Current Affairs. Nathan Robinson is the editor of Current Affairs and a Guardian US columnist

https://ift.tt/2WNadEE

[lorajackson]

Andrew Cuomo is no hero. He's to blame for New York's coronavirus catastrophe

His record was terrible before coronavirus, but his abysmal handling of the crisis should get him thrown out of officeAndrew Cuomo may be the most popular politician in the country. His approval ratings have hit all-time highs thanks to his Covid-19 response. Some Democrats have discussed him as a possible replacement for Joe Biden, due to Biden’s perceived weakness as a nominee. And there have even been some unfortunate tributes to Cuomo’s alleged sex appeal.All of which is bizarre, because Cuomo should be one of the most loathed officials in America right now. ProPublica recently released a report outlining catastrophic missteps by Cuomo and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, which probably resulted in many thousands of needless coronavirus cases. ProPublica offers some appalling numbers contrasting what happened in New York with the outbreak in California. By mid-May, New York City alone had almost 20,000 deaths, while in San Francisco there had been only 35, and New York state as a whole suffered 10 times as many deaths as California.Federal failures played a role, of course, but this tragedy was absolutely due, in part, to decisions by the governor. Cuomo initially “reacted to De Blasio’s idea for closing down New York City with derision”, saying it “was dangerous” and “served only to scare people”. He said the “seasonal flu was a graver worry”. A spokesperson for Cuomo “refused to say if the governor had ever read the state’s pandemic plan”. Later, Cuomo would blame the press, including the New York Times for failing to say “Be careful, there’s a virus in China that may be in the United States?” even though the Times wrote nearly 500 stories on the virus before the state acted. Experts told ProPublica that “had New York imposed its extreme social distancing measures a week or two earlier, the death toll might have been cut by half or more”.But delay was not the only screw-up. Elderly prisoners have died of coronavirus because New York has failed to act on their medical parole requests. As Business Insider documented:> Testing was slow. Nonprofit social-service agencies that serve the most vulnerable couldn’t get answers either. And medical experts like the former CDC director Tom Frieden said “so many deaths could have been prevented” had New York issued its stay-at-home order just “days earlier” than it did. On March 19, when New York’s schools had already been closed, Cuomo said “in many ways, the fear is more dangerous than the virus.”The governor has failed to take responsibility for the obvious failures, consistently blaming others and at one point even saying “governors don’t do pandemics”. (Actually, some governors just don’t read their state’s pandemic plans.) But much of the press has ignored this, focusing instead on Cuomo’s aesthetic presentation: his poise during press conferences, his dramatic statements about “taking responsibility” (even when he obviously hasn’t), and his invisible good looks.> Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus beganThe mask mural is yet another publicity stunt mistaken by the press as a sign of leadership. On 29 April, Cuomo unveiled a wall of handmade cloth masks that had been sent to his office by concerned citizens all over America. He called it “a self-portrait of America. You know what that spells? It spells love.” Since the arrangement of masks doesn’t form words, the mural doesn’t actually spell anything, but it is a perfect symbol of Cuomo’s leadership failures. Handmade cloth face coverings are not as effective as N95 masks, of course, but if unsuitable for healthcare workers they would still have been perfectly appropriate to distribute to New Yorkers (some of whom have been brutally arrested for not wearing masks). But Cuomo, rather than putting the needs of New Yorkers first, chose to tack hundreds of cloth masks on a wall as a monument to himself.Cuomo’s record was shameful long before coronavirus began. He enabled the IDC (Independent Democratic Conference), a group of conservative Democratic state lawmakers, in allying with the Republican minority to block progressive legislation. (Cuomo denies any role in the IDC, but that stretches credulity.) Before the pandemic, he pushed through Medicaid cuts which shut down necessary hospital space in the name of “efficiency” despite the warnings of medical professionals. And on 3 April, as 3,000 New Yorkers already lay dead from the virus and hospitals like Elmhurst in Queens were overwhelmed with cases, Cuomo forced through further Medicaid cuts, slashing $400m from hospital budgets.As the state now staggers to its feet, Cuomo has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine education” (which almost certainly means privatization), and with the ex-Google chief Eric Schmidt to – as Naomi Klein puts it – “permanently integrat[e] technology into every aspect of civic life”. All of this has happened without the democratic input of New Yorkers, who would likely prefer that the progressive legislators they elected could govern without interference, that their hospitals have enough money to function and that billionaires don’t infiltrate and control every element of civic life.There’s something disturbing about Cuomo being hailed as the hero of the pandemic when he should rightly be one of the villains. As Business Insider notes, he is now only able to attain praise for his actions because his earlier failures made those actions necessary. He’s lauded for addressing a problem that he himself partly caused. Of course, part of this is because Donald Trump has bungled the coronavirus response even more badly, so that Cuomo – by not being a complete buffoon – looks like a capable statesman by contrast. But this is the problem: for too long, Democrats have measured their politicians by “whether they are better than Republicans”. This sets the bar very low indeed, and means that Democrats end up settling for incompetent and amoral leaders who betray progressive values again and again. * Lyta Gold is the managing editor and amusements editor of Current Affairs. Nathan Robinson is the editor of Current Affairs and a Guardian US columnist

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Andrew Cuomo is no hero. He's to blame for New York's coronavirus catastrophe published first on http://landofourfathers.com/

[minervacasterly]

Queen Elizabeth I's education & the Women who influenced her: "Elizabeth's last stepmother, Katherine Parr, could not have been more different from poor, flighty Katherine Howard ... Like many elite, educated ladies, Katherine had a deep interest in religious progressiveness, composing her own prayers and meditations, and, as queen, holding a regular theological salon in her chamber. She was alsoconsiderably more interested than her predecessor in her stepchildren. Elizabeth's "towardness" was remarked on by many who knew her; now Katherine saw to it that from 1544, Elizabeth was able to share the lessons of her brother, Edward, under the tutelage of John Cheke, the humanist -and reformist- professor of Greek at Cambridge, who had gathered about him an intellectual circle which was to include some of the key figures of Elizabeth's reign. Elizabeth's tutors were both members of St. John's Cheke's college. William Grindal held the post until his death in 1548, after which he was replaced until 1550 by Roger Ascham, who left a detailed record of his studies with the future queen in a tract on education, The Schoolmaster, published in 1570. Ascham's book, which combines a perhaps surprisingly modern emphasis on a gentle and encouraging pedagogic method with an extraordinary depth and rigor, delineates the aims of a humanist education. For Ascham, Latin was the fulcrum of learning, and the purpose of its study, above all, is to achieve a command of expression which in turn will produce a polished clarity of reasoned thought. The student who began with Cicero's De Oratore: '...would not only take wholly away this butcherly fear in making of Latin but would also with ease and pleasure ... work a true choice and placing of words, a right ordering of sentences, and easy understanding of the tongue, a readiness to speak, a facility to write, a true judgment both of his own and other's doings.' Ascham was building on a tradition of reformed education which had begun in Italy in the mid-fifteenth century. There, the auctores octo, medieval tracts on education, had been replaced by classical texts to introduce children to the works of ancient writers, to the extent that, in 1443, the University of Ferrara ordained that only those who could prove their credentials in bonae litterae -humanist studies- might be admitted to teach. Ascham believed that an ideal education consisted of three interdepending strands: the Latin of Tully, the Greek of Plato and Aristotle, and the Holy Bible: "I never knew yet scholar that gave himself to like and love and follow chiefly [these] authors, but he proved both learned, wise and also an honest man." Or herself, maybe, for Elizabeth also profited from an advancement in ideas about women's learning which in England had found its most celebrated exemplar in the "school" established by Thomas More for his daughters and household, and which was known throughout Europe during the 1520s. More founded his system on the thorough method of double translation also adopted by Ashcam, whereby the student would translate from Latin or Greek to English and then retranslate their own rendering of the text. The curriculum followed in More's household was similar to that followed by Elizabeth, who, like More's daughters, read Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, and German, and studied mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy, music, and geography, while the study of grammar, rhetoric, and logic was utilized in practice by debate and "disputation." Crucially, More's practice supported his vied that women's intellectual capacity was in no way inferior to that of men ... Another important precedent in terms of Elizabeth's education was that of her older sister, Mary, whose studies were supervised by the Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives. Mary studied the writings of contemporary humanists such as Erasmus and More himself, as well as Plato and Aristotle, and she too was an accomplished linguist. When Mary was seven, Vives produced a precursor to The Schoolmaster entitled On a Plan of Study for Children, directed towards the education of a future monarch. Mary's accomplishments are less well known than those of her sister (not least because she boasted them less), but in her speeches as queen, it is possible to discern many of the rhetorical elements derived from her education, which Elizabeth herself was to imitate. An education equivalent to that received by the More girls or the Tudor princesses was obviously reserved for a very small number of women. But what made such an education extraordinary for those few was that, for the first time in England, women were possessed of an intellectual parity with men. Women's learning was not entirely unknown -indeed, during the early medieval period, convents such as Wilton had been the focus of education for elite women- but Latin culture had generally been reserved for men. One positive consequence for this was the promotion by royal and aristocratic women of vernacular culture, but Latin had always been the language of power, diplomacy, and the law. Joined by her knowledge of Greek, considered essential by humanists for a true understanding of the Bible, Elizabeth's intellectual weapons were thus as finely honed as those of any of her male contemporaries. Like her brother, Edward, with whom she shared her reading of Livy, Sophocles, and Demosthenes, Elizabeth was educated as a prince. As teh children's household progressed from one nursery palace to another in between visits to court, Elizabeth and Edward apparently devoured the tasks set for them (and, since they were royal children, they were presumably never lazy or bored). One account captures the peaceful industry of this time: "So pregnant ingenius were [Elizabeth and Edward] that they desired to look upon books as soon as they day began to break. Their morning hours were so welcome that they seemed to prevent teh night's sleeping for the entertainment of the morrow's schooling." Elizabeth was, however, excluded from the physical aspects of her brother's education. When Edward was called away to the "knightly" training which formed part of his own, but not his sister's, education, Elizabeth "in her private chamber betook herself to her Lute or Viol, and [wearied with that] to practice her needle." ... Elizabeth proudly displayed that education in her first extant letter, written in Italian to Katherine Parr in July 1544, The two had not seen one another for a year, Elizabeth being occupied with her studies and Katherine at court, where she was serving as regent while her ulcerous, lumbering husband was making his last stab at playing the chivalric hero on a vainglorious campaign in France ... She soon had her wish, being received by the king along with her sister Mary at Leeds Castle on his reeturn fromF rance, after which she returned to the schoolroom with Edward and began work on a project more ambitious than the Italian letter, a translation from the French of Le Miroir de l'ame pecheresse (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul) by Marguerite of Navarre, planned as a New Year's gift for Katherine. Twenty-seven pages of theological translation is an extraordinary achievement for an eleven-year-old, though the child Elizabeth is still visible in the obvious rush she made to complete her present, the spelling errors increasing as she hurried along. Elizabeth embroidered a beautiful cover for her work (which still exists), of silver thread on blue cloth, with "KP" in the center of four pansies. The charm of the presentation sits somewhat uneasily with the text itself, not least as it contains observations such as "Thou hast made separation of my bed and did put thy false lovers in my place and committed fornication with them." Elizabeth may have been a dab hand with a needle but there was never anything meek or ladylike about her mind. The pleasure and the terrors of the flesh were not then considered unsuitable material for princesses ... Elizabeth's translation of Marguerite of Navarre's work can be used as evidence of her own conversion to the reformed faith, which, for her, was always to be filtered through the pious prism of royal supremacy over the Church. During the Boulogne campaign in 1544, Elizabeth had been able to observe Katherine Parr in the role of regent, as a woman competently governing powerful men. It is also considered likely that she and Katherine were reading Le Mirori de l'ame pecheresse together. A letter from Katherine to Henry in which she explains her increasing adherence to the doctrine of justification by faith alone -one of the principal tenets of reformed religion- is linguistically and thematically similar to Marguerite of Navarre's work. Katherine's letter equates royal grace with divine grace -"I make like account with Your Majesty as I do with God." ... Like Katherine, Elizabeth would come to see the royal supremacy -the leadership of her father's Church- as a melding of sacred and worldly monarchy ... Elizabeth's next venture in translation was also a tribute to Katherine, a collection of the queen's own Prayers and Meditations into French, Latin, and Italian, this time as a gift to her father." Furthermore, in the first years of her reign, Queen Elizabeth I surrounded herself with some of the best learned women in England, the wives of his councilors, which included William Cecil's second wife, Mildred Cooke. During her last years she came to correspond regularly with Safiye Sultan who was one of the most powerful women in the Muslim world and had briefly reigned in her son's name when she had been his regent. At the time of England's alliance with the Muslim world, Mehmed was of age to rule on his own but he still relied on his councilors which included his mother. When Elizabeth I or her ambassador couldn't get through to him, she used his mother, knowing that she would put enough pressure on him to agree to her demands, or at the very least consider them. The two women expressed mutual admiration for each other. While Safiye wasn't queen regnant like her English counterpart, she still wielded a lot of power and like all the women in her life, Elizabeth I admired a woman as educated and highly accomplished as Safiye. Here is a letter of Safiye to Elizabeth I, thanking her for her gifts and praising her intellect: "I have received your letter...God-willing, I will take action in accordance with what you have written. Be of good heart in this respect. I constantly admonish my son, the Padishah, to act according to the treaty. I do not neglect to speak to him in this manner. God-willing, may you not suffer grief in this respect. May you too always be firm in friendship. God-willing, may [our friendship] never die. You have sent me a carriage and it has been delivered. I accept it with pleasure. And I have sent you a robe, a sash, two large gold-embroidered bath towels, three handkerchiefs, and a ruby and pearl tiara. May you excuse [the unworthiness of the gifts]." Elizabeth clearly benefited from her male tutors and the men who advocated for women's education, but she benefited from the women that came before and set the precedent for her to rule in her own right, and this includes (despite Elizabeth's strain relationship with her during her last years) her sister, Mary I of England. Source quoted: Elizabeth: Renaissance Prince by Lisa Hilton Additional Sources: Henry VIII and his Court by Alison Weir Elizabeth: Forgotten Years by John Guy The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman The Sultan and the Queen by Jerry Brotton