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xhxhxhx · 4 years ago

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Some Journeys to the West

Looking over the United Nations Convention against Torture today, I learned that China signed the Convention in 1985 and acceded to it in 1988, both times with some reservations. Those reservations are significant, but I think the accession is significant too.

By acceding to the Convention, China opened itself to periodic reviews of its progress. I think those reviews are interesting. They say some ugly things about China. I want to talk about the Convention, and torture in China, but first I want to ask a question:

Why did China sign the Convention in the first place?

Before anything, I think it’s important to remember how different the 1980s was, in China more than anywhere else.

China had just emerged from the leadership of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Community Party was looking for an alternative to his style of permanent revolution, which had left the country so deeply scarred. Mao had demand mass popular mobilizations to transform the economy, society, and the world. Each time he would kill millions. Each time he came back for more. The toll was immense. “Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal,” one party elder said. “Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. What can you say?”

Mao had threatened first the United States, then India, then the Soviet Union with total war. “How many people would die if war should break out?” he asked. A third of the world? Half? It didn’t matter. “If the worst came to the worst and half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist.” It was more than Leonid Brezhnev could bear. “With appalling airiness and cynicism he spoke of the possible destruction of half of mankind in the event of an atomic war,” he later remembered. It was 1969 and Mao was threatening war again. That was just how he was.

“I graduated from the University of Outlaws,” Mao told his doctor more than once. He certainly acted like it. He liked to think of himself as the Monkey King, the irreverent and mischievous protagonist of Journey to the West who makes war on the heavenly government of the Jade Emperor and pisses on the Buddha’s hand. “We need more Monkey Kings to disrupt the heavenly palace,” Mao said. Beijing’s Red Guards answered in kind: “Revolutionaries are like the Monkey King: their golden staff is powerful, their supernatural powers are sweeping, and their magic is omnipotent. They possess enormous supernatural powers, and we use our sorcery to turn the old world on its head, crush it into pieces, turn it into dust, create chaos and great disorder, the bigger the better!” They were as good as their word.

By the 1980s, the Chinese Communist Party had had quite enough of that, and so, rather less critically, had China. It was a different sort of time. China had a different style of leader. It got one, in the shape of a diminutive Sichuanese chain-smoking bridge player named Deng Xiaoping.

II.

Deng Xiaoping was an introvert. His daughter said he liked to keep his experiences to himself. He had enough of them. Deng was a veteran of the Long March, the Yen’an base, the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. He had been purged in the Jiangxi Soviet, in 1966 in the Cultural Revolution, and again after Mao’s death in 1976. He was a survivor. He survived Mao. Then he replaced him.

As the paramount leader of China, Deng was more of a reformist than either his predecessors or successors. He opened China to the world, brought the world to China, and started making China rich. China would learn from the world before threatening it with war. Deng backed a plan to send 10,000 students abroad, most of them scientists. “If a few run away, it doesn’t matter,” he said. It was enough that some who came back.

Under Deng, foreign investment flowed into China’s coastal provinces. He turned Guangzhou into a sort of open market, a Special Economic Zone. He got the idea after a Hong Kong company came to Guangdong to find a place to break up ships for scrap. After all, he said, “Wasn’t Yen’an a special zone?” By the end of the 1980s, about 50,000 Chinese managers were running factories for foreign investors.

Deng was also less of an autocrat than other Chinese leaders. There were nearly no statues of him in public buildings and nearly no pictures of him in private homes. There were few songs or plays about him. He kept that to himself.

In Communist China, the paramount leader is generally both president and general secretary, but Deng was neither. He gave the presidency to a nonentity and the secretaryship to Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. For a brief moment, the pair became the living embodiment of reform.

Hu liked to talk to intellectuals. (Mao said he “likes to talk.”) He went unannounced to the home of a student imprisoned after the 1976 Tiananmen Square protests and talked with him for hours about reform. During the Democracy Wall period, he invited leaders of the democracy movement to his home to talk politics. That was just what he was like. But he was probably a little too close to the intellectuals for his own good.

In 1987, widespread student protests forced Hu to resign. He seemed too close to them, a little too much of a Westernizer. (The suggestion wasn’t entirely unfair. Hu had once suggested the Chinese should drop their chopsticks and pick up knives and forks. It would be cleaner, he said.) The opportunistic Zhao said Hu had shown “timidity in the struggle against liberalism“. But Zhao had some reforms of his own. He called them “neo-authoritarian”. It was a strange name for a package that involved more devolution, more legalism, and more public consultation and dialogue. But in a way, it was reassuring. The name told the party its leaders intended to keep control.

The most important of Zhao’s proposals, the one Chinese political scientists called “the most wonderful”, was party democracy. Under Zhao, the Chinese would be elections with more candidates than there were seats. In a happy coincidence, in the first elections held under the new system, the deposed Hu Yaobang was returned to the Politburo and the Central Committee, and a high-profile hardliner was not. It seemed the reformers were still in command.

Under Zhao, the party agreed to remove the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin from Tiananmen Square after the regime’s fortieth anniversary celebrations in October 1989. He ordered the immediate removal of two Mao statues from Beijing University campus in the middle of the night, after at least one failed attempt to demolish them on the spot. Ideologically, Beijing was changing overnight.

It was, in other words, the perfect time for China to sign the Convention against Torture. China would change, however slowly. It would take the first steps towards a new style of authoritarianism. The Chinese Communist Party would keep control, but it would embrace reform and opening. That was the idea, at least.

Zhao didn’t make it to that October 1989. The Beijing Spring started with Hu’s funeral in April 1989 ended with Zhao’s arrest that June. Tiananmen Square revealed that the reformers were never really in command. Deng was. Behind reform and opening, behind party democracy, there was Deng. Less autocratic than Mao, but an autocrat all the same.

All through the Beijing Spring, Deng worried. He worried about the students. He worried about the party. And before anything else, he worried about control. On that fateful day in June, he turned on the students, on reform and opening, and on the world. China revealed itself for what it was and always had been. It was a Communist autocracy. It always would be.

III.

The Convention against Torture is short. China agreed to most of it. That has consequences.

That isn’t a high bar. The Soviet Union acceded to the Convention with the same reservations as China at the same time. But it wasn’t a bar we would have necessarily expected China to pass. Nor is it one we would expect China to pass today. Vietnam, Laos and Angola did not accede to the Convention until the 2010s. Iran and North Korea never have.

Under the Convention China acknowledges its obligation to prevent torture, to criminalize torture, to investigate and prosecute torture, and to fully instruct certain public officials about the prohibition against torture. Arts. 2(a), 4, 6, 10, and 12. China also acknowledges its obligation to provide certain procedures and remedies for torture: complainants have the right to petition and obtain impartial review from competent authorities; the government complainants and witnesses; victims have the right to adequate compensation; and evidence obtained by torture is admissible. Arts. 13, 14(1), 15.

However, China does not recognize the competence of the Convention Committee against Torture to review or investigate allegations of systematic torture in its territory. Arts. 20(1), 20(2), 20(3). Nor has China recognized Committee competence to hear allegations from other states or victims of state torture. Arts. 21, 22.

China is not alone in declining Committee review. Israel, Kuwait, Laos, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam did the same, along with some African and Caribbean states. The United States recognizes Committee competence over allegations of systematic torture and allegations from other states, but not from individual victims of state torture.

Despite those reservations, the Convention still provides for some review of China’s conduct. China must submit reports on its undertakings under the Convention and additional reports the Committee may request. Art. 19(1). The Committee can comment on those reports, China can reply, and the Committee can publish both its own comments and China’s replies. Arts. 19(3), 19(4).

The Committee is constituted as an expert tribunal. Art. 17(1). Although it has limited powers of investigation, the Committee poses questions, takes evidence, hears submissions, and arrives at reasoned conclusions. Its reviews thus present fairly comprehensive reviews of China’s progress.

They make for some interesting reading.

IV.

I read the 2015 Concluding Report on China, which is the most recent. It’s fairly direct about what’s happening in China.

In China, torture is commonplace. The Committee found that “the practice of torture and ill-treatment is still deeply entrenched in the criminal justice system.” In China, most allegations of torture involve police officers and their detainees in pretrial or unlawful custody. [20]

The Committee noted that China has a number of broadly-defined criminal offences, from “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” and “gathering a crowd to disturb social order” to more serious offences against national security. Chinese criminal law also includes broadly defined offences grouped under “endangering national security” and “terrorism”, whose scope is even more expansive than the statutory definition suggests. China declined to clarify the criteria it used to define these offences. [36]

The Committee found that many Chinese citizens, especially dissidents and minorities, were charged or threatened with such charges as forms of intimidation. [36] It heard “numerous reports from credible sources that document in detail cases of torture, deaths in custody, arbitrary detention and disappearances of Tibetans.” Although the Committee requested information on 26 such cases, China had only provided information on two. [40] During its hearings, seven human rights defenders who were planning to cooperate with the Committee were barred from travelling or detained on the grounds that their participation could “endanger national security”. [38]

Chinese police officers have enormous powers over criminal investigations and detention, with limited control by the judiciary. Because the Chinese criminal justice system depends on confessions, police officers face incentives to use torture to produce them. [20] (Significantly, police interrogations do not always need to be recorded, while the recordings themselves are selective, and audited by the police.) [34] And because the police run China’s detention centers, investigators face incentives to use detention the same way. [20]

Detainees can be arrested and detained for 7 days without charges and for a further 30 days before coming before a judge. [10] They do not have the right to speak to a lawyer upon detention, but only within 48 hours of asking for one. Chinese police constantly refuse detainees access to lawyers on State secrets grounds, even when no State security offence is charged. Nor is that right to counsel absolute. In cases of “endangering State security”, “terrorism” or serious “bribery”, the police have to grant the lawyer permission first. If they believe it might hinder their investigation or disclose State secrets, they can withhold permission indefinitely. [12] Those detainees can be placed in residential detention “at a designated location” for six months. Their family does not need to be told where they are being detained, or why. [14]

China told the Committee it considered solitary confinement a “management method.” In detention centers, all detainees at risk of self-harm or suspected of mental illness are placed in solitary confinement, as are those in China’s compulsory drug treatment centers who are not “reformed through education”. [26] On death row, detainees are always shackled, 24 hours a day. (The Committee praised China for abolishing the practice of harvesting the organs of the executed dead without their consent, but Committee expressed some concern that their consent might not be freely given). [49]

China declined the Committee’s requests for information on deaths in custody from torture and neglect. It did not provide complete information on torture complaints or any information on investigations on the number of investigations into complaints. [22] And it provided no statistics on deaths in custody or information about official investigations into deaths in custody. [24] Doctors in Chinese detention centers have incentives to suppress evidence of torture. In detention centers, the police verify doctors’ medical examinations, and doctors must report any signs of torture to the police. [16] China declined to provide information about the number of medical examinations overturned by prosecutors or objected to by family. [24]

Chinese detention extends beyond official detention. The Committee found extended use of alternative forms of administrative detention, such as “legal education centres”, “measures for the custody and education” of persons suspected of prostitution, “compulsory isolation in drug treatment centres” and compulsory psychiatric institutionalization. Police can put people in administrative detention without judicial process. [42] The Chinese Communist Party itself has a internal discipline system, shaunggui, beyond the official police investigation and detention system. It can summon and investigate officials outside the ordinary law enforcement system, interrogating them without counsel. [44]

Nor does Chinese detention regime end there. Beyond official or administrative detention, the Committee found a continuing practice of illegal detention in unrecognized and unofficial detention places. These are China’s “black jails.” China denies their existence and declined to provide any information on secret detention facilities or allegations of rape and death therein. [42]

Finally, China extradites to torture. North Korea is one of the few countries not to sign the Convention against Torture. Torture is common there. For those repatriated to the country, torture is systematic. The Committee received testimony from more than 100 North Korean nationals to that effect. It is not a country anyone should ever be deported to. In China, that deportation is policy. [46]

China rigorously and forcibly repatriates all North Korean nationals on its territory, identifying them as illegal migrants that have crossed the border solely for economic reasons. China declined to answer the Committee’s question about whether or not North Koreans are denied access to refugee determination procedures through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. [46]

Under the Convention, state parties must submit periodic reports every four years. Art. 19(1). In their 2015 Concluding Report, the Committee asked China to submit theirs by December 2019. [66] China hasn’t submitted one yet.

There have been five Concluding Reports on China already, across the decades since China acceded to the Convention in 1988. Some things have changed since then. Today Xi Jinping is both President and General Secretary, more powerful than any paramount leader since Mao Zedong. China is far wealthier and more powerful than it was then.

Others haven’t. China has refused to investigate excessive force and human rights violations by military officers during the suppression of the June 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. It told the Committee that its actions “were necessary and correct” and the case was “closed.” [53] That was a perspective Deng and Xi shared.

Like Deng, Xi worries. He even worries about the same things. He worries about the students. He worries about the party. And before anything else, he worries about control. That much is the same. But there is one important difference between them: Xi only has one face.

For a moment, Deng opened China to the world, opened the world to China, and made China rich. He made sure China would learn from the world before threatening it with war. He made space for reform. Then, in June 1989, he turned away from it all.

So Deng was two-faced. Maybe it was a survival tactic, maybe it was something else, but it was a second face, different from the first. Xi only has the one. He never believed in reform and opening. He was always the man Deng became in June 1989.

China’s 1988 accession to the Convention is the legacy of a moment when it seemed like China might become something better. The Committee Reports show how little it has done to improve.

I would like to read the next one. I wonder if we’ll ever see it.

Sources: United Nations General Assembly, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 10 December 1984, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1465, p. 85; United Nations Treaty Collection, IV-9: Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, status as at 08-07-2020 05:00:47 EDT; Secretary-General of the United Nations, Depository Notification issued February 24, 1987, C.N.314.1986.TREATIES-11 (noting Chinese signature of December 12, 1986); idem., Depository Notification issued November 9, 1988, C.N.228.1988.TREATIES-13 (noting Chinese accession of October 4, 1988); “Big Bad Wolf,” The Economist, August 31, 2006 (quotation slightly modified); Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, Vol. 2, The Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960 (Columbia, 1974), 10; Frank Dikötter, The Cultural Revolution, 1962-1976: A People’s History (Bloomsbury, 2016), 207; “Mao Zedong’s Speech at the First Plenary Session of the CCP’s Ninth Central Committee,” April 29, 1969, trans. Chen Jian, Wilson Center Digital Archive; Julia Lovell, Maoism: A Global History (Knopf, 2019), 55-56; Quinn Slobodian, Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany (Duke, 2012), 176; Jonathan Fenby, Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present (Ecco, 2009), 531, 535, 539, 564, 576, 577; Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton, 1994), 67, 75, 216-17, 220, 222-23; Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Belknap, 2011), 377; Nicholas D. Kristof, “Hu Yaobang, Ex-Party Chief in China, Dies at 73,” New York Times, April 16, 1989; United Nations Committee against Torture, “Concluding Observations on the Fifth Periodic Report of China,” distributed February 3, 2016; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Reporting Status for China, United Nations Treaty Body Database, accessed July 8, 2020.

Correction:

An earlier version of this post suggested that Poland had not recognized the competence of the Convention Committee against Torture to review or investigate allegations of systematic torture in its territory. That was an error. Poland does recognize the Committee’s competence to so.

Poland ratified the Convention without reservations in July 1989. Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN SG), Depository Notification issued August 27, 1993, C.N.192.1989.TREATIES-9 (noting Polish declaration of July 26, 1989). Although did not formally withdraw the reservations it made when it signed the Convention in January 1986, Poland’s decision to ratify the Convention without reservations had the same effect as if it had.

Reservations are only legally effective if formally confirmed when the treaty becomes binding. Art. 23(2) of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 23 May 1969, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1155, p. 331. As Poland acknowledged in its first report to the Committee, its “ratification was not accompanied by any reservations.” “Initial Reports of States Parties Due in 1990: Poland,” published May 21, 1993, CAT/C/9/Add.13, at p. 3. Poland ratified the Convention whole.

Poland has also acknowledged that the Committee is competent to hear and review both state party claims that it is not fulfilling its obligations under the Convention and claims from individual victims of state torture. UN SG, Depository Notification issued August 27, 1993, C.N.157.1993.TREATIES-4 (noting Polish declaration of May 12, 1993).

Poland has also ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which provides for “a system of regular visits undertaken by independent international and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” UN SG, Depository Notification issued April 4, 2004, C.N.326.2004.TREATIES-3 (Polish signature of same date); idem., Depository Notification issued September 14, 2005, C.N.735.2005.TREATIES-16 (Polish ratification of same date); UNGA, Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2375, p. 237.

Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom have acknowledged that the Committee is competent to hear claims from individual victims of state torture. United Nations Treaty Collection, IV-9: Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, status as at 09-07-2020 05:00:46 EDT. Neither the United States nor Canada has ratified the Optional Protocol. Idem., IV-9b: Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, status as at 09-07-2020 05:00:46 EDT.

We regret the error.

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lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby · 4 years ago

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I am power I am due process I will smite

We talked about Ironwood's personality, history, major theories, and his possible origins. Now we will discuss the prime and major aspect of his character that has impacted the story the most. His overall status, power, and abilities as the leader of Atlas Military, Headmaster of Atlas Academy and the major de facto Leader of the entirety of the Atlassian Government and how it has made him lose sight of what he was fighting for.

Status

As a general, Ironwood normally doesn't associate himself with the front lines of combat and usually orders his forces using his tactical know-how and military knowledge. However, when pressed, he is very adept in combat.

In "Remembrance", he has two seats on the Atlesian Council, assuming both seats symbolize as Headmaster of Atlas Academy and General of the Atlas Military, giving him a even greater amount of authority and influence over the Atlesian Council and the Kingdom of Atlas, allowing him to make unilateral decisions such as initiating a Dust Embargo, closing off the Borders of the Kingdom from the rest of the world and even initiate and enforce Martial Law should he deem it necessary.

Rank

This is probably the most difficult to point down and to make a solid argument since the writers haven’t really explored the command structure of the Atlas Military but since they’re claiming it to be the America of RWBY we will be using facts and details of the U.S. Army rank structure as a logical comparison as well as listing the potential base requirements for Ironwood’s current rank and overall status.

Takes 30 years average to achieve the rank of [a 4 star] General

Candidates for Flag officers (General ranks) must have over 22 years of service as an officer

3 years in grade as a colonel to qualify for flag promotion(Time In Service at best 25 years for earliest promotion)

Atlas equivalent of the US chairmen of the Joint chiefs of Staff (Must be a 4* Gen)

As well as the Secretary of the Department of Education

Most likely achieved the rank and status of General 1-4 years prior to his debut in V2 (Assuming his age is somewhere between 47-50)

With these facts for both his status and rank it's quite clear that potentially Ironwood hasn’t had much time or experience being a leader or General. As I stated before in the Chosen one section chances are that Ozpin or his predecessor have been manipulating Ironwood’s career in order to gain an inside man over what can be assumed to be the most unstable Kingdom on Remnant ready to wage war. Because of this It has led Ironwood to descend further down into his ego and narcissism as he would see his fast success as his own accomplishments that he achieved on his own with his power, instead of the truth that it was all handed to him by Oz. Because of that Ironwood has thought of himself better than Oz and believes in his own hype as his power increased.

The source of his power

With his rank and status aside let's now discuss the source of his power and how it solidifies Ironwood’s overall role in the plot. The source of his power being his complete and total authority over his home Kingdom of Atlas. This is the only reason why he is even the plot in the first place. He is the de facto leader of the world’s strongest and advanced Military that is allied with the main heroes. The main heroes didn’t come to him for a plan nor did they come to him because he has some special power, they came to him just to get access to his army. That is the entirety of his role. He is supposed to be the guy that is supposed to lend his assets for the heroes, specifically the assets of Atlas entirely.

Now, Atlas is a country with very strong military and technology, isolated and far away from all the other countries. Despite the strong military, it is limited in number, resources, and assets. Since Ironwood came to power he has hoarded almost all of them and gives the world the bare minimum. Not because it is limited or because he is preparing for war but because he believes that he is the only one that can win. He wants to be the hero. Ironwood’s overall power stems from the consent of the people to his authority, and their willingness to die for him and his cause.

He needs people to make his plans happen. He needs people to make his war machines. He needs them to supply his army with troops willing to die for him. But more importantly he needs people to validate him and his choices in order to fuel his ego and his “For the Greater Good '' mantra as well as to fuel his false sense of chosenness. He’s a barely competent General who genuinely wants to protect & win for the sake of others, but he is not a noble leader of his or any people who he will use to get the mission done.

Individual Powers & Abilities

His overall combat and abilities are pretty standard to $417 honestly. In comparison to other RWBY fighters I would have to say that Ironwood isn’t in the top 10 or top 100 of the World's best warriors. Decent skills maybe, but nothing new or special that would make him stand out from a regular joe combat wise.

Semblance

To start, let's discuss the key element of RWBY’s combat system that gives it its uniqueness; Semblances. Now this is actually a key factor and component to the RWBY lore and Universe as a whole.

A Semblance is the manifestation of one's innate and personal power as an ability unique to each individual, with the effects varying greatly from user to user. With the sheer number of people unlocking their Semblances, it can lead to unrelated people gaining similar abilities. The nature of one's Semblance is noted as representing an aspect of their character.

Basically it's a physical representation of one's soul

(Note due to the vague description of his semblance I had to browse through around to get a solid idea for what his semblance is in a manner that everyone can agree and understand)

Ironwood's Semblance is revealed to be Mettle, which strengthens his resolve and allows him to carry through with his decisions, helping him hyper-focus. His semblance is possibly “passive”meaning he has no control over it. It also gives him a surge in concentration and pain tolerance so that he can accomplish whatever goal he’s fixated on.

An example of its use on-screen was when he ripped his arm out of the hard-light construct Watts trapped him in during their fight in Volume 7.

It speculative if he does have any control over his semblance or if it works in the same manner as Qrow Branwen’s semblance(Always Active)

One argument saying that it is active is from the lyrics of Hero;

“Our enemies destroy, Mettle I’ll deploy, No chance that I won’t take, My oath to you I won’t forsake”

The words in bold help hint at the possibility that he has some control over his semblance but it does remain unclear whether or not if it's truly passive or not

To help summarize as to what his semblance does; Ironwood's Semblance, Mettle, allows for temporarily increased brain processing power. This can be utilized to help James hyper-focus, blocking out everything else to help him achieve his goals.

His semblance is also a manifestation of his tenacious character trait and allows for mental health to affect his semblance like everyone else. The changes here are slight, but meaningful and could probably still be worked on to make it sound better.

Also to help better understand here is the definition of Mettle;

A person's ability to cope well with difficulties or to face a demanding situation in a spirited and resilient way.

His semblance is probably ideal on the battlefield but not much in terms of Administrative and/or Political issues

His semblance isn’t exactly ideal or overall useful in most fights since it's possible that he can’t control it

As well as it does seem to be a self indulgent power that only benefits him in regards to his psyche and nervous system

With that in mind I think Ironwood would have to find other ways to enforce his power without a semblance in a world where it seems to be a common phenomenon.

Physical

Due to his lack of unique abilities or useful semblance Ironwood would have to focus his efforts on other forms of combat to compensate for his handicap.

One of them being his physical prowess.

Due to his status as General his individual combat efficiency has diminished to an extent due to basically being a military politician.

With that in mind it's possible that Ironwood hasn’t seen active combat on a regular basis since he was a Captain(O-3) which is the most common officer rank in any military as well as the most common rank to be seen on the field of combat in comparison to ranks above that.

In other words his combat experience has probably diminished during the later half of his career as the headmaster of Atlas Academy and later when he became The most senior leader of the Army

Given this Ironwood’s personal combat style has been reduced to the basics that he learned during his Basic Military boot camp training.

This is best seen during his fight with Arthur Watts who was possibly also a member of Atlas Military given his surprising combat abilities to be on par with Ironwoods. But this is due to the both of them relying on a mixture of their combat training from boot camp, and the experience from their respective career fields. In this case it's an administrative politician vs a scientific inventor both of whom are in career fields that are non direct combat orientated relying on their shared knowledge and training of basic military combat.

To further add to this an allegory example for the Ironwood vs Watts fight would be a Army mechanic vs Army Sniper. These are both non direct combat careers in the military and are less likely to see any form of close quarters combat that an infantryman would as one works with heavy machinery and repair while the other does stealth and ranged operations.

But if we put these two into a free roam boxing match to the death chances are these two would have to rely on their basic training as their current career paths don’t focus much on CQC or any direct combat. As such the sniper would most likely adopt a fighting style similar to an out-boxer given his light build and frame needed for the stealth part of his career while the mechanic adopts a slugger style given his greater body build needed to lift and operate heavy tools and other manual labor.

The mechanic will also have a need to be direct and end this as quickly as possible as he may be use to a finish by the time quota mentality while the sniper knows that he is physically out matched but uses the speed granted to him by his smaller build to his advantage and tries to tire out the slugger and wait for an opening while the slugger tries to end it all in one hit.

In the case of their fight Ironwood was the slugger forfeiting strategy for brawn and strong one shot finishers, while Watts was the out-boxer who knew he physically stood no chance and focused on tactics and unconventional combat via the terrain settings of Amity Colosseum to tire and weaken Ironwood enough for an opportunity to incapacitate him

Another key aspect of Ironwood’s physical prowess are his Cybernetics.

Now we don’t know when or how he got them but it's quite clear that they were made to enhance his strength evidence from the shockwave that shattered the ground when he and an alpha beowulf parried each other in V3 Chpt.10

So yeah his cybernetics probably have doubled maybe even tripled the strength of his right side.

But sadly these are probably outdated and old as again we don’t know when he got them but they seemed to have been on him for awhile which would make sense as his status would grant him cybernetics that would be advanced for their time but with the down side that he can’t replace them for newer and better models

Evidence for this is when Ironwood had a new state of the art arm made for yang when he probably could have had a new arm made for himself and equipped it onto him, but he can’t cause his cybernetics are permanent and non changeable

As such he’s stuck with prosthetics that can only enhance his strength and nothing else. With unchangeable cybernetics aside let's look at the non cyber part of him and how it may be failing him.

The downside of his human half is that it still ages and with age comes physical deterioration and later mental deterioration. After looking up some medical research human beings start to deteriorate at the median age of 50 and as such start to weaken physically, losing the abilities of their prime

If my estimation of his age is accurate his body is nearing or is already deteriorating and with the added amounts of stress and PTSD may as well caused his mind to deteriorate prematurely as well.

Also his semblance apparently allows him to tolerate pain and damage allowing him to have some form of berserker mode like wolverine(Basically an adrenaline rush)

Also remember its passive and only happens at random so yeah it's not really that useful in long drawn out fights even if it's active.

With these facts in mind Ironwood at present may now be aware of his physical limitations and as such would have to rely on a another form of combat where he would have to rely on others to do his fighting for him

Leadership

Now this is his most defining trait at present that has been explored the most in the show and the center of controversy for his character

As stated before Ironwood lacks any special powers that could give him the edge as well as that his physical body is starting to fail him due to age, greatly weakening his usefulness in a fight.

As such he is left with the only viable option that he has to enforce his will without direct contact.

His command and Authority over others, and their consent to die for him and his needs

In order for him to have this kind of power may have been a result of his leadership style.

His leadership style appears to be a mixture of 3 different types of leadership styles.

These 3 being Autocratic, Authoritative, & Pacesetting with Autocratic being the dominant of the 3

Autocratic

The phrase most illustrative of an autocratic leadership style is "Do as I say." Generally, an autocratic leader believes that he or she is the smartest person at the table and knows more than others. They make all the decisions with little input from team members.(Sound familiar)

This command-and-control approach is typical of leadership styles of the past, but it doesn't hold much water with today's talent.(Times of war maybe?/Times of peace, nope!)

That's not to say that the style may not be appropriate in certain situations. For example, you can dip into an autocratic leadership style when crucial decisions need to be made on the spot, and you have the most knowledge about the situation, or when you're dealing with inexperienced and new team members and there's no time to wait for team members to gain familiarity with their role.(He would be more suited as a mission handler instead of a strategic tactician)

Authoritative

The phrase most indicative of this style of leadership (also known as "visionary") is "Follow me." The authoritative leadership style is the mark of confident leaders who map the way and set expectations, while engaging and energizing followers along the way.( Basically him in V 2 & 3 before things went to $417)

In a climate of uncertainty, these leaders lift the fog for people. They help them see where the company is going and what's going to happen when they get there.(He may be a man of vision poor vision but had a some sense of direction just poorly showed, & executed for others)

Unlike autocratic leaders, authoritative leaders take the time to explain their thinking: They don't just issue orders. Most of all, they allow people choice and latitude on how to achieve common goals.( It’s a 40/40/20 split with this being the least)

Pacesetting

While the pacesetter style of leadership is effective in getting things done and driving for results, it's a style that can hurt team members. For one thing, even the most driven employees may become stressed working under this style of leadership in the long run.(Mantle, Vale and the Heroes are prime examples of that)

Ironwood’s Leadership is quite the mix bag of results

In some situations specifically Combat oriented ones it works and is effective to a certain degree

But for most of the time in situations like politics, commerce, and peace in general it can lead to the worst outcomes imaginable hence all of the conflicts plaguing rwby present

With this in mind it probably won’t take long to realise that Ironwood is an ineffective leader of and for the people

Remember most of the power that he holds now is through the consent of the people

Whether they be soldiers, scientists or civilians they are the only things that keeps him in power as well as make his position of power legitimate in order for him to plan and execute his plans.

Also as evidence from extended sources and media most of the progress and advancements of Atlas have been done through Ironwoods efforts ergo Ironwood has more or less become the main benefactor of the kingdom through their eyes

This however more or less makes him the de facto king of Atlas if you think about it and as most troubles that befall a king it's usually their own pride that can get the better of them especially if they surround themselves with enablers that paint them in a almost god-like light

Also with the added reveal of his semblance It does have a very heavy affect on his mind in terms of decision making but sadly it tends to happen on impulse and isn’t much suited for a political or administrative environment

Sadly he has done a poor job trying to keep the people on his side and as such has justified the revolution to bring down his ineffective & immoral leadership

Effectiveness

Depending on the situation the effectiveness of Ironwood's overall power and command is moderate to ineffective in all honesty

This mostly stems from the fact that Ironwood’s ego and overall favoritism of his kingdom tends to clash with the general idea of the common goal of peace that is shared with the heroes (Ozpin, Ruby, Oscar, etc) and the world as a whole

As such it has fueled his need to be validated to raging war, even though the results would be catastrophic in order to do so and completely unnecessary

The effectiveness of Ironwood's overall impact on the world is mostly done in self-indulgence as he believes his dreams and goals are what is best for everyone.

In a true totalitarian way unless something can further his power or goals it's good to him, while anything that threatens it is bad to him

This is first seen when he discredited Ozpin as he saw it his way of handling the situation was not ideal even though he is his ally. In doing so he became the head of the security force and further discredited Ozpin to the point that his position as headmaster was in jeopardy. Even though Oz is the leader of the group that is meant to keep the peace in secret as open conflict would result in heavy losses which is what the fall of beacon was. A preview on a small scale as to what could happen had Ironwood his way all the time and the results that it would yield.

By V7 Ironwood acknowledges his failure with the amount of power he had brought, except unlike most people he hasn’t learned anything from the ordeal and continues down a path of paranoia and warmongering. Instead he chooses to find ways that would benefit his power and goals.

Fear and rage aside Let talk about his overall planning and strategy

Most of his plans that have been shown and revealed so far have had a tendency to backfire

The first of his plans that took a turn for the worst was the P.E.N.N.Y. project during the Vytal tournament as well as his power grab at beacon which led to its fall

Okay this is speculative but I do believe Ironwood was field testing Penny for his upcoming war based on dialogue from her in V2 and used the Vytal tournament as a means to do so. Thus turning an event of peace that was meant to celebrate the end of war just to test new weapons for his upcoming war of change.

This accompanied by the army of robot soldiers that he insisted to have as security brought to question the practicality of Ironwood's methods. This is also brought into question as the people are unaware of salem' existence thus from the perspectives of the Vale citizens and the world in general, Ironwood's interference with Vale security would basically be needless foreign intervention, to them that would eventually lead to disaster. Which it did as both were used to portray him and atlas as the villainous force at the fall of beacon and has contributed to salem's plans.

The second of his plans to go off the deep end was the dust embargo and the closing of borders

Though granted with drawing from the rest of the world seemed like a good idea to ease tensions of war but overall it had lasted too long especially if you take into account that Atlas was Remnants source of Industry and main economic and technological center that the world desperately relies on to survive.

This would make it difficult to rally anyone to his side as from their perspective he and by extension his kingdom would only be seen as the ones who left them for dead and would think twice before trusting him with any plan especially one of war.

The third plan of his to go astray was his confrontation with Watts

This isn’t much of a plan but an overview of his strategy during that fight and it could have gone better honestly.

By the way that entire fight was essentially a capture mission for Watts. Which is self explanatory as to why Ironwood didn’t straight out kill watts when he can use him to his advantage so I’ll give credit for forethought of enemy interrogation but the means and execution as to obtain watts were very poor and half thought out

To start where it began to turn to s*** was how he essentially went in alone without backup. Remember he is a General during a time of peace, who at this point probably has very little combat experience to rely on for this fight. I really don't see the point of why he would fight the crazy mad scientist alone when he could have at least had winter with him or a squad of soldiers to assist .Hell even a sniper could have been beneficial. It's not like everyone, was needed to evacuate the city of mantle.

Which brings me to my second point of the fight; why did it have to be Ironwood to capture watts? From a fan perspective the answer was probably to give a character a good fight scene but in universe why did it have to be the general of the entire army to capture one cyber terrorist. Especially when there are other more qualified fights that have seen more action in a week than Ironwood has in his entire military career. That may be an over exaggeration but as I stated before Ironwoods career shifted from the battlefield to the political and administrative.

Meaning his combat experience has diminished since his 30’s? as he became more focused on running a kingdom rather than micromanaging the battlefield as he used to. So with that in mind Ironwood should have at least thought of someone more capable of capturing Watts than him. He could have sent Winter or Qrow or even the ace opts who probably are more qualified to disarm and detain watts faster and more effectively than how Ironwood’s fight went without complications.

Now we come to the fight itself where Ironwood for no reason drew out the fight longer than it should have been. For example we know that his cybernetics are possibly capable of doubling the strength of his right side. So once Ironwood had gotten within grabbing range of watts after depleting his Aura Ironwood should have at least tried to crush the bones of either of Watts arms thus disarming him and making it easier to detain. He also could have taken a page from Nora and broken his legs thus immobilizing him and limiting Watt’s options of escape.

Maybe Humans are more durable in rwby, than humans of our world but if you need to capture someone alive they don’t have to be in perfect condition. They just need their head intact to give info and the necessary vital origins needed to live. They don’t exactly need their arms or legs unless you want to risk the chance of escape from them

Here comes the standoff which is another point that's problematic given Ironwood's intentions. If Ironwood knew Watts was out of ammo why did he just taunt watts instead of making a move to subdue him. Instead of pointing out his enemy was out of ammo he could have shifted his gun a bit and put a bullet in his shoulder and making his arm useless and make the necessary preparations to capture watts alive without any further risk to himself and probably wouldn’t lead him to flay his only remaining arm to win

(Assuming he was out of ammo as well hence why he was taunting again he has cybernetics that can double his strength if need be which he could have used to break any part of watt’s limbs without further damage to himself.)

Now we come to the final issue of the fight that honestly could have been avoided or at least handled better. Ironwood didn’t necessarily have to sacrifice his remaining arm to get free. He could have tried destroying one or all of the rings that were keeping his arm trapped. I do believe he has the strength in his cybernetics needed to crush the rings no problem. If he couldn’t then he could have shimmed his arm out through the side instead of pulling it out and burning it.

Overall Ironwood had plenty of options to his plan to capture Watts but it was his narrow mindedness that led to the escalation of the fight and cost him greatly when it could have been avoided and ended quickly without much loss.

The only plan that seemed to have been ideal and would have benefited everyone was the Amity project, and restoration of global communications but it had its consequences the way he had led it.

Communication is a very crucial and essential tool needed for any society to help better coordinate and resolve the issues that happen during a crisis. Overall his plan for amity was probably the least Atlas centric that would have benefited the world but his intentions for it and means to obtain it were problematic.

His intentions for the amity project were not based on altruistic or selfless motives but were based on his desire to gain and gather resources for his war with salem. Ironwood wanted to restore global communications just to convince the people of the other kingdoms to rally to him and to fight for his cause.

The means of how he obtained it also lead to problems as he had to siffen off resources from the 2nd impoverished city in the world that needed those resources to help keep it safe just to gain a way to recruit soldiers and acquire more resources needed for his war

This is also furthered by the fact that he intended to reveal a world shattering truth that would cause a lot of negative emotions of disbelief grief and fear that will fill the remainder of the world. Meaning Ironwood knowingly and was willing to cause global panic and take advantage of the chaos that would follow just to further his needs for war.

That may be speculation but based on the latter half of the plan from A New Approach it pretty much highlights the Values and lengths of Ironwoods Motives and intentions for war and what he may be willing to do to get his way;

Ironwood: Yes, panic is inevitable, and panic brings Grimm. But I believe we are ready. Once Atlas has come to grips with the fight ahead, I'll use Amity Tower to spread the message to all of Remnant.

Weiss: But everything will fall apart. Grimm will be everywhere!

Winter: You're right, but Atlas is willing and prepared to assist.

Ironwood: Trying to hide the truth from the world will eventually kill us all.

So the highlight of his plan will eventually cause more problems and the eventual fall of the other kingdoms especially given their current states

Vale; Beacon infested with Grimm and the Main city on the brink being overrun by them

Mistral has Almost no Huntmen left to help with the kingdoms defense and already struggles with the criminal underworld that plagues the kingdom

Vacuo has no official structure or system of government besides Shade academy which is currently struggles to maintain order with the flooding of students going to it in order to train very much needed huntsman

This in all honesty will just wipe the slate clean and undo almost a century's worth of progress that will only leave what remains, fair game that can be claimed by anyone or to be specific to be claimed by Ironwood and Atlas.

Now I know that's a theory and it would paint Ironwood as a villain but it's not far from the likely truth and motives considering that Everything Ironwood has done has and always been in the best interest of Atlas and since he and the kingdom are synonymous at this point, his best interest as well.

Which brings us to his final and current plan

Abandoning Mantle and Raising Atlas

Okay we all know that this is probably one of the most talked about things that has divided the fandom the most in recent times sparking the debate of the morality and choices of RWBY’s characters. The most of those debates revolved around Ironwood’s current last ditch plan of survival. As it has been debated and analyzed over the last few months everyone has already discussed the pros and cons of the of this plan but I’ll summarize and give my thoughts of this plan as well as point out how it reveals Ironwoods hypocrisy and personal agendas

Pros;

Had everyone gone with ironwood on this plan and left Mantle to die this would at least give the heroes and the military some time to prepare for the next engagement should it come

while at the same time keeping at least 2 of the four relics away from the villains.

And the Winter Maiden as well

Cons;

This however would only be a short term retreat as eventually the city will need resources to sustain themselves as well as to gather even more resources to meet Ironwoods war demands.

But when it comes to getting those supplies the other kingdoms would have heard at this point how atlas abandon its own citizens and thus deny them the supplies needed.

This would also play into salem's hands as its not unlikely that she would spread the news of Mantles demise to turn the other kingdoms against Atlas

With this in mind and Ironwoods decent into extremism and desperation this would lead to atlas having to forcibly extort the other kingdoms for resources further playing into salem's hands and starting Remnants 2nd great war and all salem has to do from here on out is watch the world burn and wait for an opportunity.

If that outcome seems unlikely then lets cover another possible outcome of this plan succeeding but with this question; What happens to Remnant in the absence of Atlas?

Assuming that Atlas is self-sustainable as Ironwood said this would eliminate the need to make contact with the surface and need of supply runs.

However this also highlights the possibility that once Atlas is far and high enough Ironwood most likely won't return to help aid the rest of the world

As invoked by Oscar, raising Atlas will mean Salem will have free reign to slaughter the millions of people left on Remnant.

The truth;

Oscar says this not only to convince Ironwood not to abandon Mantle but not to abandon the world as well. When he said this Oscar is trying to convince Ironwood that it's not a lost cause and run away as that would only lead to further lost and the world ever closer to Salem’s rule should Ironwood run now(Like Raven did)

This is also given more credibility as when Ironwood abandoned his original plan for amity which was intended to reunite the kingdoms

Taking this into account and his plan there doesn’t appear to be any hint or motivation to return to or go to the other kingdoms for help or anything once Ironwood runs away.

This is an unintended byproduct of Ironwoods Paranoia and distrust for others as well as the unveiling of his hypocrisy and self survival.

This is hinted at in the V7 finale as Oscar tries to talk Ironwood down in the Relic Vault, where the latter blames everyone, from Robyn, to the council, to the Kingdom and even to Oscar, for not seeing the bigger picture and getting in the way of doing what he thinks is right, and not once does Ironwood stop to consider that he himself may have had a role in things escalating as badly as they did.

As I stated before Ironwood is probably the main catalyst for everything that has gone wrong in the current events of rwby as he was the one who ended up giving the villains more opportunities and ammo needed to get their way.

Results;

The volume also focuses on the heroes, Robyn and Ironwood all having different ideas about how to protect Atlas and Mantle.

When they finally come together to help evacuate Mantle, the truce quickly falls apart once Ironwood realizes Cinder is in town, Salem is on her way and Team RWBY leaked intel to Robyn. He orders the arrest of the heroes, the forcible extraction of the Winter Maiden powers, and the abandonment of Mantle to save Atlas.

As a consequence of his extremism and paranoia corrupting his judgement, he loses the Relic of Knowledge, the Winter Maiden, almost all of his allies, and stands alone when Salem arrives on his doorstep.

By the end of the volume everything that Ironwood has done has been for nothing. Every decision Ironwood has made in the last few chapters winds up being for naught. Ordering the heroes to be arrested gets his best agent Clover killed and allows Tyrian to escape custody. Neo takes advantage of his arrest order for the heroes to confront Oscar and get away with the Lamp of Knowledge. Sending Winter to claim the Maiden power led Cinder right to where Fria was being held and ultimately causes the power to go to Penny, who sides with the heroes due to Ironwood's extremist methods.

Also Salem was far closer than the general realized, so even if things had worked in his favor it still would have failed.

In earnest most of Ironwoods recent and current plans and ideas have had negative results. His individual powers and abilities aren’t as impressive or out of the ordinary as others in the series. As well as not as useful as they could have been. His semblance is pretty lackluster if I'm being honest. His status has only fueled his ego and arrogance and has left him blind to his purpose as a guardian for all of remnant, not just one aspect of it.

But what exactly was going on in Ironwoods head to make him like this? To answer that we need to know the practices and beliefs of his homeland as the Kingdom of Atlas has had more influence on Ironwood than anyone or anything else in his life.

The Altasien Philosophical ideals

Now we don’t really know any of the political, religious, or philosophical ideas of Remnant, or Atlas especially but we can make a guess and see how it might have affected Ironwood. As best as I could see Atlas seems to have a philosophy equivalent to Nietzscheism. Below are the facts, concepts and ideals of Nietzsche's Philosophy.

Nietzsche’s Big Ideas

Favored perspectivism, which held that truth is not objective but is the consequence of various factors effecting individual perspective;

Articulated ethical dilemma as a tension between the master vs. slave morality; the former in which we make decisions based on the assessment of consequences, and the latter in which we make decisions based on our conception of good vs. evil

Belief in the individual’s creative capacity to resist social norms and cultural convention in order to live according to a greater set of virtues.

The Will to Power

the drive of the superman(ubermensch) in the philosophy of Nietzsche to perfect and transcend the self through the possession and exercise of creative power.

a conscious or unconscious desire to exercise authority over others.

Master Morality

Nietzsche defined master morality as the morality of the strong-willed. Nietzsche criticizes the view (which he identifies with contemporary British ideology) that good is everything that is helpful, and bad is everything that is harmful.

Slave Morality

Slave morality is the inverse of master morality. As such, it is characterized by pessimism and cynicism. Slave morality is created in opposition to what master morality values as "good". Slave morality does not aim at exerting one's will by strength, but by careful subversion.

The übermensch

the ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values, originally described by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–85).

After reading this you can probably agree that this is the default guiding philosophical mindset of the Atlasian people and Ironwood especially but in the extreme and toxic. Which suits Atlas given what we know of it. The Kingdom is filled with people who believe they are this superior race and that everyone else is below them. As well as the fact that they are willing to throw away morals to get their way and are willing to crush those that stand in their way. As for Ironwood he is sadly a part of this toxic mindset whether he likes it or not as it's the greatest flaw of his character that he is just simply an extension to enforce Atlas and their immoral ways.

Atlas as a whole, not just the military, perpetrates the whole no emotions thing. Colors, feelings, individuality are bad. Look at how Atlas is presented. It’s detached from the rest of the world, and is devoid of warm colors. It’s all the same color, that cold grayish blue. So while yes, the Atlesian military definitely does it’s best to crush all those things too, it’s not a foreign concept to Atlesians. I’m fairly certain that if you were born on Atlas, not Mantle, that you would already be conditioned to start thinking this way even before you decided to go to Atlas Academy.

The Atlesian Military is a huge part of the problem as well, but if Atlas is already crushing individuality and feelings, it makes sense that the military would just continue to do so. Considering the fact that the military is not separate from their government, it shows how Atlas just continues the cycle of crushing and indoctrinating their citizens.

Atlas is this poisonous mindset of destroying emotions and individuality. Which is why those who leave it become better people and change for the better. Weiss leaves Atlas and becomes a better person. She loses the Ice Queen persona and has fun. She makes friends because she likes them, not because their skills would be most effective in a battle.(V1 ep.4 with Pyrah) She embraces her quirks and they become her strengths. Penny learns about friendship and the joys of life outside of the mission. Robyn knows that there is more to life than to keep advancing ahead. She knows that there is good in protecting the past and that we cannot forget the old. Advancement and efficiency will only take you so far. If we leave the human part of ourselves behind, what we become is much worse than being less efficient.

It’s so heavily ingrained in Ironwood, to the point that when we first see him he is already this inhuman machine that will carry on the will of his home kingdom regardless of the truth that the world knows, and that truth is that it is evil and inhuman.

The Strain and Revelation of power and responsibility

“But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.”

If you are unsure of what that quote meant, basically this section will explain the truth of Ironwood's character through the revelation of what his power has turned him into.

Though granted there is nothing wrong with power. However it becomes a problem when one gains too much that they can no longer control it. In Ironwood's case he had amassed too much that had burdened him with too much responsibility that he wasn’t prepared for.

As people began to rely on him which is actually part of his job as a General/councilman/Headmaster of a toxic government, the stress and burden had increased.

One could argue that his job as a general, who is under a lot of pressure, especially after the fall of beacon and people not understanding the true dangers of the real enemy. Ironwood lacks the skills needed to do his job as a protector and guardian. Which has led to him being this toxic and immoral person that keeps making mistakes, and the situation worse.

The strain of his power is having him make choices that has slowly made him break away from his human soul. But if Ironwood’s power has turned him into an immoral person who’s choices escalate the situation for the worst, why has he not been removed from this role of power and given the proper time needed to adjust and contemplate the understanding of his power and responsibilities of his assigned role?

Why toxic senior leaders survive — and sometimes thrive — in the military

From what I’ve found that has been able to determine, it comes down to three major factors: individual competence of the toxic officer; lack of personal accountability up and down the chain of command; and senior leader fear of loss of confidence.

The first major factor that results in the retention, and sometimes promotion, of toxic senior officers is intellect and work ethic. Most of the senior leaders in the military are highly intelligent with tremendous drive and ambition. While some senior officers have proven themselves unfit to lead others, there is a desire by some senior leaders to retain that intellect, drive, knowledge and experience to the benefit of the service.

Atlas and Remnant in general needs to fix the way it selects and grooms officers and people for leadership roles

Atlas is not designed to produce good leaders

Being in a leadership position does not make you a leader. Unfortunately, the Atlas Military officer system sees it differently. They talk a good game, but the system is seriously lacking.

The second factor contributing to the retention of toxic senior leaders is a lack of accountability and transparency by those who have sponsored the toxic leaders.

Leaders we can believe in

There has to be a demand to finding smart officers, but Atlas must do more to find good leaders and sideline the bad ones

Rationally speaking, this makes sense — if the offending people can still provide good service to the nation, why not retain them? After all, the service failed to properly prepare those individuals to lead and made the additional mistake of placing people unsuited to leadership in those positions. Before we judge toxic leaders in the military too harshly, we should remember that the institution failed them as much as they failed the institution. Unfortunately, the lack of explanation from their most senior leaders leaves the rank and file with the perception that there is a complete lack of accountability at higher ranks. They are not entirely wrong.

Atlas must do a better job of screening, educating and evaluating its officers, especially for grades O-6 and above(Col to General)

The truth of the role he didn’t understand

That being said. I do believe James has the best intentions. But as he accumulated more power, the tendencies to be in control - or be in control of every facet of a situation - as much as any commander of armed forces wishes to be, has clouded his judgement.

As a military leader, his word is law. That is how his men are trained. But as a politician ruling over the common citizenry, the common citizen is not indoctrinated into that lifestyle, thus presents random uncontrollable elements in his plans.

Ironwoods lacks the experience to deal with that entirely. He is surrounded by other like minded individuals who follow his orders unquestioningly. What he really needed and could have used the most of his career was a consultant. As to help better understand how his choices will affect those around them and how they will have to live with his decisions

A descanting (preferably civilian) opinion to counter his directives and provide the means for a more balanced perspective. The problem is Ironwood doesn't have the social skill or experience to handle dissenting opinions. Which is why he and Qrow clashed so damn hard in V3.

And why he was so shocked when the rest of the Ozluminati placed the blame squarely at his feet for the unrest in Vale during the second and third volume. He was astonished to realize that his views weren't universal in the group. He didn't comprehend the civilian mindset, let alone the foreign civilian mindset in a country that isn't militarized like Atlas is.

He was just simply not suited or ready to be in a position of power that deals with the responsibility of Safeguarding peoples’ lives and maintaining world peace. His ambitions and sense of entitlement have led him astray from his assigned purpose. Because of this he has become a man of War instead of Peace like the other heroes and Oz are for.

His Power had stripped him of his soul and made him more Machine than human that even if Salem drops dead tomorrow what's next for him?

(Note; The words in bold at the bottom are links to the next section)

I am Machine I never sleep I keep my eyes wide Open

#rwby #rwby ironwood #james ironwood #general ironwood #rwby7 #rwby analysis #rwby 8 #rwby 8 spoilers #rwby theory #rwby atlas #rwby mantle #world of remnant #Ironwood analysis

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desert-anarchy · 4 years ago

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Capitalism and Democracy

Does democracy exist within capitalism?

i. our voting process

How could capitalism not be democratic? We vote for people we want in office, right?

The monied class can keep all the important ministerial and official jobs in its own hands, and it can work the electoral system in its own favour by bribing the electorate, directly or indirectly. Even when by some mischance a government representing the poorer classes gets into power, the rich can usually blackmail it by threatening to export capital. Most important of all, nearly the whole cultural and intellectual life of the community - newspapers, books, education, films, radio - is controlled by monied men who have the strongest motive to prevent the spread of certain ideas. The citizen of a democratic country is ‘conditioned’ from birth onward, less rigidly but not much less effectively than he would be in a totalitarian state.

~George Orwell, Fascism and Democracy

Elections within a capitalist framework are almost always influenced in some ways by money, debt, capital, or other economic production. Because we exist in a society that perpetuates a working class and a ruling class, elections are simply the tool that our rulers use to uphold and strengthen their rule.

The problem with electoral democracy is that we are conceding power to those who are already above us. By advocating or voting for a political candidate, we are surrendering ourselves to their rule, which they likely already held in the beginning. Even if this glorification of power was justified, most every bit of media we have ever consumed is controlled or owned by a member of the capitalist class. Through manipulation, propaganda, etc. they advance their own political views, which give them more social power, by indoctrinating or influencing our votes.

Its hard to say that any political system which functions on election is democratic in the slightest.

ii. our markets

At least we choose our products. We choose what we consume and buy in a free capitalist market, after all.

It must be acknowledged that our worker emerges from the process of production looking different from when he entered it. In the market, the owner of the commodity ‘labour-power’, he stood face to face with other owners of commodities, one owner against another owner. The contract by which he sold his labour-power to the capitalist proved in black and white, so to speak, that he was free to dispose of himself. But when the transaction was concluded, it was discovered that he was no ‘free agent’, that the period of time for which he is free to sell his labour-power is the period of time for which he is forced to sell it, that in fact the vampire will not let go ‘while there remains a single muscle, sinew, or drop of blood to be exploited.’ For ‘protection’ against the serpent of their agonies, the workers have to put their heads together and, as a class, compel the passing of a law, an all-powerful social barrier by which they can be prevented from selling themselves and their families into slavery and death by voluntary contract with capital.

~Karl Marx, Capital Volume I

The problem leftists have with a free market is not specifically with the consumption, although that is certainly influenced by the capitalist class, especially in the modern age, but rather the production. A debate could last hours over whether workers are free to consume in free markets, but no matter what it is concrete that workers cannot produce what they like in free markets.

When a person is employed by the capitalist, they have nothing to offer but their minds, their knowledge, their hands, and their strength, all of which the capitalist lists their demands for, which must be obeyed. Essentially, capitalists still control production in a free market, so we as we move forward we must discover ways that the working class can be free to both produce and consume as they please.

iii. our daily lives

At least we still control our daily activities and movements.

And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace. The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately deStalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other’s control techniques. A worker is a part time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called “insubordination,” just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation. Without necessarily endorsing it for them either, it is noteworthy that children at home and in school receive much the same treatment, justified in their case by their supposed immaturity. What does this say about their parents and teachers who work?

~Bob Black, The Abolition of Work

So now we can see that yet again, our lives are practically controlled by capitalists. When we aren’t on the clock, at schools or workplaces, producing for the profit of those above us, we are still following trends and influenced by programming and media controlled by capitalists.

Our actions are mostly defined by the society around us, which is currently controlled by a ruling class. When we aren’t working, we are resting from work. After we rest for work, we prepare for work. After we prepare for work, we start working yet again- and this cycle continues until we become old and physically incapable of working.

So when we spend most or all of our daily life resting from, preparing for, and performing work, are we really free?

Work until you die. Now say: “I am free.”

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insomniacowl · 4 years ago

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Neon Genesis Evangelion analysis chapter 12: Eva Unit-03 Secret of Class 2-A

A piece of Shamshel core fragment

While Shinji and friends were fighting off the angels invading Japan, Evangelion Unit – 03 and Unit – 04 were under construction in Nerv’s American base. The two new units were different from Unit – 02 in two ways. First was the choice of the color, but more importantly, the equipment of the S2 engine. Unit – 03 was meant to be the first model to be built to use the S2 engine.

Just to refresh, the S2 engine is just a name that humans are using to call the fruit of life that the angels carry in their core. Then it raises the question, “How was it possible for Nerv to have built it in the first place?”

We are told that the S2 engine planted into unit – 04 was made by restoring the shard of Shamshel’s core we see in the early part of episode 5. Yet the implementation fails and Unit – 04, along with the whole of Nevada base disappears in what can be called the “Mini second impact”.

The moment of destruction

Due to this unforeseen (?) accident, America immediately transports Unit – 03 to Nerv headquarters in japan. The headquarters is then granted the authorization to conduct an activation test on the unit and they choose Suzuhara Touji as their candidate.

We shall not delve into the fate of Unit – 03 as I believe there is not much to be said of it as of yet (We will get to the dummy plug later chapters). But let’s talk about the core of unit – 03. As we have seen in the past few chapters, each soul contains the soul of the pilots’ mothers. Therefore, we can make an educated guess that Touji’s mother is inside Unit – 03’s core.

Then we come to the question of, why are all the pilots in class 2-A of the third Tokyo private academy? One thing that all of these students have in common is that they have been identified as potential Eva pilots by the Marduk institution. In other words, even if it wasn’t Touji, the pilot of Unit – 03 would have been chosen from Class 2-A, and it was Touji who met the required criteria for the selection.

Kaji the Great detective

Let us quickly cover what the Marduk institution is. On the surface, it is an association created to choose the appropriate candidates to pilot the Evas. But we learn in episode 15 through Kaji that it is made out of 108 non-existent paper companies, showing that such an institution does not exist. In other words, it is just a cover for Nerv to avoid potential problems that arise in their process of choosing the pilots.

It suggests that the process of choosing Eva pilots is highly inappropriate at the least and it will cause a social outcry if the method was to be made public knowledge.

Type that worries, and the type that demands

With this in mind, we can ask the question, why did Marduk institution brought all of these children together in this class? To understand this, we need to understand the criteria for becoming an Eva pilot. To move the Evas, the pilot needs to have ridden it on their own accord. But this is not enough to explain the special trait of the students of school 2-A.

For example, in episode 18, we see Kensuke pleading Misato that he wants to pilot the Eva. Yet even when he showed such desire to do so, he was not considered as a pilot. Rather, it was Touji that was chosen to be the Pilot of Unit – 03. Of course, there is a substantial difference between ‘want to pilot’, and a ‘have to pilot’ (remember that Touji was offered to have his sister in a better hospital if he were to become a pilot), there is definitely a more important reason to why Touji was chosen over anyone else.

Let us also consider that if they are in the same class at school, then they are all fourteen years old. We could try and the hypothesis that age might be a requirement in the criteria of piloting the Eva. While it may not be needed for them to be exactly fourteen years old, it is around this age that teenagers undergo puberty.

Perhaps it is the confusion regarding self-identity during this stage of development that makes it easier for them to share their emotions with the unknown entity that resides inside Eva’s cores.

Our problematic trio

To add to that point, teenagers are not too childish, but neither do they tend to have the necessary social skills like adults. Think about it for a moment. Neither Shinji, Rei, nor Asuka can be said to have been sociable. It is too apparent in Rei that we can gloss over, Shinji too showed much difficulty in forming close bonds with his peers, and Asuka had a bright and positive demeanor, yet she was plagued with a distorted sense of pride. This kind of mental state likely serves as a positive reinforcement in their desire to pilot the Evas. Returning to Kensuke that we touched on, he can be considered as one of the more social ones among the students of Class 2-A. So was Hikari.

To such children, they did not need to rely on Eva; rely on ‘a different self’ for a sense of identity

Kensuke is out of consideration due to his sociable nature

Hikari is also out due to her being too normal

Due to such difference in the key trait (required to pilot the Evas) among the children of class 2-A, we could say that this is also not the only criterion that Marduk institution used to choose these students. If so, my argument to what this criterion is can be answered by considering the Shinji and Asuka's common trait; having their mothers’ souls trapped inside of Eva’s core.

My argument is that the most important criteria to be selected as the pilot of Evas is not in any of their inherent abilities, but if there is a suitable soul that coincides with the potential pilot. In the settings document of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s story, it explicitly mentions that ‘Inside of Each Eva’s core, it carries the soul of the pilot’s mother.’ (except for Unit – 00 and the mass-produced units. I will talk about them in the following chapters). Therefore, it is likely to be a fact that the minimum required for the activation of Evas is the existence of a corresponding soul of the mother of the pilot in the core, and from here on out, I will talk with this being taken as common knowledge.

This is another point that supports this theory. It can be easy to overlook as just a coincidence, but all of the students we get to know in class 2-A do not have a mother. For Kensuke, we only hear of his father. Hikari lives without her parents, just her sisters. Even Touji only has his younger sister, Father, and his grandparents. All this points to the fact that All of the students in class 2-A do not have their mothers at this point, and we can make an educated guess that they have been sacrificed in creating the spare cores. And their children have been collected using the Marduk institution and are classified under the name of ‘reserve Eva pilot’.

It is a frightening thought, but if we take a moment to think about it, it helps us answer other questions. Why would these children, whose families are not too well off living in the danger zone of Tokyo – 3? We can only make an educated guess as there are no clues to what has allowed this to happen. But I present to you a scenario of what could have happened. The mothers of the students of class 2-A signed up for the contact experiment in exchange for financial rewards during the period of war and famine. The contact experiment is the one that we know both Yui and Kyoko took part in and they have likely met a similar fate. The results of the experiment their families were told would have been ‘Death from unforeseen circumstances’ and the families would have been compensated financially and with the right to live in Tokyo – 03.

It is a terrible thing to imagine, but this is the best I could think of to answer the questions of, why are all the students of class 2-A selected by the Marduk institution, how can the ‘right soul’ be ready when the pilot has reached the age of 14, and have a specific one exist inside the core of Unit – 03. Such questions cannot be answered if the pilots were selected at random, and this scenario can answer many questions that we have asked in this chapter.

Ritsuko: Among the pilot candidate…

Gendou: You choose the fourth one?

Ritsuko: Yes, there is one that we can prepare the core for

Gendou: I will leave it to you

To add some final points, in episode 17, Ritsuko tells Gendou that “there is a child that the core can be prepared in a short notice”. This implied to us that the core and the children exist as a pair and the right combination is required for the piloting of the Eva. In other words, somewhere in Nerv headquarters, there exist as many spare cores (With a soul inside each of them) as there are students in class 2-A.

All that is needed is for Ritsuko to choose the appropriate one and plant it into Unit – 03.

Touji is handsome when seen up close

What puts the nail in our coffin is presented to us in the PSP version of the game ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion 2’ there during the fight with Leliel, if we were to select Touji, he meets his mother, just as Shinji did in the TVA.

The kind-hearted brother going to meet his sister (Sister complex)

Ending off, let me address the point that is bound to arise, the argument that the soul inside the Unit – 03’s core being that of his sister.

This claim, at least within my ability to search, first appeared in Kitamura Masahiro’s “Complete Evangelion explained”. He argues that Ritsuko’s line about being able to "prepare" a core immediately as referring to using Touji’s sister who is injured and in hospital. Indeed, we are not shown the state Touji’s sister during the series, therefore I can see why he makes an assumption that Touji’s sister is either in a vegetative state or has gone crazy as Kyoko did.

I argue that this is a gross misinterpretation made from ignoring the role Marduk institute plays in the pilot selection process, thus it is losing legitimacy as it does not take into consideration all of the relevant pieces of the puzzle.

Furthermore, he supports his argument by referring to the tone of Ritsuko’s voice as she says that line as being depressed. But I would like to point that even if it wasn’t Touji’s sister, Ritsuko who knew the truth of the cores would not have said that line in any other way.

Even without child abuse, Nerv is already a horrible place.

#Neon genesis evangelion #Evangelion #Eva #End of evangelion #Nge #Nagisa Kaworu #Lilith #Sci-fi #Ikari Shinji #Soryu Asuka Langley #asuka #Ayanami Rei #rei #Anno Hideaki #Katsuragi Misato #Anime #Analysis #Review

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tearsofthemis · 4 years ago

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Tears of Themis : Chapter 1 “Social Snobbery” Part 16 [Court Stage]

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(Wednesday, the court was called to order. I sat in the court waiting room, looking at the memory card that Xue XinRan had handed me, and couldn’t help but feel troubled.)

~~~Flashback~~~

Xue XinRan:

“Grandpa Fang told me before that there was actually a hidden camera inside the kitchen. It was something that Lu HaiYang had suggested for Grandpa Fang to install. It was to make sure that none of the employees slack off, but who would’ve thought… Grandpa Fang wishes for this piece of evidence not to be used in the case unless it’s absolutely necessary. Otherwise, he would feel like he had personally sent Lu HaiYang to prison, and he’ll have to live with a guilty conscience.”

~~~Flashback ends~~~

(In the footage, at 7:32AM on the day of the incident, Lu HaiYang can be clearly seen removing the water pump from the container and dumping Insect Repellent 330 into it. Then, Lu HaiYang seemed to be afraid that the concentration was too high, so he dumped out a portion of the contaminated water and refilled the spring water container with tap water. Then, Lu HaiYang disappears from the footage for several minutes. I’m guessing that’s when he feared the dosage would be too weak to cause a reaction and tampered with the water pump in order to add pesticide in the water chamber. However, this theory can’t be supported with security footage, nor did Fang Yuan see it with his own eyes. The existence of this footage explains why Mr. Fang was so sure that the culprit was Lu HaiYang, yet he did not clean the water pump.)

MC: “Lu HaiYang must have been struggling with his conscience… But in the end, the thirst for monetary success blinded him…”

(Even when I held the incriminating evidence in my hand, I didn’t feel happy. Just then, my phone vibrated as Xia Yan’s text message pops up on the screen.)

MC: “The super detective that helped me with the case can’t make it today? Sigh… I was hoping that he’d get to see the verdict…”

~~~

(Zuo Ran stood in front of the windows in his office, lost in thought. He pulled out his phone and dialed.)

Zuo Ran: “Mo Yi, it’s me. I found a suitable candidate for our investigative group. According to protocol, all we need is for you to administer the psychological assessment.”

Zuo Ran: “...”

Zuo Ran: “I’m discussing work. I don’t need you to concern yourself with my personal matters.”

Zuo Ran: “...”

Zuo Ran: “Mm. I’ll set up an appointment for her to come and see you as soon as possible.”

~~~

▌ Location: Civil Court, 10:00AM

Judge: “‘QingPing Restaurant’s food poisoning settlement case,’ the court is now in session. I call upon the plaintiff’s lawyer to state the litigation request.”

Cai HaoYu: “I, Cai HaoYu, senior associate of Bader Law Firm, will represent the six customers, including Zhang Qiang, who filed a lawsuit against QingPing Restaurant. The third day of this month, on Friday, Zhang Qiang and company dined at QingPing Restaurant for lunch. Due to the restaurant’s negligence in management, the spring water used to cook the sea fish and tofu soup was contaminated, resulting in my clients experiencing abdominal pain and diarrhea, requiring hospital treatment. This incident has not only caused bodily harm to my clients, but also left them with psychological trauma. Since the incident, my clients have lost their love for cuisine and can no longer consume food normally. Therefore, my clients are looking for a settlement of two hundred thousand dollars in damages - per person - from QingPing Restaurant.”

Judge: “Does the defendant disagree with the plaintiff’s statement?

MC: “The defendant for this case, Mr. Fang Yuan, owner of QingPing Restaurant, has entrusted me with full authority to appear in court in his place on the account of illness. The plaintiff’s characterization of this case as a food poisoning case, and that QingPing Restaurant should compensate for damages, is erroneous. This case is not a food poisoning case, but a criminal case of endangering public security by dangerous substance means. Mr. Fang Yuan is not at fault in the case, and is not liable to pay compensation!”

Cai HaoYu: “Is the defendant unable to pay for the settlement? To the extent that this proxy attorney would suggest such nonsense? The qualitative definition of this food poisoning case is supported by the Accident Identification Report issued by the Food Safety Bureau!” ~~~OBJECTION!~~~

MC: “The Accident Identification Report can only prove that the food was contaminated with toxic substances, and is insufficient to justify whether or not this case was caused by malicious, intentional poisoning. This case’s real culprit is MeiWeiKa’s sales manager, Lu HaiYang!”

~~~

Judge: “To the defendant’s proxy attorney, at the moment, Lu HaiYang is unrelated in this case. Please provide evidence to prove his involvement in the poisoning.”

MC: “I will provide sufficient evidence to the jury, I ask the court to summon Lu HaiYang.”

Judge: “Request granted, please summon Lu HaiYang to court.”

Lu HaiYang: “The old man must be crazy, to hop hurdles to try and bite me!”

Cai HaoYu: “Although Lu HaiYang’s language is foul, I believe the defendant’s attorney is attempting to divert attention away from the case proceedings.”

MC: “To start, according to the accident detailed in the Accident Identification Report, the affected customers experienced food poisoning symptoms caused by the ingestion of toxic chemicals found in the pesticide. The pesticides bought by restaurant owner Fang Yuan and his employee for use in the restaurant is the brand ‘Bugger Off’, and is known to be harmless to humans.”

Cai HaoYu: “This is only Fang Yuan’s verbal claim, he could have secretly purchased other harmful substances behind your back.”

~~~OBJECTION!~~~

MC: “Objection! This is not just a verbal claim! The pesticide used to contaminate the water source was obtained by Lu HaiYang, the evidence is…” ▌ [Select receipt for Insect Repellent 330]

MC: “In the restaurant, I found a receipt for an industrial-use pesticide, called Insect Repellent 330. This pesticide is harmful to humans when ingested, but is not severe enough to cause death. Symptoms include abdominal pain and diarrhea, which matches up to the symptoms described in the Accident Identification Report. The bank account used in this transaction is Lu HaiYang’s personal checking account.”

Lu HaiYang: “That’s just your speculation! The receipt would only show a small portion of the bank account number, that is not my account!”

▌ [Select fingerprint on the receipt]

MC: “Harm by using dangerous substances falls under the classification of a criminal case. As long as the evidence is handed over to the prosecutor, it is easy to find out whether or not you made the transaction. Besides that, your fingerprints are on the receipt! How do you explain that, Lu HaiYang!”

Lu HaiYang: “This… even if I bought it, that doesn’t prove that I was the one who poisoned the water! There’s a cockroach infestation at my rental home, I bought it to use to control it. I just dropped it at the restaurant when I was visiting the old man.”

MC: “When you went to see Fang Yuan, what time did you go?”

Lu HaiYang: “Obviously I went after the day of the incident. Us at MeiWeiKa were planning on offering our PR services. I went to see Fang Yuan, because I wanted to help him with his predicament. Who knew he was stingy enough to give up his restaurant’s reputation for the sake of money.”

Cai HaoYu: “I agree. Your excellency, my clients tried to reconcile with Fang Yuan in an attempt to settle the incident out of court, but the other party refused to pay for the damages, escalating the issue into a lawsuit.”

~~~OBJECTION!~~~

MC: “Attorney Cai, the client took the opportunity to blackmail my client in demanding compensation past the legal limit as dictated by the law. Of course my client will refuse to pay the settlement! Lu HaiYang, although you did indeed visit the restaurant to see Fang Yuan, it definitely wasn’t after the incident! Lu HaiYang visited the restaurant before the incident, and he had sufficient time to commit the crime. The evidence is…”

▌ [Select SD card from the restaurant security camera]

MC: “According to the restaurant security footage, on the morning of the incident at 7:28AM, you were caught on camera visiting QingPing Restaurant, and stayed until 7:43AM before you finally left. To add, the security footage can attest to: the spring water being delivered that day at 6:00AM, the restaurant being unattended from 6:00AM to 8:00AM when Fang Yuan and his runner were off procuring foodstuff, and that the waiter did not clock in until 9:00AM. You were in the restaurant alone, and the spring water was already there by the time of your visit. Can you explain why you were at the restaurant then? Why would you stay in an empty restaurant for fifteen minutes?”

Lu HaiYang: “I… I was going to promote our VIP membership to Fang Yuan, but he wasn’t there, so I waited a little. I saw that he wasn’t going to be back for a while, then I left.”

Cai HaoYu: “Your excellency, I believe Lu HaiYang’s reasoning is sound. He is only a hard-working sales associate who works hard for his company.”

~~~OBJECTION!~~~

MC: “Objection! Although his job is hard, all of his hard work was used in immoral ways! The evidence that incriminates Lu HaiYang as the culprit who tampered with the spring water is…”

▌ [Select water pump]

MC: “Lu HaiYang, you did not spend those fifteen minutes idling in the restaurant! The water pump they used to extract spring water from its container was tampered with, and large amounts of 330 residue was found in the cavity of it! To add, your fingerprints were found on the water pump! How can you explain this?”

Lu HaiYang: “I… I was… I was only thirsty, so I used the water pump to grab some drinking water…”

MC: “Then why were your fingerprints found on the inside of the water pump where the 330 was deposited!”

Lu HaiYang: “That…”

MC: “I bet you’re gonna go real quiet now! The pump’s cavity was filled with 330 powder, the Accident Identification Report classification of ‘malpractice’ is fundamentally incorrect! You did so with malicious intent!”

Lu HaiYang: “The water pump wasn’t working right, I just took it apart to take a look!”

MC: “What insolence! The pump is fully functional right now, shall I demonstrate in court for you, right now!?”

Lu HaiYang: “I, I… I don’t have the motive to do something like that! Why would I try to sabotage the restaurant?! When I first moved to Stellis City, I was only a part-time worker fresh out of high school. It was Mr. Fang Yuan who encouraged me to try and study for university entrance exams, and it was thanks to his support that I was able to go to university and try to change my future. I’ve always been thankful for everything that Mr. Fang Yuan has done for me. After I was hired at MeiWeiKa, I only wanted to help promote his restaurant, I have no reason to harm him!”

MC: “Lu HaiYang, you are shameless enough to reverse what’s black and what’s white!”

Judge: “Order in the court. Proxy lawyer, please pay attention to your words. In regards to Lu HaiYang’s claims, do you have evidence to doubt his character?”

Cai HaoYu: “Your excellency, I can see that the proxy attorney is already scrounging for spare change.”

MC: “The proof to show that Lu HaiYang had motive is…” ▌ [Select voice recording from restaurant outburst]

MC: “Last Saturday, when I was at the crime scene undergoing the investigation, Lu HaiYang, you stormed into the restaurant. You admitted that day, that due to your own work stress of not meeting targeted quotas, you had expressed your desire for Fang Yuan to sign on for MeiWeiKa’s PR services. If the restaurant didn't encounter anything serious enough to hurt its flawless reputation, such as an accidental food poisoning incident, why would it require your PR services? Your company hired writers to flood his page with poor reviews, when in reality, Fang Yuan’s restaurant was never impacted by the supposed negative online presence. The restaurant’s physical guestbook is filled with outstanding praise for the cuisine, and a handwritten note is better than a hundred of online fake reviews! So pray tell, who would benefit the most from QingPing Restaurant’s incident? Everything you admitted was recorded on tape; I bet you didn’t even think of that! In this recording, your attitude towards Fang Yuan was cold, insincere, and manipulative!”

Lu HaiYang: “Just because I can’t make a sale, you’re implying that I planted the poison, I disagree!”

Judge: “The recording indeed proves that the relationship between Fang Yuan and Lu HaiYang has soured, but it cannot directly incriminate Lu HaiYang.”

Cai HaoYu: “Proxy attorney, you’ve mentioned previously that Lu HaiYang’s fingerprints were found on the water pump, but were Lu HaiYang’s fingerprints the only ones?”

MC: “On the exterior, in addition to Lu HaiYang’s fingerprints, the other two employees and Fang Yuan’s fingerprints were also located. The existence of their prints are routine, as they will come in contact with the water pump during their job.”

~~~Opponent Objection!~~~

Cai HaoYu: “Then you cannot eliminate the other two employees as suspects in tampering with the water pump. They can deposit the pesticide powder into the pump’s cavity, with the use of other tools, then they will not leave fingerprints inside the pump. If this is the case, then the restaurant will face heavier repercussions. Proxy attorney, I see that you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.”

Judge: “It seems that although suspicions toward Lu HaiYang is warranted, there is still a lack of conclusive evidence to prove that he is indeed guilty.”

MC: (Should I use the security footage from the kitchen?) (I looked toward the gallery where Zuo Ran and Xue XinRan sat. Zuo Ran watched me with a calm state. In practice, the moment a lawyer steps into court, we shouldn’t be swayed by our emotions. But I couldn't ignore how red Xue XinRan’s eyes were. Behind the physical evidence of the security footage lies the story of an old man’s internal struggles.)

MC: (In Mr. Fang’s heart, even if Lu HaiYang has done many unexcusable things, he still sees it as if he were to incriminate his own son, considering how similar Lu HaiYang looks like Mr. Fang’s outstanding late son. If Lu HaiYang ends up convicted, Mr. Fang will be heartbroken… so I should…)

▌ [Select to show the kitchen security footage]

MC: “I… have another piece of evidence to show to the court. Lu HaiYang, when you used to work for Fang Yuan, you voiced your concerns about employees slacking off, and you helped Fang Yuan install a concealed camera in the kitchen. Do you have any recollection of this?”

Lu HaiYang: “Y-you… No way…”

MC: “When you were younger, you strived to give it your all in order to be accepted into university. When you were younger, you still held respect for Fang Yuan, and you were always looking out for his best interests. So remember this, your guilty verdict today in court isn’t because of Mr. Fang, isn’t because of me, but it is because of the kind and upright Lu HaiYang years ago!”

(I handed the judge the recording. Lu HaiYang could be clearly seen in the act, pouring in the pesticide and contaminating the spring water. There was no more room for him to try and bluff his way out of it.)

(Fang Yuan stood up from the gallery. When he arrived at the courtroom unbeknownst to me, he looked over the proceedings and sighed.)

Judge: “Lu HaiYang, what do you have to add in order to explain yourself?”

Lu HaiYang: “I’m… I’m not… Your excellency, I did not act out of my own volition, I was forced to do it! The company forced me to do it. All the seniors that came before me, they resorted to these tactics too! You can’t just convict me. If you must, you gotta convict them all!”

Judge: “Lu HaiYang, may the court believe that this is your admission to the crime of poisoning?”

Lu HaiYang: “!!!”

Judge: “The court decrees! The plaintiff Zhang Qiang and the six other customers suing defendant QingPing Restaurant on the account of food poisoning caused by misoperation, after the court proceedings, I declare the nature of the case has changed significantly. The court hereby pronounces the plaintiff’s request for compensation as rejected. The amount, and whether or not the defendant will be required to pay settlement for the damages ensued, will be retried after the relevant criminal trial has ended. Bailiffs, please take Lu HaiYang into custody and to be transferred to the proper law enforcement segment.”

Lu HaiYang: “Fang Yuan! You can’t do this, how could you harm me like this!”

(Lu HaiYang attempted to shake off the two officers in order to rush toward Fang Yuan in the gallery, but he was restrained by the bailiffs. Xue XinRan and Zuo Ran stood on Fang Yuan’s side, preventing Lu HaiYang from harming him. After seeing Lu HaiYang in this state, Fang Yuan started to cry.)

Fang Yuan: “You’re… past the point of saving! It’s my fault, I should have locked you up at home and forbade you from going to work. Then, perhaps we wouldn’t be here today…”

(Fang Yuan shook Xue XinRan’s hand off of his shoulder, turned, and left.)

Cai HaoYu: “Wh-what… I lost to some junior associate from Themis?! I don’t believe it. As if it wasn’t bad enough losing to Zuo Ran!”

Judge: “This court is adjourned. All rise!”

-------

[Previous Part] | [Masterlist] | [Next Part]

——-

《CREDIT》 Translator: @humi-and-co Editor: @hallowsivy 《未定事件簿》Tears of Themis is a 2020 Chinese otome game by 米哈游Mihoyo. All original credits go to 米哈游Mihoyo.

——-

Behind The Scenes: White(Humi), Blue(Ivy)

Ivy: The lawyer from Bader’s CV’s pen name (I think) is 鹏小胖, where 小胖 means little chubby (in a cute way like how you’d call a baby chubby/cute >_< it doesn’t translate well) Anyway, it suits him so well ahaha ~~ so uwu with the little baby fat (*ฅ́˘ฅ̀*) .｡.:*♡

#tears of themis #tears of themis translations #otome #tears of themis zuo ran #未定事件簿 #zuo ran #左然 #tears of themis trans

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leonaesque · 4 years ago

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Poetic Injustice: On Ateneo and Negotiating Complicity

To be a successful comprador is an art. Tony Tan Caktiong knows this. Given the scale at which multinational corporations influence Philippine culture, at this point, who are we to refute it? And how? Profit-seeking forces itself on us; to be recognized. Every mass-produced item of clothing featuring the pattern of an ever-smiling billion-dollar bee is indication enough: Art is execution. In fact, being the recipient of foreign capital requires deliberate hands able to maintain thousands upon thousands of labor-only contractual workers, despite their having worked at the same establishment for years on end. These workers produce what no middleman can. Yet a company will still view being bought-out by an industry giant as the ideal exit strategy. Each moving part makes for one striking image of monopoly– worthy, one might insist, of being featured in a gallery.

Jollibee Foods Corporations (JFC) acquires stakes or ownership of restaurant chains in order to expand, as it has done over the course of many years with local and foreign brands. Their current roster includes Greenwich, Chowking, Red Ribbon, Mang Inasal, Burger King PH, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and Panda Express PH. The company also runs businesses internationally, such as Smashburgers in the United States, and Yonghe Dawang or Yonghe King in China.[1] Of course, the face of this massive undertaking remains the once tiny Magnolia-inspired ice cream store, Jollibee, now every business-oriented insect’s wet dream.

Ernesto Tanmiantong, brother and successor of Tony Tan Caktiong as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Jollibee Foods Corporation, is the latest former Chairperson of the Ateneo de Manila University Board of Trustees.[2] One can even find his name, along with his wife’s, gracing a first-floor exhibit hall of the Ateneo Art Gallery, found inside the university’s so-called creative hub, the Arete. In the months before the start of the first semester of S.Y. 2018-2019, Tanmiantong’s adorable, marketing-committee-approved buddy in white gloves and a chef’s hat took a trip to the then-newly inaugurated art gallery for a photo-op. The mascot then posed with several installments and paintings, a couple of which depicted farmers and workers.

According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), JFC is one of the most notorious businesses with regards to the perpetuation of the practice of contractualization.[3] Contractual workers are, according to law, not employed by– and, therefore, not the responsibility of– the company they provide labor to. Because of this, these workers do not receive benefits or compensation, are often subject to abusive working conditions, and are vulnerable to the shameless practice of mass termination. No doubt, the Public Relations stunt with the Ateneo Art Gallery was ill-timed; right at the height of protests against the corporation, in the midst of its non-compliance with the DOLE’s order to regularize upwards of 6,000 of its workers– there was Jollibee: tone-deaf and taking pictures to post on his Facebook profile, The Atenean Way.

Ironically, as the statement by Ateneo’s School of Humanities Sanggunian (which condemned the incident) pointed out, perhaps even the person inside that oversized blinking head of the Jollibee mascot was a contractual worker, posing in a space that he might never have been able to enter without the cartoon-bee-mask of his exploitation.[4] Surely, it does not matter whether or not the institutional faux pas was an intentional case of art-washing. At least, it should not. Is there such a thing as art for art for art’s sake?

---

There is this poem entitled “The Doomed” written by Mikael De Lara Co. A friend of mine recommended it to me once after a workshop session because my piece, he said, reminded him of it. I do not think my friend meant to insult me. Unless he did.

“The Doomed” is a poem about writing a poem, wherein the poet-persona is aware that, while he is writing poems about lilies, there is violence somewhere, which he is both physically and socially detached from. This violence is manifest into the shooting of Liberal Party supporter and candidate, Hamira Agcong, in 2010, as well as the infamous Ampatuan Massacre that occurred in 2009, where 58 people were kidnapped and killed.

Where do poems fall under in the realm of social praxis (if at all)? “The Doomed” ends with the lines “I want to find beauty in suffering. / I want to fail.” Yet, the poem’s aestheticization of the murders via tone and imagery is blatant. The declarative rejection of an ideal like beauty or portraying beauty betrays the poet’s pretentiousness in what can only be his underlying conservativity. There is no attempt to avoid it. With lines like “You sit at your desk / to write a poem about lilies and a clip of 9mm’s / is emptied into the chest of a mother…” and “… a backhoe in Ampatuan crushes the spines of 57 / – I am trying to find another word for bodies”, it sounds as though these killings are more poetic material than actual, politically motivated deaths. Tell me, is the reader to blame for reading what is on the page? Mikael De Lara Co fails in failing, making the poem and its project a useless endeavor.

Despite the pointedly crafted grief into the persona’s voice, “The Doomed” does nothing to grieve the circumstances which brings about its dramatic situation. Why are people “doomed”, if not for the bureaucrat capitalists that viciously plot to stay in power? Could the poet not have addressed that, instead of weeping about his writing process? I do not believe that the poem would have failed that, at least, because all language inevitably fails in the face of social reality. That would be lazy, if it were not bullshit.

But I suppose that is why “The Doomed” fails, most of all: The poet believes it is fine to write speeches for a leader who allowed farmers and indigenous people to be harassed, as long as they could be tagged as members of the New People’s Army, the armed faction of the Communist Party of the Philippines. A text speaks, though the words are not on the page. So, the poet dooms.

Mikael De Lara Co has won many awards for his writing and translations, including the prestige-inducing Don Carlos Palanca Award for Literature. He graduated BS Environmental Science from Ateneo de Manila University, where he was once an editor of Heights, the school’s official literary publication. He has been published in many other magazines, literary journals, and the like, where his author’s notes proudly indicate all these accomplishments and more, such as having, himself, worked for the Liberal Party and once been a member of the former President Benigno Aquino III’s staff under the Presidential Communications Operations Office. Ergo, ghostwriter, alongside a number of other Ateneans who were also once part of Heights.

“Noynoy Aquino was a fascist” is a phrase that does not get said often enough. The Aquino administration, with its neoliberal policies the color of dehydrated piss, is credited with the starving thousands of farmers to death. Unsurprising, I suppose, for a family of landlords to inherit a disdain for the very hands that feed them. Corazon Cojuanco Aquino passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) during her regime, and her son amended it with an extension and reforms (CARPer), making it even easier for land owners not to have to redistribute their lands at all.

For all its “Kayo ang boss ko” and “Daang Matuwid” pandering, the Aquino administration did not skimp on its counterinsurgency program, Oplan Bayanihan, which heavily drew from the U.S. Counterinsurgency Guide.[5] Here, it was farmers and Lumad, some of the most vulnerable sectors of Philippine society, that were tagged as rebels, terrorists, communists, etc., simply for knowing and standing for their rights, as the government failed to decimate actual armed revolutionaries in the countryside.

The massacre that took place under the Aquino administration occurred in Kidapawan, Cotabato on April 1, 2016. According to reports, among the group of 6,000 protesters that was mainly composed of farmers and activists, 116 were injured, 87 went missing, and 3 were killed.[6] Perhaps the lilies in “The Doomed” were a metaphor for De Lara Co’s beloved Noynoy.

---

Speaking of Ateneo: For an institution that makes yearly claims to combat historical revisionism and uphold the memory of the victims of human rights violations under the Martial Law era, this university loves to slurp on major Marcos ass. In 2014, President Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ drew flack for having rubbed elbows with the iron butterfly herself, Imelda Marcos, at an Ateneo scholars’ benefactors’ event.[7] The mere thought of Imelda posing as a charitable, bloated cockroach in a wig that feasts on all that is lavish and garish, while the university welcomes her to do so is nearly comical. I imagine the blood.

In 2019, a similar incident ensued[8], this time with Imelda’s daughter, Irene, whose art connoisseur lifestyle she lives second-hand. It was during the inauguration of the Arete’s amphitheater, named after Ignacio B. Jimenez, a crony of the corrupt family themselves.[9] Community backlash forced the building’s executive director, Yael Buencamino, to resign and for University President, Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ to issue a statement in response to the instance.

Yet, despite the triumph of Ateneans in demanding accountability for having the Marcoses at our literal and metaphorical dining table, there are also the Camposes, the Consunjis, the Lorenzos, and other local elite whose hands are stained with generational blood, that have established their presence in the campus with no near hopes of showing them out. Students could also be as loud as they pleased about the violations on workers’, farmers’, and national minorities’ rights that these families are frequently attached to, with only the answer of a warning that school organizations may lose sponsorship opportunities. What else can we expect? Of course, the names that line the halls that one studies in are the limits of academic freedom.

---

A few semesters ago, I wrote a poem to be workshopped by my co-English staffers in Heights as part of our membership retention requirements. It was not a good poem, I know. It was about my experience of integrating with the striking workers of Sumifru, a multinational Japanese company that produces fruit, whose union was called NAMASUFA (Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Suyapa Farm). After struggling to get word out of their plight and facing violent dispersals and harassment, 200 workers came all the way from Compostela Valley to Metro Manila via boat and plane, despite the difficulties of travel due to the imposition of Martial Law throughout Mindanao. Their objective was to pressure the DOLE and its Secretary, Silvestre Bello III, into action; that is, to be firm in enforcing Sumifru’s compliance to regularize their workers, which the company refused to do even though the DOLE had legally recognized them as their workers’ employer. The workers set up camp in various places, such as Mendiola, Liwasang Bonifacio, and beside the Commission on Human Rights inside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, and often welcomed students who came to learn about their cause.

During the workshop, the discussion began with a silence and an awkward laugh. Political realism was how my poem was diagnosed, for obvious reasons. However, the main critique that I remember was that my use of language– the words multinational corporation and bureaucrat capitalists, in particular– did not induce the feeling of the struggle that the workers went through. It was not the language workers used or would use. I refuted this claim, saying I had talked to the workers. That this is exactly what they say. No, it is not poetic. It is real.

I agree, though, with the verdict that my poem was not good, if the basis were form. I agree because I do not think poems need to be good to say what is needed. If the basis were factors other than form, I still do not think the poem is good. I mean, either way, it does not change the fact that, ultimately, I only wrote a poem for a workshop, despite any intention of bringing awareness to NAMASUFA. Is a poem going to save them their jobs? Does that make a difference? Did it make a difference?

The Sumifru workers returned to Mindanao last July, 2019. I have left Heights as well.

---

Within the Ateneo campus, a tarpaulin overlooks the red brick road that the entire Loyola Schools population traverses. The sign merits a purposeful, impossible-to-miss position on the old Rizal Library building, immortalizing the critique: “We find the Ateneo today irrelevant to the Philippine situation because it can do no more than to service the power elite.” Nothing could be more fitting, in my opinion. The Ateneo de Manila University’s commitment to performativity deserves to be blasted in our faces, if at least once a day.

This declaration was taken from the “Down from the Hill” manifesto published by The Guidon in November of 1968. The manifesto was written by a group of five students, namely Jose Luis Alcuaz, Gerardo Esguerra, Emmanuel Lacaba, Leonardo Montemayor and Alfredo Salanga, all of whom actively campaigned for an anti-imperialist orientation to nationalism.

I want to talk about Eman Lacaba. Throughout the Marcos regime, he was a student activist– a radical, so to speak, as disapproving administrative bodies might now label him. Presently, he is known for being a poet, revolutionary, guerilla, and a martyr during the Martial Law era. One of his most often discussed poems is “An Open Letter to Filipino Artists”, a piece that finds itself into syllabi like a de-fanged snake. The poem is a detailing of his experience as a cadre of the New People’s Army; the provinces he visits, his process of proletarianizing from a burgis boy to a communist rebel, and so forth. The epigraph of the work, a quote from Ho Chi Minh, affirms his praxis– “A poet must learn how to lead an attack.” The poem is the revolution that Lacaba takes up arms for. I guess now that he is dead, Ateneans can wholeheartedly claim him as one of their own.

After the Martial Law era, Ateneo decided to create a body dedicated to the integration of its students with various disenfranchised sectors of society, as encouragement for their middle to upper-middle class youth to become more socially aware and active. The Office of Social Concern and Involvement (OSCI) is the current iteration of this. Their programs, from first year to fourth, require students to be socially involved enough to pass their Theology units. Commendable, no? Still. You can almost get sanctioned for so much as lighting candles for state-murdered farmers on the sidewalk by the gates outside of campus if it is not an Office of Student Activities-approved event– something I learned the hard way. I was not aware that bureaucracy was a key principle in Catholic Social Teaching.

So, does this mean the opposite of active non-violence is that which is inactively violent? The areas that OSCI allows their students to immerse in are carefully chosen, the interactions are prepared for in advance. In fact, they do not want to use the term “immerse” lest they be misconstrued with the damn leftists that climb mountains and “brainwash” unsuspecting poor people. You know, the ones that dare challenge the status-quo? Ateneo, or at the very least, its administration, will recognize the necessity of political action, but only to a certain extent. Nothing like Eman, the warrior-poet, whose militance is much too red to aestheticize.

The contradiction between what is said (marketed, poeticized, apologized for, etc.) and what is done should be scrutinized, instead of convincing ourselves that our interests are not merely our own. The dominant culture of a society will expose who supports those who hold political and economic power.

[1] Cigaral (List: Brands operated by Jollibee Foods Corp.)

[2] (Leadership)

[3] Patinio (Jollibee tops list of firms engaged in labor-only contracting: DOLE)

[4] SOH Sanggunian (The Statement of the SOH Sanggunian on Jollibee's PR Stunt)

[5] Karapatan (OPLAN BAYANIHAN For Beginners)

[6] Caparas (WITH VIDEOS: 3 dead, 87 missing, 116 hurt as police fire on Cotabato human barricade)

[7] Francisco (Ateneo de Manila 'sorry' over Imelda's visit)

[8] Paris (Irene Marcos was invited to Ateneo, and students are up in arms)

[9] Rappler.com (Ateneo hit for art ampitheater named after Marcos 'dummy')

Works Cited

Caparas, Jeff. “WITH VIDEOS: 3 Dead, 87 Missing, 116 Hurt as Police Fire on Cotabato Human Barricade.” InterAksyon.com, 1 Apr. 2016, web.archive.org/web/20160402013745/interaksyon.com/article/125901/breaking--security-forces-open-fire-on-cotabato-human-barricade.

Cigaral, Ian Nicolas. “List: Brands Operated by Jollibee Foods Corp.” Philstar.com, The Philippine Star, 24 July 2019, www.philstar.com/business/2019/07/24/1937490/list-brands-operated-jollibee-foods-corp.

Francisco, Katerina. “Ateneo De Manila 'Sorry' over Imelda's Visit.” Rappler, 6 July 2014, www.rappler.com/nation/62549-ateneo-manila-imelda-marcos-apology.

Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights). OPLAN BAYANIHAN For Beginners, Karapatan, 2011.

“Leadership.” Leadership | Ateneo Global, global.ateneo.edu/about/leadership.

Paris, Janella. “Irene Marcos Was Invited to Ateneo, and Students Are up in Arms.” Rappler, 8 Apr. 2019, www.rappler.com/nation/227702-irene-marcos-invited-to-ateneo-students-protest-april-2019.

Patinio, Ferdinand. “Jollibee Tops List of Firms Engaged in Labor-Only Contracting: DOLE.” Philippine News Agency RSS, Philippine News Agency, 28 May 2018, www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1036679.

Rappler.com. “Ateneo Hit for Art Ampitheater Named after Marcos 'Dummy'.” Rappler, 21 Apr. 2019, www.rappler.com/nation/228633-ateneo-ignacio-gimenez-ampitheater-marcos-dummy.

“SOH Sanggunian.” SOH Sanggunian - The Statement of the SOH Sanggunian on..., 2 July 2018, www.facebook.com/sohsanggu/photos/a.157891440898864/1893103380710986/?type=3.

#mine #nonfic #essay

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ts1989fanatic · 5 years ago

Text

Taylor Swift Bent the Music Industry to Her Will

In the 2010s, she became its savviest power player.

In late November 2019, Taylor Swift gave a career-spanning performance at the American Music Awards before accepting the statue for Artist of the Decade. (Swift was perhaps the perfect cross between the award’s two previous recipients, Britney Spears and Garth Brooks.) Clad in a cascading rose-colored cape and holding court among the younger female artists in attendance — 17-year-old Billie Eilish, 22-year-old Camila Cabello, 25-year-old Halsey — Swift had the queenly air of an elder stateswoman. After picking up five additional awards, including Artist of the Year, she became the show’s most decorated artist in history. “This is such a great year in music. The new artists are insane,” she declared in her acceptance speech, with big-sister gravitas. That night, she finally outgrew that “Who, me?” face of perpetual awards-show surprise; she accepted the honors she won like an artist who believed she had worked hard enough to deserve them.

Swift cut an imposing adult figure up there, because somewhere along the line she’d become one. The 2010s have coincided almost exactly with Swift’s 20s, with the subtle image changes and maturations across her last five album cycles coming to look like an Animorphs cover of a savvy and talented young woman gradually growing into her power. And so to reflect on the Decade in Taylor Swift is to assess not just her sonic evolutions but her many industry chess moves: She took Spotify to task in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and got Apple to reverse its policy of not paying artists royalties during a three-month free trial of its music-streaming service. She sued a former radio DJ for allegedly groping her during a photo op and demanded just a symbolic victory of $1, as if to say the money wasn’t the point. Critics wondered whether she was leaning too heavily on her co-writers, so she wrote her entire 2010 album, Speak Now, herself, without any collaborators. In 2018, she severed ties with her longtime label, Big Machine Records, and negotiated a new contract with Universal Music Group that gave her ownership of her masters and assurance that she (and any other artist on the label) would be paid out if UMG ever sold its Spotify shares. Yes, she stoked the flames of her celebrity feuds with Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, and Katy Perry plenty over the past ten years, but she’s also focused some of her combative energy on tackling systemic problems and fashioning herself into something like the music industry’s most high-profile vigilante. Few artists have made royalty payments and the minutiae of entertainment-law front-page news as often as Swift has.

Within the industry, Swift has always had the reputation of being something of a songwriting savant (in 2007, when “Our Song” was released, then-17-year-old Swift became the youngest person ever to write and perform a No. 1 song on the Billboard Country chart), but she has long desired to be considered an industry power player, too. A 2011 New Yorker profile of Swift circa her blockbuster Speak Now World Tour noted that she initially intended to follow her parents’ footsteps and pursue a career in business, quoting her saying, “I didn’t know what a stockbroker was when I was 8, but I would just tell everybody that’s what I was going to be.” In an even earlier interview, she fondly recalled the times in elementary school when she stayed up late with her mother, practicing for school presentations. “I’m sick of women not being able to say that they have strategic business minds — because male artists are allowed to,” she said this year in an unusually candid Rolling Stone interview. “And I’m so sick and tired of having to pretend like I don’t mastermind my own business.” Of course, she still spent plenty of time sitting at her piano or strumming her guitar, but in that conversation she painted herself as someone who is also “sit[ting] in a conference room several times a week,” coming up with ideas about how best to market her music and her career.

And so over the past decade, Swift’s face has appeared not just on magazine covers and television screens, but on UPS trucks and Amazon packages. Her songs have been featured in Target commercials and NFL spots, to name just two of her many lucrative partnerships. That New Yorker profile also found her to be uncommonly enthused about the fact that her CDs were being sold in Starbucks: “I was so stoked about it, because it’s been one of my goals — I always go into Starbucks, and I wished that they would sell my album.”

“Taylor Swift is something like the Sheryl Sandberg of pop music,” Hazel Cills wrote recently in Jezebel. “She has propelled her career from tiny country artist into pop machine over the past few years with little shame when it comes to corporate collaborators.” Such brazen femme-capitalism will always be a turnoff to some people (“the Sheryl Sandberg of pop music” is even less of a compliment in 2019 than it was when Lean In was first published), but it’s undeniable that it has helped Swift maintain and leverage her status as a commercial juggernaut more consistently than any other pop star over the past ten years.

In the 2010s, with the clockwork certainty of a midterm election, there was a Taylor Swift album every other autumn. (Yes, there was a three-year gap between 1989 and Reputation, but she all but made up for it with the quick timing of August’s Lover.) The kinds of pop superstars considered her peers did not stick to such rigid schedules: Adele released two studio albums this decade, Beyoncé released three, and even Rihanna — who for the first three years of the decade was averaging an album a year — eventually slowed her roll and will have released just four when the 2010s are all said and done. The only A-plus-list musician who saturated the market as steadily as Swift did this decade was Drake.

Still, Drake’s commercial dominance was more of a newfangled phenomenon, capitalizing on the industry’s sudden reliance on streaming and his massive popularity on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Drake might be the artist who rode the streaming wave most successfully this decade, but — with her strategic withholding of her albums from certain platforms until they better compensated artists — Swift was often the one bending it to her will. And she could do that because she didn’t need to rely on it solely: Somehow, against all odds, Taylor Swift still sold records. Like, gazillions of them. When Swift’s 2017 record, Reputation (some critics thought it was a critical misstep, but it certainly wasn’t a commercial one), moved 1.216 million units in its first seven days, Swift became the only artist in history to achieve four different million-selling weeks. And, of course, all four of these weeks came during a decade when traditional album sales were on a precipitous decline. At least for those mere mortals who were not an all-powerful being named Taylor Alison Swift.

“Female empowerment” has been such an ambient, unquestioned virtue of the pop culture of this decade that we have too often failed to take a step back and ask ourselves what sort of power is being advocated for, and if its attainment should always be a cause for celebration. Is “female empowerment” any different from the hollow, materialistic promises of the late ’90s “girl power”? Is “female power” inherently different or more benevolent than its default male counterpart? Maybe this feels like such a distinctly American hang-up because we have not yet experienced that mythic, oft-imagined figure of the First Female President, and have thus not had to contend with the cold reality that, whoever she is, she will, like all of us, be inevitably flawed, imperfect, and at least occasionally disappointing.

As she’s grown into her own brand of 21st-century American pop feminism — sometimes elegantly, sometimes gawkily — Swift seems to have come to a firm conviction that female power is essentially more virtuous than the male variety. This was a side of herself she celebrated in her AMA performance. Swift opened her medley with a few fiery bars of “The Man,” her own personalized daydream of what gender equality would look like: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can,” she sings, “wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man.” She wore an oversize white button-down onto which the titles of her old albums were stamped in a correctional-facility font: SPEAK NOW, RED, 1989, REPUTATION. Plenty of the millions of people who scrutinize Swift’s every move interpreted her choice of outfit and song as not-so-subtle jabs at Big Machine’s Scott Borchetta and the manager-to-the-stars Scooter Braun, with whom Swift is still in a messy, uncommonly public battle over the fate of her master recordings. (The only album title missing from her outfit was “LOVER,” which happens to be the only one of which she has full ownership.) She has framed the terms of her battle with Borchetta and Braun in strikingly gendered language: “These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work,” she told Rolling Stone. “And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of Scotch to themselves.” Though she is herself a very rich, very powerful woman, she reads their message to be unquestionably condescending: Be a good little girl and shut up.

It is true that many record contracts are designed to take advantage of young artists, and that young women and people of color are probably perceived by music executives to be the marks most vulnerable to exploitation. But it is also true that Swift signed a legally binding contract, the kind that a businesswoman like herself would have to respect if it were signed by somebody else. Braun, who has been asking to have these negotiations in private rather than on Twitter, claims to have received death threats from her fans.

Even as she’s grown into one of the most dominant pop-culture figures in the world, Swift sometimes still seems to be clinging to her old underdog identity, to the extent that she can fail to grasp the magnitude of her own power or account for the blind spots of her privilege. “Someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me,” she sang on Speak Now’s Grammy-winning 2010 single “Mean,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that, compared to 99.99 percent of the population, she already was. The mid-decade backlash to Swift’s thin-white-celebrity-and-model-studded “girl squad” — none of which was more incisive than Lara Marie Schoenhals’s hilarious parody video — took her by surprise. “I never would have imagined that people would have thought, This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it … I thought it was going to be we can still stick together, just like men are allowed to.”

“Female power” is not automatically faultless, and can of course be tainted by all other sorts of biases and assumptions about class, race, and sexual orientation, to name just a few more common pitfalls. Swift’s face-palm-inducing 2015 misunderstanding with Nicki Minaj revealed this, of course, and plenty of people felt that her sudden embrace of the LGBTQ community in the “You Need to Calm Down” was a clumsy overcorrection for her past silence. Maybe she would have gotten where she was quicker if she were a man. But it would take a more complicated, and perhaps less catchy, song to acknowledge she might not have gotten there at all had she not also enjoyed other privileges.

Art has its own kind of power — sneakier and harder to measure than the economic kind. The reason Taylor Swift has been worth talking about incessantly for an entire decade is that she continues to wield this kind, too. “I don’t think her commercial responsibilities detract from her genuine passion for her craft,” a then-17-year-old Tavi Gevinson wrote in a memorable 2013 essay for The Believer. “Have you ever watched her in interviews when she gets asked about her actual songwriting? She becomes that kid who’s really into the science fair.”

After so much industry drama, much of the lived-in, self-reflective Lover is a simple reminder that Swift was and still is a singular songwriter. Yes, this was the decade of such loud, flashy missteps as “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Welcome to New York,” and “Me!,” but it was also a decade of so many quieter triumphs: the pulsing synesthesia of “Red,” the nervous heart flutter of “Delicate,” the sleek sophistication of “Style,” the concise lyricism of “Mean,” the cathartic fun of “22,” the slow-dance swoon of “Lover.” But like so many of her fans, and even Swift herself, I still find the most enduringly powerful song she’s ever written to be “All Too Well,” the smoldering breakup scrapbook released on her great 2012 album Red. “Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well,” she sings, an innocent enough lyric that, by the end of the song, comes to glint like a switchblade. In a decade of DGAF, ghosting, and performative chill, remembering it all too well might be Swift’s stealthiest superpower. She felt it deeply, can still access that feeling whenever she needs to, and that means she can size you up in a line as concisely cutting as “so casually cruel in the name of being honest.” Forget Jake Gyllenhaal or John Mayer. That’s the sort of observation that would bring Goliath to his knees.

“It is still the case that when listeners hear a female voice, they do not hear a voice that connotes authority,” the historian Mary Beard writes in her manifesto Women & Power, “or rather they have not learned how to hear authority in it.” At least in the realm of pop music, Swift has spent the better part of her decade chipping away at that double standard, and teaching people how to think about cultural power a little bit differently. She sprinkled artful emblems of teen-girl-speak through her smash hits (“Uhhh he calls me and he’s like, ‘I still love you,’ and I’m like, ‘This is exhausting, we are never getting back together, like, ever”) and did not abandon her effusive love of kittens and butterflies in order to be taken seriously. As an artist and a businesswoman, she made the power of teen girls — and the women who used to be them — that much more perilous to ignore. Because they’ve been there all along, and they remember all too well.

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iatethepomegranate · 5 years ago

Text

Homecoming Chapter 26

Tumblr is being a pain and hiding this from the tag again, so I guess I’ll have to take out the masterlist link again. Because functioning websites are for losers, apparently.

This is part of the Human Connection series. You can find the masterlist linked on my “tags and fics” page.

Pairing: DickTiger

Rating: Teen (this chapter)

Length: 3.2k

Summary: Tiger has his debriefing with Maxwell Lord.

Notes: Angsty chapter incoming.

Warnings: discussions of torture (with some detail), discussions of violence (with some detail), panic attack, vomiting, discussion of a past relationship age gap

***

Chapter 26

Maxwell Lord’s office was sparsely decorated with the barest of necessities: a desk, three chairs, a computer, a filing cabinet, a shredder. It was clear he did not intend to remain here full time. He sat behind his desk with a recording device. Tiger sat on the other side in a chair that was too soft for comfort. He felt like he was sinking.

“Well,” Maxwell Lord said, folding his hands on the desk. “It seems you’ve had an eventful few years.”

Tiger wanted to comment that Lord knew most of this information already because only a fool would send an agent undercover without any kind of oversight, but thought better of it. Dick and Helena took his comments in their stride, but Checkmate was more… formal. In some ways.

“Yes,” Tiger said. “I have.”

“I understand you are still in contact with Bertinelli,” said Lord. “She has provided recommendations of her own. I would be interested to hear yours.”

“Most Spyral agents who remain were unaware of their employer’s true intentions,” Tiger replied. “They could be rehabilitated...”

“But?”

“We need to discuss Bannon.”

“You were light on the details of his involvement,” Lord said. “I take it you wanted to speak about his behaviour as a whole?”

“Yes.” Tiger glanced at the recorder. It was still working. He was uncomfortable, but if this conversation did not go on record, it would be much easier for Checkmate to ignore his opinions.

“This recording will be transcribed and redacted,” Lord told him. “You know it’s confidential. No one can access it without authorisation. You can speak freely.”

Tiger had to remind himself to take a deep breath. “I ask your patience in this matter.”

Lord nodded. “Granted. Is this a difficult topic for you?”

Admitting weakness to his superiors never felt right… but it felt necessary this time. “Yes.”

“You have mentioned multiple encounters with Bannon. Shall we work through them chronologically?”

Tiger didn’t know what else to do, so he nodded.

“Tell me what happened after you were abducted from the store.”

Tiger did not like to think about it, let alone talk about it. He had only shared the barest of details at best, and only with Dick. Putting his thoughts in order felt like putting sandpaper on his brain.

“Bannon chained me to a wall,” Tiger said. “By the wrists. It was uncomfortable on its own, but then he struck me repeatedly in the face and torso. He demanded to know where I had been, where I was going and where Grayson was located. I refused to answer. He broke three of my ribs. My nose did not break, but I bled profusely. Those are only the injuries which left a mark.” He balled his hands into fists on his knees to stop them shaking. It was not effective. “He kept the room cold. He would leave me alone between beatings until I felt it. Shivering was painful, but I could not stop it. I was denied water. Had Grayson not come for me, denial of food was also likely.”

Lord sighed. “Tiger, the unfortunate reality is most spy organisations use these interrogation techniques for a reason. That is why we train our agents to withstand them.”

Tiger had to fight down the urge to punch him, or to run out of the room. He was not sure which would have prevailed if he had been unsuccessful.

“If you are implying that I am weak—”

“That is not what I am implying.” Lord was lying. Tiger could hear it in his voice.

“Shall I continue?” Tiger said, not waiting for an answer. “He knew which ribs were broken. He deliberately struck them to cause more pain. I am fortunate my lungs were not punctured by bone fragments.” Breathing hurt, as if his ribs were broken again. “I do not recall that as a common interrogation technique from my training. Risking the death of your prisoners seems counterproductive. The man simply enjoys hurting people.”

“He’s a rare breed,” Lord said. “We don’t have many people who are willing to inflict that level of suffering for interrogation purposes.”

“I know you have read the research: torture as an interrogation technique is ineffective. Prisoners, once they reach a breaking point, will say what the interrogator wants to hear, even if it is inaccurate.”

“Did you?”

“I was not in his grasp long enough. Grayson was, when his time came.”

“Had Grayson not located you, do you think you would have answered his questions?”

“I had hoped to delay long enough that information about Grayson’s location would be outdated.”

“You were in no condition to fabricate a believable lie?”

“I do not know.” Tiger gripped his knees, because if he didn’t hold onto something there was a chance he would walk about. Or punch Lord.

“So, you’re telling me Bannon was an effective enough interrogator that it’s difficult to lie to him?”

“No. Grayson lied to him often.”

Lord rubbed his chin. “That is interesting. Now, you say you encountered him again later.”

“He stabbed me in the shoulder. We were allies by then, to his knowledge.” Tiger hating thinking back to that fight. “Bannon started the fight when Bertinelli brought me back to Spyral. I did not expect he would attack an ally and was unprepared.”

“Do you know why he started that fight?”

“He said he wanted to prove my weakness to the director of Spyral.” That was something else Tiger hadn’t discussed with Dick. Dick knew there had been a fight, but not the details.

“Was he under orders to do this?”

“I am uncertain. Daedalus might have ordered him to weaken my connection to Bertinelli, but I have no evidence.”

“I suppose I’ll just have to ask him.”

Tiger’s stomach lurched. “I would prefer you did not.”

“Are you concerned he will know you spoke to me about this?”

“You know the answer to that question.”

“Well, it’s an important thing to know. If he chose to attack you while you were, to his knowledge, an ally, that does raise concerns. However, if he was under orders…”

Tiger wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. “What of Grayson?”

“Grayson has a great deal of valuable knowledge.”

“He forced me torture him. He placed Grayson in a machine he knew caused long-term medical problems. Even then, Grayson did not provide the information he demanded.” Tiger’s voice was rising, and he couldn’t stop it. “He caused Grayson severe life-changing injuries for no reason. He tormented me for no reason after I had already been forced to obey his orders. Bannon finds joy in hurting people. He likes it. After all the bullshit I went through to stop Spyral, the fact you want to recruit the man who—”

Lord held up a hand. “Tiger, enough. I understand this situation is distressing, but you must recognise you are too close to give an objective assessment. If you were in my place and you had a perfect candidate before you, who could save millions of lives if his energies are channelled correctly… if the only problem was he had harmed an agent of yours, can you tell me you would not consider—”

“No,” Tiger snapped, “I would not employ somebody who treated an agent in my care the way Bannon has treated me. I would be more concerned about retaining the talent I had instead of—”

“Do you intend to return to the field, Tiger?”

“I will not pass the psychological assessment. Because of Bannon.”

“But if you did pass?”

“I cannot answer that, because I would be a different person.”

“Your point about retaining talent is irrelevant if the talent is not retainable.”

That sentence was a knife through Tiger’s stomach. He’d never before considered that Checkmate would stop caring about him the instant he was no longer useful to them.

He should have known that. The foolishness of his youth had come to betray him once again. It did not matter that he had completed a high-risk years-long mission for Checkmate. It did not matter he had put his life, body and sanity on the line for them. If he was no longer useful, why would they care about his opinions, or even what happened to him?

Tiger was not a fool… until he was.

He wanted to leave.

A hand fell on his shoulder. He flinched.

“I’d like you to take the evaluation,” said Lord, “regardless of whether you believe you will pass. Same time next week. Afterwards, we can talk about your future with Checkmate. You’re a good agent, Tiger. It would be a shame to lose you.”

Tiger wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry or hit something.

***

After the meeting, Tiger shut himself in a bathroom. In such a private building, each bathroom was clean and self-contained with a toilet, shower and sink. There was also a bench, on which Tiger now sat with his head cradled in his hands, trying to remember how to breathe.

He was failing.

He desperately wanted to hear Dick’s voice, but his devices were downstairs with the security guard. Tiger was not up for the journey yet.

Lord was going to recruit Bannon. What he’d done to Dick and Tiger did not matter. Tiger should have expected this. Checkmate may have been home to him once, but they were still spies. People were tools. They might try to repair them when they broke, but they would not hesitate to discard them if they thought it was a better use of their time. Especially when someone was too broken to be fixed by stitches and a few therapy sessions.

If Tiger was lucky, they might give him a medical discharge and some compensation. Assuming they didn’t discharge him for insubordination.

He felt sick. He threw up in the toilet. Then he sat on the floor, shaking.

This had been a bad idea. He should have known Checkmate would recruit Bannon, that what he said would not matter. Many of the people involved in Checkmate also had their hands in other operations… such as the Suicide Squad, which recruited violent criminals because they were violent criminals.

Bannon’s recruitment was nothing to these people. Tiger should have known better. He should have been prepared. This should not have hurt him as much as it did.

But he was hurt. Badly. He did not know how he would find the strength to get off the floor, walk down that long corridor, into the elevator and through security. Where would he find the strength to pretend he was okay long enough to get home safely?

Home.

Wayne Manor.

He was not sure how he felt about that. Checkmate had once been home to him, too. Even Spyral, after a while.

Spyral was gone. Checkmate was not the safe harbour it had pretended to be. Wayne Manor was…

Dick was there. Jason. Damian. Tim. Cassandra. Stephanie. Alfred.

They seemed to care about him. But so had Checkmate.

A knock on the door. “Tiger, get out here.” A woman’s voice. Helena.

What was she doing here?

Tiger pushed himself to his feet, flushed the toilet, washed his hands. Opened the door.

“What are you doing here?”

“You’ve been gone a while,” Helena replied.

“How—”

“My temporary clearance from my meetings with Lord still works,” she said. “Come on. Dick and Alfred are waiting, but Dick doesn’t look too good. We need to go.”

Tiger took a breath. “Okay.”

They started down the corridor.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I ran into Eimal at the security checkpoint.”

Tiger was quickly reaching his limit of surprises. “And how do you know Eimal?”

“He was part of the handover team who took the prisoners off our hands,” Helena replied. “Mentioned he knows you.”

“Knew me.”

Helena raised an eyebrow. “Ah, he’s your ex. Bit old for you, don’t you think?”

“Ten years is not—” Tiger stopped himself. “We are not having this conversation.” They reached the elevator and Tiger stabbed the down button. “I regret telling you I had an ex.”

“Ten years is an age gap I’d be concerned about for how young you were at the time.”

“Helena.”

“And I know he hurt you, so I don’t think I’m wrong.”

“It was a long time ago,” Tiger muttered. The elevator arrived. They entered.

“I was there when you started your mission with us, Tiger, even if I didn’t know your allegiances at the time.” Helena stared hard at him. “You were a mess.”

“I was not a mess,” Tiger lied.

Helena chuckled darkly. “Not only were you a prickly bastard, you were so… pensive.”

“Pensive.” Tiger almost wanted to laugh, but in his state, it would likely result in sobbing.

“You thought no one noticed how you’d just stare into space with that little frown of yours?”

She was saying things just to bother him now. “Little?”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t know he was your ex when we worked together,” Helena continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I probably would have punched him.”

“I can take care of myself, Helena.”

“No, you can’t.”

Pain swept through Tiger’s chest and he had to bite back tears. Helena must have been it, but she kept quiet. If Tiger were smarter, he probably would have filed his reaction away to examine later, but instead he tried to push it into a tiny corner of his mind that he would never visit again.

Helena sighed. “I hate to ask, but how did your talk with Lord go?”

“Badly.”

“They’re recruiting him?”

“I think so.”

“Fuck.”

“You suspected. Admit it.”

“Well, when I have to drag you out of a bathroom, that’s not the best sign.”

“If you tell anyone…”

“I won’t,” Helena promised. “But you should talk to someone when you feel up to it.”

Tiger held tightly to his composure. They reached the ground floor and stepped out. Muscle memory carried him through the security checkpoint, because his mind was finished. He placed the communicator back in his ear, strapped his watch to his wrist and slipped his phone into his pocket. And then that was it, until Helena pushed him to the car.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she said. “Take care of yourself. I mean it.” Then she walked off.

Dick waved at him through the car window. Tiger slid inside. He couldn’t quite get the seatbelt to click into place—his hands shook too much—so Dick did it for him.

“Are we ready, sirs?” Alfred asked from the driver’s seat.

“We’re good,” Dick said. “Let’s get out of here.” He leaned his head on Tiger’s shoulder as Alfred pulled away from the curb. “How’d it go?”

“Can we discuss this later?” If Tiger lost his composure now, he would not find it again for a long time.

“Sure.” Dick twined their fingers together. “Didn’t expect to see Helena today, but at least it was a nice surprise.”

Tiger chose not to comment. “How was your appointment?”

“Fine, I guess. They did lots of tests and shone a light in my eyes so now everything kinda hurts. They’re gonna call when they have results, then maybe I’ll start trying some medication. Assuming they’ll work when the migraines were caused by machines and not the frailty of the meatsuits in which we live.”

Tiger chose to ignore the end of that sentence. “Do you think traditional medicine will work?”

Dick shrugged. “Like I said, I’ll try anything. Obviously, I couldn’t tell them why I’m getting these migraines, which might be a problem. So, trial and error, I guess. We’ve got connections with researchers, so maybe we can figure something out.”

Tiger, not for the first time, had a terrible thought that Checkmate, if willing, could probably help. He did not voice it.

After today, he was not sure Checkmate would give him anything… even if he had lost years of his life to an undercover mission on their behalf.

He had to stop thinking about it before he broke.

Dick nuzzled his shoulder. “I’m gonna try and nap for a bit. Maybe it’ll buy me some time before my head explodes.”

“My shoulder is your pillow,” Tiger replied.

Dick laughed softly. “Thanks.”

***

Dick had to go straight to bed when they arrived home. It was bad timing; he knew something was wrong with Tiger, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

The migraine had eased somewhat by dinnertime. Dick didn’t feel up to eating, but he could use the company. And check on Tiger. The man gave him space during his migraines, since it was hard to tolerate another person’s presence, but that had also robbed Tiger of one of his usual private spots. And Tiger had looked like he needed some privacy… and a listening ear.

A soft knock on the bedroom door interrupted his thoughts. Dick called for them to enter. Bruce stepped inside.

“How are you?” he asked quietly. He didn’t reach for the light switch. Dick was grateful. He could use a few more minutes in the dark.

“A little better. Was thinking about coming to dinner.”

Bruce sat on the bed with him. “I tried to speak with Tiger earlier. He asked if it could wait, and Cass insisted he train with her instead. So, I called Helena.”

“Did she know anything?”

“She knew a little. Unless Tiger misread the situation, which I think is unlikely, it seems Checkmate will proceed with recruiting Bannon.”

Dick’s nausea returned. He had to take a few deep breaths. Bruce put a hand on his back, grounding him.

“So, that’s it,” Dick said when he felt well enough to speak. “They’re doing it. They’re fucking doing it.”

“I’m sorry.” Bruce rubbed his palm across Dick’s back in wide, slow circles.

“Tiger just took down Spyral for them, and this is how they repay him?” Dick glared into the darkness, thoughts spinning too fast for his head to take them in his condition. “Shit, just take me out of the equation for a second here. This guy repeatedly tortured and psychologically tormented one of their agents… and they’re cool with having him on board? How the fuck does that make any sense?”

“They don’t want to give up a resource they think they can use.”

“That’s the fucking problem. They’re not seeing Tiger and Bannon as people. They’re seeing them as resources.”

“You’re not wrong, Dick.”

The remnants of Dick’s migraine were quickly forming into a rage headache. “This is fucked.”

Bruce gently squeezed his shoulder. Dick tried to breathe out some of his anger; it wasn’t productive right now, and he didn’t want to make Tiger feel any worse when they would next be in the same room.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Bruce said. “I’ve had dealings with Checkmate in Gotham before. If they want those dealings to remain cordial, they need to respect this family.”

The significance of what Bruce said was not lost on Dick. “So, when are you telling Tiger he’s part of the family?”

“When we train together. Let me know when you think he’s up to it.” Bruce got up and offered Dick a hand. “Tiger and Cass are training in the batcave. We’ll grab them on the way to dinner.”

#dicktiger #tiger king of kandahar #dick grayson #fanfiction #homecoming dicktiger fic #my fics

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katlynlarkins2-blog · 5 years ago

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How To Style The Space Of The Baby Cot

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legaladvicebiz7719-blog · 5 years ago

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Directives On How To Find A Personal Injury Lawyer

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norsesuggestions · 6 years ago

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Some background on Christiana Gyllenstierna, a fascinting figure of the sheningans which in the end resulted in stockholm blood bath

Qouted from wiki

Reign of Sten Sture

In 1512, Sten Sture succeeded his father as elected regent of Sweden upon his death. During this period, Denmark, Norway and Sweden were formally part of the Kalmar Union through a personal union under the king of Denmark, but in reality, Sweden had been a de facto independent kingdom under "Regents" (Sw. riksföreståndare) native high nobles elected to rule the country.

Sten Sture's election as regent was not without opposition. At the death of his father, Sten was 18 years old, and High Councillor Eric Trolle, who supported the union with Denmark, was initially chosen as regent by the council. However, Sten utilized the castles and troops granted to him by his late father and took power in a coup: after having promised to continue negotiations with Denmark, the High Council accepted him as regent instead of Trolle. In reality, lord Sten's purpose was to keep Sweden independent of Denmark. He took the Sture name, heritage from his great-grandmother, because it symbolized independence of Sweden as a reminder of Sten Sture the Elder, his father's third cousin.

Regent Sten had already in 1504 been proposed as a candidate in the election of a new king of Sweden as a replacement for John, King of Denmark, who had been elected king of Sweden in 1497 but who was ousted from there in 1502. Upon the death of John in 1513, it was again proposed to elect regent Sten as king of Sweden rather than the son of John, Christian II of Denmark, and Sten was making preparations to arrange an election, including seeking support for it from the pope.[2]

It is considered likely that Christina participated in state affairs and acted as the political adviser to her spouse, given her later role. In reality, Sten and Christina already functioned as king and queen of Sweden: by 1519, Peder Månsson, Bishop of Västerås, expressed his surprise in a letter from Rome to Abbess Anna Germundsdotter of Vadstena Abbey that Sten had not yet been crowned,[2]and in the contemporary Stockholm chronicle, Christina is referred to as "Our Gracious Princess."[2] By their ambitions, they became the natural enemies of king Christian II of Denmark, whose ambition it was to be elected king of Sweden and thereby again make Sweden a part of the Kalmar union in practice and not only in name.

Sten became involved in a conflict with archbishop Gustav Trolle, son of his previous rival Eric Trolle. The archbishop claimed more autonomy for the church. In 1516, Sten besieged Staket, the fortress of archbishop Trolle, and when Staket was taken the following year, Sten had the fortress dismantled, Trolle taken captive, imprisoned and deposed as archbishop. The deposition of an archbishop resulted in the excommunication of Sten Sture by the pope, who gave Christian II support in his designs against Sten Sture. On the New Year of 1520, Christian II invaded Sweden.

Defender of Stockholm

On 19 January 1520, Regent Sten was mortally wounded at the battle of Bogesund.

Lady Christina emerged as the leader of the Sture party and defender of her son's rights, took command of the city and Castle of Stockholm in the name of her underage sons, secured support from the majority of the peasantry and burgher classes, and received the loyalty from the commanders of the most important fortresses of the realm: Västerås Castle, Nyköping Castle, Kalmar Castle as well as the province of Finland.[1] However, she did not manage to secure enough support from the nobility: "Some stated their will to fight for the children of Lord Sten, while one party gave a stern now to Lady Christina the widow of Lord Sten, with the city of Stockholm and those of her followers, and often wrote to them that they should unite and resist the enemy, although such letters were not considered."[1] On 6 March 1520, several members of the Privy Council of Swedensubmitted to Christian II, electing him king of Sweden in Uppsala. The peasantry of central Sweden roused by her patriotism, flew to arms and defeated the Danish invaders at Balundsås on March 19, and were only with the utmost difficulty finally defeated at the bloody battle of Uppsala, on 6 April.

In late May, the Danish fleet arrived and the city of Stockholm was besieged by land and sea by the Danes under Christian II. Shortly before, Christina managed to send her eldest son, the seven year old Nils Stensson Sture to safety in Danzig in Poland with an envoy headed by the chancellor of the Sture family, Peder Jakobsson (Sunnanväder),[1] to issue negotiations with Sigismund I the Old and the Hanseatic League for support against Denmark. In her embassy to Danzig, she stated that she governed the realm until her sons had reached the age of majority and could take over the regency.[1] She had the support from the burghers of Stockholm, who referred to her as their Princess.[1] Lady Christina took command and held out stoutly at Stockholm, while the second stronghold of Sweden, Kalmar, was commanded and defended and by the widow of its governor, Anna Eriksdotter (Bielke), in the same fashion.

On 7 September 1520, after four months of siege, Christina was persuaded to capitulate in exchange for a letter of amnesty. In the letter of amnesty issued by Christian II, an amnesty of the most explicit and absolute character was extracted for Christina herself, her dead spouse and all their followers for all acts of resistance against Christian II himself, his father king John and his grandfather Christian II before him, regardless of all acts against bishop Trolle.[2] Personally, Christina were granted Häme Castle and county, Kuhmo state in Finland, Hörningsholm Castle in Södermanland and Eksjö estate in Småland.[2]

Stockholm Bloodbath

On November 1, Christian II was proclaimed king Christian I of Sweden, followed by his coronation in Storkyrkan by the reinstated arch bishop Gustav Trolle on 4 September. The coronation was followed by three days of festivities attended by the Swedish nobility, during which he danced with Christina on a ball.

On 7 November, king Christian summoned the Swedish nobility to a meeting in the throne hall at Stockholm Castle. When the meeting was opened, the doors were closed and guarded, and archbishop Trolle accused her, her mother, her late spouse and the followers of Sture for his deposition and demanded compensation and punishment.[2] Lady Christina stepped forward and pointed out the fact that the deposition of bishop Trolle had been a decision taken by a united parliament: everyone had signed the bill of deposition, placing the responsibility on the entire realm and making it impossible to accuse and punish a particular individual for the act.[1]Further more, the amnesty granted by the king as a term for her surrender made it impossible for the king to punish them for their actions against him and his followers. She stated that there was proof as the protocol from the meeting of 1517, when the removal of Trolle was decided upon, was there: the document with signatures was then presented to the king.[2] Because of the amnesty, the Swedes now considered the matter solved. However, Christian had found a loophole, which the Swedes had overlooked. Previously advised by Didrik Slagheck and Jens Andersen Beldenak not to keep his word to heretics, he stated that the deposition of an archbishop was a crime against the church, and that a monarch had no jurisdiction to pardon anyone for heresy. In effect, this meant that the king could in fact execute the participators in the rebellion against him despite the amnesty, by having them judged by the church for heresy rather than accused of treason by a secular court.[3] This resulted in the infamous Stockholm Bloodbath upon the followers of Sten Sture.

Christina's brothers Erik Nilsson, Lord of Tullgarn and Eskil Nilsson, her maternal uncle and her brother-in-law was executed by beheading, as were many other Swedish Sture party followers. Her husband's remains were exhumed and burned publicly at the stake as a heretic, as was those of her youngest son Gustav. Her mother Sigrid became the only woman sentenced to be executed: she was sentenced to be drowned, but avoided execution by ceding her property to the king. Christina herself was not executed. King Christian called upon her and asked her to choose which method of execution she preferred and asked her to choose between being burned at the stake or being buried alive. Confronted with this choice, she was unable to reply and fainted with horror. Christian was advised to spare her life and none of these alternatives were carried out. To save her life, she ceded a large part of her property to Christian. The king stated that she "is now dead to the world, for she is judged as the others for heresy".[1]

However, Danish rule in Sweden was threatened by her nephew Gustav Vasa, who soon became the leader of the Swedish War of Liberation. In the spring of 1521, Christina and her half-sister Cecilia (Gustav's mother) was forced to write to Gustav Vasa in an attempt to persuade him to surrender to Denmark.[2]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Gyllenstierna

My comments

We always learn about well known boi Gustav Vasa in swedish history class, but honestly. Reading about the pre blood bath happenings, i think we missed out when they skipped over why the entire bloodbath thing happened. At least they did so in my high school history class.

These are game of thrones levels of drama! Also the sources are dramatized medieval chronicles mostly. Which well yes, makes it certainity as historical sources vaguer BUT also makes cooler stories, soooo

Epic costume drama, which is just vaguelly historically accurate, of Christina Gyllenstierna leading the nobility rebellion WHEN?

#fragmented swedish medieval history

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