#citizen engagement application

[311-mobile-app-citizenengagement]

The Impact of Community Engagement on Local Governance

Community engagement is essential for improving the relationship between citizens and local authorities. When a city plans to revamp its public transportation system, engaging with the community becomes essential. City managers, mayors, city administration staff, and citizens all benefit from active participation, ensuring that the new system aligns with the community’s needs.

Empowerment and Cohesion for Citizens

Through community engagement, citizens gain a sense of empowerment. By being involved in local governance processes, they are given a platform to voice their opinions and influence decisions that directly impact their lives. This involvement fosters a sense of ownership and encourages active participation in community matters.

Community engagement also promotes cohesion. Initiatives that bring together diverse community members help in building understanding and strengthening bonds within the community. As a result, a more unified and resilient community is formed, which is better equipped to address common challenges.

Transparency and accountability are further enhanced when citizens are engaged. Access to information regarding city operations and decisions is improved, allowing residents to hold local leaders accountable for their actions. This transparency builds trust and reinforces the legitimacy of local governance.

Strategic Benefits for City Leaders

City leaders, including city managers and mayors, also gain significantly from community engagement. Informed decision-making becomes possible when community insights are actively sought. Feedback from residents provides city managers with valuable data to make strategic decisions that reflect the community’s needs.

Performance metrics can be derived from community engagement as well. The effectiveness of various programs and initiatives can be assessed based on the feedback received, allowing for continuous improvement.

Risk management is another area where city leaders benefit. Potential issues or conflicts can be identified early through active engagement, enabling proactive management and resolution.

Mayors, in particular, benefit from building trust with the public through regular communication. This two-way communication fosters credibility and supports the mayor’s leadership. Additionally, community feedback can validate policy directions, ensuring they align with residents’ values and needs. Engaged citizens are also more likely to support leaders who demonstrate a commitment to their interests, which can translate into electoral support.

Operational Advantages for City Administration Staff

City administration staff benefit from efficient service delivery as a result of community engagement. Understanding the community’s needs allows services to be tailored effectively, reducing waste and improving resource allocation.

Job satisfaction among city staff is often increased through community engagement. Direct interaction with residents provides a clearer sense of purpose, as staff can see the tangible impact of their work on the community.

Civita App’s Role in Enhancing Engagement

The Civita App serves as a powerful tool for facilitating community engagement. By providing a centralized platform for communication and service requests, the app ensures that all stakeholders in a municipality are effectively connected. The streamlined communication and real-time updates offered by the Civita App help local authorities make informed decisions, optimize resource allocation, and maintain transparency and accountability.

In conclusion, community engagement is active in maintaining a healthy and thriving municipality. The Civita App enhances these efforts, making local governance more efficient and responsive to the needs of the community. 

[decolonize-the-crackers]

This is not a drill

This is IMPORTANT especially if you live in the USA or use the internet REGULATED by the USA!!!!

Do not scroll. Signal boost. Reblog.

Reblog WITHOUT reading if you really can't right now, I promise all the links and proof are here. People NEED to know this.

( I tried to make this accessible but you can't cater to EVERYONE so please just try your best to get through this or do your own research 🙏)

TLDR: Homeland Security has been tying our social media to our IPs, licenses, posts, emails, selfies, cloud, apps, location, etc through our phones without a warrant using Babel X and will hold that information gathered for 75 years. Certain aspects of it were hushed because law enforcement will/does/has used it and it would give away confidential information about ongoing operations.

This gets renewed in September.

Between this, Agincourt (a VR simulator for cops Directly related to this project), cop city, and widespread demonization of abortions, sex workers, & queer people mixed with qanon/Trumpism, and fascism in Florida, and the return of child labor, & removed abortion rights fresh on our tails it's time for alarms to be raised and it's time for everyone to stop calling us paranoid and start showing up to protest and mutual aid groups.

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

These are the same feds who want to build cop city and recreate civilian houses en masse and use facial recognition. The same feds that want cop city to also be a training ground for police across the country. Cop city where they will build civilian neighborhoods to train in.

Widespread mass surveillance against us.

Now let's cut to some parts of the article. May 17th from Vice:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using an invasive, AI-powered monitoring tool to screen travelers, including U.S. citizens, refugees, and people seeking asylum, which can in some cases link their social media posts to their Social Security number and location data, according to an internal CBP document obtained by Motherboard.

Called Babel X, the system lets a user input a piece of information about a target—their name, email address, or telephone number—and receive a bevy of data in return, according to the document. Results can include their social media posts, linked IP address, employment history, and unique advertising identifiers associated with their mobile phone. The monitoring can apply to U.S. persons, including citizens and permanent residents, as well as refugees and asylum seekers, according to the document.

“Babel data will be used/captured/stored in support of CBP targeting, vetting, operations and analysis,” the document reads. Babel X will be used to “identify potential derogatory and confirmatory information” associated with travelers, persons of interest, and “persons seeking benefits.” The document then says results from Babel X will be stored in other CBP operated systems for 75 years.

"The U.S. government’s ever-expanding social media dragnet is certain to chill people from engaging in protected speech and association online. And CBP’s use of this social media surveillance technology is especially concerning in connection with existing rules requiring millions of visa applicants each year to register their social media handles with the government. As we’ve argued in a related lawsuit, the government simply has no legitimate interest in collecting and retaining such sensitive information on this immense scale,” Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, told Motherboard in an email.

The full list of information that Babel X may provide to CBP analysts is a target’s name, date of birth, address, usernames, email address, phone number, social media content, images, IP address, Social Security number, driver’s license number, employment history, and location data based on geolocation tags in public posts.

Bennett Cyphers, a special advisor to activist

organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Motherboard in an online chat “the data isn’t limited to public posts made under someone’s real name on Facebook or Twitter.”

The document says CBP also has access to AdID information through an add-on called Locate X, which includes smartphone location data. AdID information is data such as a device’s unique advertising ID, which can act as an useful identifier for tracking a phone and, by extension, a person’s movements. Babel Street obtains location information from a long supply chain of data. Ordinary apps installed on peoples’ smartphones provide data to a company called Gravy Analytics, which repackages that location data and sells it to law enforcement agencies via its related company Venntel. But Babel Street also repackages Venntel’s data for its own Locate X product."

The PTA obtained by Motherboard says that Locate X is covered by a separate “commercial telemetry” PTA. CBP denied Motherboard’s FOIA request for a copy of this document, claiming it “would disclose techniques and/or procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions”.

A former Babel Street employee previously told Motherboard how users of Locate X can draw a shape on a map known as a geofence, see all devices Babel Street has data on for that location, and then follow a specific device to see where else it has been.

Cyphers from the EFF added “most of the people whose location data is collected in this way likely have no idea it’s happening.”

CBP has been purchasing access to location data without a warrant, a practice that critics say violates the Fourth Amendment. Under a ruling from the Supreme Court, law enforcement agencies need court approval before accessing location data generated by a cell phone tower; those critics believe this applies to location data generated by smartphone apps too.

“Homeland Security needs to come clean to the American people about how it believes it can legally purchase and use U.S. location data without any kind of court order. Americans' privacy shouldn't depend on whether the government uses a court order or credit card,” Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard in a statement. “DHS should stop violating Americans' rights, and Congress should pass my bipartisan legislation to prohibit the government's purchase of Americans' data." CBP has refused to tell Congress what legal authority it is following when using commercially bought smartphone location data to track Americans without a warrant.

Neither CBP or Babel Street responded to a request for comment. Motherboard visited the Babel X section of Babel Street’s website on Tuesday. On Wednesday before publication, that product page was replaced with a message that said “page not found.”

Do you know anything else about how Babel X is being used by government or private clients? Do you work for Babel Street? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

Wow that sounds bad right.

Be a shame if it got worse.

.

.

It does.

The software (previously Agincourt Solutions) is sold by AI data company Babel Street, was led by Jeffrey Chapman, a former Treasury Department official,, Navy retiree & Earlier in his career a White House aide and intelligence officer at the Department of Defense, according to LinkedIn.

🙃

So what's Agincourt Solutions then right now?

SO FUCKING SUS IN RELATION TO THIS, THATS WHAT

In essence, synthetic BATTLEVR training is a mixture of all three realities – virtual, augmented and physical. It is flexible enough to allow for mission rehearsals of most types and be intuitive enough to make training effective.

Anyway the new CEO of Babel Street (Babel X) as of April is a guy named Michael Southworth and I couldn't find much more on him than that tbh, it's all very vague and missing. That's the most detail I've seen on him.

And the detail says he has a history of tech startups that scanned paperwork and sent it elsewhere, good with numbers, and has a lot of knowledge about cell networks probably.

Every inch more of this I learn as I continue to Google the names and companies popping up... It gets worse.

Monitor phone use. Quit photobombing and filming strangers and for the love of fucking God quit sending apps photos of your actual legal ID to prove your age. Just don't use that site, you'll be fine I swear. And quit posting your private info online. For activists/leftists NO personally identifiable info at least AND DEFINITELY leave your phone at home to Work™!!!

[beardedmrbean]

In a classic example of better late than never, a Federal Court in Canada ruled on Tuesday that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's invocation of The Emergencies Act in 2022, used to crush the largest and most peaceful protest in Canadian history, was "unreasonable," "unjustified," and "violated the fundamental freedoms" set out in Canada's constitution.

The case was brought to the court by a number of individual applicants as well as several Canadian civiil liberties groups, including the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. And in the decision, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley expressed what every trucker and other participant in the trucker's Freedom Convoy knew to be true: There was no justification for granting the government powers that amounted to near Marshall Law over a protest that was 100 percent peaceful, with no violence or property damage committed—that is, until the Emergencies Act was passed, and the police trampled grandmothers under horses, fired tear gas canisters at journalists within point blank range, beat protesters down and smashed the windows of the truckers rigs, and generally deployed the type of violence that the government had knowingly falsely accused the truckers of engaging in.

The government also froze the bank accounts of truckers, seized donated funds, and shut down of the economic lives of hundreds of Canadian citizens, a draconian measure which shocked the world.

Every protester and trucker who took part in the Convoy knew that the government and it's bought and paid for media were lying to the public about the Freedom Convoy, and though it feels good to once again be proven correct, that doesn't change what happened. It also doesn't change the division in Canadian society which took place under COVID, and it remains to be seen if this ruling will put an end to the ongoing punishments of various Freedom Convoy protesters which continue to this day.

For example, the trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who emerged as public faces and leaders of the Ottawa portion of the Freedom Convoy, has now become the longest mischief trial in Canadian history. Finally getting underway in September of last year, the trial proceeded in fits and starts into December, and is set to resume in February.

Or take Guy Meisner, a trucker from Nova Scotia, was one of the first to be arrested and charged when the crackdown began after the Emergencies Act was invoked. He will be back in Ottawa near the end of February for the ninth time to face his "mischief" charges.

Then there is the case of Christine Decaire, a woman who protested in Ottawa and was charged by the police, who was acquitted last year; much like this ruling today, however, The Crown has decided to appeal her acquittal. To drag an innocent person back to court is the kind of grossly vindictive behavior on the part of the Trudeau Government that they have become well known for.

There are dozens of cases like this working their way through the system.

And then we have The Coutts Four, a group of men who were arrested in Alberta right before the Emergencies Act was invoked and have been kept in custody without bail nor trial ever since. Hopes are high that this ruling may help change their circumstances, but it has now been two years since they have seen their families, which is a grossly offensive situation, especially in a country where nearly everyone gets bail.

All of these cases point to a level of vindictive cruelty on the part of this government as constituted under Trudeau, who was only too happy to champion the fair treatment of someone who fought on the side of The Taliban in Afghanistan and was later apprehended by American forces. Champion the rights of his own peaceful citizens to a fair trial? Apparently that is beneath the Prime Minister.

Trudeau's deputy, Chrystia Freeland was behind the bank account freezing acting as Finance Minister, and she appeared almost immediately after the ruling to announce that her government would be appealing, claiming to "remind Canadians how serious the situation was." This though all the evidence and testimony presented in 2022 at the official inquest into the invocation of the Emergencies Act found that no threats existed, and everything the media said about the truckers was a fabrication.

Justin Trudeau has remarked in the past that Canada is a "post-national" state that has "no core identity," yet when that identity asserted itself to say enough is enough to the strictures of his punishing COVID Regime, he was only too happy to unleash the full power of his "post-national" state to attack these citizens whom he holds in utter contempt.

It appears that there is no ruling Trudeau will not appeal or lawfare he will not pursue to ensure punishment of the enemies of his party.

Justin Trudeau is not a leader, but merely a narcissistic tyrant. This week was only the latest evidence.

Gord Magill is a trucker, writer, and commentator, and can be found at www.autonomoustruckers.substack.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

[gayest-historian]

Events Leading to Stonewall

In honor of the Stonewall riots' anniversary I'd like to take a minute to talk about what led up to them.

The Stonewall riots, taking place June 28th, 1969, were a series of riots that started at the Stonewall Inn between police and LGBTQ+ protestors. The events leading up to them are just as important as their impact on today so a few of these events will be discussed in this post. Obviously I cannot cover them all but I plan on talking about more in their own posts.

After WW2 many Americans began efforts to restore the country to it's pre-war state and prevent change from occurring in the social order. During this time any groups considered "um-american" were deemed security risks, among these groups were gay men and lesbians. The reasoning behind this was that, according to the US State Department, they were deemed susceptible to blackmail. According to a report chaired by Clyde R. Hoey: "It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons" These actions led to 1,700 federal job applications being denied, 4,380 people being discharged from the military, and 420 individuals being fired from federal jobs, all due to suspicions of homosexuality.

In 1952 homosexuality was listed in the DSM as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. The reasoning behind this choice was a belief that homosexuality stems from an unreasonable fear of the opposite sex. Despite numerous studies contradicting this belief, including those of Evelyn Hooker, the APA did not remove homosexuality from the DSM until 1974. The lasting damage of this decision can be seen even today with many queer people still being seen as mentally ill for their identity.

The Hays code was originally implemented in 1934, also being known as the Motion Picture Production Code. Created by a Catholic man named Martin Quigley in 1929 the purpose of the Hays code was to enforce "morals" in the film industry in order to not badly influence american citizens, particularly children. Some examples of Inclusions prohibited by the Hays code include: Profanity, ridicule of the clergy and seuxla perversion (including homosexuality). The frustration regarding these rules could be felt at the time within the queer community and even today with tropes like queer-coded villains.

I hope this post helped to provide some context surrounding the events that kickstarted the Stonewall riots. Looking back at these events gives us both context for how far we've come aswell as how far we still need to go.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 26, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 27, 2024

Today President Joe Biden pardoned more than 2000 former military personnel who had been convicted of engaging in consensual sex under a gay sex ban in the military that has since been repealed. People covered under the pardon can apply to have their military discharges corrected and to recover the pay and benefits the convictions cost them. “[M]aintaining the finest fighting force in the world…means making sure that every member of our military feels safe and respected,” Biden said in a statement. 

Biden said he was “righting an historic wrong.” “This is about dignity, decency, and ensuring the culture of our Armed Forces reflect the values that make us an exceptional nation,” he said.

On this date in 2015, the Supreme Court handed down the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which said that states must license and recognize same-sex marriage because of the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that citizens must have the equal protection of the laws and cannot be deprived of rights without due process of the laws.  

In the New York Times today, Kate Zernike explained how the public conversations about abortion have shifted in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. The state bans that went into place have illustrated that abortion is indeed healthcare, as people suffering miscarriages have been unable to obtain the imperative medical care they need. 

Zernike quoted pollster Tresa Undem, who estimated that before the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe, less than 15% of Americans thought that abortion was relevant to them personally. Now, though, Undem said, “it’s about pregnancy, and everybody knows someone who had a baby or wants to have a baby or might get pregnant. It’s profoundly personal to a majority of the public.”

In the three weeks since Biden announced restrictions on asylum applications for undocumented immigrants, the number of people trying to cross the border has dropped more than 40% to its lowest level since he took office. This information will likely come up in tomorrow’s scheduled debate between the president and presumptive Republican nominee Trump, who has made it clear he intends to accuse the president of promoting immigration policies that bring criminals into the United States.

Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a military veteran who joined the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and who has fiercely criticized Trump, today endorsed Biden for president. 

In a video, Kinzinger said: “[W]hile I certainly don’t agree with President Biden on everything, and I never thought I’d be endorsing a Democrat for president, I know that he will always protect the very thing that makes America the best country in the world: our democracy. Donald Trump poses a direct threat to every fundamental American value. He doesn’t care about our country. He doesn’t care about you. He only cares about himself. And he’ll hurt anyone or anything in pursuit of power.” 

On CNN tonight, Georgia governor Brian Kemp told Kaitlan Collins he did not vote for Trump in his state’s Republican primary, although he said he would “support the ticket” in November so that Georgia would remain in Republican hands. It was an interesting statement, since he could easily have deflected the question or simply said he voted for Trump if he cared about avoiding Trump’s wrath. But he appeared not to care, suggesting that Trump’s power even with prominent Republicans is slipping. 

Two Republican voters from Pennsylvania told MSNBC tonight that they are voting for Biden. When asked whether they think there is “a silent Biden voter out there,” one said, “I do. I know there is…. We don’t want to talk about it, but we’re all going to vote for Joe Biden.” 

By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court today blessed the practice of taking “gratuities” as a gift for past behavior by an official, distinguishing them from “bribes,” which require proof that there was an illegal deal in place. The case involved a former mayor from Indiana who helped a local truck dealership win $1.1 million in city contracts and then asked for and received $13,000 from the dealership’s owners. The mayor was found guilty of violating a federal anti-corruption law that prohibits state and local officials from taking gifts worth more than $5,000 from someone the official had helped to land lucrative government business.

For the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that the law prohibited officials from accepting “gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos or the like” in thanks for an official’s help, although David G. Savage of the Los Angeles Times noted that the law came into play only when the gift was worth more than $5,000. 

Savage pointed out that as the federal law in question covers about 20 million state and local officials, the decision could have wide impact. This decision that officials can accept “gifts” so long as they are not “bribes” might have something to do with the fact that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have accepted significant gifts from donors—Thomas’s count is upward of $4 million—and it doesn’t relieve the sense that this Supreme Court, with its three right-wing Trump-appointed justices, is untrustworthy.

Writing for justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and herself, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said, “Officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions.” 

Yesterday, House Republicans released draft legislation to fund the Justice Department and the Commerce Departments for fiscal year 2025, which starts October 1. They propose to slash nearly a billion dollars from the Department of Justice in retaliation for its bringing cases against Trump, and both to cut funding for the FBI and to block the construction of its new headquarters. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the cuts “unacceptable” and said that the “effort to defund the Justice Department and its essential law enforcement functions will make our fight against violent crime all the more difficult.”

In a secret vote yesterday  by a House panel that fell along party lines, House Republicans also agreed to say that the last Congress’s construction of the January 6th committee was invalid and illegal. This enabled them to back a last-ditch effort by Trump ally Steve Bannon to stay out of jail. After Bannon refused to respond to the committee’s subpoena for documents and testimony about the January 6 attack, a jury found him guilty of being in contempt of Congress. 

Today, Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) filed a brief with the Supreme Court saying that Bannon was right to ignore the subpoena because the committee was illegally organized. Politico’s Kyle Cheney pointed out that the lawyer for the brief is not a House lawyer but rather comes from America First Legal, a public interest organization put together by Trump loyalist Stephen Miller to challenge the legal efforts to rein in Trump’s orders when in office. 

Finally, Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer reported in The Recombobulation Area today that event bookings expected for the week of the Republican National Convention, which is set to begin on July 15, four days after Judge Juan Merchan sentences Trump for his 34 criminal convictions, have not materialized. Estimates were that the convention would bring $200 million in economic impact to Milwaukee, but that now appears to be optimistic. “[This is] certainly nothing like we were told or promised,” chef Gregory León told Shafer. With locals staying home to avoid the downtown area during the convention, “[i]f the [reservation] book stays the way it is, we’re not going to make enough money to cover costs.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[darkmaga-retard]

We have received more than 2000 messages from viewers...

Aussie17

Aug 30, 2024

Japanese citizens were shocked on the morning of August 28 as their largest national broadcaster, NHK, decided to air a special feature on the COVID-19 vaccine relief system. This program highlighted real-life experiences of individuals who have suffered severe side effects, prompting an overwhelming public response with over 2000 messages received.

In a surprising turn of events, NHK's popular Morning Show, Asaichi, has taken a bold step. Once dismissive of doubts about vaccine safety, the show recently focused on the challenges and realities faced by those affected by mRNA experimental vaccine side effects. This change in stance marks a pivotal U-Turn in the ongoing national conversation about the experimental mRNA’s safety and transparency.

The program's new focus was echoed in the unexpected surge of viewer engagement. "We have received more than 2000 messages from viewers today. Thank you very much," the host announced, signaling widespread public interest and concern.

One chilling account came from a viewer who detailed their struggle after the third vaccine dose: "My headaches became severe. Although they have lessened since the beginning, the symptoms have persisted for more than two years. It has been two and a half years of vaccine aftereffects." Frustration with the bureaucratic hurdles in seeking relief was evident: "It's difficult to go collect documents because of my leg pain, so I urgently wish the process to be simplified as soon as possible."

Another viewer recounted a deeply personal tragedy: "Right after vaccination, my mother developed a serious illness and passed away." Their story was not just about personal loss, but also about the social repercussions of questioning vaccine side effects. "During the period when I was collecting application documents after my mother's illness and passing, I've been met repeatedly with heartless comments just for questioning the connection with the vaccine."

[girlactionfigure]

I saw this picture a while back, and I had made a note to myself, to find out more about this picture, about this man, which made this photograph such an iconic photo. As it so happens, the photo was taken in June of 1936, so this would be a good time to tell this story.

First, some background: The photograph was taken on June 13, to be exact. Adolf Hitler was speaking at a rally at a shipyard, and, as such, during that time, anytime Hitler spoke, according to Nazi Germany law, each citizen there had to stand and salute "Der Führer". If you did not salute, you could be punished. Some people, whose religions conflicted with the law, would be arrested and their children attending school were expelled, detained, and separated from their families.

In the picture, however, you can clearly see amidst the sea of "Heil Hitler's!", one man stood resolute, alone in his defiance.

Now, many times when I research a story, information leads me to different directions. This is one such story. You see, there seems to be some dispute as to who the man in the picture is - one woman claimed it was her father, August Landmesser, and she would write a book about it. Another person claimed it was his father, Wegert Gustav, and his son would provide proof that his father did work at the shipyard and objected to Nazism on grounds of his Christian faith.

Both stories are compelling. But, since I've been accused of writing too long for this format, Wegert Gustav's story will have to wait for another time. For this story, I will focus on August Landmesser, who many other publications have identified as the man in the picture.

I've chosen to tell Landmesser's story because of its relevance today. Landmesser started out as a loyal Nazi, who joined the Nazi party in 1931, a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. After joining the Nazi party, Landmesser would fall in love - with a Jewish woman named Irma Eckler. He would soon discover what the Nazi party was all about and he and his family would get caught up in its deadly race laws.

After the Nazi party found out Landmesser was engaged to a Jewish woman, he would be expelled from the party. But, it didn't end there.

When Landmesser and Eckler tried to file a marriage application in Hamburg, the union would be denied under the newly enacted Nuremberg Laws. In 1935, the couple, amidst all the turmoil, would welcome their first daughter, Ingrid.

By this time, Landmesser was well informed about the Nazi party, and, so supposedly, on June 13, 1936, when given an opportunity to express his thoughts about Hitler and the Nazi party and what it was doing to his homeland, he decided to give his crossed-arm stance during Hitler's speech at the shipyard, to be captured forever in the iconic photograph, according to his daughter.

In 1937, Landmesser decided Nazi Germany was no place to raise his family, he felt unsafe, and all the stories of violence against anyone who disagreed with "Der Führer" frightened him. He decided to flee to Denmark with his family, but, he would be detained at the border. He would be accused of "dishonoring the race," or "racial infamy," under the Nuremberg Laws.

But, he would refuse to abandon his wife and child, ignoring Nazi wishes to end their relationship. He would be arrested, sent to a Nazi concentration camp to serve three years.

He would never again see the woman he loved nor see his daughter(s) (his wife at the time was pregnant with a second child) grow up.

His wife would be arrested by the secret state police, giving birth to the couple's second child, Irene, in prison. Afterwards, she would be sent to an all-women's concentration camp, then supposedly transferred in 1942 to what the Nazi's called a "euthanasia center" where she was murdered with 14,000 others.

Landmesser, lost without his wife and children, would be released only to be drafted into war in 1944, where he would be declared missing in action in Croatia and presumed dead.

The children of the couple would survive.

The photo of that moment in 1936 would lay unnoticed for nearly 55 years, until 1991, when a German newspaper republished the photograph, asking its readers whether anyone could identify the lone man in the picture.

During that time, one of the couple's daughters, Irene Eckler, had been researching her family, trying to gain an understanding of what happened to them. She and her sister had been separated, but had survived the war without their parents. She had found some information at Fasena, an educational site on the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. She then saw the newspaper article and identified the photograph.

She would then publish her findings in a book titled, "Irene Eckler: A Family Torn Apart by Rassenschande (race disgrace)".

The picture would re-surface again after it was published by the Washington Post after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, going viral online.

There is still some uncertainty whether the man in the picture is August Landmesser (that may be another story in the future), but there is no uncertainty as to what happened to Landmesser, what happened to many others during that time.

As long as I am able, I will continue to share these stories, to share awareness, to share some understanding, to ensure families, are no longer separated.

The Jon S. Randal Peace Page 

[liesmyteachertoldme]

A New Type of War

While many still have not realized it, we are at war. The aggressors are government intelligence and security agencies that have turned their weapon of choice — information — against their own citizens.

And, while the organizations doing the CIA's dirty work may have changed, the basic organizational structure is the same as it was in 1967. Taxpayer money gets funneled through various federal departments and agencies into the hands of nongovernmental agencies that carry out censorship activities as directed. As recently reported by investigative journalists Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger:6

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say.

When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents.

But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments.

The reason all of this matters is that ADL's advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk's takeover last November.

Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years."

What we have now is government censorship by proxy, a deeply anti-American activity that has become standard practice, not just by intelligence and national security agencies but federal agencies of all stripes, including our public health agencies.

September 8, 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's injunction banning the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI from influencing social media companies to remove so-called "disinformation."7

According to the judges' decision,8 "CDC officials provided direct guidance to the platforms on the application of the platforms' internal policies and moderation activities" by telling them what was, and was not, misinformation, asking for changes to platforms' moderation policies and directing platforms to take specific actions.

"Ultimately, the CDC's guidance informed, if not directly affected, the platforms' moderation decisions," the judges said, so, "although not plainly coercive, the CDC officials likely significantly encouraged the platforms' moderation decisions, meaning they violated the First Amendment."

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, the U.S. government is not acting alone. Governments around the world and international organizations like the World Health Organization are all engaged in censorship, and when it comes to medical information, most Big Tech platforms are taking their lead from the WHO. And, if the WHO's pandemic treaty9 is enacted, then the WHO will have sole authority to dictate truth. Everything else will be censored.

[frithwontdie]

Historical Fun Facts #5

Did Y'all know, that jews were almost expelled from Union military districts in Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi during the American Civil War? Yes, it almost happened.

On December 17, 1862, Union General Ulysses S. Grant lashes out at Jewish cotton speculators, who he believed the driving force behind the black market for cotton. Which he was trying to surpress.

Grant was extremely angry about the unscrupulous activities of jewish profiteers who were undercutting Union efforts to suppress the black market in Southern cotton. After learning that his own father had teamed up with three Jewish traders from Cincinnati in a scheme to procure cotton at a discount, the general lashed out in anger, and issued General Order No. 11 expelling all Jews, which he issued from his headquarters at Oxford, Mississippi. Which this order expelled all jews from the territory he commanded, which was comprised of portions of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, and Union-controlled areas of northern Mississippi, "within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order."

Prussian-born Jewish immigrant Cesar J. Kaskel from Paducah Kentucky, received his later to leave his home and business behind. He telegrammed Lincoln on behalf of a group of Jewish merchants from Paducah, condemning the order as "the grossest violation of the Constitution and our rights as good citizens under it... [it would] place us...as outlaws before the world. We respectfully ask your immediate attention to this enormous outrage on all law and humanity....” Other telegrams were sent to President Lincoln from Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. This stirred the extremely powerful jews in the North to protest to President Abraham Lincoln, who promptly directed Grant to rescind the order. Then Grant later made an apology to the Jews.

Yet what Grant wrote in his General Order No. 11, speaking about how jews cared only about making a profit, and were dishonest and swindling every gentile that they did business with.

One recorded Example of shady dealings:

A swarm of Jews, within the last ten years, has settled in nearly every southern town, many of them men with no character, opening cheap clothing and trinket shops; ruining or driving out of business, many of the old retailers, and engaging in an unlawful trade with the simple negroes, which is found very profitable.

Here is the text of Grant's General Order No. 11. Judge for yourselves whether the activities of the jews seem familiar:

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department [of the Tennessee] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order. Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people [Jews] be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

A military comrade, General James H. Wilson, later suggested that the order was related to Grant's difficulties with his own father, Jesse Root Grant. He recounted:

Quote:

"He [Jesse Grant] was close and greedy. He came down into Tennessee with a Jew trader that he wanted his son to help, and with whom he was going to share the profits. Grant refused to issue a permit and sent the Jew flying, prohibiting Jews from entering the line."

[fandomtrumpshate]

2024 Supported Org: Bellingcat

Over the past two decades, the American public's faith in mainstream news organizations has dropped precipitously -- in a Gallup survey last year, more than half of respondents indicated that they believe news organizations actively mislead the public. The major organs of mainstream media have made many choices that have cost them the public's trust, often relying on the "both sides" model of reporting at the expense of a full and truthful picture and treating politics as a horse race.

But these organizations are also under significant pressure as they struggle to adapt to the radical technological shifts in our media environment. These shifts have cut into traditional revenue streams, driving news organizations toward the sort of reporting that will generate revenue. They have also created both the possibility of and the need for new approaches to reporting, and many legacy news outlets have struggled to adapt.

Bellingcat is an independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists that uses cutting-edge technology to engage in fact-checking and open-source intelligence investigation outside the apparatus of major journalistic publications. In addition to doing their own reporting, Bellingcat designs and shares verifiable methods of ethical digital investigation. By publishing walkthroughs to open source research methods and holding tailored training sessions on their use for journalists, human rights activists, and members of the public, they’re broadening the scope and application of open source research. Their research is regularly referenced by international media and has been cited by several courts and investigative missions.

Operating in a unique field where advanced technology, forensic research, journalism, transparency and accountability come together, Bellingcat believes in the need for collaboration and has partnered with news organisations across the globe. Likewise, Bellingcat’s Global Authentication Project (GAP) seeks to harness the power of the open source community by nurturing and encouraging a network of volunteer investigators. Their Justice & Accountability unit, meanwhile, seeks to demonstrate the viability of online open source information in judicial processes.

You can support Bellingcat as a creator in the 2024 FTH auction (or as a bidder, when the time comes to donate for the auctions you’ve won.)

[deadpanwalking]

At least tell me you're still gonna vote

It's not 2016 anymore, man. I've changed my whole shit around. I've actually been a leftist for quite some time, and believe me when I say I'm beyond done shilling for the Democratic establishment. Under the guise of "civic engagement", my leftoid commie friends and I have infiltrated the system and are gonna flood the market with potential non-voters.

Here's the deal.

You know how I've been a CASA for almost a decade? Well, my friend tipped me off about the local chapter of Black & Pink/ FJAH—I got involved ostensibly because I'm outraged by the violence and racism woven into the fabric of the justice system ruining the lives of entire generations of families. As I've been volunteering for Ayanna Pressley's election campaigns since her Boston City Council days, I've been lowkey spreading the prison abolitionist agenda by talking up the importance of the Inclusive Democracy Act—which would end felony disenfranchisement—when I tell people about Pressley's progressive policies. Now, that may sound extremely vote-pilled at first, but in the long run it accomplishes the most important leftist objective of all: suffrage gives 4.6 million people the choice not to vote.

I'm also continuing to help immigrant and refugee families navigate the byzantine naturalization/citizenship application process via the same organization that my grandmother volunteered for when she was alive. This may also veer dangerously close to patriotism (the amount of American propaganda I have to push to help them pass the civics exam is excruciating), but bear in mind that many of the freshly minted citizens will forgo voting entirely because they're just happy to be living large on Uncle Sam's handouts, and the rest are rabid Zionists who believe that "эта проститутка" (Hillary Rodham Clinton, age 76, public speaker, grandmother of 3) is an active threat to society, and are chomping at the bit to vote for Trump this and every subsequent November.

This is how we win.

[311-mobile-app-citizenengagement]

Citizen Engagement App: Connect, Report, Shape Your City!

Take control of your city with Civita, the all-in-one citizen engagement application. Connect with your community to get real-time updates on local news, events, and initiatives, share your voice, connect with neighbors, and collaborate on ideas. Civita App connects with a network of people who share your interests and passions. Follow the status of your reports and see how your city is responding. Civita App provides feedback to your local government. Visit civitaapp.com for more information.

[multiverseofmisfits-backup]

"Greetings, citizens of Fontaine and noncitizens alike. I, Focalors, has decided to allow this out-of-this-world event called Halloween Costume Contest. At this moment, applications are open to those who desire to participate in such an engaging event.

Oh? You ask what costume you can wear? As far as the tradition goes, participants simply wear any outfits that many may deem terrifying. But of course, it's up to the participants on what they'll wear to get the audience's votes.

As for the guidelines, you may see them below this announcement."

This will be another poll-based event, Halloween edition. As usual, whoever gets the highest votes proceeds to the next round.

Wearing costumes is not necessarily needed. But since it's for Halloween, you do you lol

For those who want to join, kindly reply to this post which muse you'll use for this event. It can be more than one muse per blog. And oh, anyone can join.

The tag to use for this event will be posted soon.

[beardedmrbean]

Some residents of Evanston, Illinois, are suing their city for doling out reparation payments in what they call an "unconstitutional" program.

The Illinois city made history in 2019 by becoming the first in the nation to create a government-funded reparations program for current and former Black residents. In 2021, the Evanston City Council voted 8-1 to approve a reparations plan that would provide $25,000 for qualifying Black residents to address harms caused by a pattern of housing discrimination and segregation that existed between 1919 and 1969.

Six non-Black residents attacked this since-implemented program for being "presumptively unconstitutional" based on its racial requirement.

"Defendant [Evanston], acting under color of law, is depriving Plaintiffs of their right to equal protection by purposefully and intentionally discriminating against Plaintiffs on the basis of race. Defendant’s use of race as an eligibility requirement injures Plaintiffs because it is a barrier that prevents Plaintiffs from participating in and obtaining payments under the program on an equal footing with persons who are able to satisfy Defendant’s race requirement," the lawsuit read.

It added, "Plaintiffs also are injured by Defendant’s use of race as an eligibility requirement because, but for the requirement, Plaintiffs would each be eligible for and in line to receive $25,000 under the program."

The lawsuit also called the program "overinclusive," as some groups eligible for payment were not required to provide evidence that they or their ancestors experienced housing discrimination and segregation. The city, the plaintiffs claim, is "using race as a proxy for having experienced discrimination during this time period."

"Plaintiffs are being irreparably harmed by Defendant’s deprivation of their rights to equal protection and will continue to be irreparably harmed unless Defendant’s use of race as an eligibility requirement for the program is declared unconstitutional and enjoined," the lawsuit claimed.

Evanston committed $10 million to the program and pledged another $10 million to the program in 2022. According to city records cited by the lawsuit, the city approved 454 "direct descendant" applications and plans to pay at least 80 applicants in 2024. 129 "ancestor" applications, people who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969, have already received payments.

Plaintiffs are calling for Evanston to remove race as an eligibility requirement and award all eligible applicants, including non-Black citizens, the $25,000 promised in the program.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Communications and Engagement Manager Cynthia Vargas said, "The City of Evanston does not comment on the specifics of pending litigation, but we will vehemently defend any lawsuit brought against our city’s reparations program."

[worldwatcher3072]

Upholding the Rule of Law:

Striving for Equality and Justice

In a just and democratic society, the rule of law stands as the cornerstone of fairness, ensuring that every individual, regardless of their position or power, is subject to the same legal standards. However, recent concerns about disparities in the application of the law have sparked discussions on the need to address any flaws in the system. In this blog post, we will explore the significance of the rule of law and its impact on societal trust, emphasizing the importance of upholding equality and justice for all.

The Rule of Law: An Unwavering Principle

The rule of law is not a mere catchphrase; it is a fundamental principle that underpins the functioning of democratic societies. At its core, the rule of law dictates that the law should be applied uniformly and consistently, without discrimination or favoritism. It ensures that no one, regardless of their status or influence, is above the law, and everyone is held accountable for their actions.

Challenges to the Rule of Law

While the rule of law is a guiding principle, its application can sometimes be influenced by power dynamics, political considerations, or disparities in resources. Such challenges can lead to perceptions that there are "two standards of law"—one for the powerful and privileged and another for the marginalized and less fortunate. When this happens, the very essence of justice is compromised.

The Erosion of Public Trust

When the rule of law appears to be inconsistent or biased, it erodes public trust in the legal system and institutions. Citizens lose faith in their ability to seek justice, and a sense of injustice permeates the collective conscience. This loss of trust can have far-reaching consequences, including decreased civic engagement and an increase in corruption and social unrest.

Addressing Flaws and Ensuring Equality

To maintain the integrity of the rule of law, it is crucial to identify and address any flaws in its application. This involves empowering an independent judiciary that can impartially interpret and enforce laws. Additionally, transparency in legal proceedings is essential to building trust and instilling confidence in the fairness of the system.

Promoting Access to Justice

A key aspect of upholding the rule of law is ensuring that all individuals have equal access to justice. Legal assistance and representation should not be limited to those with resources; rather, it should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their economic background. Equal access to justice enhances the legitimacy of the legal system and safeguards human rights.

Individual Commitment to Justice

Upholding the rule of law requires the commitment of each citizen to stand for justice and fairness. Civic engagement, public awareness, and holding public officials accountable are vital in safeguarding the principles of the rule of law. By advocating for a just and equitable society, individuals can collectively influence positive change.

The rule of law is a powerful concept that ensures a level playing field for all individuals within a democratic society. Striving for equality and justice under the law is an ongoing effort that demands the commitment of both citizens and institutions. By addressing any flaws in the application of the law and promoting transparency, accessibility, and impartiality, we can reinforce the rule of law and create a society where justice prevails for all, regardless of their status or influence. Let us unite in our pursuit of a fair and just world, upholding the principle that no one is above the law.

[southeastasianists]

In February 2023, a few months after I departed from my field site in Singapore, the Deputy Prime Minister announced significant changes to Singapore’s housing policies. In his eagerly anticipated budget speech for 2023, Lawrence Wong reaffirmed Singapore’s commitment to nurturing familial aspirations among Singaporeans and proceeded to outline measures aimed at reducing the uncertainties faced by (heterosexual) couples in their housing journeys. Chief among these measures was the granting of extra balloting chances to families with children and young married couples aged 40 and below (Ong, 2023). 1 Previously, both engaged and married couples received two ballot chances each, whereas now legally married couples and married couples with children would receive three balloting chances.

This announcement and its implications must be understood within context. Approximately 80% of Singaporeans reside in public housing flats (Lin, 2022), 2 representing some of the highest flat ownership rates in Asia and underscoring the success of Singapore’s public housing model—a model that Singaporeans and its leaders rightly take pride in. However, this success comes with a caveat. In Singapore, flat ownership is contingent upon adhering to and staying on a particular life path.

In brief, there are several pathways to acquiring a public flat. Among them, the Build-to-Order (BTO) housing program, known locally as “BTO,” is the most affordable and accessible route for Singaporean citizens to own a public flat. Eligibility to apply for a BTO before the age of 35 hinges on the formation of—or in the case of engaged couples, the intention to form—a conventional family nucleus. 3 (Singles may participate after 35.) 4 Eligible couples or families submit an online application, which is then entered into a computer-generated ballot. This ballot, occurring four times a year, can induce significant anxiety, as couples may succeed on their first attempt or as late as their 13th try. 5

It is this anxiety and uncertainty that the Deputy Prime Minister sought to alleviate by offering married couples more balloting chances. Returning to the formalities of the BTO process, couples must then wait 3 to 6 years for the flat to be built, and they risk losing their down payment (an amount that can be as high as 20,000 Singapore dollars) 6 if they separate or divorce during this period. Subsequently, after moving into the flat, they must fulfil what is termed a Minimum Occupation Period. For those who balloted as a married or engaged couples this typically entails remaining married and residing in the flat for a period of five to ten years, depending on the location of the flat. In other words, access to a subsidized flat in Singapore before the age of 35 is heavily contingent upon coupling and maintaining that union.

During my PhD fieldwork, I began to realize that what I was studying was not merely housing policy, but rather people’s endeavours to live together, and the various modes of romantic labour they engage in to synchronize their relational lives with grant, balloting, and flat building cycles. Particularly, I observed my interlocutors, many of whom were still in university, attempting to pre-empt uncertainties in balloting and long wait times by committing to serious relationships early. The idea was that finding a partner early would enable them to wait out multiple balloting attempts and access optimal grant opportunities. Often, they disclosed to me that their BTO partner was also their first romantic partner.

To facilitate this accelerated romantic trajectory, my interlocutors often adopted a decidedly pragmatic attitude toward romance. They sought not necessarily passion or love, but rather what Adely (2016) 7 termed compatibility when writing about marriage in Jordan. Compatibility, for Adely and for my interlocutors as well, referred to “more practical issues of financial security, the ability of a couple’s families to get along, as well as shared expectations of married life” (103). When one girl realized that her then-partner was not aligned with her romantic schedule, she reached out to her friends to ask if she should “leave now and cut my losses”. In a departure from conventional romantic timelines, I observed my interlocutors transitioning courtship to the period after they had already made a down payment for a flat but before the flat was ready. In essence, they committed to purchasing a flat together (and indirectly, to marriage), and then sought to determine or mold each other into the right marital or cohabiting partner. The implication seemed to be that, as one interlocutor expressed, a “person can be made right”. Another stated that the interim wait for the flat was a “rehearsal” for marriage. Yet, despite their best efforts, I also witnessed relationships fail. Ironically, they failed not despite, but often because of, attempting to fit their romantic lives onto a narrow path.

When one of my primary interlocutors, a 23-year-old Chinese-Singaporean woman named Grace, broke up with her boyfriend of a few years in the middle of my fieldwork, it came as a shock to both of us. They had already selected a unit and made their first down payment for the flat. She had diligently assessed their compatibility and conducted due diligence with extreme care. In fact, when they first got together, she asked him a list of questions about how he would handle familial conflict, his approach to finances, and his views on children. Satisfied that he was a stable partner who could be trusted for the long term, they agreed to ballot together. The irony was that when they broke up, the reasons she pointed to had nothing to do with their life goals or finances. Instead, she said she felt that he was almost too stable for her – “attraction mounts for him the more stable our relationship is, but I realize that it doesn’t work for me this way.” She had simply fallen out of love, and consequently lost her down payment. She was not alone. While some of my interlocutors managed to devise ingenious kinship solutions to circumvent flat restrictions, many realized that the romantic arrangements they sought in their schooling years or early twenties were not what worked best for them. In other words, paradoxically, the pursuit of the stability incentivized by the BTO generated more modes of romantic and financial uncertainties.

This is why I was uncertain about how to interpret the announcement regarding married couples receiving more balloting chances. A starting point could be to bemoan the continued lack of attention paid to the needs of those whose life trajectories differ from statist reproductive visions—such as single mothers, queer couples, and others. However, even among the group explicitly prioritized by the BTO, there appears to be a romantic hierarchy in effect. The recent change evidently favors married couples over engaged couples. In a Today article (Ong, 2023), 8 an interviewee is quoted as saying that the change would offer “some safety net so that if the timeline does not fit and we get married, after we get married, we’ll at least have some advantage.” In theory, I understand how this change could potentially alleviate some of the pressure to enter into relationships early. Couples could initially ballot multiple times as an engaged couple, and when they are ready to commit, they could then marry and ballot for a flat together. With increased balloting chances, they are now more likely to secure a flat. This, theoretically, should reduce the uncertainty that couples feel about obtaining a flat, a factor that supposedly drives young couples to rush into the ballot. However, I remain cautious. If housing supplies do not increase significantly, 9 this would imply that it would become more difficult for engaged couples to secure flats, while marginally easier for married couples. In other words, it would extend an already exclusionary criterion – between singles and normatively coupled individuals – to the differentiation between engaged and legally married couples.

While couples enter the BTO with the expectation and hope of eventual marriage, they also understand the inherent risks involved. For my interlocutors, expediting marriage closer to key collection was a strategy to limit potential entanglements in the event of a relationship breakdown. This remains a relevant concern considering the need to meet grant deadlines and the wait for a flat, which means the need to start finding a partner young might not change significantly. I worry that what has changed now is that some couples might feel that instead of using the waiting time as a “rehearsal,” a prelude to marriage, they might now feel incentivized to simply get married. This timeline, at least in the iteration that I found in the field, leaves little room for young people to evolve, to experiment, and to figure out who they are and what they want in a romantic relationship and marriage. We talk a lot about aspirations in Singapore – aspirations for a flat, for children, for marriage – that we seem to forget that desire, and the different but often messy paths through which people discover themselves and their needs, are also part of the calculus of life. Forgetting this ironically produces more, not less, romantic and, if one were to count the potential loss of a down payment, financial instability.

Joy Xin Yuan Wang Joy is a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge, Department of Social Anthropology.

Notes:

Ong, Justin . 2023. “Additional BTO Ballot Chance for ‘Prioritised First-Timers’ a Fairer Move than Reserving More Flats for Them: Analysts.” TODAY. February 16, 2023. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/prioritised-first-timers-hdb-bto-flats-2109006#:~:text=the%20previous%20day ↩

Lin, Chen. 2022. “Singapore Sees the Rise of Million-Dollar Public Housing.” Reuters, August 31, 2022, sec. Asian Markets. https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/singapore-sees-rise-million-dollar-public-housing-2022-08-31/ ↩

In brief, an official family nucleus in Singapore is generally defined as

a) If you are married, you, your spouse, and your children (if any). b) If you are single: you and your parents. c) If you are widowed/divorced/separated: you and your children under your custody. d) Fiancé and fiancée e) Orphaned siblings

Marriage is central to the eligibility criteria because four out of the five officially endorsed pathways to forming a family nucleus flow from marriage. Note, for example, that option C does not account for mothers and fathers who have children out of wedlock. ↩

n August 2023, after this essay was written, the government announced greater changes to housing in Singapore. Two major changes included the recategorization of mature and non-mature estates into three categories- Standard, Plus, Prime. Prior to this change singles looking to purchase to BTO flats could only purchase 2-room flats in non-mature estates. While Singles continue to be limited in the size of BTO flat they can purchase (only 2-bedroom flats), they are now allowed to purchase flats from any location. (See this article for the details of the new changes https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/national-day-rally-2023-hdb-flats-singles-prime-bto-resale-3711471) ↩

In the field I met couples who only succeeded on the 11th time. This rice media article suggests that it is possible to fail 13 times at the ballot: https://www.ricemedia.co/bto-hdb-singapore/ ↩

Fong, Kenneth . 2021. “Planning to Break-up after You BTO-Ed? You Might Lose about $40,000!” Blog.seedly.sg. September 25, 2021. https://blog.seedly.sg/break-up-bto-hdb-application/ ↩

Adely, Fida. “A different kind of love: compatibility (Insijam) and marriage in Jordan” The Arab Studies Journal, Vol. 24, no. 2, 2016, pp. 102–27. ↩

Ong, Justin . 2023. “Additional BTO Ballot Chance for ‘Prioritised First-Timers’ a Fairer Move than Reserving More Flats for Them: Analysts.” TODAY. February 16, 2023. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/prioritised-first-timers-hdb-bto-flats-2109006#:~:text=the%20previous%20day ↩

The government has made promises and proposed measures to increase the supply of BTO flats. The most recent signs in February 2024 appear promising, with some flats promised to be delivered in a timeframe of within three years (https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/19600-bto-flats-to-go-on-sale-in-2024-over-three-exercises-instead-of-four-desmond-lee). However, how this will play out and how the acceleration of flat delivery will affect romantic timelines and decisions is yet to be seen. ↩