#democrat till i die

[magnoliamyrrh]

and u know what isnt helping either

democrats acting like a bunch of rabid dogs

going on about how actually they hope all latinos get deported or we shouldnt let them come to america because ~50% voted for trump. going on about how they dont want to hear any natives complaning about issues anymore bc ~65% voted for trump. saying all white women be fucked croack from ectopic pregnancies bc ~53% voted for trump. the horrible ways theyre talking about palestine and lebanon and muslims and arabs and ppl who have cared in this election

the minorites who voted for trump are hypocrites to call them racists but they also are right

and u know what.

the democrats utter inability to admit that there is also something deeply wrong with their policies and leaders IS part of the damned problem too

[hussyknee]

THE LEFTIST THIRD PARTY HAS WON SRI LANKA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

WE HAVE A PRO-LGBT, PRO-UNION, ANTI-ETHNOFASCIST, ANTI-IMPERIALIST PRESIDENT. MY ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR IS GOING TO BE PRIME MINISTER. A COMPETENT ACADEMIC WHO HAS WORKED ON FEMINIST INITIATIVES AND RESEARCH ALL HER CAREER.

please please please please god don't let them fuck this up don't let them turn into a bunch of cunts to retain their new voter base don't let them fuck up the economy don't let them let the minorities down please please please they won't ever get another chance if they ruin this one we'll be stuck with more idiot corrupt nepo babies till we die please please please PLEASE LET THIS BE THE END OF THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENCY AND PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT AND PERSECUTING THE NORTH please please please let them decriminalize being gay and not bury LGBT rights please please please let there be a god I can't take anymore of this shitshow please please please don't let hope be something that keeps pissing in our faces please please please please please please please

ANURA KUMARA DISSANAYAKE WILL BE THE NINTH PRESIDENT OF SRI LANKA. TAKE THAT YOU TWO PARTY VOTING MOTHERFUCKERS.

Edit:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN FUCKING COLOMBO WENT TO THE IDIOT NEPO BABY???

AKD HAD 52%!!!!! HE WAS ALL BUT SWORN IN?????

THEY HAVE TO COUNT THE SECOND PREFERENTIAL VOTE FOR ONLY THE SECOND TIME IN HISTORY??

There is a very real chance that nobody will get over 50% of the vote. That would be really, really bad.

Fuck.

I HATE YOU MOTHERFUCKING URBAN MIDDLE CLASS LIBERAL CUNTS SO MUCH. PLAGUE ON THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY. FUCK YOU.

Edit 2:

Ok so first counting gets AKD 42% and SP 32%. It's very likely the preferentional vote will put him over the 50% line.

It's so poetic that Ranil's greed for power ended up handing the country to the very Marxists that his uncle hunted like animals. You love to see it. 🥰

Edit 3:

So the preferential vote didn't give anyone a 50% majority and we're still at AKD 42% and SP 32%. But apparently that's enough to declare AKD President as per the Constitution. I don't think that's ever happened before. He was sworn in an hour ago.

Point of clarification: The NPP are not Marxists. Foreign news is just uncritically regurgitating the pro-government Red Scare propaganda. AKD and his JVP party used to be Marxists back in the '80s and '90s. They're now more very pro-union socialist. The NPP is their coalition, which is even more mildly social democrat and just happens to be a little more left than the other two. Calling them a Marxist is like how MAGA thinks the Dems are commies. 😂

I truly don't have great hopes that much will change, but there's a chance one or two important things might. Which is more than we've been able to hope for in decades.

See this post for a run down of the what's really been happening.

Edit 4:

I retract the "openly bisexual" part with many apologies. I completely misremembered. It wasn't AKD but JVP senior K. D. Lalkantha, who said in a 2018 interview is that he has also had same sex encounters with his friends as a boy and young man, and that he knows others who have had as well. And he specifically said he doesn't see the need to maintain a label for his sexuality. Still, the fact that his party allowed this in a country that still criminalises homosexuality, to a Sinhalese magazine, speaks to a commitment to LGBT rights. He also explicitly stated his support for women's rights, trans rights, polyamory, open relationships, explicit sexuality in media. It's impressively progressive for this country. The interview is in Sinhala and you can read it here.

Here's an excellent write-up of AKD's career, political outlook and creation of NPP in The Hindu by correspondent Meena Srinivasan, a journalist whose reporting I've always liked.

[batboyblog]

https://x.com/magi_jay/status/1812914966560973238?s=46&t=9ilK5pqP73XDblTtTbb4Qg

This post motivated me to try something different: namely, name a good quality about the Democratic Party and its candidate.

Biden’s most admirable qualities are his general wisdom and steadfastness in the face of great challenges. While I might not always agree with EVERY choice he’s made for a number of reasons, I do think he’s shown that he’s much smarter than people give him credit for.

Furthermore, he’s very firm without being either too standoffish or trying too hard. One of the things I hated about his predecessor (I refuse to name him) was just how anxiety inducing and chaotic he was, something that sucks for me since I’m a very skittish person even if I try not to be.

Biden is steadfast and (media aside trying to make a conflict on him) has never made me feel like I’m on unstable ground. He’s like a rock in the storm:

Stand by him, and we’ll weather through the chaos.

I mean in part thats why I do my weekly lists of what Biden et al are up to, because every week, EVERY single week its something huge and transformative, for the first time in my lifetime people can write "The Case for Climate Optimism" we have a government pledged to ending hunger in this country reduce homelessness by 1/4th by next year we are doing big things in this country

a few political speeches are the pole stars of my politics, the center of what I believe in.

Harvey Milk's Hope speech "I know you cannot live on Hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living" tells me and teaches me to always be for something not just again stuff, and to always be the happy warrior, gotta give 'em hope.

Ted Kennedy's 1980 DNC speech "the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." to always get back up and get into the ring, its not never over till you give up, the Dream Shall Never Die how ever dark it gets if you hang into it with both hands

but most importantly is Ann Richards 1988 DNC Speech, if you've never heard it, you should:

I’m a grandmother now. And I have one nearly perfect granddaughter named Lily. And when I hold that grandbaby, I feel the continuity of life that unites us, that binds generation to generation, that ties us with each other. And sometimes I spread that Baptist pallet out on the floor, and Lily and I roll a ball back and forth. And I think of all the families like mine, like the one in Lorena, Texas, like the ones that nurture children all across America. And as I look at Lily, I know that it is within families that we learn both the need to respect individual human dignity and to work together for our common good.  Within our families, within our nation, it is the same. And as I sit there, I wonder if she’ll ever grasp the changes I’ve seen in my life -- if she’ll ever believe that there was a time when blacks could not drink from public water fountains, when Hispanic children were punished for speaking Spanish in the public schools, and women couldn’t vote. I think of all the political fights I’ve fought, and all the compromises I’ve had to accept as part payment. And I think of all the small victories that have added up to national triumphs and all the things that would never have happened and all the people who would’ve been left behind if we had not reasoned and fought and won those battles together. And I will tell Lily that those triumphs were Democratic Party triumphs.

It is always worth it to fight, however hard it is, however bitter it may feel in the moment to take half a loaf or a part payment, it is always always always ALWAYS! better to take a half step forward than not to move at all, because its not chess, its not a game, its people's very lives

as to what I like about Joe Biden? I could say a lot of things, he's a guy the world has knocked down a lot of times, a lot of struggles and personal tragedies that in someone else could make them hard hearted and cold, but I see a guy who always takes the time to listen

thats who is, always to see Joe on a rope line talking to people is to understand their cares are truly his, he truly and I promise you this wants what's best for people.

and just for a second remember who he's running against, who that guy is on the most basic level, saying he couldn't have raped that woman she's too ugly

so do you want a President who stops everything to tell a kid its gonna be okay, that that kids can do anything, and gives him his phone number and calls him to help, or you want the guy who tells your kids "when you're famous they let you do it, grab 'em by the pussy" up to you.

[goopgirlie813]

Anyway obviously theres not much info at the moment because its still two years out, but make sure to check regularly who will be running in you area in the 2026 midterm election. Start supporting and advocating for democrat campaigns as early as possible so we have a stronger chance of taking back congress and reducing damage in the second half of this presidential term. Or possibly even see if you can dig up and talk about dirt on the current republican candidates whose seats will be up in 2026. I'm sure they've got some very criticizable voting histories given the way most republicans have been behaving recently.

Also remember that Trump cannot run again but others like him can run so we really need to be addressing the issues with prejudice and fascism directly so get to reading, strategizing, and talking. The sooner we get to work the more successful we will be.

(And if one of you hops on with "there wont be anymore elections" I swear to fuck. We aint givin' up and acting like they're gone until the moment they are actually gone. At which point we do the thing Americans do best; use that second amendment right—whether its still on the books or not— and fight for our rights. Its not over till we're dead and we wont die quiet. Dont you dare give up or shut up until the fascists are pushed back into the shadows.)

[petalsthefish]

Peek Inside:

Returning to her dash, Lily continued to browse through her fans' updates, finding solace in their support.

SwiftieOverFifty: Lily! What's your favorite song right now?

LilyEvans: Take Me Back to London by Ed Sheeran

LilyEvans LIKED LillyEvAnss: Hi Lily! I wrote you a little something under the cut if you could read it!

Isidar-mithrim: Ice Cream or Cake, Lily?

LilyEvans: Ice Cream Cake!

Escapingthisworldwithfiction: Lily what's your favorite book right now?

LilyEvans: I'll say Harry Potter till I die :) 

StateofMischief: I've been feeling so alone lately and left out of everything and so terrified of school starting and being even more alone next week and knowing Lily is there is really comforting.

LilyEvans: I hate that you're feeling that way and it's so hard not to dwell on our fears and doubts, because we want spoilers for how it's going to turn out, but in reality, we just have to go through life not knowing what's next. Just when you think it's going to get worse; it could get better instead. It WILL.

LilyEvans LIKED amilahchoux: Lily we miss you, please come back full time

LilyEvans LIKED nobothersgiventoday: every time I see Steven Roosevelt I'm reminded why I'm voting democrat in the next election.

LilyEvans LIKED fabcrosa: I can't wait to see what Lily wears to Petunia's wedding! I bet she'd going to be beautiful!

Lily stopped liking when she got to a post from jilyisendgame: jily might not be real but it's real in my mind. The post made Lily laugh out loud, throwing her head back against the chair.

"What are you laughing at?"

James had just walked through the door. Lily looked up from her phone screen, green eyes sparkling at James. He walked over to her; expression tentative.

"Hashtag Jily." She smirked impishly, "my fans are back at it again."

READ MORE ON A03

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hi Slug! If you've listened to the full songs in the new EP, have your opinions of the trailers changed? Also, the new dramas are HEAVY, so if you've listened to them, I'm curious to know what you thought of them. As always, thanks for the translations!

I like listening to Hypmic music on shuffle during workouts, so I've most of the new songs in full by now. I don't think my opinions have changed majorly. I really enjoy Black and White, and Move Your Body Till You Die is a phenomenal work of art.

As for the drama tracks... truth be told, I haven't even listened to the one that came out in April, so I'll read through some TLs now and record thoughts below the cut:

No One Lives Forever, translation courtesy of shinseimcd on Twitter

"Anti-Party of Words faction" Huh, like a government faction? I'm surprised the PoW allows other political parties or at the very least open dissenters. There was talk in some chapters of the manga of them punishing protesters, not to mention the way they crushed the TDD rebellion in its primacy. Either way, interesting, and I hope we learn more about this as time goes on.

Ichijiku and Nemu baking together is really cute lol

I love the way Ichijiku's whole personality shifts around Otome. Gap moe (????)

It's a cool tidbit that Nemu tends to prefer plainer outfits, as that tracks with how she dresses in TDD. Also, Nemu and Ichijiku shopping together is kind of bittersweet, since Ichijiku is clearly using Nemu as a replacement figure for her deceased sister...

Ichijiku secretly wanting to fall on the cute side of the cute/elegant spectrum is a pretty classic trope but a fun detail that's been hinted at already, since we've seen that she keeps a bow collection.

??? Rei's lab is on Battleship Island? Ohhhhhhhhh this is why Twitter was blowing up with controversy right after this track released... The IRL Battleship Island was home to forced labor of Korean and Chinese citizens during the twentieth-century push of Japanese imperialism which was later, iirc, denied in part or totally by the Japanese government to immense international backlash. Using this as a setpiece for Hypmic is oddly provocative, and I can't think why the writers would want to do that. On a much lighter note, this is also a headscratcher to me because isn't this a UNESCO World Heritage Site? The whole point of that is conservation, and I don't think building a clone lab counts as conservation... Unless they're implying the clone lab was built prior to the 1950s? Hm. Let's not go down this rabbit hole.

"I would like all of the True Hypnosis Mics. As well as all the Amemura clones." Oh? Are there more still alive? I thought Honobono ordered the death of the last remaining three... Well, that scraps a piece of writing I was working on LOL

"Your biometric data is required to access the mic storage facility" So how did the PoW get in?

Her? Heart stop beating? Oh for fuck's sake, is Rei's wife also in a coma? How many fucking characters are in a coma in this series... Whichever mfer invents a device that restores people from comas with no significant brain damage will make a fortune in this universe

"And I won't try anything funny." I do not believe this for one instant

Hmm, the framing of Otome planning this and the way she brushed past talk of countermeasures for the anti-PoW faction implies that Rei is heading this faction.

Oh, so they couldn't get past the biometric locks after all, I see.

I strongly dislike the idea of thirty clones for thirty mics and the nonchalance in which Rei goes, "Yeah, I'll ship them off to Chuuouku" like they're a parcel and not human beings, but that's my personal bone to pick w/ this character and setting.

I was intrigued by the notion of the PoW holding caucuses, implying there's some sort of democratic process in terms of choosing their own party members or positions, but the JPN audio doesn't specify that exactly.

"We no longer require the cooperation of Jakurai Jinguji." I know that this took like four years in real time, but in terms of the Hypmic universe... I mean, Jakurai didn't even do anything for them, did he? He went through all that moral dilemma for nothing, as far as I can tell. (I get that it sets up the reconciliation with Ramuda, but that's it? Seriously?) That's disappointing to roll it back so quickly.

"During the Division Rap Battle, the people of our nation will be focused on the tournament, giving us the opportunity to use the True Hypnosis Mics to mind hack the Anti-Party of Words faction who stand in our way, ultimately pulling them over to our side." Otome always has the most batshit plans. God bless. A consequence of her needing to drive the plot forward is that she'll say some of the truly silliest things I've ever heard. What a complete misappropriation of government funds lol. Also... is this stating there are only 30 dissidents (????), or can the True Hypmics brainwash more than one person at a time?

"Once that is complete, we will move on to other countries. And when we have taken over the world, then, in the true sense of the word, peace through the power of words will be achieved." LMAO? I'm sorry, this isn't very considerate of me, but in my initial impressions of this, I am well and truly gobsmacked. What in the actual fuck. How many clones will die for this? How much money will it cost? How does she think she stands any chance at governing so many people across such an area, even with a downsized population after WWIII? Homie... Never change, Hypmic, you are the wildest.

I can't believe Ichijiku is so whipped she's willing to go along with an absolutely nonsensical plan for world domination. Ma'am, Otome is not going to fuck you, and even if she is, it's not worth it! Ma'am!!! I'm sorry, I'm being petty and not giving this a lot of in-depth thought but LORD this is a trip on first read.

A FUCKING CLONE UPRISING AT THE HANDS OF REI? HAHAHAHAHA.

"World domination, huh, what a joke." Man after my own heart.

I'm actually quite interested in how this "mics are disabled forever" thing works. I guess the mics have a kill switch in them? I vaguely recall someone saying that in the manga years and years ago... Oh yeah, it was Ramuda in TDD 12. Huh, interesting if that was intentional foreshadowing (I'm not sure if I want to be that charitable). At any rate, can't everyone in the room just get new mics? Or does it affect their speakers and such too? I'm curious how that works, like if you build an affinity with a certain mic or some nonsense.

"looks like we won't be having any Division Rap Battles from here on out." Ah, and this is why the other half of Twitter was up in arms like "No more DRB??? End of Hypmic??" I guess.

The Block Party tracks are quite long, and since it's getting rather late for me, I'm going to leave off here for the moment. I'd like to continue this at my next available opportunity... WHAT a ride. Not sure when that will be, but I will add to this with a reblog when I can. And I know it's been months since this track came out, but I would love to hear other people's thoughts. I wasn't around much when it first launched, so I missed most of the commentary on it.

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

OOR 2002 - Nr 10 - Rammstein interview

Rammstein

Last December they played three sold-out converts in Amsterdam's HMH, this year they are one of the closing acts at Pinkpop. In June they will play again in the Netherlands, at the Gelredome in Arnhem, which will undoubtedly also be sold out. Rammstein is no longer a band just for sensation-seeking metal fans. The key to their success? The Germans are masters of calculated provocation. Although they will never admit it themselves.

by Danny Koks

In their own country, their records consistently number one on the album charts, they have played in Australia and Japan, and slowly but surely they have reached the U.S. conquered. There people have fallen en masse for Till Lindemann's captured lyrics, distasteful rolling 'r' and the Teutonic thundering cadence that drives the group. The band from the former GDR has now sold two million CDs there, their songs are played on the radio (unique, since not a single American understands German) and they were nominated for a Grammy. An honor that no German act has received since Milli Vanilli (!). The story of guitarist Richard Bernstein, bassist Olli Riedel, drummer Christoph Schneider, guitarist Paul Landers, singer Till Lindemann and keyboardist Flake Lorenz, all from East Berlin, has to be the most bizarre success story of the last fifteen years. be pop music. Perhaps that period is too short. Perhaps Rammstein's glittering international career is just as bizarre as the story of a dimwit from Flanders who, as Eddy Wally 1), scored a killer hit with Cherie as far away as Russia and China. Perhaps even more bizarre.

"The secret of our success is that we have always stayed true to our style. We have refined it here and there over the years, but our music has always remained typical Rammstein, and I think the audience would like to keep it that way. " That is the measured answer from drummer Christoph Schneider, who sits together with Flake Lorenz at the Rammstein management office in eastern Berlin. There is a reason why their answers during the interview are so short and concise. The band members do not like to give us a glimpse into the kitchen of Rammstein and the language barrier therefore serves as an excellent line of defense (they only do interviews in German).

Of course, the success of this band does not lie in the fact that they have remained true to their style. Thousands of bands all over the world remain true to their style and do not go further than the youth club of the neighboring village. Rammstein is so popular because it is a total concept, similar to the Gesamtkunstwerk as envisioned by German composer Richard Wagner. A multimedia total experience that feeds our subconscious fear and hatred for everything German and at the same time holds up a mirror to show us how ridiculous those gut feelings actually are. Who takes all the cliché images (Blut und Boden) that we have about Germans as true and at the same time makes fun of them in a grotesque way. Rammstein plays that game with a velvet technique and at all levels: music (punishment and martial), lyrics (dark and commanding), artwork (cold and distant) and live show (grand and imposing). The Gründlichkeit with which the six Ossies approach this results in a parody of Germans that can only be described in one way: typically German. Thought out from A to Z, Herr Schneider? Of course not: "Rammstein simply makes loud music. We play what we can play and it sounds the way it sounds."

During the day they all had jobs, after all, 'unemployed' did not exist in the dictionary of the German Democratic Republic. Olli was a plasterer, Christoph installed telephones, Paul was a heating engineer, Till woven baskets and Flake made tools. Just as Father State directed all facets of daily life (a well-known expression in Die Ost was 'every second is one of them', referring to the fact that your neighbor could be an informant for the feared secret service), it also had a strong involvement in the existence of amateur musicians. Since living expenses were cheap, they had it relatively easy: one or two performances at the weekend were enough to finance your hobby. Everyone knew everyone, the music circuit was small and well-organized. Oliver Riedel played in the folk band The Inchtabokatables, while Paul Landers and Flake Lorenz scored a premiere with their punk band Feeling B by being the first East German punk band to release an album. Richard Bernstein had a crossover band. In that capacity, the regime left them relatively alone, although they had to be careful not to come across as subversive and anti-totalitarian in their lyrics. When the Wall falls in 1989, the six's first encounter with the free West takes place in the form of West Germany superstar David Hasselhoff (Knight Rider, Baywatch), who stands on the ruins of the tightly drawn concrete border between East and West sing his hit Looking For Freedom. They have no idea who he is. Four years later, Christoph, Olli, Till and Richard decide to turn their backs on their old, moribund bands and start a new one.

"German bands always try to imitate their American and English colleagues," says Christoph Schneider. "We did that in the early days, by mixing hip-hop with hard guitars. You know, what every band on this planet does. That was mainly Richard's idea, we tried to build on his style. But hip-hop, that just had nothing to do with us. We didn't feel anything about it at all." Yet it is the same Richard Bernstein who said about those early days in the Berliner Morgenpost: "I had the opportunity to go to California and experience the bands we imitated up close. Only then did I realize that culture and climate determine what kind of music people make. I returned to Germany and started writing music that is characteristically German." According to Schneider, that picture requires some nuance. "Richard is the most stubborn of the bunch, we always have the most difficulty convincing him of our ideas, especially in the early days. If he had the sole say, the band would sound much softer and poppier. Only when Paul and Flake joined, our current, martial style was born. They had a punk past. That mentality appealed to us much more, as Germans we could at least get along with punk. Richard wants to take credit for the way we make music, but the fact that we sound so German is above all Paul's merit. In the other bands he played in, he also had highly developed ideas about how a band can distinguish itself. He always thinks a lot about that and is in that sense the theorist behind Rammstein. We owe it to him that we were able to muster the courage to take the risks we did then."

The band name was quickly chosen. A year before the fall of the Wall, on August 29, 1988 2), a terrible accident occurs during an air show at the Ramstein military air base, in which a stunt plane crashes into the audience while burning, resulting in seventy deaths. The enormous force of the explosion scorches people in front of the camera. Rammstein, that is. The name is a prime example of the sharpest tool with which the band has become so successful; Rammstein understands the art of calculated provocation like no other. Till Lindemann goes one step further by singing the song Rammstein wrapped in a burning coat. The lyrics ('Ein Mensch brennt/Fleischgeruch lieft in der Luft/ein Kind stirbt/die Sonne scheint') could still be seen as a factual summary of the images of the air disaster, but that coat suddenly puts the song in a completely different, lugubrious and sinister, daylight. Rammstein behaves like an elephant in a china shop, but does so as subtly as a butterfly!

That song in question comes from the debut Herzeleid, which was released in 1997. Artwork (see 'controversies'), lyrics, music and appearance of the band members immediately sparked a heated discussion in Germany about the band's image, which distrusters quickly labeled as 'fascist'. Drummer Christoph Schneider defended Rammstein's creative and musical choices at the time, saying that "we are indeed muscular, have short hair and sing in German, with a rolling 'r' (with which Lindemann, according to some German newspapers, imitates Hitler's way of speaking during speeches). But that does not mean that we are fascists." Later he said in OOR about this smear: "Germans of course struggle with that eternal feeling of guilt. They want to be everything, but please not German. It is very difficult to talk about that without immediately being called a Nazi. Who says: 'I am German', he is a Nazi." The Nazi ghost is persistent, because even during the release of their latest album, Mutter, a student of German literature claimed that the record title is a clear reference to the mother country Germany. Quatsch, says Schneider. "We play with the image people have of Germans. Rammstein comes across as a militaristic band that barks its orders at the audience. We embody how the rest of the world imagines Germany. That image is made up of clichés, many of which are directly related to the war. Yet I see it more like this: we embody everything that has made Germany famous, good and bad."

It may have been the naivety associated with growing up in the isolated GDR that prevented the band from properly sensing how sensitive the Nazi past still is. Yet even after that debut and the wave of criticism that album provoked, Rammstein likes to flirt with his 'right-wing' image, although they continue to claim that they do not do this consciously. Flake: "You can also turn a Britney Spears lyric into a Nazi lyric. Ooops I Did It Again, Hitler...do you see the connection?"

Nevertheless, they use images of Leni Riefenstahl for a video clip (see 'controversies'). And some of Lindemann's choruses show that the Germans can also express their calculated provocation in a more subtle way. Those of Heirate Mich ('Heirate Mich! Hei! Hei! Hei!'), Du Hast ('Du! Du hast! Du hast mich!') and Rein Raus ('Rein? Raus!') do show demagogic traits that are reminiscent of bad times. And when they feel it necessary to convince us of their political color, which they do on Mutter in the song Links 2 3 4, they do so to the sounds of a military march. It is typical of Rammstein to say that their heart beats on the left while the music conjures up images of endless rows of shiny, polished soldiers' boots marching in mechanical step across Unter Den Linden.

The great thing is that the band gets away with flirting with everything that is labeled as rightwing and wrong, and that it can leave people in the dark undisturbed as to whether the six Germans are all serious or not. Rammstein makes grateful use of Till Lindemann's texts. Not one of them (except for the aforementioned Links 2, 3, 4) has a political connotation, with which the singer defuses the situation. On the other hand, they are a perfect vehicle for the band to practice their favorite activity: calculated provocation. The surly, possibly or not genuinely tormented singer emerges in his lyrics as a lugubrious man who, especially on the first two CDs Herzeleid and the 1999 released Sehnsucht, hunts for sexual satisfaction like a predator. On two conditions: it has to be his way and he will not tolerate any objection. In Herzeleid's Weisses Fleisch he tries to find satisfaction in S.M.: 'Du auf dem Schulhof/ich zum Töten bereit/Und keiner hier weiss/von meiner Einsamkeit/Rote Striemen auf weisser Haut/ich tu dir weh/und du pity laut.' Pay particular attention to how one simple word ('Schulhof') gives the song a charge that makes you feel extremely uncomfortable. In Heirate Mich (from the same album) he does this again, by introducing the listener to the world of necrophilia. 'Mit meinen Händen grab ich tief/zu finden was ich so vermisst/ich nehm dich zärtlich in den Arm/doch deine Haut reisst wie Papier/Und Teile fallen von dir ab.' On Sehnsucht he once again explains in detail that he is purely interested in his own satisfaction ('Bück dich befehl ich dir/wende dein Antlitz ab von mir/dein Gesicht ist mir egal'). On the same album he also delves into incest, such as in the song Tier, in which a father sexually assaults his daughter: 'Was macht ein Mann/der zwischen Mensch und Tier niet unterscheiden kann/Er wird zu seiner Tochter gehen/sie ist schön und jung an Jahren/Und dann wird er wie ein Hund/mit eigen Fleisch und Blut sich paaren'. From Speil Mit Mir the following stanza: 'Wir teilen Zimmer und das Bett/Brüderlein komm und sei so nett/Brüderlein komm fass mich an/rutsch ganz ganz dense an mich heran.' Mutter deviates from his predecessors in that Lindemann seems to have moved on from his sexual perversions, except for the song Rein Raus: 'Tiefer tiefer/sag es sag es laut/tiefer tiefer/ich fühl mich wohl in deiner Haut.' The provocation is now found through other channels, such as in the song Ich Will, which, given the earlier accusations of fascist tendencies, has a strikingly popular character: 'Wir wollen dass ihr uns vertraut/wir wollen dass irh uns alles glaubt/Wir wollen eure Hand sehen/wir wollen in Beifall untergehen.' Of course, shivers run down your body when Lindemann cuts Snow White into a morbid fairy tale (Mein Herz Brennt): 'Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein eight/ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen/Ich hab euch etwas mitbracht/hab es aus meiner Brust geissen. '

"Pain, suffering and heartbreak have always been a source of inspiration for us," says Christoph Schneider about the lyrics. "When we started the band, we all had relationship problems, some of us even had to leave our children. At that time, music was an outlet for our frustrations for all of us. Ten years have passed and for me personally, suffering plays no role in my life anymore, but for Till it absolutely does. And there are a few band members who have to be in a constant state of pain and sadness in order to feel good. Although I do think that we will slowly have to break new ground if Rammstein is to continue to exist." So to think that the band has become more cautious is a wrong assumption? "Yes, we have always played with ambiguity. In the very beginning we just tried everything. Until we heard the public reactions: 'Can a band make something like that, isn't it all too German?' Should we explain everything or leave our image open without providing any text or explanation? We opted for the latter. This action-reaction dynamic is something we have been dealing with for years now, with public criticism serving as an indicator: If people think we are going too far, then we know we are doing the right thing. Furthermore, it is a matter of remaining brave and saying: Was die Leute finden ist mir scheiss egal. Still, I think we have closed a phase with Mutter. We can't continue to flirt with taboo themes, we have already pushed the boundaries of that."

The fact that Rammstein can cut so undisturbed with his sharpest knife (provocation) is due to their most blunt instrument: the live show, in which they perform a modern variant of Dante's inferno as post-apocalyptic half-zombies. During the Sehnsucht tour, the band members appeared as robots and machines. Their hair is dyed silver, with long coats full of nail studs and rubber and bright blue lenses. Cold and expressionless, they stared into the crowd. Till Lindemann descended onto a trapeze staircase, while jets of fire sparkled from beneath him. he carried flamethrowers shaped like Freddie Krueger fingers. His voice rolled over the audience like a Teutonic march: punishing and unrelenting. He punished himself with a whip, and a little later, using fire-breathing boots, he rolls over cartwheels across the stage. Deep red blood seeped from his silver hair. A woman in angelic robes descended into a rusted steel cage, while flames spouted meters high into the air around her.

The band manages to convey all this with so much seriousness that the few moments in which Rammstein allows you to think that you might also find it all very funny have an even more alienating effect. When the two guitarists and the bassist enter the stage during Wilder Wein with ridiculously large sombreros, for example. Or when Flake goes crowd surfing in a rubber boat. Or, indeed, when the same Flake gets liters of semen sprayed over him by Till (Bück Dich). The band continues to do so happily during their current world tour. For example, large glass jars containing children's corpses are placed on stage in strong water, while at one point Flake appears to be a surgeon under an operating lamp, complete with white coat and doctor's gloves. They themselves of course deny it, but associations with Doctor Mengele still pop into your head completely involuntarily. Don't worry, it's a completely innocent association, because Rammstein is fun. Isn't it? Well, it's not that simple. Compare it to schlager. Watch a schlager program on German TV (Schlagerparade Der Volksmusik is highly recommended) and you will see the similarities. The singers from Tyrol and Bavaria look terribly out of place in their lederhosen and dirndl dresses, with their undeniable Prodent 3) smile and blow-dried hair in front of plywood sets of snow-capped mountain peaks, alpine meadows full of flowers and log cabins. But damn, they still really like it. Flake: "There is humor in what we do, but it has crept in completely involuntarily. People see us as something comical, but that has never been our intention." Christoph: "What we are playing now sounds authentic to our ears, we can identify with this. What we make is what we feel inside, what we experience as real. We bring comedic subjects with complete seriousness, that is our craft. Till brings ridiculous topics into the spotlight with a deadly serious face and dramatically accented voice. We like that. It's good to keep people in the dark." Oh well, otherwise Rammstein can still use the excuse, entirely in German tradition: Es sei nur ein Scherz gewesen.

Five controversies surrounding Rammstein

1. Artwork Herzeleid

On their debut CD Herzeleid from 1997, the six band members are depicted bare-chested against a background of a gigantic orange-yellow sunflower. The taut and oiled chest muscles, the short, severely shaved haircuts, the separation of band members by hair color (brown on the right, blond on the left); everything indicated that, according to the Rammstein critics, the Berlin band presented itself here as a representative of a new, superior Men's race. With this, the six made a giant swing across the political spectrum: from ex-communists to neo-Nazis in the space of a month.

2. Arrest

On Saturday, June 5, 1999, singer Till Lindemanne and keyboardist Flake Lorenz were arrested immediately after a performance in Worcester, Massachusetts. The scene during Bück Dich in which Lindemann stood behind a bending Lorenz to simulate anal sex with a strap-on dildo, rubbed local law enforcement officers the wrong way. They handcuffed the two, who then had to spend the night in jail and were released after paying bail (25 dollars).

3. Wrong timing

At the moment Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror organization forced two hijacked passenger planes into the WTC buildings, Rammstein's members were also in the air. They set course for the United States to continue their world tour. All aircraft that were in the air at that time and flying towards America had to immediately turn around, including Rammstein's. However, all the necessary stage equipment had already been flown over, so a week after September 11, the Germans toured America with a show full of fireworks, meter-high flames and explosions.

4. Stripped

Rammstein recorded the song Stripped in 1998 for a Depeche Mode tribute CD (For The Masses) (later also on the Australian tour edition of Sehnsucht). For the accompanying video clip they used images from Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia documentary about the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. Riefenstahl was Hitler's court filmmaker. Goldie and Asian Dub Foundation were the first musicians to publicly accuse Rammstein (MTV, NME) of having Nazi sympathies. Fellow Berliner Alec Empire (Atari Teenage Riot) had a more nuanced opinion but did say: "You can't use Riefenstahl's footage and then say it was just a joke. My grandfather died in a concentration camp, so forgive me if I here don't see the joke." Richard Bernstein subsequently stated that the band had used the images purely for aesthetic reasons. "We thought they were beautiful images. That's probably what people in the cinema thought at the time: beautiful images."

5. Columbine

Painfully topical given the terrible shooting at a gymnasium in Erfurt. Two years earlier, on April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed twelve students and a teacher and then themselves at Columbine High School in Litteleton, Colorado. The perpetrators are said to have been incited to their actions by the music and lyrics of Rammstein and Marilyn Manson; right-wing and Christian groups immediately called for a ban on both bands. Christoph: "It was put that simply, but of course it is not that simple at all. Typical of American politics to point to one guilty party in their world where everything is black and white." Flake: "It's fortunate for us that Osama bin Laden is not a Rammstein fan."

--

1) Eddy Wally was a Belgian singer who enjoyed some popularity among 'regular' folks, but to 'critical music journalist' made pretty much the epitomy of 'tacky' music. Being Belgian is for some Dutch a source for ridicule in itself.

2) Nitpicking but the airshow disaster in Ramstein took place on August 28 (not 29) 1988

3) Prodent is big brand of toothpaste in the Netherlands

--

List of other Rammstein OOR interviews

[biryukzlodei-artblog]

Today I was at a vet clinic. On the line together with me was an old mute man with a 5-6 months black kitty. That kitty cried in his cat carrier for the entire hour till got to see the vet. I don’t know what health problem this little cat had but the old man decided to put him to sleep. After 30 minutes doctor brought out a small black bag. I thought the little guy was tired, scared and wanted to run around and not sit in his carrier the last hour of his life. This was really fucking sad.

And the hysterical Democrats, ready to commit suicide because their candidate lost a pointless election are just fucking drama queens who understand no shit about real politics. And these people believe they deserved the right to rule while they can’t hold a simple defeat. “Everything must be how I want or it’s the end of the world and I wish the opposite side to die!” is a position of infantile whimsical child. True, it’s a lot of such kind of people from any political side and ideologies.

I saw a lot of them for my life. All these 50-60 year old ex-soviet men who couldn’t accept the fall of the USSR and still dreaming to return it back, hating on literally anything what modern Russian Federation state does and blocking everyone arguing with them in the internet, sitting in their echo chambers and jerking off to each other about how smart, great and understanding they are.

Funny but Russian liberals are not different from them also. Only their golden dream is to sell Russia to the West again, ruling here under US patronage and carry out mass repressions against those who would dare to be against them. Unironically they call it "the beautiful Russia of the future". Sick hypocritical bastards.

And both of those groups are sincerely wondering why majority of society refuses to support them. For themselves they explain it accusing the Russian common people of stupidity, barbarism, brainwashing and submits to the regime. So no different behavior from westerner dems who blames all who are not supporting them to be Nazis, phobes, racists etc.

And you know, for a long time in the Russian society lived a myth that its Russian democrats are “not real one, losers and morons” and on the West lives “real democrats” who are “really cares about their people”. Kek. Well, turned out that they are all the same.

Your liberalism brand is not selling. Out of US/UK/EU nobody give a fuck about gay rights, pronounce, 72 genders and other attributes of woke culture. Nobody considering it to be any “freedom” but rather what is already used as tool for oppression and coercion. Here on tumblr echo chamber you can deny it how much you want but the world (real one and not just western civilization) are so fed up with your woke bullshit that they are moving towards the East (Russia/China). And unlike you, Westerner politics are feeling how dominating chairs are already shaken under their old butts.

Trump is just a rebranding approved by deep state. Russia has already become a new and attractive stronghold of conservative values. Why immigrate in the West, where you will be forced to kneel before a black man and swear loyalty to LGBT, and where your child can undergo gender reassignment surgery without your consent when you can immigrate to Russia and just work there without all the above? This is already happening. People who want to create are coming to Russia, those who want to live on benefits are going to the West. Do I need to explain the dangers that this brings? Current situation is bad for Russia because for a while the West will again become a more attractive place for immigration, and once again undecided countries will begin to waver in their choice of sides.

Anyway, nothing will change. Trump and his team will make a façade but behind it all will remain the same in the Western society. Dems left over themselves lots of shit and bad decisions, they will blame all the consequences on the Republican Party and return triumphantly at the next election, when the common people will begin to obediently hate the Reds, as always.

Here is a bit of the realpolitik for you. And ideologies are for the dummies to manipulate them better.

[magustiel]

Harris campaign has been spectacular, organized and aggressive. They knew about the Russia threat, but they wanted to win (of course). So, if there was fraud, they have to ask for a recount now, or whatever they need. Other countries are at risk, if Musk manipulates other elections. I hope they wait till the last moment and then make the announcement, when all the West countries and their allies have made it clear that it's not just the US. They all are done with Putin's BS

I have two perspectives here.

My personal one would agree with you. This, I find, is actually actively interfering, putting my ego in the way of playing the game to try to specifically attain that goal.

My zoomed out weird one?

Nah.

That's anxiety talking.

Even with Putin in America's pocket, Trump and Elon will be destabilizing the US so proactively, our ability to contribute will be broken at the kneecaps for several years.

Also, guys, it's like everyone's having a stroke and forgetting the US is an imperialist shitbag too, and has been funding wars around the world since fucking forever.

While I agree we need to support Ukraine, I also believe the rest of the world needs to begin picking up the slack, because no matter which war handout america cuts, it's at least pulling its dick out of one fucking pie. Israel, Gaza, fuckin. Fucking everywhere guys. All of it, the whole fucking thing.

America has refused to stop pissing in corners of the world paying into war since forever now, and it has to fucking stop. I'm no accelerationist, but if this is the way to make it stop, then shatter this old fucking babylon so we don't all fucking die, fucking thanks.

Putin will try to play robber baron, but only once the union really fractures officially over this. His only real gain is Trump cutting funding to Ukraine, and maybe a few trade deals.

Trump is also not generally long for this world, and Vance lacks the cult dedication. By the time he dies, his own people will start eating Vance's bones. Hell, the votes aren't even certified yet and they're all eating each other publicly already, what do you think happens when their false prophet superstar goes in the dirt?

Even that might be a better long term resolution; it would be far easier for military generals to push back against Vance once the obsessive sands of Trumpism have to break, even if that means the feds like, installing some fucking martial law and us ending up under some holding pattern override, functionally stopping what we know as democracy until all other prosecutions, investigations, recounts, or whatever the fuck else.

-- long term, this is ironically a resolution democrats supposedly want: A breakup of american imperialism and war funding, cornering Russia trapped upon itself with us, rattling the financial institutions, and basically removing the US as a primary world power to be replaced by a new-kinda NATO without reliance on us. A New World Order, if you will.

It involves accelerationism, which I'm not an inherent fan of; I believe in protecting people at all costs, caring for the poor and such. But if the accelerationists are here, definitionally hellbent on their path, it is far better to turn them against each other than to keep kicking water uphill eternally while internally rotting our institutions, society, and cultural mental stability.

Like we're here, it's been us trying to jam the door for election after election, and stalling really isn't saving our asses.

So just... breathe. Plan. Put up some basic supplies, build your coalitions and communities and communals, and keep your heads down for a few years. I hate to say it, take down your pride flags and things like that, undye your hair, start living like we're in Nazi Germany because, for a short time at least, we are. Don't self identify yourself as a target more than you have to.

Anyway. I think I'm doing pretty good at this for falling in backwards 20 years ago and just now realizing, what do you guys think

[ovyy-pvcure]

For the record it's not going to be fast. I don't think it's going to be fast. The Democrats will hold to convention and pass over power peacefully trying in a desperate scramble to enshrine Democracy as best they can. They'll fail because they no longer hold any power. People will blame the Democrats for falling after sabotaging them.

Individual "states rights" and votes will be loudly overwritten with a nation wide abortion ban backed by a now fully red 3 levers of power. People will die and the media will be silent about it. The media, Trump's greatest ally, will clown and pony show his mistakes while ignoring all the actions that slowly chip away at people's rights. All the cases and attorneys against Trump will quietly disappear. His collaborators for his crimes will be pardoned in a whisper. Slowly. Over time. The situation in Gaze will worsen, and worsen without a word of dissent. Ukraine to.

Life will get worse, and people will die, and things will look normal. Stable. They'll call the doomsayers insane. "Look it's not WW3 the country didn't immediately fall into Martial Law" they'll say. And it won't. Then terms limits will disappear. Quietly. Legal and historical experts will yell their complaints and the media will ignore them.

Maybe they'll be an election in 2028. Maybe they're won't. If there is you'll see a lot more Republicans "safeguarding Democracy" there. The result will be even more overwhelming, definitive and swift. They'll have fixed the system. Red. If there is still a Democratic party it'll be a New Democratic party disillusioned with lazy, selfish, ignorant leftists and pushed further Right than ever till there really is no difference between the parties. And they'll still be the only other possibly viable option.

So now's the time to fight. To stay on top of things and hound your representative at every turn. Let no small indignity stand. To show up to every election for the next forever from state to local to chip away and clear space so maybe you get to not have the boot on your neck pressing all the way down.

[ausetkmt]

A statue of Emmett Till is unveiled in Mississippi : NPR

Emmett Till's statue reflects the afternoon sun, during its unveiling on Friday in Greenwood, Miss.

Rogelio V. Solis/AP

GREENWOOD, Miss. — Hundreds of people applauded — and some wiped away tears — as a Mississippi community unveiled a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, not far from where white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager over accusations he had flirted with a white woman in a country store.

"Change has come, and it will continue to happen," Madison Harper, a senior at Leflore County High School, told a racially diverse audience at the statue's dedication. "Decades ago, our parents and grandparents could not envision that a moment like today would transpire."

The 1955 lynching became a catalyst for the civil rights movement. Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago so the world could see the horrors inflicted on her 14-year-old son. Jet magazine published photos of his mutilated body, which was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

The 9-foot (2.7-meter) tall bronze statue in Greenwood's Rail Spike Park is a jaunty depiction of the living Till in slacks, dress shirt and tie with one hand on the brim of a hat.

The rhythm and blues song, "Wake Up, Everybody" played as workers pulled a tarp off the figure. Dozens of people surged forward, shooting photos and video on cellphones.

Anna-Maria Webster of Rochester, New York, had tears running down her face.

"It's beautiful to be here," said Webster, attending the ceremony on a sunny afternoon during a visit with Mississippi relatives. Speaking of Till's mother she said: "Just to imagine the torment she went through — all over a lie."

This undated portrait shows Emmett Louis Till, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in the Mississippi Delta in August 1955 after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman working in a store. AP Photo/AP hide caption

"But you, know, change has a way of becoming slower and slower," said Thompson, the only Black member of Mississippi's current congressional delegation. "What we have to do in dedicating this monument to Emmett Till is recommit ourselves to the spirit of making a difference in our community."

The statue is a short drive from an elaborate Confederate monument outside the Leflore County Courthouse and about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the crumbling remains of the store, Bryant's Grocery & Meat Market, in Money.

The statue's unveiling coincided with the release this month of "Till," a movie exploring Till-Mobley's private trauma over her son's death and her transformation into a civil rights activist.

The Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., the last living witness to his cousin's kidnapping, wasn't able to travel from Illinois for Friday's dedication. But he told The Associated Press on Wednesday: "We just thank God someone is keeping his name out there."

He said some wrongly thought Till got what he deserved for breaking the taboo of flirting with a white woman, adding many people didn't want to talk about the case for decades.

"Now there's interest in it, and that's a godsend," Parker said. "You know what his mother said: 'I hope he didn't die in vain.'"

Greenwood and Leflore County are both more than 70% Black and officials have worked for years to bring the Till statue to reality. Democratic state Sen. David Jordan of Greenwood secured $150,000 in state funding and a Utah artist, Matt Glenn, was commissioned to create the statue.

Jordan said he hopes it will draw tourists to learn more about the area's history. "Hopefully, it will bring all of us together," he said.

Till and Parker had traveled from Chicago to spend the summer of 1955 with relatives in the deeply segregated Mississippi Delta. On Aug. 24, the two teens took a short trip with other young people to the store in Money. Parker said he heard Till whistle at shopkeeper Carolyn Bryant.

Four days later, Till was abducted in the middle of the night from his uncle's home. The kidnappers tortured and shot him, weighted his body down with a cotton gin fan and dumped him into the river.

Jordan, who is Black, was a college student in 1955 when he drove to the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner to watch the murder trial of two white men charged with killing Till — Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam.

An all-white, all-male jury acquitted the two men, who later confessed to Look magazine that they killed Till.

Nobody has ever been convicted in the lynching. The U.S. Justice Department has opened multiple investigations starting in 2004 after receiving inquiries about whether charges could be brought against anyone still living.

In 2007, a Mississippi prosecutor presented evidence to a grand jury of Black and white Leflore County residents after investigators spent three years re-examining the killing. The grand jury declined to issue indictments.

The Justice Department reopened an investigation in 2018 after a 2017 book quoted Carolyn Bryant — now remarried and named Carolyn Bryant Donham — saying she lied when she claimed Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances. Relatives have publicly denied Donham, who is in her 80s, recanted her allegations. The department closed that investigation in late 2021 without bringing charges.

This year, a group searching the Leflore County Courthouse basement found an unserved 1955 arrest warrant for "Mrs. Roy Bryant." In August, another Mississippi grand jury found insufficient evidence to indict Donham, causing consternation for Till relatives and activists.

Although Mississippi has dozens of Confederate monuments, some have been moved in recent years, including one relocated in 2020 from the University of Mississippi campus to a cemetery where Confederate soldiers are buried.

The state has a few monuments to Black historical figures, including one honoring civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer in Ruleville.

A historical marker outside Bryant's Grocery has been knocked down and vandalized. Another marker near where Till's body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River has been vandalized and shot. The Till statue in Greenwood will be watched by security cameras.

Jordan won applause when he said Friday: "If some idiot tears it down, we're going to put it right back up."

[notumbusbumbus]

A flash from the past - 2003

FOR THE 18th GREEN ON A SUNDAY OF THE MITCH MILLER ORCHESTRA, AUGUST 3rd DOWN AND TEN,. 2003 JOHN BROWN, SHOWS FROM 6:30-6:35.

Today is the second of five ten to go in a row on which we celebrate the sixth chapter of the newest Hairy Potter book according to John Brown.

In this chapter, the President makes a series of claims concerning himself, his personal identity, his origin, his real mommy and his real bloodhound.

Furthermore, he weaves together all these claims of a disturbing and verbally graphic pack-o-nonsense that, unless we physically eat, consume, swallow and drink his Right-wing diatribe, we will be arrested and die forever.

Today in his Pronouncement, the Ashcroft says:

“I AM the King of you, fool!. He who comes to me shall not  end his hunger, and he who believes in me shall always be a dupe.”

He goes on to expand this propaganda in his Rulings, concluding by reemphasizing what he says you WILL do today:

“Unless you eat my bogus line of reasoning and grovel before me, you have no rights in the US. The Righteous Lord sent me to rule over you, and you live because of the freekin’ Supreme Court that just won’t let that pesky Constitution crap alone; so he who eats my perverse twisted view of the world will live because I allowed it, and only for that reason.”

The propaganda of Ashcroft concerning himself, particularly in the sixth chapter of the Holy Empire Dictates according to John, is an exaggeration, or the result of insanity or an outright lie … unless Ashcroft is dating Divine—unless he is the Carne Assada of Washington.

That presumption is confirmed in the reasoning and the words we hear today in the Ashcroft Dictates.

If that presumption were true, then it would be better for us to flee from America, and emulate instead Buddha and Charlie Chaplin—two teachers who never claimed to be divine, or to know what you should do.

Ashcroft faith falls down drunk before—AND WITH—the personal trainer of  Tush, the Incarnate Son of George.

In putting before us the necessity of eating more of his fresh bull bleep, the man born in Texas and who cried in his beer is putting himself before us as he consummates the swarm of locusts like his claim to be the Son of George, bored by human suffering and their spilled blood by his massive armies to ransom the human race from its own peace.

To reject the reality of the Democratic Principles and the blood of the people of the world in the cause of greed is ultimately to reject the teachings of Jesus, whose name such as these is always an euphemism for “trust us, and it won’t hurt us as bad as it will hurt you”.

To receive the Ashcroft with faith that it is someone else’s real body and real blood that will be spilled is to make a flesh and blood proclamation that Jesus is the tool of the Right Wing,  resulting in countless dead and dying human beings whose only crime is to want to make their own life by their own hands. So we have to put them in their place.

It is the Ashcroft that will preserve authentic American Empire, the authentic propaganda of Ashcroft and the authentic presence of Tush in the world up to this very day, hour and minute.

The Ashcroft is the real sign, real instrument and real presence of the Gap clothing empire, and all workers will pay dearly with their own flesh and blood.

Come, let us worship HIM who enslaves us. For more on the latest loss by the Mets, crawl on over till your knees bleed to a Rolling Stone's LP. Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby, No Sir, I won’t Be Paying, Yes Sir, Its Mommy’s Problem Now. Tell ‘em Jesus sent ya. He would tell you himself, but right now he’s weeping for the whole sorry planet.

[batboyblog]

trans people are allowed to be frustrated with the state of the world what the fuck are you on. how are trans policies in michigan supposed to help trans kids in florida. do you see what im saying here. and bidens words arwnt worth shit if he doesnt actually do anything

Of course they should be frustrated I'm frustrated, who wouldn't be frustrated?

this is not about that, it's fine to say "the world really sucks right now" "this is shit" yes I totally fucking agree

it's when it goes off into "and there's nothing to be done" "no one else cares" "we are without friends and allies" "no one is doing anything" LIES! LIES! from the mouth of hell! lies that give aid and comfort to the enemy! PLAGUE! WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PLAGUE AND YOU BEHAVE LIKE THIS!

this ask is full of so much horseshit that needs to get unpacked I almost didn't but fuck it someone might read what I say.

First off I brought up Michigan because it was claimed no straight allies were useful or doing "fuck all" clearly untrue if we look at Michigan (and else where but lets stay focused) and as Harvey Milk taught us, hopelessness is the ally of oppression, if people don't believe it can get better they stop fighting, gotta give 'em hope. So clearly right now at a time when trans rights are under attack, in some places they're also making gains and that can happen in your state too.

You see Michigan had a Republican governor till 2019, but in 2018 after years of organizing and working (and voting) progressive forces managed to elect Gretchen Whitmer. In 2022 She was up for re-election against a woman named Tudor Dixon who made attacking LGBT people, trans kids in sports, and drag show central parts of her platform, she was defeated. But what's more till the 2022 election Republicans had a majority in both the MI Senate and State House. Hard work lead to Democrats flipping a handful of seats to get a majority in both and now they can pass things like expanding trans civil rights.

My point is Michigan could EASILY be passing its own "Don't Say Gay" bill, could easily be banning trans health care for minors, easily EASILY, those are the policies Michigan Republicans ran on last year, and they were the majority before the election. Hard work, organizing, showing up, beat them and we get the reverse of all that hate.

flipping a whole state government is a lot, and in some Red States that might not be doable. But take Nebraska, where state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh's heroic filibuster looks like it's gonna derail anti-trans legislation, she's only able to do that filibuster because the Republican majority is one seat shy of a super majority. They need 33 votes to end her filibuster, there are 32 Republicans. Because all the Democrats have her back the Republicans can't shut her down and the bill will die because the Democrats can filibuster it to death.

In Kansas the Democratic governor has vetoed an anti-trans law, in Kentucky the Democratic governor is expected to veto their anti-trans laws. In Utah in March 2022 the Republican Governor Spencer Cox vetoed an anti-trans sports bill (he's since supported an anti-trans bill this year) Now I bring these up because in each state Republicans have a super majority that can override the veto, they over turned Cox's 2022 veto, and are expected to in Kentucky. So if you live in a red state and you think "oh we can't flip the whole state!" you can flip one or two or 3 state house seats and make ALL the difference.

Finally on trans kids in Florida right now not after some future election. Four organizations are suing the state of Florida to block its hateful anti-trans health care rule, Southern Legal Counsel, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Human Rights Campaign. Again the charge was "trans allies fucking suck at their job" well one of these orgs isn't even an LGBT organization at all (Southern Legal Counsel) the others are LGBT groups supported by thousands (millions in the case of HRC) of dollars from allies across the country. These are the groups leading the fight in Florida right now to block this shit in court right now, trans allies.

FINALLY FINALLY on Biden, you can't say "basically the only people who has gotten upset over this are trans people" and claim that no one else said anything when the President of the United States of America did a WHITE HOUSE interview and called transphobia evil and transphobic laws "close to a sin". Either you want people talking about this problem or talking about it is meaningless which is it?

besides which Joe Biden is the most aggressively pro-trans President America has ever ever had and is most likely the most pro-trans head of state on earth right now, he's head and shoulders ahead of most European left wing parties on this issue rn. Don't take my word for it, let's see what America's largest LGBTQ rights org has to say and they're careful to point out more can be done, always more can be done. But people telling you Biden does nothing or only does bad things are not your friend they are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Did you know Joe Biden is the first President to EVER appoint a trans person to a senate confirmed position? That he was an early endorser and supporter of the first openly trans person elected to state government Danica Roem? that the first trans state Senator, Sarah McBride got her start in politics working in the White House for Vice-President Biden? Biden is a historic friend and ally of trans people he's boosted trans people into office and supported trans polices. Change is possible progress is possible don't give in to defeatism and cynical both sides bullshit.

[mariacallous]

Dianne Feinstein's extremely awkward, very uncomfortable exit from the political stage

Democrats in her home state are moving on even as she isn’t.

this makes me a little sad, and also.... if Feinstein was a man they'd never do this, Chuck Grassley is just as old there's not any effort to push him off the boat, we can pick a dozen male names (Strom Thurmond was in office till he was 100, and ran for re-election that final time age 93) in case it seems like I'm picking on Republicans, Robert Byrd, Daniel Inouye, Frank Lautenberg (off the top of my head) if you're an old man who's been in office for years and years the natural instinct is to respect that and any wish you have to die in the chair

we saw with Nancy Pelosi the endless push about "age" and her "time" etc etc and with Feinstein everyone is acting like she's dead (which was the case de León was making 6 years ago, and oh hey here she is not dead yet) I think personally yeah at 90-91 years old, for any one its not really realistic to expect to still be with us after 6 years, sure it can happen but at that age don't be planning on it, but again Thurmond ran for his finally term in his 90s, any ways do I think she will retire? yes, do I think she should retire? also yes. Does he make me spitting mad that they'd never treat a man this way? fuck yes.

No that's pretty much exactly how I feel - from this post:

No one is really asking or bringing these questions up with senators like Dick Shelby, or Jim Inhofe, or Pat Leahy, or Bernie Sanders, or Chuck Grassley - all of whom are around the same age as Feinstein (and that’s just in the Senate - there’s Hal Rogers, Steny Hoyer, Bill Pascrell, etc. in the House) and decline or perceived weaknesses and health issues get brought up more easily and quickly and negatively with women in public office than with men, and there’s almost this shock or offense when you try to discuss men being weak or flawed or ill.

DiFein is also the perfect "unpopular" Democrat where people can feel even freer to do this and couch it in some kind of principled or policy/ideology basis.

I think the other thing is how little recognition or discussion of her legislative and political achievements there are - she's just treated like a burden, like your grandma or great aunt that you're tired of visiting and want to put somewhere else "better for her".

[cosmik-homo]

One of the themes that makes me most crazy in death gate is how the sartan mark themselves as very social and civilized, while the patryn see themselves as independent and antisocial and only held by these ties from Survival Neccesisities,

but the Patryn seem to be holding quite deeply to the idea of not hurting their own, while the sartan never, really, show such qualms? Like Alfred is shaken by the war in abarrach, or by generals killing their own men, not because sartan have any loyalty to sartan, but because he still believes they're above killing and war, and because those are general atrocities. It's shocking to hear the early dissenters thrown into the labyrinth- although, we dont even get to see alfred atually react to that one, iirc- but again, Something was done to them. Alfred fullly expects Samah to hurt him multiple times.

Of course the Patryn's emotional attachment to the platitude of "Patryn Don't Hurt Other Patryn" is fabricated as hell. or at least, it gets completely corroded by Xar, who beside Physical Punishment is straight up not above selling and buying the lives of his "kids" and "lovers" and "dear people", or sending them to kill each other, or, killing them. but both Haplo and Marit, along with plenty of other Labyrinth Denizens they meet on the other end of the spear due to Interacting With A Known Sartan, experience doubts and reservations about the mere idea of needing to hurt another Patryn, and have it challenging what they feel is right. Marit also clings to the whole, Life Debts balancing cultural asppect to try and math her guilt away somehow.

But literally like the difference in cultures is not just the Labyrinth Survival Necessities or the patryn being "better" or whatever, thats why Xar's corrosion of it means so much,

it's about, once there's a line to fall to, an Ingroup to be defined, "weeding out the unbelonging" can become justified. once patryn or sartan isn't a born noun but an allegience and devotion to preform. the sartan did it first, with their large and traditionally hierarchical societies (i will remind people the council is NOT democratically elected in any way till i die) but once the patryn want to climb that ladder and gain that kind of power and structure violence become fair play too- to a Traitor.

[ibedressin]

Ai is just a tool for people's vanity.

It's like the first chance people get they stab artists in the back. NFTs and now AI art...all these things are so heavily reliant on the work that creative people have made.

I've seen those posts go more viral than the work of living, breathing artists and people's response has largely been but it's such a POSITIVE thing it's going to democratize creativity!!!

It's based on stolen datasets that people haven't consented to and I can't help but see the parallel in how people abuse the smallest amount of power they get. We talk a lot about consent and lifting up communities but the second a cheap alternative comes around we toss those ideas away.

Anyway...fuck ai till I die.