#denis ten memorial challenge 2021

[sywtwfs]

2021 GP Skate Canada & CS Denis Ten Memorial Challenge: Info & Streaming

The Grand Prix Series continues this week with Skate Canada in Vancouver, BC! This post will be updated as more information becomes available.

Results | Entries | Schedule | Website | ISU

SCHEDULE

Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7). Subscribe to our Google calendar to get all competition times in your own time zone.

Oct. 29: Pairs’ SP 13:00; Men’s SP 14:35; Rhythm Dance 17:00; Women’s SP 18:45

Oct. 30: Pairs’ FS 13:00; Men’s FS 14:47; Free Dance 17:30; Women’s FS 19:31

Oct. 31: Gala 14:00

=============================

Be careful of popups and ads on free streaming sites. We are not responsible for the quality of the streams; we only provide the links. Many streams for major figure skating events have geographic restrictions. In order to unblock streams, consider using a VPN (Virtual Private Network).

HOW TO WATCH

Fan streams: The following fan streams may show the competition; check when the events are on. The streams should be available worldwide. QQ, VK

ISU: The ISU will livestream the competition on the Skating ISU Youtube channel in countries that do not have broadcasting rights for the event. See here for a full list of broadcasters with rights to the Grand Prix.

Peacock Premium: Subscribers in the USA can watch the competition live on Peacock Premium. Peacock Premium is available in the USA for $4.99/month.

CBC Sports: Canada’s CBC Sports will stream the competition live. Schedule in EDT:

10/29: Pairs’ SP 4:00PM (live); Men’s SP 5:35PM (live); Rhythm Dance 8:00PM (live); Women’s SP 9:45PM (live)

10/30: Pairs’ FS 4:00PM (live); Men’s FS 5:47PM (live); Free Dance 8:30PM (live); Women’s FS 10:30PM (live)

10/31: Gala 5:00PM (live)

Official streams (geoblocked)

Channel One: Channel One Russia will stream the competition live on Youtube and on their website (available only in Russia). Streaming schedule in Moscow Time:

10/29: Pairs’ SP 22:55 (live)

10/30: Men’s SP 00:15 (live); Rhythm Dance 02:55 (live); Women’s SP 04:40 (live); Pairs’ FS 22:55 (live)

10/31: Men’s FS 00:40 (live); Free Dance 03:25 (live); Women’s FS 05:25 (live); Gala 23:55 (live)

Official stream (geoblocked)

Eurosport Player: Eurosport Player will stream the competition live in some regions. Check your local Eurosport schedule for more details. Eurosport Player is available for subscription in European countries with access to Eurosport.

Czech TV: Czech TV Sport will air the competition live. Schedule in CET:

10/29: Pairs’ SP 21:55 (live); Men’s SP 23:30 (live)

10/30: Rhythm Dance 01:55 (live); Women’s SP 03:40 (live); Pairs’ FS 21:55 (live); Men’s FS 23:45 (live)

10/31: Free Dance 02:25 (live); Women’s FS 03:25 (live); Gala 22:50 (live)

Official stream (geoblocked)

TV Asahi: Japan’s TV Asahi will provide paid livestreams for all Grand Prix events. TV Asahi will also air parts of the competition on TV in delayed broadcasts.

Tencent: China’s Tencent will stream parts of the competition live. The streams are blocked outside of China. Schedule in China Standard Time:

10/30: Pairs’ SP 04:00 (live); Women’s SP 09:45 (live); 

10/31: Pairs’ FS 04:00 (live); Men’s FS 05:47 (live); Women’s FS 10:31 (live)

11/1: Gala 05:00 (live)

Other TV channels: Other TV channels may also air the competition. Check your local TV channels for other skating broadcasts. See here for a full list of broadcasters with rights to the Grand Prix.

On demand: The ISU Youtube channel archives their livestreams, subject to regional restrictions. Videos will also be uploaded online by fans. Search skaters' names on Youtube and filter by upload date for the latest videos.

===============================================

DENIS TEN MEMORIAL CHALLENGE

The Challenger Series competition includes senior women, men, and ice dance events. Non-Challenger senior pairs and junior events will also be held at the competition.

CS Results | Non-CS Results | Entries | Website | ISU

Type: Challenger Series When: Oct. 28-31 Where: Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan Level & disciplines: CS - senior women, men, ice dance; non-CS - senior pairs, junior women, men, ice dance

Schedule (UTC+6)

10/28: Sr Pairs SP 14:30; Sr Women SP 16:25; Sr Men SP 19:35

10/29: Jr Rhythm Dance 10:30; Jr Women SP 11:40; Sr Pairs FS 14:40; Sr Rhythm Dance 16:45; Sr Women FS 19:10

10/30: Jr Men SP 14:00; Jr Free Dance 15:40; Sr Men FS 17:00; Sr Free Dance 19:35

10/31: Jr Men FS 11:00; Jr Women FS 12:50; Gala 18:00

Notable entries: CS - Petr Gumennik, Mark Kondratiuk, Andrei Mozalev, Kailani Craine, Ekaterina Ryabova, Viktoriia Safonova, Emmi Peltonen, Anastasiia Shabotova, Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva/Egor Bazin, Anastasia Skoptcova/Kirill Aleshin, Alexandra Nazarova/Maxim Nikitin. Non-CS - Karina Akopova/Nikita Rakhmanin, Yasmina Kadyrova/Ivan Balchenko, Anastasia Mukhortova/Dmitriy Evgenyev, Ekaterina Petushkova/Evgeniy Malikov, Ekaterina Storublevtceva/Artem Gritsaenko, Sofia Samodelkina (jr), Vasilisa Kaganovskaia/Valeriy Angelopol (jr), Sofia Leonteva/Daniil Gorelkin (jr)

How to watch: Free livestreams

[figureskatingfanblog]

2021-22 Challenger Series

The ISU has announced the following hosts for the 2021-2022 Challenger Series.

September 10-12, 2021 :: Bergamo, ITA (Lombardia Trophy)

September 16-18, 2021  ::  Montreal, QC, CAN (Autumn Classic)

September 22-25, 2021 :: Oberstdorf, GER (incl. Pair Skating) (Olympic Qualifying Competition)  (Neblehorn Trophy)

September 30-October 2, 2021  :: Bratislava, SVK (Ondrej Nepela Trophy)

October 7-10, 2021 :: Espoo, FIN (including Pair Skating) (Finlandia Trophy)

October 13-17, 2021 :: Beijing, CHN (including Pair Skating) (Olympic Test Event) (Asian Open Trophy)

October 28-31, 2021 ::  Almaty, KAZ (Denis Ten Memorial)

November 11-14, 2021 ::  Graz, AUT (Ice Challenge)

November 17-20, 2021 :: Warsaw, POL (including Pair Skating) (Warsaw Cup)

December 8-11, 2021 ::  Zagreb, CRO (including Pair Skating) (Golden Spin of Zagreb)

[ofclaires]

IV. CLAIRE WALSH

PAST SELF PARAS: april 2020 / september 2020 / march 2021. 

hi, before the read more i just wanted to say THANK YOU. getting to play claire has been absolutely a treat, a challenge, and genuinely, a huge part of my life for the past year and a half or so. it occurred to me when writing this and looking back at other things i’ve written for claire that i didn’t just feel like i was writing this for myself or for claire ; but i was writing it for you guys, too ! that has been one of the most special things about gallagher for me is the writing community that i feel like we built, taking such a huge investment in our characters and everyone else’s writing. i feel like i’m writing with and for some of my best friends. i also feel like i’ve grown so much ( ok, i actually don’t just feel like it, i can look back at those three paras and SEE how my writing has improved. ) i am so blessed to have gotten to write claire with all of you and to share her story, i feel like she has been so fucking beloved & it’s given her so much life. i am so proud of her and it’s really bittersweet that i’m finally saying goodbye to her as well. so, thank you all so, so much, gallagher has been a writing experience like no other for me & i love you all ! 

trigger warnings : domestic violence & abuse, death

PART ONE: CHILDHOOD.

The trailer that Claire spent the back half of her childhood in never felt like home. Maybe because trailers are made to be temporary, or the fact that if she accepted that this was where she belonged, she’d have to give up hope.

It’s normal Maggie Walsh to be out late, Claire’s usually cleaned up the kitchen and tucked herself into bed by the time her mother comes in the door – but she’s not sleeping. She’s always had trouble with that, brain bouncing around from one thought to the next until eventually she hears the creak of the door.

Her mom’s home.

She hears the usual stumbling, the clatter of dishes falling from where she’d neatly placed them on the drying rack. Maggie’s drunk, Claire’s sure of that. Ten years old and she knows what it means to be so drunk that you can hardly see straight, that the words you say under the influence are a different reflection from the person that you really are. She inhales deeply and crawls out from under the covers to check on her. Ten years old and she knows the steps: Help her take her makeup off, make sure she sleeps on her side, glass of water on the bedside table, trash can on the floor. Maggie is only twenty-six years old herself now, not done with her childhood by the time that Claire was born, not ready to be a mother. Claire’s had to figure it out most of it herself.

“Mom?” Claire knocks on the door lightly, plastic cup full of water already in hand.

“Don’t – don’t come in!” Maggie sputters, and Claire’s confused. She defies her request and opens the bedroom door the rest of the way. When she sees her mom, she drops the cup on the floor, small hands curling into fists.

“What happened? Who did that to you?”

“I told you not to come in here, Claire,” Maggie repeats, but Claire has always been on to disregard commands. She learns at a young age that authority only means older than you or some assigned title, not that they know best.

“Who did that? Why?” She repeats her questions. Despite being mature for her age, it’s hard for Claire to wrap her head around the black eye obscuring Maggie’s face, and the swelling on her cheek.

“It doesn’t matter,” Maggie sighs, dejected as she flops down on the bed. Even in her state, she knows that there’s not much use telling Claire to back off or go away once she’s decided that she’s not going to. Her little girl is a spitfire, strangely enough reminds Maggie a lot of her own mom, like living with a miniature version of her. Maybe that’s why Claire wins most arguments. “Come here.”

Claire walks closer to the bed, kicking the cup aside on her way for no reason other than to kick something. She crawls into bed next to her mom and looks up at her, waiting for more of an explanation or literally anything but silence. 

“I don’t know why I keep looking for a happy ending. I leave you home alone, I come home like this...not helping either of us,” Maggie presses a kiss to the top of Claire’s head, runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair. It’s so soft and Claire is so little, she can’t help but look at the spilled cup on the floor with a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry,” she adds, voice choked up and words a little slurred. Tears squeeze out of the corners of her eyes when she closes them, hugging her daughter closer, “I’ve blamed you for my fucked up life for so long...that’s not fair.”

Now, Claire is only ten, but those are the kind of words that you remember forever. Still, she smiles. “It doesn’t have to stay fucked up. It can get better,” a childish spark of optimism in her heart that hasn’t yet been put out. It makes Maggie smile back though, kissing her daughter on the top of her head yet again.

“I like that,” she says, and they fall asleep curled up beside each other. Claire sleeps soundly, thinking that it’s possible. Things really could get better, and for a while, it seems like there really is a sort of shift. Maggie starts cooking, cleaning again, and she doesn’t even stay out so late. That’s when she meets Martin.

He seems better than the rest. Until he isn’t.

But Claire does her job as her mother’s protector, just as she’s been doing all of her life, and it’s that event that jumpstarts the rest of everything that happens next.

PART TWO: GRADUATION.

Claire’s come to the formal conclusion that graduation ceremonies are a waste of time. There’s all this build up, everyone’s so excited, and then you have to sit around and wait for your name to be called so you can spend two seconds walking across a stage while everyone claps. She would have skipped it entirely if her mother hadn’t already come up, and if she knew that people were going to insist. The small talk afterward is even more agonizing than the ceremony itself. It is sort of painful saying goodbye to everyone, and it occurs to Claire that there’s more people that she’s going to miss than she ever expected.

“Callum and his mother are here,” Maggie points out.

“And?” Claire rolls her eyes. Seeing Callum again to begin with had brought up a lot of old feelings, and generally, even though they’d resolved things, she tries to avoid him whenever possible.

“Well, it’s probably weird if we don’t say hello, at least, right? I’m going to say hello,” Maggie interjects, “he’s such a sweet boy.”

Claire’s eyebrows rise on her forehead as she crosses her arms over her chest. “Go ahead then,” she sighs, “I’ll wait right here.”

“Claire,” Maggie draws out her name with a withering stare, but Maggie has never been able to establish that sort of authority with Claire that would prompt any inclination of obedience, so Claire just shrugs her shoulders, unimpressed. She’s not going to budge. “Fine, I’ll be right back.”

Claire’s done her best to put the chapter of their life that includes Martin out of her mind when rekindling things with her mother, and she certainly doesn’t want to stand around making small talk with his other ex-wife, trying not to look at Callum with his matching jawline, trying not to remember everything she hates. It all comes back in a flash. The horrible cracking sound that her mother’s head had made when it connected with the wall, the blood on the marble floor. They say you don’t remember trauma properly, that your memory doesn’t work quite right, but she will never forget the way her fist connected with Martin’s face : like a puzzle piece, like it BELONGED there, and she’d done it over and over again until she heard sirens.

And yet, Claire can’t deny that it’s a part of her life that got her here, where she is today. She thinks life is shitty and random, and that not everything has to happen ‘for a reason.’ Still, she’ll catch Kass’s eye across the room and see her smiling so brightly that it seems impossible not to believe in something. Claire can’t help herself anyway – she smiles back. No one has ever been able to produce Claire’s smile in its truest form the way Kass has, unashamed of being so happy to look at someone. She once thought the idea of looking at a person and seeing your whole future was ridiculous, that you’d have to be stupid to put that much of yourself into someone, but it isn’t like that at all. All of it was unintentional, like by the time she realized it, Kass was already everything. And she feels so safe with that thought that she doesn’t mind at all.

“Am I interrupting something?” A figure steps in front of her, cutting off her line of sight. She’s not really fond of being snuck up on, so she opens her mouth to say something snarky when she’s met with the gaze of Lisanna Harlin, one of last year’s mentors. Her daughter, Elisa, is there, but she’s not graduating, so Claire’s confused by Lisanna’s presence.

“No, Ms. Harlin,” Claire says, though there’s a spark of indignation in her words that practically goes hand in hand whenever an adult commands authority.

“Lisanna is fine,” she says with a light laugh, like she’s amused Claire’s greeted her this way.

“Can I...help you with something?” Claire asks, mostly curious about how long this interaction has gone on. While she’s friendly with Elisa, she was Kass’s roommate last year, they’re not exceedingly close, so she’s not sure what else Lisanna would have to say to her other than maybe a polite hello.

It’s more than a polite hello. Lisanna Harlin works for Lexon Corp in Durham, North Carolina, a private military company that provides armed guards, bodyguards, and guns for hire. They’re the sort of place that would be looking for the best of the best in combat, and they have a bit of a reputation for hiring Gallagher girls. Claire had given up on the job search months ago since the video went out, in fact, she’s had a job lined up for graduation already : at a boxing gym in D.C., where the scene isn’t too bad. It was suited to her, but not exactly the sort of thing that her Gallagher education had prepared her for. Lexon Corp? Everything her rigorous love of January boot camps were tailored to. And they want to interview her.

A month later, Claire’s sitting on the cusp of a completely fresh start. It wasn’t easy to backtrack on the plans that she and Kass had made together, knowing how much was changing for the both of them, it had been nice to have the stable idea of an apartment together on the horizon. Now, she’s a four hour drive away, and she goes home to her one-bedroom studio in Durham after rigorous training throughout the day. But she’s grateful for the chance to work her way back into the field, and she can remember what Lisanna said to her when they gave her the offer.

“We’re aware that with your history that we’re taking a chance on you, Claire,” Lisanna said. “But we think the reasons that made other agencies look past you are exactly what makes you an asset. You care about your jobs, the people that you’re involved in, and you’d have a partner’s back until the bitter end. You listen to your intuition, trust your gut...and above all else, you have follow-through. I’m excited to be able to offer this position. Don’t prove me wrong.”

Claire swears that she won’t.  

PART THREE: KIPTYN.

Kiptyn isn’t supposed to be in the left hall closet. 

In fact, he’s not supposed to be awake at all. But who can sleep the night before their birthday anyway? Sure, he’ll be thirteen, and that’s probably old enough to have gotten over the magic of it all, but...he’d still been lying awake with excitement, the anticipation keeping his eyes open for hours on end. Well, that and the video game he’d been playing under the covers, but he’d obviously only been playing it because he couldn’t sleep in the first place.

Then he started thinking about the left hall closet and the conversation that they had at dinner the other night. In Kiptyn’s defense, Dahvia – his younger sister – had totally started it and he was an innocent bystander. After all, Kiptyn’s old enough to know that they don’t bring up Claire to mom, because it just puts her in a mood and then you can forget about doing anything else for the rest of the evening. But Dahvia’s ten, practically a baby, and she doesn’t know any better.

“Hey, mom? What sort of accident did Claire die in? Nina asked me at recess and I didn’t know,” Dahvia pipes up, before she’s even properly sat down. Kip visibly cringes. He’s older, wiser, knows this won’t go well. Still, he dares to look at his mom’s face and he notes the faraway look in her eye, like she seems to experience a bunch of things at once. Kip notices how even though her eyes are glassy, she doesn’t cry. Though sometimes, their mom will just cry randomly, like two weeks ago when he asked for help with his Spanish homework and she couldn’t even help him finish the first worksheet.

“It was a car accident,” she says stiffly, “eat your dinner.”

Kiptyn kicks his sister under the table and flashes her a look that says : Great. Look what you did, ruined dinner. Dahvia sticks her tongue out at him.

So, he knows that he’s not supposed to be in the left hall closet because he could ruin many more dinners, but he’s here anyway. He’s been thinking about it ever since they sat in silence for the rest of that half hour, and he’s come to the conclusion – his mother was lying. Because all sorts of things make their mother cry, like a bowl of mac and cheese or Spanish class, or motorcycles, and she won’t let Kiptyn take boxing lessons though his friend Robert is and he thought it sounded really cool, but she doesn’t have any problem with cars or driving, and also, she’s never told them a single thing about Claire except that. They aren’t allowed to know anything about her, especially not anything true, so Kiptyn is pretty sure that’s a lie. There’s just something just weird about it.

So, in the middle of the night before his thirteenth birthday, he looks up a video on how you pick locks and then he figures it out on the door of the left hall closet. He’s there for at least forty-five minutes, practically ready to give it all up when he hears the clicking sound, and then it opens. His first thought is : Woah. This is a load of junk.

And he’s right. There’s boxes upon boxes of paperwork, old clothes. Some things start to click, like when he finds a pair of worn boxing gloves with Claire’s initials embroidered on them. His favorite thing that he finds is the fattest scrapbook he’s ever seen – his mom always makes them, there’s one for every year of his life. Dahvia’s too, they love looking at them. The cover of this one, though, says Italy 2021. It’s all pictures of his mom and Claire, probably in their early twenties. Kiptyn mostly notices his mother’s smile, how he’s only seen her look like that a couple times in his life and yet it looks so EASY here, like she wears it all the time. It’s so strange to him. He sets the scrapbook down and crawls toward the back of the closet. His eyes land on two leather folders with gold embroidery, and he opens up the first one. In big letters at the top : GALLAGHER ACADEMY.

It’s a diploma.

This certifies that Kassandra Sutton has satisfactorily completed the…

“What are you doing?”

Kiptyn yells out like a child, not having heard anyone creeping up on him. He claps his hand over his mouth as if to shush himself. “The door was open! I don’t know how, but I just...noticed it was open and wanted to make sure that...no one was stealing your stuff!” he grins sheepishly, hoping that he can ride on the high of his birthday week to get him out of this one.

“It was just...open?” his mother looks down at him with raised eyebrows before brandishing a twisted paper clip between two fingers. The one that had formerly been stuck in the door. His guilty expression widens, he can’t help it.

“Okay, I might know how it opened,” Kiptyn admits. He hesitates for a moment, before he realizes that he’s ALREADY in trouble, he might as well just come out with it and pray to the birthday gods. He holds up the diploma with her name on it : “What’s Gallagher Academy?”

Kass’s sigh is heavy and deep, accompanied by the amount of exhaustion that comes with raising two curious kids by herself. After Claire died, she moved her family to London to be closer to their aunt and away from everything that reminded her of Claire. She never told her children why. From hiding that world from them, the world that took so many people from her : her father, her ex-girlfriend, and the love of her life. She swore that she would never lose her children to it, too. But Kiptyn looks up at her with wide eyes, desperate to know about his mother and his past, and Kass also knows what it’s like to have part of yourself missing due to family secrets that are being kept from you. He is practically a teenager now. So, she relents.

Kass doesn’t go into all of the details, of course. Just that Gallagher Academy was a school for spies, and that’s where it all started. Kiptyn already knew that his moms met in college, so it’s the spy part that’s most interesting to him. She talks about Claire with a light in her eyes he’s unfamiliar with, how she was one of the best fighters in their year, that she grew up with such a talent in the ring that she probably could’ve gone pro if her life had gone in a different direction. She talks about how they had to part ways after graduation, because Claire got a job in North Carolina and she got a job in Washington, DC, but they made it work, and both got very accustomed to the four hour drive – though it was sometimes closer to three for Claire, because she always drove too fast, even on this big, black motorcycle which Kass swears that she hated. She tells Kiptyn about how they got married, the way she’d almost moved to England for a dream job and that long distance threatened to drive them apart again – until Claire chased her down in the airport with a ring and proposal.  

She also talks about how Claire really died : the abridged version. It was an overseas mission where they’d been cornered, and Claire risked her life to save the rest of their team. There were no other casualties, and the information they were able to bring back helped stop the terrorist organization they’d been chasing to end them for good. Kass tells the abridged version for her son, gives Claire a hero’s death. In some ways, it was. She doesn’t mention the ways that Claire was consumed by the case, it was an organization hellbent on killing spies and it likely reminded her of the brotherhood. Kass had been worried about the case the whole time, because it felt like Claire was taking it too personally. In the end, she may have been right : because Claire had let it take her life in order to close it. She also doesn’t mention that such a sacrificial death means that her wife died fighting alone, swinging her fists until her very last breath. But still, she was all alone.

She had no choice but to take her kids as far away from that life as possible.

Kiptyn tries, but he doesn’t really remember Claire. He’d only been three years old when she passed away, and before then, she’d been so consumed by her last case that she was barely present. Still, he thinks she sounds badass.

He falls asleep on his mother’s shoulder that night, looking through the scrapbook of pictures from their trip to Italy in 2021. He’s animated for the first part, pointing out buildings and asking questions, wonders if Claire was sweating in all that leather, but he slowly starts to drift off. He wakes up on the couch the next morning, no trace of the book or any of the other papers he’d hauled out of the closet the night before. He looks at the closet and there’s an extra padlock. Figures.

It comes up in little ways, like a private joke that he has with his mother, like she’ll say something and flash him a secretive smile. He likes that, and he understands that this is a big secret that he has to keep. It doesn’t come up again until his fourteenth birthday the next year, the summer before high school. It’s a strange letter in a manila envelope, sealed with some expensive red wax, his name written in fancy calligraphy. The most attention-grabbing part, however, is not Kiptyn Sutton-Walsh in big cursive letters. It’s the return address :

GALLAGHER ACADEMY.

learn her skills, honor her sword. keep her secrets.

[sataniccapitalist]

“Our survival depends on seeing this violent, barbarian behemoth for what it is.”

Chaos, violence, legal challenges, voter suppression and party suppression all culminated in the pathetic display of democratic degeneration on Election Day. After two decades of losing wars, plus the economic collapse of 2008, the response to COVID-19, and now the election debacle, if there were any doubts the U.S. is a morally exhausted empire in irreversible decline, they would have been erased with yesterday’s anti-democratic spectacle.

Democratic Party propagandists and “frightened” leftists are desperate. They tell their supporters and the public that the republic will not survive another term of Donald Trump. They point to his despicable, racist descriptions of undocumented migrant workers from Mexico; his characterization of some global South nations; his misogyny; his crude and obvious white supremacy; his authoritarian proclivities; and his pathological dishonesty—among his many character flaws—as reasons why he must be stopped.

However, for those of us who have been historically subjected to the colonial fascism that is the U.S. settler project, the liberal-left argument that the Trump regime represents some fundamental departure from previous administrations that were equally committed to white power and that he is an existential threat (to whom, we are not clear) remains unpersuasive.

As the Biden and Trump drama plays out, we ask from our experiences some simple questions on what might happen when a victor emerges:

Will either candidate really have the ability to restore the millions of jobs lost during the current economic crisis?

Will the illegal subversion of Venezuela and Nicaragua stop, and the blockade of Cuba end?

Will the prison-industrial complex that is housing ten of thousands of the Black and Brown economically redundant be closed?

Will the charges be dropped against Edward Snowden and the extradition demand for Julian Assange end?

Will Gaza continue to be the largest open-air prison on the planet?

Will the U.S. reverse its decision to deploy new intermediate-range missiles that will be equipped with nuclear warheads targeting Russia in Europe and China in the Asia-Pacific?

Will the Saudi and Obama-originated war on Yemen end?

Will the U.S. settler-colonial state really defund the police and the military?

“The liberal-left argument that the Trump regime represents some fundamental departure from previous administrations remains unpersuasive.”

What is this “new fascism” the latte-left talks about? What is this “existential threat”? For most of us, the threat has always been existential. When colonial Nazism that was inspired by the U.S. Jim Crow South was applied in Europe—with its violence and racism—it was only then that it took on a different moral and political characterization.

The racist French government launches a domestic terror campaign against Muslims in the country, while bombing Africans in Africa and overthrowing their governments. The European Union gives a human rights award to a political opposition in Venezuela that burns Black people alive because those Black people are seen as Maduro supporters. Meanwhile, NATO, the military wing of U.S. and European white supremacy, expands into South America to support the Monroe Doctrine that morally justifies U.S. regional domination. But fascism is coming to the U.S., they cry!

For those of us who reside in the colonized spaces of empire, leading with uncritical emotionalism as we confront and attempt to deal with the Trump phenomenon, is a self-indulgent diversion we cannot afford. That is because, for us, the consequences truly are life threatening.

In occupied Palestine, Venezuela, Yemen, the South-side of Chicago, Haiti, the concentration camps for Indigenous peoples called “reservations,” as well as “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, our survival depends on seeing this violent, barbarian behemoth for what it is. We must have no sentimental delusions about the difference between the governance of either of the two ruling class-dominated parties.

For us, both parties are ongoing criminal enterprises that are committed to one thing and one thing only: Ultimately serving the interests of the capitalist ruling class—by any means necessary!

It is in that commitment that we, the colonized, the excluded, the killable, who experience the murderous sanctions that deny us food and life preserving medicines, the killer cops who slowly snuff out our lives with their knee on our necks, the deadly military attacks that destroy our ancient nations and turn us into refugees, the subversion of our political systems, the theft of our precious resources, and the literal draining of the value of our lives through the super-exploitation of our labor.

“Both parties are ongoing criminal enterprises.”

For us, we ask, what will be the difference if Biden wins? Wasn’t Biden part of the administration that conspired with the Department of Homeland Security and Democratic mayors to repress the Occupy movement once it became clear the movement could not be co-opted?

Didn’t Obama place Assata Shakur as the first woman on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list and increase the bounty on her head? A recent release of FBI documents revealed it was during the Obama-Biden years that the “Black Identity Extremist ” label was created.

The illegal subversion of Venezuela began with Bush, but intensified under Obama. The sanctions slapped on that country—that were expanded under Trump—have resulted in tens of thousands of innocent people dying from lack of medicines. It was the Obama-Biden administration that decided to devote over $1 trillion to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next decade.

Democratic and Republican strategists support the white supremacist NATO structure, the “Pivot to Asia,” and the insane theory being advanced by military strategists, who are wargaming a nuclear “first-strike” strategy against Russia and China that they believe can be successful in destroying those countries’ intercontinental ballistic missiles while the missiles are still in their launchers. That is why the Trump administration pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and has so far failed to renew the START nuclear treaty with Russia, scheduled to end in February 2021.

“It was during the Obama-Biden years that the ‘Black Identity Extremist’ label was created.”

Not being confused by the liberal framework that advances a cartoonish understanding of fascism that Trump’s bombastic theatrics evokes in the public imagination, it is clear the threat of increased authoritarianism, the use of military force, repression, subversion, illegal sanctions, theft, and rogue state gangsterism is on the agenda of both capitalist parties in the U.S. and the Western European colonizer states.

No matter who sits in the white peoples’ house after the election, we will have to continue to fight for social justice, democracy, and People(s)-Centered Human Rights.

It is important to re-state that last sentence because the left in the U.S. is experiencing extreme anxiety with the events around the election. They want and need to have order, stability and good feelings about their nation again. But for those of us from the colonized zones of non-being, anything that creates psychological chaos, disorder, delegitimization, disruption of the settler-colonial state and demoralization of its supporters is of no concern for us.

Unlike the house slave who will fight harder than the Massa to put out the flames in the plantation house, we call to the ancestors to send a strong breeze.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch. He was recently awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shim award for uncompromised integrity in journalism

[veale2006-blog]

The Truth About Martin Luther King, Jr. AKA Michael King January 18, 2021 In November of 2017, President Trump instructed the National Archives to release hundreds of previously-sealed documents which pertained to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Included among these documents were two FBI files which, curiously enough, have little to do with the Kennedy assassination but could have great bearing on the current struggles of the Dissident Right. In Part 1 of this series, we covered the May 1967 FBI report entitled “Racial Violence Potential in the United States This Summer.”

Now I will discuss the second document, “Martin Luther King, Jr., an Analysis,” which was dated March 12, 1968, just three weeks before King’s assassination.

It always hurts to see one’s icons destroyed. Those icons are really what link a person to a greater humanity and whatever lies beyond it. It’s as if through an icon a person can channel an identity which signifies something much greater than himself. Icons can pull people into their orbits and inspire love and awe. People derive meaning and self-worth through them. Icons can also compete. Different groups may share an icon, or their incompatible icons may prevent them from coexisting. But in all cases, serious espionage prostrate themselves before their icons. It’s sort of like kissing the ring of a mafia boss. It’s done for protection. If you’re going to get to me, first you have to get through him.

In releasing the FBI’s 20-page analysis of Martin Luther King, President Trump recently took a serious swing at one of the Left’s most precious icons. The information in it is quite damning, and it hits King’s legacy from several directions. If people on the Right take up where Trump left off by internalizing the document and by going on the offensive with it against the Left, King’s potency as an icon will be greatly reduced. It sort of reminds me of how Sean Hannity would often mention Chappaquiddick whenever the topic of Ted Kennedy came up on his show. It was his way of shaming his opponents for supporting an icon that was not only all too human, but at times even less than that.

For students of the Civil Rights Movement, the FBI’s analysis may not reveal very much new information about King (although there is some). King’s heyday is still well within living memory, and contemporaneous knowledge and rumor surrounding the man has had a way of trickling up to the present day, especially within conservative and rightist circles. The major knocks against him are that he plagiarized his doctoral thesis in systematic theology at Boston University in the mid-1950s, that he frequently engaged in extramarital sex, and that he was closely linked to the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). The FBI file addresses these last two issues, in some cases down to niggling detail, and leads one to conclude that Martin Luther King was little more than a sex addict and a shill for the Communist Party.

The sexual indiscretions harm King’s legacy, of course, but in the near-fifty years since his death, King’s friends and admirers have successfully whitewashed a good deal of it. Have a look at this Wikipedia article, which I believe sticks to the leftist party line on King. In the section entitled “Adultery,” the article’s authors and their various sources refer blandly to King’s “affairs,” “liaisons,” “infidelities,” and (best of all) “incidental couplings.” King colleague and eventual successor at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Ralph Abernathy wrote of King’s “weakness for women,” and claimed he had a “difficult time with temptation.” Another writer describes King’s promiscuity as “a form of anxiety reduction” which caused him a great deal of “painful and at times overwhelming guilt.”

The whitewashing of King’s prodigious sexual appetites goes on to this day. For example, CNN called the document’s frank disclosures of King’s conduct as “insinuations and assertions about King’s personal life” and describes King’s behavior as “extramarital affairs and other sexual improprieties.” CNN then quotes the current director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute who accuses the authors of the document (or perhaps Trump himself) of attempting to “damage Martin Luther King’s reputation.”

So, basically, in the eyes of the Left, Martin Luther King, Jr. is a victim who is as innocent as he could possibly be and still be guilty. Given the Left’s overall tolerance of sexual promiscuity and deviancy, this means he’s not really guilty at all. At least not until the National Archives releases the FBI surveillance tapes and transcripts to the public in 2027.

So what did the FBI disclose? In the report’s final section, entitled “King’s Personal Conduct,” it states that in February 1968, while running a “workshop” on urban leadership in Miami, King hired prostitutes with funds from the Ford Foundation. He then engaged in binge drinking and group sex acts which the FBI describes as “deviating from the normal.” The FBI also relates how King participated in another “drunken sex orgy” in Washington, DC back in 1964. The sex acts were both “natural and unnatural” according to the FBI and were performed “for the entertainment of onlookers.”

In the 1960s, this was the pattern for King, who, according to the FBI, “has continued to carry on his sexual aberrations secretly while holding himself out to public view as a moral leader of religious conviction.”

As for bombshells in the sexual improprieties department, the file reveals that King may have sired a baby girl out of wedlock with the wife of a “prominent Negro dentist in Los Angeles.” He also reportedly had sexual relations with folk singer Joan Baez.

Note how King’s defenders refer to all this as King’s “personal life” or, when forced to, admit his excesses only in the most anodyne terms, such as “affairs.” No, King didn't just have “affairs.” He had sex parties.

Furthermore, the FBI analysis did not infringe upon King’s “personal life” because what King did wasn't merely personal. What one does in the bedroom with one’s spouse or significant other is “personal.” I’ll even grant that what one does during a discreet tryst in a hotel room can also be construed as “personal.” Drunken orgies, on the other hand, especially those involving prostitutes and paid for by grant money, cannot possibly be considered “personal.” No, such behavior is quite public — not to mention hypocritical — when engaged in by a public figure who dedicates his life to holding his nation up to unrealistically high moral standards.

Even more inflammatory about the FBI report — although reported on less since its release — is its assertion that King often acted at the behest of his communist puppet masters. Where the two pages covering King’s sexual misconduct challenge his high moral standing as a Civil Rights Era icon, the ten or so pages covering his communist activities bluntly call into question his intellectual capacities as a leader of men. Unsurprisingly, the name Stanley Levison appears many times in the document. Levison was a Jewish attorney and “shrewd, dedicated communist” who acted for many years as King’s “Assistant Chief” and who also served as a clandestine fund-raiser for the CPUSA. The FBI claims that King often looked to Levison for instruction and approval before acting, and that Levison used King to further the communist agenda (which by the 1960s included linking the so-called “Negro people’s freedom movement” with anti-Vietnam War effort).

Levison gravitated to Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1956. He has been as dedicated in his support of King as he has been in advancing communist goals. He has actively involved himself in fund-raising drives for King, served as his legal counsel in certain matters, suggested speech material for him, discussed with King demonstrations in which King was involved, guided him in regard to acceptance or rejection of various public appearances and speaking commitments, and helped him with matters related to articles and books King has prepared.

According to the FBI, Levison also ghostwrote a chapter in King’s book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?. Most damning, however, is the FBI’s assertion that Levison considered King a “slow thinker” and insisted that he never issue statements without first seeking approval from him (Levison) or his other advisors.

Levison also served as the SCLC’s assistant treasurer in the early 1960s.

Also according to the FBI, Levison and other sources within the CPUSA saw King as a committed Marxist-Leninist who for obvious reasons had to keep this fact under wraps. But his ties to communism, the FBI shows, were quite clear. One of King’s closest advisors, Clarence Jones, married the communist daughter of publisher William H. Norton. Other communist colleagues of King included Hunter Pitts O’Dell, Lawrence Reddick, Bayard Rustin, Cordy Vivian, Randolph Blackwell, and Harry Wachtel.

Wachtel and Rustin in particular acted as behind-the-scenes players who attempted to leverage King’s status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner in order to “inject King into the Vietnam issue” and ultimately conceded victory the Vietcong. But King, who apparently knew little about international politics, was hardly suited for the job.

When a newspaper asked him twelve questions on his position on Vietnam, King forwarded the questions to Levison. Further, after the bombing of North Vietnam in 1966, the media was pressuring King for a response.

He had to check with Levison and Rustin before giving one. As the FBI document shows, these were not isolated incidents. Martin Luther King, Jr. frequently sought counsel and instruction from his advisors before acting, especially his Jewish ones, Wachtel and Levison. Also, in spite of denying any communist ties, his positions and statements rarely wavered far from the official platform of the CPUSA.

The fact that two of King’s most prominent advisors were Jews should come as a surprise to no one. Benjamin Ginsburg, in his indispensable work The Fatal Embrace shows exactly how Jewed-up the Civil Rights Movement really was:

Jewish organizations also worked closely with civil rights groups during the 1960s in their struggles on behalf of voting tights and for the desegregation of public facilities and accommodations. Jewish contributors provided a substantial share of the funding for such civil rights groups as the NAACP and CORE. Jewish attorneys were at the forefront of the legal offensive against the American apartheid system.

Stanley Levinson , a longtime official and fund-raiser for the American Jewish Congress, became Martin Luther King’s chief aide and advisor, having previously served as a major fund-raiser for Bayard Rustin. Harry Wachtel was a major legal advisor and fundraiser for the SCLC. Levison and Wachtel were often called King’s twin Jewish lawyers. Jack Greenberg, head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund was the most important single civil rights lawyer in the United States. Jews comprised a large segment — perhaps one-third of the Whites who participated in civil rights marches and protests in the South during the 1960s.

The information presented in “Martin Luther King, Jr., an Analysis” only supports Ginsburg’s points as well as the conviction that Martin Luther King acted often as a tool for the Communist Party.

There is one relatively minor finding in the FBI report which should be mentioned before concluding.

Apparently, on top of being a sex fiend and covert communist, Martin Luther King and his associates at the SCLC were swindling money from the US government. In a short section entitled “A Tax Dodge” the FBI states that The SCLC set up Foundations to serve as tax exempt organizations that would solicit funds for the SCLC. To this end, the American Foundation on Nonviolence of New York City, and the Southern Christian Leadership Foundation of Chicago, Illinois, were established. As money is needed by the SCLC, Harry Wachtel reportedly funnels the money from the American Foundation on Nonviolence to the SCLC.

I have no idea if this was common knowledge beforehand, but it was certainly a new one for me.

As an icon of the Left, Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered today in two major ways: as a paragon of the egalitarian ethos championed by current Western elites, and as proof of the moral superiority of the Left over the Right. Using King, the Left can justify violence against its enemies simply by claiming that King’s nonviolent approach has been proven to fail. Any racial disparities in the years following the Civil Rights Movement can be seen as proof of this. The fact that King was assassinated offers proof as well. Because King failed to reach the Promised Land via nonviolence, the only tactic remaining for the Left is, of course, violence. This is essentially why Martin Luther King will never die in a multiracial society: as a weapon he’s too useful.

By mentioning these two FBI reports in public discourse as often as possible, people on the Right now have a handy weapon of their own. And since these reports have the imprimatur of none other than the President of the United States on them, they cannot be ignored. In the past, bringing up compromising information on King could be dismissed as racist sniping or rumor-mongering. Now, it cannot. Now it must be part of the mainstream. Now it must be used to counter the Leftist control of our nation and culture. For no other reason than because it can.

'YOU SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE" ALWAYS SEEK THE TRUTH NO MATTER WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES MAY BE!!!

Check these videos out! Martin Luther King Jr. was a MARXIST!! https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=the+truth+about+martin+luther+king+jr+communist#id=3&vid=23eee6613ddb438768d410c2ecb02543&action

Documentary: Martin Luther King Jr. - "Marxist Lucifer King" (MLK DAY) https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=the+truth+about+martin+luther+king+jr+communist#id=11&vid=ee1c6dad45ff3c0e0dddf669994ae907&action=view

"Martin Luther King, Jr. Exposed" Baptist Preaching (independent, fundamental, KJV) https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=the+truth+about+martin+luther+king+jr+communist#id=57&vid=b3da4d780b22d228c6cb517d26b0b762&action=view

1968 FBI informant alleges that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is blackmailing the US govt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eXeU195VY

Love, Debbie